Marcus Parks
Appearances
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Well, apparently the Pope's brother is MAGA.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, he's from Chicago and moved to Florida. Okay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, and, well, it's free-range, too, so it's hard to know where they're laying the eggs. Yeah, and, you know, they eat trash. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, it's free-range trash chickens. It's not like in a really nice... It's not like my mom's chickens that get really good food.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Side stories. Yes. I'd put money on Alec Baldwin's father being an alcoholic. How much? 50 bucks. Not going to take it. Welcome to Side Stories, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here filling in for Henry Zebrowski here with Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
You've been a very good sport about all of this, so thank you, Robert.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yes, rest in peace, Henry Sr., when you go to that good old submarine in the Gulf of Mexico in the sky. Yes, yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And he was so- I fucking, you want to go, you know, well, some people don't know about me. When I've been drinking, day drinking especially, I love museums. And- And that's just because you get knowledge and it's power. And we just got to go. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It's that kind of Fantasy Fest. I had an entirely different thing put in my mind. I thought it was going to be like fantasy novels, a bunch of people dressed up as Gandalf. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's fucking.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
In Hawaii, real quick, we were asking our tour guides, like, hey, what's a cool thing to do around here? She's like, there's a couple of new beaches. There's one of them. It's called Secrets. You can go to that one. That's a new beach. There's another one, though.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
That's funny. This is the first time I saw this ad up here for the whole thing for Fantasy Fest. It's the first time a haunted doll has ever been sponsored by Bud Light.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I'm going to call dad after this. Tell him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He loves, there's nothing he loves more than outliving people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Aw, Tennessee. I love Tennessee Williams.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Is it okay for me to call him the tumor dog?
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Man, that's only six pounds off from being as heavy as Georgie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
No, it's great. Our dog Frankie, Frankie came in with some medical problems. She still had a cast on her leg and all that from the horrible things she went through before we got her. But it's great to have a dog that's had a little bit of seen some shit. Had some stuff happen to him. I think it makes him sweeter.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I have one more question. Oh, and all you got. Are you going to eventually have your own pet cemetery? If you're going to be the dog hospice, I mean, you're the one that's got these dogs at the end.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
My first vacation in four years. Wow. Going to Hawaii. Like a true vacation. True vacation, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
You can think about it. I got room. I'll co-invest. I've always wanted to own a cemetery. It seems like there's a lot of problems with that. But a pet cemetery, less regulations. We have to spell it wrong on purpose. Yeah, we have to.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It's going to be a fantastic time. And this Pups Without Borders, that's where we got our little Frankie. Yeah. Which is how we got hooked up with them. They're an incredible organization. They really care about what they do. And this is a charity show. Yes. But it's going to be a show and a hangout all at the same time. Absolutely. And there's going to be puppies there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
So and I've been to one of their I've been to one of their events before and it was a great time. So, yeah. Come on out. Come hang out with us. Come hang out with the puppies. Come get those like silent awesome like silent auction items that we got coming up that we're going to announce. But it's a cool shit. That's the last time I was there. I want a silent auction.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They had a painting that looked like John Wayne Gacy and a bunch of dogs in the circus. Oh. Yeah, you know that one that's hanging in my living room?
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I had a lot of sunscreen on. The entire time I was there, like fucking slather, like I'd put the fucking spray on and then slather on the lotion. Yeah. Yeah, man. It was fucking amazing. Yeah. Went kayaking down this river to these secret falls. Ooh. Yeah. They were cool. And they have- Where are they? I was going to say, trying to get you. He's going to take a kayak down. Yeah, I went to Kauai.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
You can also go visit Jane Mansfield's grave, who died in a car accident with her four chihuahuas. There you go. The chihuahuas are not buried with her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, there's so many cool... Like, Dee Dee Ramone's buried there. Johnny Ramone's got a... He has a grave there, but he's not buried there. Really? Yeah, that's just a memorial. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, no, no, no. His body's not there. Dee Dee's there, though. Oh, well, fuck my picture, then. Mylon Nermy's there, the original Vampira. Nice. She's there. Mel Blanc, voice of Bugs Bunny.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Judy Garland. Judy Garland. Ima Sumac, one of my favorite singers of all time. Have you ever listened to Ima Sumac? No, I haven't. Oh, we got a night ahead of us. Nice. Oh, we got a night ahead of us for Ima Sumac. She's this incredible singer that has like an eight octave range. They built her. She's from the 50s.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They built her as like a lost Mayan princess because all of her music is very like South American, but it's very exotica. Turns out, Queens.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. But she's definitely not a Mayan princess.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I mean, it's the 50s. It's good press. Yeah, it's great press.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. They have identified the 10th victim found on the farm. The 10th out of, I think they assume about 25. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They think it's up to 25 people that he killed. Yeah, quite possibly. I mean, you never really know. It's just how many bone fragments they found. And they can also kind of cross reference that with like the amount of like disappearances, you know, people that were reported missing around the time that he's known to have murdered men.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
yeah but yeah it's they think around 25. and it's not like you can just find dna to someone who went missing in the 1990s right to like cross-examine right no i think from my understanding of this case if you have like an old hat or something you might get lucky yeah well it's familial dna at this point is mostly what they have so the the other problem with that is that you do have to have a family
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
to come forward and give dna like a family like you know someone who's been like for example like this guy you know was reported missing he went missing in august of 1993 but he was he was reported late they don't even know what day he actually went missing because like he just didn't come home and he had a two-year-old daughter and i guess the wife was just like oh you know i guess he ran off yeah you know and so i'm sure that's probably happened a bunch of times yes it happens so often
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I want to say hello to Mike, who runs Aloha Tours. I think it's called the Aloha Shuttle. He's a big fan. Oh, nice. It was fun. Yeah, we got on the bus, the shuttle that takes you around so you don't drive drunk, to different bars and resorts and shit. Oh, hell yeah. He's like, hey, hey. Oh, shit, I know who the fuck you guys are. He's a big No Dogs in Space fan, so thank you very much, Mike.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It happens with kids. It happens with husbands, happens with wives, especially in the 70s and 80s and 90s. Like, yeah, they just ran off because it's not like today where, you know, we're all kind of tracked and, you know, we know where everyone is. And it feels like that you owe it to everybody to let them know that you're actually alive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
But back then, yeah, guy could just disappear and never be seen again. But now they've they've gone through and I think they did some familial samples and identified the guy as Daniel Thomas Halloran.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It is. And, you know, it also does, it begs the question of, like, would you rather know that your father had been murdered by a serial killer, quite brutally, or that he just ran off and he's kind of a fuck-up?
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Way worse. Go bowling forever. He could have lived a happy life, but no, it was just a terrible end. Yeah, because Herb Baumeister was not known for quick murders. Yeah.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. The guy, he's got a Kenny Powers look about him. Yeah, for sure. He's got a mullet and a tiny mustache. Is that a mullet or is he just standing in front of a Christmas tree?
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I mean, they've only got 10 identified out of about 25. But, you know, there's still a few of John Wayne Gacy's victims. We still don't know who they are. Yeah. A fair amount. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. And definitely a few of Dean Corll's victims. We don't know, you know, out of his 27. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
There's a, yeah, there's most of the time, like when you find those mass graves, there's going to be quite a few guys.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
You just never, well, at least killed back then.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It's terrifying. No, 33 is just what we know about. Wild. But speaking of bodies, I love this story because I love a mummy story and I love an embalming story. Okay. Because I find embalming and funeral practices absolutely fascinating. I had kind of a crossroads where it's either stay in radio and broadcasting or go into embalming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going to funeral services. And I chose this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
We'll mummify your fucking tushy. I'll suck out all your bullshit and fucking put it in a bucket, throw it in my backyard. So what's the deal with this mummy? The mystery of a mummy from an Austrian village has been solved, according to researchers who say it was embalmed in an unexpected way Via the rectum. Ooh. Never heard of rectal embalming before.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
We'll see you next time we're in Kauai.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They say this is the first known case of rectal embalming.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Well, this is 1746, so this is long before modern embalming. Modern embalming didn't come about until the Civil War, the American Civil War, because there were so many people that were dying so far away from home, the families wanted the bodies transported back so they could be buried wherever it was that they were from.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Uh, and so the, the idea of modern embalming, which is taking out, uh, a lot of the guts taken out, like replacing the blood with like preserving fluids, like preservatives and all that. Like you kind of switching out the blood for one, you're switching out one thing for another. Do you take out the, like the kidneys and shit or you leave them in there? You know what? I actually can't remember.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Dude, it was just an actual relaxing time. It was just wonderful, and I had this moment under a waterfall where I was like... Just, I mean, barraged with water, and it came out as this cleansing moment. It felt fucking incredible. I felt like something had been washed away. Oh, man. It's beautiful. It was cool. And, you know, Hawaii, they have their very own little people. Really?
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I can't remember if you take out like all, like all of the guts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember if you take out the guts. No, mummies don't have guts. We're just talking about normal embalming. Yeah, the difference between normal embalming. Mummies are definitely like all the guts are gone. And this guy, all of the guts were gone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
But the reason why it was a mystery was because when they found this body, they think that the body is the preserved corpse of an aristocratic vicar named Franz Xaver Siddler von Rosenegg. Cool. Yeah, Rosenegg, yeah. Franz Xavier Sidler von Rosenegg. Yeah, they were redoing his tomb. They had to do some reconstruction on it. And they found the body and figured, fuck it, let's see what's inside.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And so they did some CT scans of it and found that it was hollow inside. And also, he'd obviously been mummified. You look at the body, it's like, oh, this body's definitely been mummified. But through the butt. That's the thing. They didn't see any kind of holes or entry points where they may have pulled out any of the organs or anything like that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
well i don't know about i don't know about sucked out yeah they didn't have vacuums back then they didn't no no because i actually for a while when i first read the story like i saw mummy and rectum and mystery and air dry and the way all of the words were put together i also saw via vacuum yeah you know via rectum via vacuum that's that's what i would think. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
No, but you can actually even see in this picture here, you can see there's actually a little bit of a, there's a little tuft coming out of his butthole.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
That had to have been, because they would have had to have stretched it out pretty good in order to pull out all of the organs via the butthole. Wow. And not just pull out all of the organs via the butthole, but putting in wood chips, fragmented twigs, hemp and silk fabrics, and zinc. So they taxidermied them. Yeah, and zinc chloride. Crazy. Yeah, they taxidermied him.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And they probably did the, I'm sure the brain and all that, they did the old Egyptian way of putting the hook in through the nose and pulling that out. Oh, so they took the brain out too? Yeah. Fucking nuts. Yeah, Max, all that shit stinks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They might have just got a hook. I would imagine it's all hooks. Yeah. If they did the hooks the same way that they did the brain, I would imagine it's, yeah, sticking a hook up in there, but they may have, I don't know, blended it. And then, yeah, it's not like siphoning gas, Rob. Yeah. You just make like one big, and they're like, all right, now it's flowing. Just let it flow out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Incredible teeth. Well, he was a vicar. He lived a life of luxury, basically. In comparison to other 17th century people, he definitely lived a cushy life. They even found him, he was wearing his pointed shoes. He had his tobacco pipe. And they just found that his body was in incredible shape overall. But yeah, he did live a much better life than most people did back then.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I can't remember what they're called. The Menehune. The Menehune. Yeah, Menehune. Yeah, they have this, it's this legend where they're kind of like their shoemaker elves. Okay. Where the Menehune are these like tiny people, these dwarf people. Are they real? No. Okay. No, no, it's like a legend. Okay. Where they come out at night and they, you know, build bridges and they make shit happen.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
No, you can't. You can't throw dogs. You can't throw cats. You can't throw birds. You can't just throw an animal in the trash.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I mean, we all know that Pittsburgh, well, we all know that the fucking dumps are lands of wonder and whimsy and joy, and you can find many wonderful things at the dump. Did your dad ever take you to the dump when you were a kid?
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Okay, that's different. You got to deal with seagulls in Florida. So you got wildlife at the dumps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Besides the rats. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad used to take me to the dump all the time when I was a kid. It was fucking fantastic. You go to shoot the rats?
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
nah we just went to look and a dump yeah we had to dump our stuff because you know we lived in uh you know i lived in rural texas yeah really we didn't get like a dumpster until i was in like high school uh so you had to take your trash somewhere yeah and there was no of course like no local pickup so yeah we had to take trips regular trips to the dump uh to get rid of our trash like yeah once every couple weeks why the fuck was i at the dump
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
But what was interesting is that I looked up the Menehune and what, did you ever hear about the hobbit skeleton? Yes. Yeah. So it turns out that some people think that the Menehune may actually have been some of those Hobbit people that the original settlers of Hawaii had taken from Indonesia, or I think that's where they found the Hobbit skeleton. Okay.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Fucking, you're going to go to sleep tonight, and you're going to be thinking about this, and some awful fucking memory is going to unlock that you had forgotten about.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
If it was not his actual ashes? Yeah. Not lawsuit care. Yeah, definitely not lawsuit care.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, yeah. When my dogs die, I think, you know what? I don't know if I'd want the ashes of the dog. In the moment, you're like, yeah, give them to me.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
yeah i'd actually i think yeah i it never even honestly it never even occurred to me that i would get the dog's ashes back yeah like it's just you i thought you just called a guy that's what they should do because i haven't had a i haven't had a pet die since i lived in texas and you just bury them yes you know yeah when i was in high school different times yeah you just bury the dog out back but now we live in a city uh and i can't just bury the dog
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
No. No, you can't just bury the dog. Because one time I buried a dog and I didn't bury it deep enough. Yes. And the animals come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is the animals didn't come, but I buried him right outside my window. Oh, no. And I didn't bury him deep enough. And it was the middle of summer. It was Texas summer, so it was like 100 degrees outside.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And so just the smell started getting worse and worse and worse and worse. Sometimes they come back. Yes. Well, I had to go dig up the dog. Me and my friend Gary. Wow. Yeah, my friend Gary Strickland. Man, shout out to Gary. Gary was a fucking good friend. That's a good friend. Gary was a fucking solid, solid friend. Gary helped me out that day. I was like, dude, I got to dig up my dog.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Come help me. He's like, all right, fine. Yeah, Gary's ride or die. Wow. But yeah, we had to dig up the dog. And instead of digging a new grave for him, because I couldn't, like, it was just, we just kind of put him out in a, A little further out. A little further out.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, actually, we did baumeister him. Yeah, we did. We totally baumeistered him. It was a really nice field. It wasn't like a farm field where they're going to be plowing it up or anything like that. It was a field. I mean, yes, he definitely, we call it a sky burial. Okay. You threw him out of a plane and hope for the best.
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Well, sky burials are where people get eaten by birds. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, they get eaten by vultures. That's the best way to do it. Yeah, you go back to nature.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, of course they do. So, yeah, it was probably vultures and coyotes that finished them off. What is this picture, Rob? It's a sky burial. That's a human. That is a human. That's a human.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
But had taken them from there, and they were, in fact, their servants. Wow. So the original settlers of Hawaii may have had an army of dwarves as their servants. Wow. Yeah. That's fucking... It's bad. But... Awesome. Can you imagine, like, settling a new land and, like, you just have a bunch of dwarves doing all of your work for you? Man, it's Wonka.
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That's definitely a human. Yeah, that's not a dog. That's worse. Yeah, I can see fingers. But yeah, it's a Tibetan thing. It's really big in Tibet, sky burials.
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Yeah. Oh, man, what else is going on in the news? Oh, the other thing that I got is this incredible story out of Australia. This is a, I mean, this is one of those stories that's, you know, I love the show Fatal Vows. Mm-hmm. And this is like the most Fatal Vows story there is. Yes. Yeah, I mean, marriage is bliss, but divorce is murder. Ha!
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An Air Force pilot in the RAAF is accused of murdering his wife and staging her death to make it look like a ride-on mower accident.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yes. Yes. He is secured a major court win after a judge ruled he could be released on bail to take care of his ailing mother. He would be prohibited, and this is the amazing thing about it, he is a pilot, so as a part, one of the conditions of his bail is that he is prohibited from coming within 500 meters of an international airport terminal. Yeah, because he could just fucking fly away. Yeah.
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Let him go. Let him go. Get him out of here.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Robert John Crawford is charged with the murder of his wife, Frances Crawford, in southeast Queensland on July 30th, 2024. Emergency services found the body of Miss Crawford, 49, at the base of the property's retaining wall around 3.40 a.m. near a riding mower. Apparently in Australia they call it a ride-on mower.
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Police allege Mr. Crawford, an RAAF pilot, flew into a murderous rage and fatally strangled his wife before attempting to disguise the crime by placing her body under the mower to make it look like she died in a freak accident. Oh, my God. He's a ride-on mower. Yeah, it's a ride-on mower. So it would be his fault anyway. I don't know. Riding mowers, you could kill yourself.
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Do they go on their own? They can go on their own. But on the other hand, no. Because they do have, you know, when you stand up from a riding mower. Yeah, you gotta hit the lever, right? Well, when you stand up from a riding mower, it automatically turns off.
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It's flawed. Yeah, you can't. I mean, obviously it's flawed. He went to prison. Well, his trial is coming up. Oh, okay. He hasn't even gone to trial yet. This is his bail hearing. Oh, okay. So it could be an accident then. And we have to say that. Well, remember, yeah. Allegedly.
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Well, he's also charged with misconduct with a corpse, with police alleging in court documents that Mr. Crawford moved his wife's body without lawful jurisdiction or excuse.
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Mr. Cook told the court that Mr. Crawford, Mr. Cook would be, I think, the D.A., allegedly sent messages to himself on his wife's phone after the alleged murder to make it seem like she had gone outside to move the mower before the quote-unquote accident. accident. The exchange, detailed to the court, included Mr. Crawford reportedly texting, quote, Are you going to put the mower away soon? Ms.
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Crawford allegedly replies, Just give me a sec. And so he's trying to set up the idea that she's going outside.
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Oh, my God. I did not know how much it would hurt to be ran over by a right on mower. And, oh, my God, I am dead now. Well, the coroner went in and said, like, okay, this woman was definitely strangled to death. They said that she might have died from being run over by the mower, but it was the manual strangulation that sealed the deal.
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I'm surprised they could tell after running over her with a mower. That's the thing. We don't know how bad the damage actually was because, I mean, it's not dead alive. Yeah, he's not, you know, she's not kicking ass for the Lord and like, yeah, like it's and it's not, you know, the sort of like push mower where you got these big blades. So she was probably like mutilated.
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But I don't know, like, did he run over her head? Do you run over her legs? Where did he run over? The body. Not well enough. Definitely not well enough. You always run over the part that you destroyed. Yeah. That's, you know, for, you know. But that's the thing. You only get one shot. You can't run her over multiple times because then they're going to know.
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Oh, man, Hawaii is fucking Wonka land.
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So if you run her over one time, that's the only shot you got. Wow.
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Well, I mean, really, it's just a mutilation. Yes, you're right. Because he did kill her normally. Yeah, he did kill her normally. But it's a hell of an alibi, especially at three in the morning. No one mows their fucking lawn at three in the morning. Well, the idea was that she was putting it away. She was putting it away. Yeah. And there were also several inconsistencies. Unwashed dishes.
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Her rings were left on the kitchen counter indicated she was still in the middle of her nightly routine. And the D.A. argued it made little sense for her to have gone outside near midnight to move a lawnmower. And apparently this guy was a dick anyway. Crawford's children expect to be witnesses in the case. They had a bad relationship with their father.
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One witness reportedly described Crawford in a statement as controlling and intimidating. And so now he's going to become a caretaker? I mean, only one in Hadlow.
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He's got a very Australian face. He really does. Yeah, it's that Australian face. Like, why do Australians have such big heads and such tiny ears?
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Sidestorieslpotl at gmail.com if you can answer why Australian, specifically Australian men, have big heads and tiny ears.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, chickens everywhere. Because we went to Kauai. And the reason why Kauai is the only island that has chickens is because back when they were first settling the islands, they had a rat problem. And so one of the guys, he was a sailor. These guys, we talked about it in the Batavia series. These guys just fucking sail everywhere. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know if it's smoked, but well, he's probably just... They might have blown smoke in its face.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And not just loosey-goosey, but that she smokes enough meth to drive around with multiple meth pipes. Yeah. And one was very used and one was just brand new.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, meth, you don't want to get caught flat-footed. Always be ready.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, never has. Yeah. And speaking of Cleveland, we'll see you on November 29th. We're going to be at the Masonic Temple. Can't wait to come play a show for you. The full last podcast on The Left Show, Cleveland, Ohio, Masonic Temple, Saturday, November 29th. Go to thelastpodcastontheleft.com for tickets to that show and many more.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And so this guy had gone from Hawaii to Africa and like some dude in some village somewhere said like, oh yeah, you got a rat problem? Take a mongoose over there. I'll take care of it in a second. Yep. Fucking dude got together 7,000 mongooses, mongoose, and just fucking put them on every single island except Hawaii, which is why every other island doesn't really have like a big bird population.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I think about that all the time. When an old person dies a really grisly or gruesome or bizarre death, I do think about that. Once you pass 82, you're like, okay, I'm definitely dying of old age. I'm definitely dying of a disease. I'm dying in a bed. I've made it. I'm dying in a bed. Nope, 89. Bear attack.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
yeah you got away you went back and the bear killed you the bear was later killed by another hunter um but yeah each one of these stories are fucking nuts yeah i was looking back to prohibition times because i was gonna see if a moonshiner got eaten by a bear you never know dr joseph germaine olga gregor chuck um jack thayer no mostly for forest service employees actually it's a lot of forest service employees oh yeah for sure
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. But Kauai has a great bird population and chickens fucking everywhere.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Listen to this. Two sentence banger. Frank Welch, 61, September 8th, 1916. Welch was killed at a camp near Sylvan Pass at Yellowstone National Park while carrying a load of hay and oats. Men from the camp killed the bear with a dynamite trap. Damn.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
John Deekt, November 1906, thinking the bear was dead, Deekt began skinning it. The bear immediately awoke and tore off one of Deekt's arms, and then it killed him. Whoa! October 5th, 1908. That's my birthday! Oh, wow! After a bear escaped from a cage at Elysian Grove Pleasure Park in Tucson, Arizona, a woman named Bus Laird ran with her infant child in a go-kart.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
The bear grabbed and killed the baby. No, not the baby.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
That's what my wife always says to me. That's what Caroline always says when I'm playing video games and I'm going somewhere and I'm fighting somebody and I'm killing a bunch of people. And she asks, did you go into his house? Yeah. Did you go to where he lives? And is he now defending his home? Like, well, maybe, but he would have killed me anyway. That's what the bandits do.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
They don't just wait. I go to the bandits' house and I shove a fucking sword into his throat. And they set them on fire. And then I go looking for the other oblivion gates.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Isn't that the shitter? Kills him in the movie. Or not kills him. I've had technically happy kills him by scaring him with the head of the gator. Chubbs took his eye. Kills him in the movie and then he outlives him.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I would rather retire in Colorado than Florida.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And one last quote from the story covering the gator that died in Colorado. He died in a gator reserve that these guys put together because they had a fish farm and didn't know what to do with all their leftover fish heads. So they started rescuing gators, and they built a little park around it.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I loved Ernest Scared Stupid. It's the best one, isn't it? Oh, easily. Yeah, I loved it so much because I loved Ernest and I loved horror movies. Yeah. It was the first movie that I ever watched and then immediately rewound and watched a second time. Those trolls were fucking nasty, too.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Me too. But it scared me in the best way possible. And all the kids getting, you know, I think, didn't they get their souls encased in trees? Yes.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Well, the court scene with the pen in his mouth is one of the funniest scenes in movie history. Yeah. Yeah. It just keeps getting more and more ink all over the place. And he's Ernest. Yeah. He's on trial for murder.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
How does The Sun Also Rises stack up to save Christmas? Did Ernest Hemingway ever save Christmas? No!
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
He was a war reporter. He seems like a safari guy.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I was right. Safari guy. Yeah. He seemed like it. He loved adventures. Multiple, yeah. Snow's at Kilimanjaro, Greenhouse of Africa, yeah. Snow's at Kilimanjaro, that's the big one. I don't know. I'm not a big, I'm honestly, like, Hemingway, I prefer Tennessee Williams. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yes. As, as do I. And, and listener, be sure to savor that because you won't see it. The most you're going to get is secondhand. Yeah.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Well, that's the thing. I get it. I get that protectiveness because there was a moment we were on this hike on Sunday and it was the most beautiful hike I've ever taken in my life. It was up on top of a mountain, going on the ridges, there's fucking valleys on both sides. You see all of these huge plants and trees growing up. And I'd never had a thought like this in my head.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It just suddenly popped in my head and I thought, I would kill for this place. Yeah. Yeah. I would kill to preserve this place and to keep this place safe.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, I got it. I finally got it on that last day. Like, yeah, I understand. And I also even appreciated how chill people were about protecting it. Oh, yeah. They were very cool about it.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
people who are a little under the weather mental health wise can't run away from your problems that's right is someone going to the going to the island thinking this is going to fix everything like if i only make it to hawaii if i only make it to key west then i'll be totally fine and all my problems will be solved yeah um and you discover that does not happen at all yeah it's prozac yeah but the cool thing is that we we went to kawaii like it was funny
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I realized later that it was somewhat subconscious because we were choosing which island to go to. And finally, I was like, no, no, let's go to Kauai. That feels right. Let's try this place. And I realized the reason why is because Lori Vallow, that's where she got arrested. And that's where her favorite island was Kauai. Okay. And she stayed on the North Shore. We stayed on the South.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Her and Chad got married on the beach. Remember they paid like $500 for a beach wedding and a photographer and that's where she was arrested and extradited from. But yeah, it was in Kauai. It was in Princeville up top. The shishi part I was told. Yes, of course. Of course, always the best because they have to spend that insurance money from the murdered wife somehow. Laughter
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
And I did, like, I had to stop myself from, like, just telling, like, random Lori Vallow facts to strangers. Oh, yeah. It's hard. Just don't fucking mention murder. Don't mention it. Don't mention it. Like, the only time that...
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I really talked about was I was on a hike like when we went down to the Secret Falls you you know we had a guide we went like on a tour you didn't you kayak down there's like we went with a bunch of bro dudes on like their bro vacation their brovate their brocation yeah like a bunch of guys in there like late 20s like early 30s but you know of course like talking shit like dudes do the regular dudes like it better shut up like else is gonna put us on a podcast like all
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Only if you murder someone. If you kill someone, you're on. Yeah, if you kill someone, we're definitely going to talk about you a lot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
These are wedding photos of Chad Dayball and Lori Vallow.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
The ukulele? He doesn't know how to play ukulele. They just handed it to him and said pretend. Yeah. Fucking assholes. And she's trying to do a hula dance and looking fucking horrible doing it. She doesn't have an ounce of rhythm in her life, in her fucking body.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I didn't think about it that way. God, yeah. He's just going to be fucking slumped up next to a pole with a bunch of fucking blood just gushing out of his body.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Man, I wonder if you can request, like, the color in which you can be killed. Yeah, request white. Dude, dolphin's jersey for me, for sure. LAUGHTER No, I'd say white flannel. White flannel. Can you do white flannel? I don't know if I've ever seen white flannel. It'd be hot. I just like flannel.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah, man. All right. Well, that's going to fuck with it. Just anything that shows the blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just make sure the blood is really on display, and then I'll be, well, not happy, because I'll be executed by the government, but satisfied?
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
A medical professional, even though both of us are like, you know what? You don't have to. A medical professional had to ask him, why are you working right now? Oh, yeah.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
I know. It's wild how it just happens. Yeah, man. It just fucking happens wherever you go. Somehow things just get attached somehow, and it's weird how it happens.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Oh, man. Oh, the Pope. I had so much fun watching Pope news in Hawaii. We had a whole Pope morning.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
The Chicago-style Pope beat another cardinal actually named Pizza Bala. Oh, yeah. Talk about some Italian beef. Yeah. I kept singing this song. I don't know why I got this song stuck in my head during the whole thing. I just kept singing, like, when you're in Rome and you are choosing a pope, you can always form a conclave. So the whole trip, me and Carolina just kept going, conclave.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
It's wild. Yeah. I mean, definitely harboring pedophiles and sexual abusers. But as one person did make a point. He's a Pope. He's a Pope. It's like you're not really going to find a guy until like, I don't know, maybe 40, 50 years from now. Maybe. Who wasn't involved in that in some way.
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Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
Yeah. That is true. No, when I met like 40 or 50 years, it was like, once we're down to like six priests. Just not getting new ones all that often.
Last Podcast On The Left
Side Stories: Raccoon with a Meth Pipe
We're all rooting for you. So far, so good. And the Pope's brother seems nice. Oh, yeah? I don't know anything about him. He's just some dude in Chicago. He lives in the suburbs. Yeah, you know, last week we were playing words with friends. We watched Conclave, actually. It's good. It's pretty good. Ah, he's MAGA. Got it.
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Side Stories: Amouranth Home Invasion
Yeah. So she's saying she's Kaiser. You're saying she's Kaiser Sosa? Yeah.
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Side Stories: Amouranth Home Invasion
Oh, the fans. This is a VIP experience. I thought you were talking to me.
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Side Stories: Amouranth Home Invasion
Ten grand, all right. Ten grand, baby.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
From the boogie-down streets of Queens to a pile of beans, a new cup of piping hot Polish-Italian java, last podcast on the left, and Spring Hill Jack coffee rising from the rubble with a new brew. Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend. Nothing to do with any moth-based entity. Don't even think about it. This is a Butterfly Dude. Don't mind the blue eyes. He's just Caucasian.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Rob, do we have a romantic sound bed at all? James and Elena had agreed to visit the temple the following morning.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
As James placed her hands on her head, he connected with Elena's true, eternal self.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
No, that's how it comes in. Oh, it comes into the top of your head.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Damn, I'm so fucking hard right now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And now I've found the work to be lacking. This is very, it's true. But remember, Chad. Does not have an imagination. No. So they are saying one of the big things is anything he wrote about in any of these books are things that actually happened. And there is a, it seems to be, the reason why these were in the trial was because they had cooperated. I got to change this word.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I got to do anything but this word. Cooperated? Everybody makes fun of me for the fucking word. And I am now paralyzed. And I cannot move forward. Cooperated. Cooperated. CONVERT!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
No, not anymore. Not since the procedure. And I remember one time, you know, and it's funny because you hear it go like... The demons in my balls have been using my cock as a snorkel. Yeah, they're doing great in there. That's not good, Eddie. That's not good, Eddie. I think you need to troll your balls. Like you troll the seafloor for catfish.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
They looked at the schedule of the temple and where they were, and they basically connected all of these texts and things within these fake stories two times that they did things physically in the real world, in this sad, telestial world.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So Chad and Lori had a guy that got them into a temple, and there is some belief that they committed one of the highest sins in Mormonanity, which is to fuck in a temple, and that they might have.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Are you sure? Because this sounds like it's written by a virgin.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
He's definitely had sex five times. And then also with Lori. I mean, Lori blew his mind. He's never seen pubic hair. Like, they have sex in the dark. Like, him and Tammy had sex in the dark through a sheet, and they didn't even have to. They had it through the sheet just because he thought it was fun to look at something purely white. He likes having sex with snow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
The laminates, they're protected by plastic, right? You can write on them with dry erase?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Honestly, one of the most effective ways to destroy the laminates is to enter into their sacred space with shoes on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Also covered in plastic. Yep. I have to cover myself in plastic to sit on the couch.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But that makes Lori hot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Chad's the mature one.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, extremely impressive. The guy who invented the high jump? Mormon. The guy who invented... You know those things that you put in the gutters at a bowling alley so the ball doesn't go in? Oh, yeah. Mormon. Yeah. Anything that sucks. No one's ever James from accounting in a past life. Never. It's always Jimi Hendrix or the Pope. Always.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
No, I figured the longer I keep it in there, the more demons will show up in my balls and then I get really backed up and then I'll puke them out. You're saying congestion pricing is going to force them out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Actually, I did a really, really interesting past life regression the other day, and it turns out I was the cow that started the Chicago fire. Cool. You were Mrs. O'Leary's cow. I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was molested. Yeah. That cow was molested and there's a reason why. You go back to why that cow did it. Look at the schools. You know, I find that utterly amazing. Yeah.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I looked at Eddie's dark cycle the other day. Unfortunately, he's a 2.9. 2.9 dark? Yeah. Wow. Heading towards removal. Oh, yeah. 4.20 last time I checked. Whoa, fucking 4.20. You're too high right now, man. Fuck yeah, dude. You totally redeemed yourself.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Is Moroni's wife Snooki? You remember, like, who dated Moroni? Yeah. Like, hey, it's me, Moroni. You ever meet my ex? What a bitch. Like, who's dating Moroni? Hey. Moroni. Hey, what are you talking about? It's me. Oh, this is my wife. She makes amazing struggle. Yay. Who's Methuselah again?
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Wouldn't you like Noah's dad or some shit? He's like HVAC guy? I could be wrong, but I think he's related to Noah.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I think he would have died in the flood. Same book. But it's not... Real, no matter who he is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yes, yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah. He knows his grandfather. Thanks, Rob. You did work, Rob. And I went to Catholic school. Did you know that Voldemort was his cousin? Really? Yeah.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Okay. Mine is like this. Ah! Ah!
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Thank you. It's funny how it didn't even work to the people in the room. I'm playing to the crowd. I'm playing to the crowd. They love me. They need to see me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I get filled right back up.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Exactly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Every time. Yeah. You know, sometimes every once in a while I think if I have a very thorough sesh with myself, I'm like, maybe that's the last one. Yeah. You know, one day it will be. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It's also important to note that during this time period, Melanie Gibb is texting them saying, do my husband next. Do my kids next.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And that's not saying a lot. But it is saying a thing that is true. But they they all like this is just important to remember that as this is going, every person that will eventually flip on them was very much a part of this LARP before people started dying. Yeah. So they all were very encouraging of this.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I think largely it's because much like I play my D&D game, I know that technically it is many hours after I've already worked and I have and I make stuff up finally for work all day. But then I go to play D&D for fun in which I make up things for three hours. And I think that they are that this is the issue here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Is that they're in a D&D world, they're enjoying the D&D world, but they don't really want to know when it comes down to it. It's like, I can't really kill Mike Lawrence in my group, even though right now he's sort of playing a heel. But I can't physically stab Mike to death. No. But I can kill his character in the game.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But they don't understand that when you kill the character in the game, in this story, they die for real life. I will say, Mike is now employed at the network, and they started doing Nerd of Mouth. So you could fire him. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Or from a song by Buster Poindexter. R.I.P.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
No, Buster Poindexter. I said this on side stories. He'll always be Buster Poindexter to me, and he tried to save us.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Telling us about climate change. Actually, I would say that... He was the Cassandra.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, people love Limbo. I know, but it gets you out of Limbo, because the only way out in Limbo is through. Under, actually.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I make my own rules. Oh, I got to walk under this stick? Fuck all of you. Limbo, what is this, some Spanish curse?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Well, I think the term that started to come around was death percentages.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So death percentages were each time they would get a death percentage, it would be he goes all the way up to 99.9. Because that means you got to go. And that's what JJ hit, unfortunately. Do you think that all the Mormons moved to the Great Salt Lake because they knew the salt would kill the slugs?
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, definitely will, and we'll throw some, you know, we might even get a little ribald and watch Mr. Mom, the old Michael Keaton film. Ha ha ha! Isn't there a couple of S words in that one? I know. I said, I just, when it comes around, I'll talk loud. Now, are you talking about suck? Or are you talking about shit?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
We're going to be here forever. I just think I'm so ensconced in the material, I could talk about it forever. It makes me extremely angry. Irate, even. I'm walking around in a poor mood, right? I did this the other day, and Natalie said this. She's like, why are you so irritable? And to be honest... It's the book. It's Chad Daybell's book. It's the thing I had to read.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
wow wow wow jazzy no because these fucking pieces of shit because this is like this is what they did with taylor swift this is how taylor swift got introduced to people some record executive just unveiled her at a party and said here's the new one and then they all went like yay and that's it yeah no she literally was uh on top of a stairwell and then started playing a guitar and she was 16 years old and walked out and like kept playing as she walked down the stairwell oh yeah no they orchestrated her entire life has been orchestrated
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Tammy didn't get invited to the all-star introduction of Lori Vallow. She was being a mom somewhere, just taking care of your kids like a real fucking lazy bitch. Not being the new goddess of the new fucking Mormon millennium.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, very much so, making his money. And so Lori, and what I also find funny is all of these Mormons, these so-called high morality people, are all watching this woman take Tammy's place, and they love it because they like to Lori better too because she sounds crazier than them, and they just love it. She's fun, she's bouncy, she's evil, and they're here for it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You guys really hate this whole pap thing. There's a lot of pap smearing. I already made that joke.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
He did it better. But that's still stepping on the shoulders of giants. And I also saw there was a fucking dumbass show about yogurt someone decided to put out. And I'm going to fucking attack them physically. You hate yogurt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
We got to put, you know, you're coming in there. She's laying down there fully clothed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
All right. So he enters the room. They put on the TV. Guy Fieri's on screen. Yum, yum.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, I read the whole thing. That wasn't published. Oh, buddy, no, it's out there now. There is a 20-page, there's 20 pages of it. Oh, okay. I wouldn't call that a book. For Chad Daybell, it's enough. I feel like it is because he doesn't write with similes or metaphors or it's just facts. Like all he writes are like, she walked to the door. She grabbed me by the storm.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, you're just kissing socks anyway. I got some fuzz in my mouth. Over the close stuff, you don't need a hotel room for it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You don't need privacy if you're not nude. Maybe he's got a bunch of Bonvoy points. We don't know. They really are burning a hole in my pocket.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It's like super heavy because it's just him pressing his entire body against her and just rubbing back and forth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
He's a big boy. If I were to guess, I'd say he's at least 290. Yeah, he's a big boy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Like, it's devastating to find that type of footage on a loved one's phone, you know? But, like, how do we put this? If the sex are so bad, does it count? If the sex are so bad? If the sexts, right? Oh, the sexts. Yeah, it's hard to pluralize.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because on some level, you're looking at Lori Vallow do a dumb dance. Sure, yeah. And it's not...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I'm just saying, like, this is Mormon as hell. Like, this is just not, like, even Charles being like, she doesn't even know how to fucking cheat. Like, she doesn't even know what to do here. Yeah. But Natalie's a dancer. Yeah. That is true.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Well, a lot of times it would just turn out she was practicing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's a great thing to tell yourself. Thank you. I keep myself on lockdown.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Zombie, zombie, zombie, where are you? Zombie, zombie, zombie, I'm coming for you. Zombie, zombie, zombie, show yourself. Zombie, zombie, zombie. Ah, gimme zombies! And then God just shows them to you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yep, it's very easy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I shot my snow into her basket.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Dylan's fucking... It's on his last legs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Wow. All of this is very funny because she, this portal stuff, fully, entirely stolen from Visions of Glory. Yes, it is. And just that, how sad would you be opening up a Stargate and Chad comes through? A magical portal opens. If he takes his shirt off, he looks like a sandworm. A man in Kmart chinos arrives through the sacred portal to rub on you until he cums his pants. That's your night.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You sit, you watch Heroes Reborn, and then Chad rubs his front on you, and then he cums himself. And then he goes back in the portal home. That'd be the worst. I'm just sitting there like, was that assault? I think I didn't like that. I felt nothing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I'm converting. Whoa.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But does she believe that there's multiple Satans? She's full of shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
If this was hosted by the ultimate warrior, I would listen. Yeah, of course, yeah. He actually had a much more genuine Christ moment than many of these people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, I want to be more man, dude.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You won't be. Not after I watch all the Jody Hildebrand stories. Eddie and I were talking a little bit about masturbation accountability. That's a part of where this even came from. Sure. Yeah, about how, like, making sure we masturbate, making sure we masturbate to good stuff. Because I've been trying to get him into the crossing guard porn because there's a whole new thing now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Hey, Charles, buddy, what is going on? I am receiving all sorts of crazy messages from my sister. It's absolutely nothing. Tell me, Charles, have you ever had sex with a black chick? I think sending survival supplies is nice. It's nice, but I take it. If you say I wouldn't think anything weird if you bought me like a bunch of tack or something because you're an accepting person.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I don't want anybody showing up with the hello fresh. Thanks to show up and say, here's the hello fresh for the apocalypse. You need you. This is for the apocalypse. That's what's scary. It's worrying. It's a very worrying behavior. And also, again, Melanie Gibb, absolutely, utterly hypocrite and full of shit. She had them when they had the show together. So Lori was her co-host.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And this podcast, I got it. I listened to it. Yeah. It's not. Good. Honestly, for the end times and the goddesses and shit, bad mics, bad editing. It's all garbage. They're bad at it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
God awful. And they talk to Chad Daybell like he's... fucking the hottest guy in the room. They are so like, oh my God, oh, Chad's here. But Chad tells them an entirely different story than is in his book, than is anything. He tells them all about how he's been hanging out with Jesus Christ since he was a little boy, that he's been hanging out, and that Jesus Christ, he has a full broad laugh.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
He looks at you like a brother, but he hangs out with you like a father, but he'll teach you how to shave like an uncle. Like, he says, like, these weird things where he's, like, hanging out with Jesus Christ. And they're all like, wow. Oh, my God. Oh, that's amazing. Like, talking to a girl in L.A. and telling them that you have a jet.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Papcast. That would have been good. Yes. That would have been a much better name. My God. A much better name.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because you are a professional podcaster.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I heard that the Mormon church is sitting on about $56 billion, and they want to have their own podcast network.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Exactly on the money. And they did it on purpose. They did it because they thought that they were extra, extra special.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I just feel like it's got to be the least fuck place ever.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I'm just saying crossing guard stuff is, no, because they get stuck in a bush and then the basketball coach has got to pull them out. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the crossing guard porn really tells you what to do. It's just when they hold up that sign, it says stop. Stop?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. I guess you're right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But I just like, you know, even that like idea of having sex in a church just makes me not feel good, even though I wanted to file it. But I wanted to file it in other ways. You know, like I feel like there's other better ways. You're more Joker makeup on the crucifix and and it's going like the devil was here. Another weird, dumb, you know, kind of infantile.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. Church is for jerking off. Everyone knows that. Thank you. How many pumps, by the way, do you think he got in her?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That wasn't in the doc. No, it's not exclusive. Well, I mean, it's from the book and they talk about it and she like, think about this. You get sexually assaulted and then you got to make the guy that sexually assaulted you feel better. You are literally he starts crying. You have to make it feel better for him. And then he apologizes over and over and over again.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But I think what this was, honestly, kind of what I was saying with what will happen with Tammy is that this sexual assault was his. first attempt at sort of i'll make either a family a polygamous family like i will have multiple wives or this is his let's see how far my powers go yeah let's see if i can i just got sex i just got extramarital sex for the first time
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But that's what he's done, right? He's finally popped. He finally popped his collar with Lori. Yeah. And then he gets to now with Julie Rowe. I think he's going to try to just, oh, wow, maybe I could do this again with my other girlfriend. And she was not into it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So you think Lori is the first person he cheated on Tammy with? Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Remember that in the world of Mormon heroes and warriors, in the end times, they don't have time for wives and husbands and children. They talk about this in Visions of Glory. The idea is that the time, the tribulations will come, and during the tribulations, there is no time for these things. Only those that have to sacrifice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Like, Lori Vallow says that she believed Jesus Christ told her specifically, your life is going to be like Job's, and you're going to lose everything. And that's the only way for you to spiritually advance. So in some ways, I do believe there is a little bit of it. The way it starts is the floating. Tammy's going to die soon. JJ's not going to live long. Charles Vallow's going to die soon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because at first, I do think on some level, they think that... They're going to make it happen. You're going to manifest it. They're going to manifest it. But they're pussies because they weren't ready to go for it until they then decided that they have pushed themselves far enough. But it just helps if you have a psychopathic brother that you can use.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
they're mormon why not just right go with the whole polygamy thing because those are that has been disallowed by the mormon church so that is but these people are also like i mean they're going away from everything like they're they're not really worried about anything i think because the thing is about polygamy is that um the women have to say yes yeah they have to agree to it and the man i mean this in the and this is just impractical i mean this he has to be able to afford it
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
He has to be able to. And he's in a way he's got to have some kind of charm about him. And this is where Natalie and I disagree when we talk about this topic all the time is that I think he was actively trying to have multiple wives. I think he really wanted to have multiple wives. And I think it just wouldn't take because he has the riz of a fire hydrant.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
literally not someone that can he can't swing it he's no cody he doesn't have that curly hair and that smile and whatever job allows him to own three houses in las vegas obviously he doesn't have the the leathery charm of a warren jeffs or the the absolutely delicious nature of a tim ballard there's a lot of people that think you know it's hard it's hard to have that kind of charisma
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. Holy shit. That's how I learned to use it. Wow. By thinking of the root word.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's called slang. Yeah. My brother man. And guess what, man? Guess what? Slang can be all that and a bag of chips. Because that's what I've learned about slang is it can make you sound pretty good. Yeah. Wow. That's the bomb. Yeah, it is. My brother man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
God, what I wouldn't give to watch them get struck by lightning. Oh, man. To me, though, it kind of feels like a big, flabby gong noise. They saw each other, his, like, belly vibrated, and he was just like, oh, wow. Wowie, wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It is I, your ancient villain, Nick Schneider. Hi, hello. Yes, I work in sales. Yep, hi, hello. This is my wife, Betty Schneider. This is my two kids, Nick Schneider Jr. and Flick Schneider. I sell water. It's pretty easy to do.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Why are you fucking lying to Nick?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Also, this is a seed I want to plant here, too, is remember that they're Mormons. So every single time they try to cover up a crime or try to do anything in a secular way, they're doing it from a Mormon, uneducated, on the secular world perspective. Sheltered perspective. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Our new proprietary roast might seem eerily similar, but don't let your tongue deceive you. It's a Butterfly Dude Roast. This is the Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend. Entirely delicious, and not just the same beans. Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And so they, like, I also think that part of the naming thing is, like, while, yes, it was a part of their lore, I do believe it was a ham-fisted way they believed of creating some form of plausible deniability as they spoke about it to each other over text and over the phone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yeah, of course. And it's like the FBI is watching you being like... The weed's on its move to the 229 Mauser again, and we don't care.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Still needs some work.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Look, I did a Google Street View.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
These fuckers. And Melanie Gibb, if you're listening to this, and I hope you are, you can go fuck yourself. Wow. Melanie Gibb sucks. She's one of the worst people in this entire fucking story. Spoiler alert. I hate this fucking woman. All of these fucking people suck.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Always a book. Always. And the answer was right in front of them, man. Streaming. The answer was in front of them. They should have just laid into the podcasting. Do you have any idea how much more money and clout you could have gotten just leaning into the podcasting world? Mormon drama? People want to hear it. You want to hear about all the different ways you soak? That's what they want to hear.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
People want to hear there's a market for it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It was a big deal for us. We were on the New York Times bestseller list.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
What is that? It's a big deal. It's a big deal to suck. Last book on the left. Go ahead and purchase it. It's on Amazon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
We're still getting it. Get it on Amazon, please. Yeah, my favorite place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Alex Cox also had nothing going on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, sure. It's a great job for a loner that wants to be away from his family. They also would shut down the country if they all quit at the same time. Absolutely. It would be devastating. Alex Cox was so happy to get pulled into the ranks. He was so happy to have a role because you think in some ways he saw more of Laurie's body than Chad did before they met.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
She's a joiner. That's a good term for her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yeah. But Zulema, if you watch her, she's my favorite of them. Because if you watch her, she's the Fredo. I'd put her in the closest. She's the Fredo of the group, maybe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, that is that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Unbothered in her lane.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I'd sit close to it if she could see.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And if you're ever thinking about going to the bathroom, do it on air.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because guess what you get to be if they are who they say you are? The bitchy best friend of the goddess that's in charge of everyone. And that is all they ever want to be. These people just want to rule by association. That's even why they're hanging out with Chad and Lori, is because they think they'll get a little chunk of the power.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That is the hardest you ever even tried to negotiate with the devil ever. And this next song goes out to my sister, Lori.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Hey, that was the special sauce, man. They're still out there. Ironically, you are part of the problem of killing radio.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Just like most people in Houston.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And now for the rest of the episode, we're going to cover Charles' skyrocket to the top of the country music scene as he arrived in Houston with nothing but $7 in his pocket. A goddess on the run and his guitar. This is it's weird, right? Because this is where if you listen to the prosecutor talk about this, this is where we start to see how crazy is Lori. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because what she'll do is some very cognizant, like of the world moves. It's all about money. She's immediately going for the money. This is all about the money. Like, this is, like, maybe kind of many ways it was all about the money. And all of this is even just cover for all of the horrible things that they did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Well, she needed money in order to, like, keep looking the way she looked and go into Hawaii all the goddamn time. She didn't look...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
that good she spent a lot of money on her fucking hair and face though yeah dude that that fucking bleach blonde hair that shit ain't cheap oh i know i know it's cost money but it's also like hers wasn't that good i've actually now come around that i did upon looking up about as much as i've looked at her face she she's not as attractive no no she's she's bad damn yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because sometimes it's the opposite.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You fall in love with somebody over time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I've fallen out of love with her. Because she's... Honestly, prison is not doing well for her. Oh, that's what it is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yeah, so they were having a blast, her and Melanie Gibb.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Remember, we do have to remember, in Visions of Glory, it explains how this process works. And the key to remember is that if you are in line with Satan, it is your fault. You have done actions that have allowed demons to enter you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Ha ha!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Like it's. Not fun. That is. That's also I do want to remind the audience is that JJ was significantly. He had a lot of health issues, and so it's very, very scary. Where the hell did he disappear to? Also, how checked out do you have to be to let it go this far without saying anything? This did really... I will say, on Charles Vallow's behalf, the temperature rose fairly quickly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You're literally talking over only a couple of months. This went from...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, wow. Gabriel Bonilla. Oh, man, that's amazing. He's not, no relation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So just remember that. It's always the victim's fault.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I think it's key to understanding the story is to watch the body cam footage of all of the instances, because it's very, very important, because you really see how they were...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Of course. I would have been like that. Oh, yeah. You're a demon named Nick Schneider. No, my wife believes that I'm a demon named Nick Schneider. Okay, so do I call you Mr. Schneider?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yes, but I think that when you're converted, let's just put it this way. He's a Mormon, and he's a practicing Mormon, but it's, again, a lot of these things, they talk about he's on the spectrum, he's probably on the lighter end of the spectrum. These guys are talking about, like, he wants the cop to know, like, you probably...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
hear from crazy people from our church all the time yeah i think that there's a lot of that being like i'm one of the normal ones yeah if you think about this you he probably says that because of all of the various controversies they've been around fringe mormon groups in these areas yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And this is exactly why I don't think Lori's crazy. She's not. She's not. What she's doing is crazy. Yes. But it's all very calculated. It's all like she knows exactly what words to say to skirt around the law, the things that she's allowed to do. She knows she's allowed to change the locks. She knows she's allowed to take the car and all this shit. She looked it up. She definitely researched it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And the cops have this like... It's fucked because they look at Charles Vallow. He's a big guy. He's a big, strong guy. You look at Lori Vallow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But they also, they're giving him the, you're having problems with a chick kind of vibe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, you think that some chick's going to come and kill you? It's being like, bro, you need to start taking women more seriously. They kill every fucking day. Women are just as dangerous as the rest of us. Okay? We have to start putting women in jail. Often.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
A lot of times there's a man who's doing the bad thing and the woman takes the fall. This is about them catching up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You and I talked about this on our call, and there's something about, it's a style of flirting that makes cops fall apart. There is a style of big, like, haired woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, pretending like you got nothing to hide. But she's laughing it all off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Well, that to me is the most utterly concerning part of it, which the cops just, it just bounces off of them where the cops just, they are talking where she does this thing, we talked about this, where it's a type of flirting where a lady presses her hand completely between a man's tits all the time, like touching his chest going, ha ha ha ha ha. Don't touch me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Not today. You can see that's what it does. And they all melt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I think I could flirt pretty well if I had the right parts. Little hands, bigger feet. Did you say flirt or fart? Depends on what part of the country you're in.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
She specifically will not give them the legit story. She only has given the legit story technically to Colby the one time in that prison phone call, but the rest of it is her version of the story. She's given them nothing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. And we're going to see, like, later tonight, the interview with Lori Vallow is going to air. And I saw a little preview of it that you sent me, Henry. And... She's still acting the same way. Prison hasn't fucked with her at all, it seems like. It's only emboldened her in many ways. She is getting a lot of attention from inmates.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. So she is full of shit. She is. Literally. She's like Gwyneth Paltrow. You know, Gwyneth Paltrow takes one dump a year. Wow. Yes, it's entirely... She books it, right? She does. She does. She goes to a very fancy public toilet. Yeah. And she just lets out a giant... It's a pellet. That's the size of her body. And it just slides out of her slow six to seven hour period.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Also, you're going to Maui. You need more than $10,000. Kauai, actually.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Even that. You need more money. Hawaii's expensive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But also, I don't know if this is... Because my thing is, I'm mostly just taking colloidal silver to not get measles. That's my belief system. So your pineapples are potatoes? Yes. Yes, it's like that. They also have little spikes. Oh, no.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
They did have their Lori back.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And wow, that pellet, honestly... It's pretty fragrant. So you're saying she molts. Yes, she molts. Also, this brings in a key thing to remember about Mormons. They think plagiarism is magic. So when Lori Vallow first saw Chad Daybell, you have to remember, he's spouting off all the bullshit that he read from Visions of Glory that he has retrofitted into his own story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
She was a different person to each. She was a chameleon. She changed the most. She was a different person to every single person that she spoke to. It just was like that. It's also classic narcissist behavior to do something horrible then show up and pretend like nothing happened. And she is as...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
close to full-on clinical narcissist as it gets, where she's physically unable to sort of understand any form of accountability.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
for Casey Anthony. It's just power. It's that power of that confidence of just walking without a net. And this is, it's got to be really troubling for them. Yeah. Because at this point, they're like, why hasn't Charles Vallow just dropped dead yet?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Why hasn't this happened yet?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
This is one of the texts that Chad sent during this time period to really see just kind of how sad he was and how much he needed Lori. I'm home, missing you immensely, feeling very tired.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But then I have to return to my place under the stairs, feeling trapped. But I sense permanent freedom is coming.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's everybody's dead. So he's more like Dobby. According to some of Marcus's Instagram polls, he's very similar to Dobby.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Fucking Daybell man sitting there pretending like he's Hufflepuff when he's really a goddamn Slytherin. No, bro. He's opposite. He's a Slytherin. He's a Hufflepuff who thinks he's a Slytherin.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And this is what's hard about the Mormon community is because on the whole, you know what it's funny about the Mormons? I think they'd be hornier, but they're really not. They're not a horny people. They always talk about libido and such. They have a ton of kids. It's just because it's just making kids. Coming inside of a person to make a child is a different form of fun.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
She's read Visions of Glory. She's also read every other bullshit near-death experience Mormon book that was out in the market because she became obsessed with it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, but you've got to come inside a lot. Not some of these. I think a lot of them, their eggs are bigger. They have bigger, thicker eggs. I just think that they don't have a lot of fun. It's hard to get the cross fucking going in a Mormon cult. Isn't divorce not allowed in Mormonism? We discovered this. You can, but the thing is, you are sealed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So no matter what, you end up on that planet given to you by your former husband. No matter what, you end up as a spiritual slave.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I hate these fucking PAPers. These fucking PAPers can absolutely go PAPers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's what I called Chad Daybell's man breasts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Ah, Rexburg, where the spiciest dish is ketchup.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But the thing about Mormons, and this is all of them, this is every single one of them they have read about in this story, is that when they hear the same literal ideas come out of somebody else's mouth, instead of them saying, oh, sounds like he stole that from Tom Harrison's story and he's kind of retrofitting into his own, they view that as, wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I think Alex is one of those guys that sends a lot of the geekity geek, like memes, like family guy memes. Oh, yeah. He's always telling you how hot your wife is. Yeah, yeah. Being like, lucky. What I'd do if I was you, huh? I'd be up in that ass, right? Oh, you want extra shine in the car, sir?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's the word for Alex. It's gusto. He's got a lot of gusto.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
If I see any more, I will be too distracted to kill her family.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I thought the perfect thing to do that, my good buddy Chuck, is that we need to put together a rack and playlist that makes her understand how cool it is to be on the earth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And then it has to be, we're going to have to hit her with a New York groove. One of my favorites from Ace Frehley.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
it's happening to everybody yeah like they don't understand copying they don't understand that they are all adding to their own worlds this is chad daybell's fucking dlc to tom harrison's world and they are all eating it up yeah they think it's all parallel thinking like oh my god can you believe that we all came up with the same thing at the same time because it's real because god is telling them all the same thing but they all read it earlier that day yes yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah. And it's like so many names that are close to each other. They're all the fucking same. There's a fucking bunch of Melanies. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
No, unfortunately, he didn't. He didn't know that she worked for his publication company?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You know what you got to do, though? This is why, if you're doing this, it is good to blow it up like this. Do it in person, though. Yeah. A fake letter from Publisher Clearinghouse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It's also Mormons, right? If it's Mormons, this is also what you can do. This is a freebie. You get yourself a table sheet. You cut a hole in it. Stick your head through. Spray paint your face white. Get a couple of fucking wings from the Halloween store. Arrive with a smoke machine. You're an angel giving some information from Jesus Christ. They're all going to fall. They love it. They want...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Just some effort in the lie. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I'm doing it as the angel of death. I'm going to arrive. I'm going to wake you up from a dead sleep. We're going to play a game of chess.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yes. Just give me a hundred bucks. And that's for your services. Thank you, sir.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I think Benjamin Franklin brings people comfort.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You could just see him there, like, just waiting in that house and seeing Charles come in and be going like, hey there, check it out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And she definitely did. Tylee and Lori had a very, one of those relationships where it was extremely close. Tylee wanted to be like her mother and would often act in ways to please her mother and parroted things that her mom said in a way that was, I mean, you could see Tylee just really wanted to fit in with her mom. You ever see those relationships where mom has set up a dynamic where they're,
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
cooler than the child and the child wants to be seen as cool in the mom's eyes and the mom is withholding of that like specifically so that you constantly do things and the mom's always like making fun of the kid to her friends yes so on and so forth a lot of the same actually same shit that laurie's mom did to her
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Man, I just keep thinking of that body cam footage of when they're already there and they're investigating the shooting. When the cops show up. Yeah, and Lori Vallow's outside laughing, and she was just joking. She's like, huh, yeah, we just moved here. Hi, neighbors. Hi, neighbors. You keep doing this, like, funny little bit. Like, no, man, it's just no emotion. And I just find it...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
that the cops just roll with it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
They don't say anything. They don't even... Any sign of suspicion.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yeah. They want it to be done. They want this over. The biggest crime, Walgreens flip-flops. Always. Never trust someone in Walgreens flip-flops. No. No Walgreens apparel. Yeah. If you don't take respect for your feet... You don't respect the world. You're right, because your feet are the first thing that touch the world every day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It's creating a feedback loop that allows them to live in their own separate reality. Yeah. It's like a comedian who only speaks in Austin Powers quotes. Hey, don't you malign. Alex talks like that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yeah, that's when he cleaned up the scene. He tried to, in those 45 minutes, he was struggling to hit himself hard enough to bleed. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I remember one time I was at a party and some guy's like, I'm going to go break a bottle over my own head. And we're like, please don't. And he just went outside and he just hit himself in the head with a bottle. He was like, thunk. Oh, please. He was like, thunk, thunk, thunk. And you're just like, Jesus Christ, this is terrifying. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It reminds me of our buddy who decided to punch the parking lot. Which was that? Our buddy Tim. He tried to punch the parking lot? Oh, yeah. He was angry about a lady. He was angry about a lady who just started punching the pavement of the parking lot. Oh, the pavement. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it didn't work. Broke his hand, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, absolutely. If you listen to Chad Daybell's mom, the way she met Lori Vallow was that they all suddenly were at some party. This is right after they got murdered. They had a family get together and basically asked Lori Vallow, you know, like, was she married before? Found out that they were married when they all first got together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And then she asked, you know, what happened to your first husband? She said that he died of a heart attack. And then same thing that she had a daughter that died mysteriously, but never mentioned having a son.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
She told everybody a separate story. Also, wasn't Charles like...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Like, aren't you supposed to at least take them in for, like, manslaughter? These cops... I mean this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
They don't want to fuck with it. They don't want to fuck with it. These are the laws they like. Cops like stand-your-ground laws. They think it's fun. It's also what it does for them is it makes investigations extremely easy. Less paperwork. Less time spent. They don't... In this case, this is one of those... That the sheer laziness of the police just allowed all of this to happen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And right here, this crux, this is when someone should have showed up. Yeah. Even if you hold him for a night, he might crack.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Chad Daybell, if you put him on, oh my God, if you put it up to 72 degrees in that room, he's going to fall apart. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I know. I mean it. But doing this, Chad, they've got Tim Ballard and Jody Hildebrandt, Ruby Franklin, all of these people. This is all happening in the same fucking neighborhood. It needs to be in the training.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Hi, boys. I have some very sad news. Your dad passed away yesterday. Yeah, I'm working on making arrangements, and I'll keep you informed with what's going on. Just want you to know that I love you, and so did your dad. Ha ha!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
With three exclamation points. Yeah. Just so you know. Sad news. It's sad. Both sons, of course, called Lori. You know what we miss from a lot of these, Marcus? And I will say, the one thing the transcripts didn't have them put into was the emojis. And it's true. They said that there was a shocking amount of emojis we're missing from this. So there was a lot of crying faces.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
After the funeral, we'll go out for ice cream emojis. Yeah, that's all it is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I know that's like such a small part of this, but it's such a telling sign of what she sold them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yeah, very much so. I'm sure the moment she realized she wasn't getting a million dollars, she sold all the watches. Oh, she sold. And then also just to punish everyone. Yeah. Because that's the thing is that it's not enough. that she kills the families, is that this is a part of the Mormon arrogance. I'm sorry, y'all. It's a part of it where they want the secular world to suffer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
They don't just want to win. They want us to boil alive in oil. They want people like us to be flayed and tortured. That's what they would like. They want to see us scream and cry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
God. As you can tell, I'm going to be in charge of everything. And so, well, including that booty.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
idiot but you remember she's referring to in the text the demon buggy yeah so that's how she covers it for her fucking self yeah she's like nick change i think at that point he was ned yeah because they they call him sometimes they call him nick sometimes they call them ned by this point got foreclosed on yeah he wasn't paying his soul bills as ever you know his old buddy was never super fucking great with money yeah and then he turned into the saddest demon name of all
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Ned. Ryerson? It turns into, it's just, God, no imagination.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Also, she just got the money. Maybe you'd be nice to her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
One was that Tylee and Lori's relationship did start to tatter. Tylee was starting to exhibit the symptoms of any teenager, which they were starting to become maybe not that into everything that's going on. They also get emotional when their father's murdered. They do. Really?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Super crying about it. But Tylee, what I do believe was starting to maybe ask questions. And also, I think, too, it's more so that she was just doing normal changes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Laurie was watching this and they use these as examples. Same thing with JJ is that when they take this important part of his life away, JJ also begins to act out. which is making Lori angrier and angrier and angrier. If you see several statements she makes throughout all of the different statements that she's made about how she says, I raised JJ for quote unquote, his whole life.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I did everything that he needed. And when she says that she means she was burdened by having to take care of someone that was, that needed more than extra help. And she resented JJ and wanted him gone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
You know, say nothing and you have a chance of getting off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Like, don't just sit there and write a bunch of shit like these two people are slugs and then kill them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Because then that's incriminating. They can't help themselves. Well, all of this is supposed to lead towards the end of the world. And in the end of the world, texting is going to be super expensive. Did they really believe in the end of the world? Yes. You think so? I think that, because I think they're full of shit. I, there's a, I have a couple other, I have a couple of theories.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I have a couple of theories. And we'll get to those next episode. Yep. I'm guessing. Maybe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So part of their storyline, which don't worry, we're getting to, is they're, you know, they're connected to this ancient biblical story. It's fake, right? We'll get to it. I can't wait. But what she did was that she believed that she espoused the spirit of an ancient seductress of Jewish leaders. And that what she did would go in and she would like, like whoever it was.
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Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
My owl wants to do everything bad. And I know that I have to keep the peace between the world and my precious owl. That's right. You want to find me and my owl will be at Hooters.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Also, the one thing that we're not really tracking here, but it did happen, was that Chad was brought in to Tom Harrison's office. These guys spoke to... Julie Rose spoke with Tom Harrison. These guys, during this time period, were getting the green light to go ahead with their fringe beliefs from within the Mormon church.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And this is where I start to think that the reason why... There was a whole side plot of this that you can't really... We don't really know. But apparently, when he arrived in Rexburg, part of what Chad wanted to be was the bishop of Rexburg. He wanted to go and be in charge of that Mormon temple. And there was a portion... There was actually some talk...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
that he could have gotten an official position. And when he didn't get it, that's a part of why they started going this alternative route. Because what Chad was trying to do was become an actual high-powered member of the Mormon church and flip it from the inside. Because he was a sleeper cell for Tom Harrison.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
There's like a whole thing here that this is all just the side benefits of him having been getting, he got the fucking tap from the Lord Michaels of Mormonism. So the Mormons did something right. By not making him bishop. No, well, that one chapter did. But Tom Harrison was fueling all of this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Was she Jewish herself or was she a shiksa? She's a shiksa. Oh, you're tall. Have you seen her? have you seen her outfit but no she is a the way to put it is that she believed in sort of like a Mata Hari style like so what she would do is this dance of veils for him to mimic like David's concubine and shit like that so she'd go like oh yeah yo yo
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yes, because now we go straight to hell. And thankfully they got caught. So we know everything that they did. But yeah, I hate them. Yeah. And Daybell is... I mean, well, I guess we'll save it for the next one. Yeah. No, he's in jail. They're all in jail. Lori Vallow's just up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I just want you to remember, so tonight, Dateline is coming out with this interview with Keith Morrison and Lori Vallow. And if you ever, which she's not going to do, she's not going to look well in. But if you even for a second think... For a second, that Lori Vallow could be innocent.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
I ask you to go and listen to the prison phone calls between Lori Vallow and her sister and Lori Vallow and Colby Ryan. And you will hear who the real Lori Vallow is. And you must know that this woman is a stone cold psychopath.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
This is a part of my, I am the new juice. You can go.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
We're at the Ryman in one week today, March 14th. And then Henry and I are going to go down to Huntsville. And we're going to the VB Center, the Von Braun Center. Did you know it's named after Von Braun? Werner Von Braun is in Huntsville. Oh, my God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
March 16th, Sunday, we're going to be there. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're doing side stories live. Before we end today, I wanted to present a special gift to Marcus so that he can know what's happening and what we're going to do to take over Contact in the Desert this year and take back the narrative.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
That's so nice of you, Henry. What do you got there? You got a... Oh, okay. First of all, I will don the cap of the sacred warrior of truth, Michael Sedona.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Leprechaun hat, yes. With one of our... I think his hat is actually nicer than yours. I hate to be that guy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I know you've been doing podcasts for many years, but when you don't talk into the microphone, no one knows.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And I'd like to present to you, Marcus, the most accurate effigy of the World Trade Center. I've seen. We have here all the grounds. Yeah, I see it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And you shall receive. We did. We asked for this, and they sent it in, and this is the effigy we will be burning live.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
We are going to blow this up on our live show of Contact in the Desert to show you how invisible space juice caused 9-11. And it's a long story. It's a long story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Yes. And thank you, Hank. Hank, thank you, Hank. Oh, my God. For this extremely wonderful. I'm almost crying. Being a native New Yorker, it almost makes me want to cry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
And she'd do, like, kind of like a belly dance, where she'd just kind of shift her butt back and forth. Like, again, these are Mormons. There's only so far they're going to be able to be actively fun sexual. Because they'd never done it before. So if Lori's the first time kind of doing this, she'd go like... And it's just Tad Daybell going, wow... Wow. He's never seen a woman move her hips.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
But thank you so much. And hail Satan. And I also want to say hail Saudi Arabia for the reason for the season. Hail Gein.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
This is beautiful. God, if we don't burn it, I'm using it as my centerpiece for Thanksgiving. I think one is slightly taller.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It got a little squished in there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
It might be intact somewhere. Maybe a wire between the two and a little German man. I have to go home. Bye. Bye. Hello, Florida. Your favorite son and biggest baby are coming home to bring you the laughs you deserve.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Whenever an alligator on meth eats an old person. It can happen anywhere. As a famous Floridian baby, I feel your pain. So that's why I'm coming home to let you know it's okay to be who you are. It's okay that the rest of America is scared of us. It's okay that books are illegal in our schools. It's okay whenever it gets cold, it rains iguanas. I'm here to support you. So come on out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
March, I'll be in North Florida. And in May, I'll be in South Florida and Orlando. It's the Invasive Species Tour. Ed Larson, me, is coming to Florida in March and May. I'm coming to Jacksonville, Panama City, Tallahassee, Marco Island, Dania Beach, Orlando, and Key West.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
So lock up your public subs and start singing the Miami Dolphins fight song because we're going to party like it's Florida, baby. Tickets at eddytoons.com.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Anything other than to have a child. Well, they go to Hawaii. They must have seen a hula dance. He's not allowed to look. I don't think they go to hula.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, yes. It blew his mind. He was like, they have a system where they put coconuts over their precious memories. That has to definitely encourage the monkeys. Imagine going to Hawaii and then being like, no, Idaho's the promised land.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Oh, God. Thank God I masturbated this morning because I got that demon out of me that was kind of still stuck. Yeah. I had one stuck. Yeah. I think that was what was my problems that my back's been hurting. And then I realized that what that was, it was because I had a demon stuck in my lumbar and I had to clear it out. So that was like, that was most of my morning.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 611: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part III - Zombie Apocalypse
Salma, you ghosted me at lunch again. Another bowl of soup wasted waiting for you, Salma. Just endlessly texting Salma. Believe me, I've been texting her too. Wait, what? To help you, I'm your wingman, dude. What I'm doing is I'm threatening Salma in a super realistic, frightening way to drive her to you, bro. I can't wait till we have our time together, Ms. Hayek. Oh, you will.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 607: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part III - Bored to Death
And after I turn in all of my Marlboro miles, I'm bringing back a windbreaker.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 607: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part III - Bored to Death
These treasures.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 607: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part III - Bored to Death
I took it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, the clothes were wrapped in brown paper and a cord as if the intention was to mail them, much like Elizabeth's documents were mailed to the Los Angeles examiner. Inside the package was a woman's skirt, a blouse and a pair of men's shorts with blood spatter on them. Okay.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Motel owner Henry Hoffman said that he told his wife to burn the clothes along with the blood-soaked towels and linens in the incinerator out back. And just after, they scrubbed down what may have been the Black Dahlia murder kill room before the story even broke.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
That is my biggest issue with this whole thing. Oh my God, it's January in Los Angeles. I see shorts every single fucking day here. I think Rob's wearing shorts. No, he's not. It's for the delusional.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Our friend Adam Wertz, he wears shorts every single day no matter what.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But I know he's cold.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
You're lying to us. Now, it's important to note that the Hoffmans only owned the Astor Motel for six months, and these interviews were done two years after the murder, two years in which none of these people said anything to anyone about what they'd seen on January 15th.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I'm really excited about it. Not get interrupted. Just be able to go through the narrative.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It was meant to be written.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, this gap in the interviews, between the interviews and the actual murder itself, that's why I think the interview of the maid is so interesting. When the gangster squad tracked her down, she was a person who had no further connections to the Hoffmans.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And the equally inquisitive Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But she also remembered the bloody room and the bundle of clothes quite well. The clothes, she said, were a white blouse with ruffles and a black skirt, which was the same outfit Elizabeth Short had been wearing the last time she'd been seen alive at the Biltmore Hotel.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Eventually, that same maid admitted that she'd seen a person that she thought was Elizabeth Short at the motel during the so-called missing week before Short's body was dumped, and she wasn't the only one. A man who lived across the street also said that he saw a woman who looked like Elizabeth Short at Astor that same week.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
According to him and other witnesses, this girl seemed trapped, possibly drugged, and desperate to escape. But the problem, admittedly, is that all these people described a black-haired girl. And as we know, Short's hair was dyed a reddish-light brown when her body was found.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I can escort a lot of people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, I mean, it might be that these people misremembered Short's hair color because, like you said, all the pictures they saw of her over and over again showed a young woman with black hair. Or it could be that they were remembering somebody else entirely. But either way, these people were sure that the person they saw at the Astor that week was Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
What we do know for sure, though, is that the bloody room did exist. Yes. Clora Hoffman's brother-in-law. who also lived at the motel at the same time, confirmed that the blankets in cabin number three were soaked in so much blood that it looked like someone had taken gallons of red paint and poured it over the bed.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
This brother-in-law had also worked at a mortuary in the past and said that the amount of blood he saw in that room was just about equivalent to the total amount of fluid in a human body.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Lest we forget, Elizabeth Short's corpse was found completely drained of blood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It's a lot of blood. There's a lot of... Well, wait. Well, I mean, whether you think it was... Are you just going to sit and snipe this whole time with these, like, shitty comments? No.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Oh, the police.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Lastly, Henry and Clora Hoffman's daughter was interviewed by author Pew Eatwell years later, and she distinctly remembered the Bloody Room incident as well.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
So unless another woman was brutally murdered and drained of her blood the same night as Elizabeth Short just 15 minutes from Short's dump site, which is entirely possible because L.A. was a fucked up place at this time.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
We'll call it a freeway. And that's the thing. We actually looked at, I mean, this was 1947. We're sure a tune didn't do this.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I think at the end of the day, it's likely that this was the room where Elizabeth Short was killed. Now, motel owner Henry Hoffman... God damn it, stop doing that shit. I did nothing. I said nothing. Fly from your grave. Now, motel owner Henry Hoffman said he also encountered the Black Dahlia, but it took months for him to come clean, although he had a good reason for keeping it quiet.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
He finally admitted to a gangster squad member after months of establishing a rapport that the woman he believed was Elizabeth Short was at the Astor Motel for two days, although she could have been there longer in another room without his knowledge. Hoffman said that Short was in cabin number nine. Number nine.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
That was the cabin where the clothes matching the description of Elizabeth's last outfit had been found bundled. And on January 9th and 10th, Hoffman had seen her numerous times. One time, he said, he came into the room and she was naked under a bed sheet, appearing as if she had been drugged with something like, say, I don't know, phenobarbital pills.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, Hoffman had run his fingers through Short's hair and tried taking advantage of her, but even in her drugged state, she refused and he left without further incident. No one will ever love me.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, this Hoffman knew was creep behavior. He believed that the cops would think that he was the killer if he told them about this incident, which is why it took him months to admit it. Hoffman's most valuable contribution to the case, however, concerned who else was at the Astor Motel during Elizabeth Short's so-called missing week.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Hoffman said that a, quote, fellow from Batavia stayed at the motel for four or five days at the same time that Elizabeth Short had stayed there. Now, there are a number of cities called Batavia, many of which are here in America—
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
which has been called Jakarta since the Indonesians won their independence from the Dutch after World War II. So the man we're talking about here would most likely be Dutch or something similar. And while we don't have a Dutchman in our story, we certainly have a Dane.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
After Henry Hoffman gave a physical description of the man from Batavia, it matched who else but Danish nightclub owner Mark Hansen.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Everybody in the circle is shady. Henry Hoffman was not shown a picture of Mark Hanson and said, is this the guy? Henry Hoffman gave a description of the man from Batavia, and it matched Mark Hanson.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
My lips! To recap Mark Hansen, his legitimate business was running and owning a chain of movie theaters, but he also ran a club called the Florentine Gardens, which was a known mob operation that had connections to corrupt LAPD officers. For example, LAPD homicide detective Finnis Brown was said by numerous people to have worked as a bag man for Mark Hansen's operation.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And it was said that Finnis Brown was in deep debt to Mark Hansen at the time of the Black Dahlia murder. Finnis Brown, if you'll remember, was also the homicide detective himself. in charge of investigating the Black Dahlia murder. And it's speculated that Finnis Brown drove the investigation away from Mark Hansen anytime the clues led in that direction as a way to repay his debt.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
As far as why the investigation pointed towards Hansen in the first place, an address book with his name printed on the cover showed up at the offices of the Los Angeles Examiner along with a trove of Short's personal documents. things that could have only come from someone who was with Elizabeth in the last hours or days of her life.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Elizabeth Short also lived at Mark Hansen's house for a period of time just before her murder, and the two of them had a strained relationship, rife with jealousy, that ended in a nasty fight. Soon after, Elizabeth fled to San Diego by bus and was found sleeping in the Aztec theater by the kindly Dorothy French.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
For the short time that Elizabeth stayed with Dorothy French, a number of people came by to try and speak with Elizabeth, although we have no idea who these people were or why they wanted to speak with her. All we know is that the visits caused Elizabeth a lot of anxiety. Then, on January 9th, 1947, Elizabeth Short returned to Los Angeles and was dropped off at the Biltmore Hotel.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Over a period of hours, she made a number of calls, the last of which was to who else but Mark Hansen. Elizabeth then left, and no one knew where she went until motel owner Henry Hoffman came forward. But that's only if you believe Henry Hoffman, his wife, her sister, their brother-in-law, the maid, and several other people. Okay.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Now, Henry Hoffman wasn't the only person to put Mark Hansen at the Astor Motel that week. The man who commented that there was enough blood in cabin number three to fill a human body also identified Hansen as being at the motel during that week.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
First of all, let's take a look at that blood. Well, his wife also put Mark Hansen at the hotel that week. The man they identified as Mark Hansen, by the way, stayed at the Astor Motel in room number eight, the room right next to the one where the clothes were found bundled and where Henry Hoffman said that he saw Elizabeth Short naked and drugged. But Mark Hansen did not kill Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
The most likely suspect for that was Leslie Dillon, and he had connections to the Astor Motel as well. The registration records showed that Dillon stayed there definitively in April of 1947, four months after the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
This, to me, makes a lot of sense, that Dylan would return to the Astra to relive the memory, because it's proven that process killers, the ones who were there for the brutality of the murder itself, they sometimes return to the scene of the crime for this express purpose.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, here we are at Black Dahlia Part 3. Now, to recap our story thus far, let's start with the main suspect in the case, Leslie Dillon, and the reasons why he makes a compelling, if admittedly flawed, candidate in the murder of Elizabeth Short. Interesting hesitation for Marcus Parks.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
He's going to be like, I know I got one place that'll fit my budget. Unfortunately, mysteriously, and suspiciously, though, Henry Hoffman's wife had burned all the registration records that may have shown exactly who stayed at the Astor Motel in January of 1947. No one knows why she burned them, but she burned them. Obviously, she was trying to hide something.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Probably had nothing to do with this. No, but it was a shady fucking place.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And if that's true, then that means that the corruption of the Los Angeles Police Department once again cut off a possible end to this line of questioning. Very much so.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
um but that's the thing is if there was you know those records and they could have seen it was like okay well no none of these people were here during this time none of these people use these aliases but no we don't have that and now at last we come to what may have happened to elizabeth short and how all of these people come together now i will admit that i did get a little ahead of myself when it came to fingering leslie dylan as definitely the guy without question stop pointing to me like you're a fucking child that's
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, in the jumble of names, dates, and places that I was swimming in during our preliminary research, I thought that I had read that Leslie Dillon had definitely worked for Mark Hansen as a pimp in Los Angeles. To me, this tied it all together in a neat little package. That claim, however, was just speculation on the part of Dr. Joseph Paul DeRiver.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
See, Leslie Dillon had been arrested for pimping in San Francisco. And while he did work as a bellhop and a pimp in the same territory as Mark Hansen's operation, there is no definitive link between the two men. The closest we come to a connection was through Jeff Connors. Jeff!
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Jeff, the 40-year-old busboy, pulp fiction writer, and failed actor-turned-cosmetic salesman who had the misfortune of being the stand-in for Leslie Dillon when Leslie talked about the Black Dahlia murder to the Gangster Squad.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yes, that is true, and I shall address that statement later on in this episode. Bringing him down with me to the bottom of the well. He didn't do anything. I came upon the conclusion by myself.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
They know where your stuff is.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I read an article about how bellhops were really big into blackmail back in the day. It was blackmail and pimping. And theft, of course.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
No. Now, Jeff Connors wasn't the Black Dahlia killer, but he was friends with Leslie Dillon. The connection here is that after Jeff divorced from his wife, she went to live with Mark Hansen. And Leslie Dillon had gone to Jeff's ex-wife's door after he was released by the LAPD to tell her that she better keep her mouth shut about what she knew.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Now, what Jeff Connor's ex-wife knew, we have no idea. But I do still believe that there is a compelling story to be told when it comes to these two men and Elizabeth Short. See, Mark Hansen had become obsessive and possessive over Elizabeth Short in the time she'd lived in his home, and they had parted on acrimonious terms.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
The people who came to visit Elizabeth in San Diego may have been other girls who lived at Mark Hansen's house who were trying to convince her to come back on Mark's behalf. But it's possible that Elizabeth was scared of Hansen, either because of something he said or did or because of his connections to the criminal underworld.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I know that's why she got kicked out of the house. Yes. But there was also much acrimony between Hanson and Elizabeth Short as well. Yes. Because of the jealousy and all the boy, like all the dangers going on.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Leslie Dillon. Leslie Dillon, 25 years old when the murder took place, was a small-time crook who was suspected to have worked with the same underworld figures in Los Angeles that Elizabeth Short was associating with in the months before her murder.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I think desperation is exactly what led to it. Because Elizabeth Short was also in the habit of pestering Hansen for money. Yes. And it was clear that Short was dead broke when she arrived back in Los Angeles on January 9th. No matter how afraid she might have been, it's possible that Mark Hansen was a last resort, as she'd already called everyone she could think of for help before calling him.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Spent three hours on the phone trying to find somebody who would wire her money, help her out. Nothing doing. If that's true.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
there's a whole story about that also like there's so many we can't say if that's true to every single thing that happens if we do that though then there's no story we're just docking we just have a fucking bowl of fucking crime pudding that's what we're trying to shove into people's mouths that's I'm trying to serve a fucking meal here and you're trying to serve oatmeal.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, we know that Elizabeth Short left the Biltmore just after talking to Hansen on the phone. And possibly by Hansen's direction, she may have ended up at the Astor Motel because Hoffman said that Short showed up on January 9th. See, Mark Hansen did tell the DA's office that he had two rooms in Los Angeles that he used for prostitution, although he did not say exactly where.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Two years after Elizabeth was killed, Leslie Dillon wrote to Dr. Joseph Paul DeRiver of the LAPD under the pseudonym Jack Sand, responding to an article Dr. DeRiver had planted about the Black Dahlia murder in True Detective magazine.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
While the aster wasn't used specifically for sex work, it was where sex workers lived. So it's possible that Mark Hansen knew about this place through the grapevine. As far as why he didn't just bring her home, as you said, Elizabeth had gotten into a fight with one of the other girls at Hansen's house just before she left. So he probably wasn't too keen on bringing her back.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But Hansen had an obsession with Elizabeth. So the aster was as good a place as any to keep her until he could figure out what to do with her. Now, once Elizabeth arrived at the Astor, she was given room number nine.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But after a couple of days there, she could have moved to Mark Hansen's room next door when he showed up as the man from Batavia, which is what Hoffman might have been talking about when he said she could have stayed there without his knowledge.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah. It's possible that some sort of argument between Elizabeth and Mark could have erupted in the few days that Hanson was in and out of the Astor. And it's possible that Hanson was simply tired of dealing with this situation altogether. Could also be that Elizabeth Short knew something she shouldn't have and threatened Hanson with exposure during the argument.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Reportedly, in regards to Elizabeth Short, Hanson told an associate, "'Someone get rid of that girl.'" And this could be where Leslie Dillon comes into the picture. According to motel owner Henry Hoffman and three other witnesses, Leslie Dillon was also at the Astor Motel during Elizabeth Short's so-called lost week.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
So if Leslie Dillon was given the task of getting rid of Elizabeth Short, it's possible that after moving her to room number three, he decided to have his way with her before getting rid of her. Remember, Leslie Dillon was an admitted rapist, and it's possible that he may have tried drugging and raping Elizabeth Short before killing her. And that's when the micropenis came out. Always.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Just from the guy's attitude. We know he had a micropenis. He definitely had a micropenis. Absolutely. Wow. Yeah. Going off the facts.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Dylan later said that the only reason why he contacted Dr. Deriver was because he had an interest in true crime and wanted to get into the business and had expressed in his letter a desire to collaborate with Dr. Deriver in writing a book about psychopathic cases like the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, going off the fact that Dylan was obsessed with vengeance murders, it could be that Elizabeth Short laughed at the sight of Dylan's eight-year-old boy penis. I mean, that's kind of the sort of girl that Elizabeth Short was. I could see her, from what I know about her, laughing at the sight of it.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Never knew it.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And he knocked her cold as a result. He then bound her wrists and suspended her from the ceiling somehow using the oversized leather dog leash that was found in his luggage after his arrest. At least that, by the way, was found to have a blood spot when it was examined by somebody outside of the LAPD. Because if you, I know what you're going to get to.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Everything we're going to hear about the Astor Motel is all stuff that the LAPD is saying.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Now, once Elizabeth was tied up, it's possible that Leslie Dillon decided to take out all the rage he felt about his small penis on Elizabeth Short, beating her mercilessly, forcing her to eat feces, and carving that ghoulish smile on her face. If you'll remember, Dillon told the driver that he liked girls with, quote, big mouths.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
After Elizabeth finally succumbed to her injuries, Dylan may have cut the body in two. And I'm kind of coming around to this idea so he could more easily transport it. That makes sense. Yes. Then he drained it in the bathtub, which all of this would account for the ungodly amount of blood found all over that room. But I thought it was.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It was on the bed. It was in the bathroom. It was everywhere. As for the feces, there's a large amount of debate as to whether or not that's what was actually in Elizabeth's short stomach.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Severed is the one. Well, Severed is where this comes from.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I'm so glad Ed said that. Well, some say it's entirely a myth, the whole feces thing. But the coroner did intimate in private conversations that he thought that she was fed human feces. And room number three was covered with the stuff, along with all the blood.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But even if we wanted to definitively test for feces or say phenobarbital, which was the drug Dylan would have likely used to drug Elizabeth Short, they wouldn't be able to because the contents of Short's stomach were lost along with so much else.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But really, the big question mark with the Leslie Dylan theory concerns why he would dump the body in that particular vacant lot on that particular street in Leimert Park.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, the reason I could come up with is that after driving around the vicinity of the motel to find a dump site, Dylan came across a neighborhood that was empty enough where he could dispose of the body in two trips without being seen, but still had enough people where his display would quickly be found.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
See, I think Dylan, if he is the killer, he was proud of what he'd done, evidenced by the D for Dylan carved into Elizabeth's skin. That's my name. He was proud enough to write to Dr. Deriver under the name Jack Sand and proud enough to talk details just so long as he could say Jeff Connors did it. Dylan was not, however, proud enough to go to jail for the rest of his life for this crime.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
If you ask why he played the game of talking about it but had an about face after he was arrested, you might as well ask why Dennis Rader came out of hiding to restart communication with the media as the BTK killer after he'd all but gotten away with killing 10 people.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Dennis Rader wanted to cultivate the notoriety and fear surrounding the legend of the BTK killer by sending missives to the press and police. But I'd imagine if you asked Dennis, he would have far preferred to have spent the rest of his life catching dogs in Wichita as opposed to dying in prison.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I think it proves the opposite. How? Tell me how. You can't just do that thing where you say, I think it's the opposite, and then you don't say anything. I can, though.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I think it is the same thing where these guys do want to up the notoriety of the killing. They do want to kind of they want to play with the police. They like this idea of like, I'm smarter than the police. I can pull one over on them and I can still get some notoriety for it. But I'm not going to go to jail for it.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah. We talked about it in the first episode. Yes.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah, that's a D. That is absolutely a question, yeah. But the thing is that Dennis Rader slipped and fell flat on his face during his dance with Destiny, and he only copped to everything because the evidence against him, from the communications to the trophies he kept from all his victims, was overwhelming. Leslie Dillon, on the other hand, was able to skate the charges completely.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And setting aside the question of his innocence or guilt, what we can say is that for some reason, the LAPD had a vested interest in making sure Leslie Dillon never even went to trial. And that, I think, is the biggest point here. Not necessarily that, you know, this man is, you know, they had somebody in custody that was, you know, that was definitively the killer and it was definitely solved.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
At the very least, the LAPD wanted to make sure that this man never saw the light of day and that the spotlight never came on Leslie Dillon in any meaningful way.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah. Yeah, they had him on rape. Well, they didn't have him on rape. He just had a bunch of phenobarbital pills. Oh, and how did we know he was a rapist? He admitted it? He said, I drug and rape women, but that was not something that they could prove.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
See, on the same day that a gangster squad member was supposed to take an official statement from Astor Motel owner Henry Hoffman so they could start building their case in that direction, the officer was transferred out of the gangster squad without explanation.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
What's more, when another officer tried picking up at the Astor Motel where the gangster squad left off, his request for the files was denied without any explanation either. Things only got worse when a corruption scandal in the LAPD turned into a full-scale investigation that went all the way to the mayor.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, no, because that's the thing at the time. What I'm talking about here is I don't think they gave a shit about everybody knowing about all the unconstitutional stuff. No, because they did it. They did it all the time.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah. Like, I don't think they cared at all. What they were most concerned about was this type of investigation. Yes. This type of the vice squad in particular. They were the gang unto themselves. Can you imagine playing bingo for millions of dollars? Oh! The whole thing, this entire scandal, culminated in the resignation of the police chief.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And the guy who replaced him reshuffled the whole department to avoid further scandal. That reshuffle, unfortunately, included the gangster squad and its leadership. The man put in charge of the squad after the reshuffle was who else but Finnis Brown's brother, Thaddeus Brown. who, if you'll remember, had come to Mark Hansen's side after Hansen was shot by the dancer Lola Titus.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Every gangster squad member still left on the Black Dahlia murder were given new assignments after Thaddeus Brown took over, and the investigation into the Astor Motel was handed to new officers who dropped the ball completely.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Except in LRH. But in the other two, yeah, there is a little... He was like, this is a boat, and it was a boat.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I'm going to give the case to someone else. But they were right in the middle of a new line of investigation. Like, they had leads. Like, I mean, with all the problems of the Astor Motel, say what you will, it's leads. It's like for the first time in two years, they've got leads.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And then all of a sudden, this guy comes in whose brother is directly connected to not only this brother, he himself, Thaddeus Brown, is directly connected to one of the men that they're investigating. And he's like, get out of here. Get off it. Get off it. Forget about it. You're on something else. I take it back.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, as far as the press went during all this, Aggie Underwood, the reporter from the Los Angeles Herald Express, who'd done so much work on the case, she heavily suspected that the investigation was intentionally killed because of its connections to Mark Hansen and the LAPD.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
She even ran two articles about the Astor Motel in September of 1949, respectively titled Black Dahlia Murder Room Located and Link L.A. Motel Murder with Dahlia Murder. And she did all this to try to keep the investigative line alive.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And Aggie Underwood believed wholeheartedly that this case, the heart of this case, was Leslie Dillon, Mark Hansen, and the LAPD. Jimmy Richardson, however, the last of the terrible men, he decided to stay cozy with the cops.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
and reported that the new clues regarding the Black Dahlia murder, all the stuff about the Astor Motel, had been investigated and disregarded by, you guessed it, Thaddeus Brown. Now, even though most everyone else had given up on the Black Dahlia murder, fucking Dr. DeRiver could not let it go.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Working with a private investigator, DeRiver was able to get a grand jury investigation started to see if they could indict Leslie Dillon for the murder of Elizabeth Short. Dr. DeRiver's private investigator had discovered that the bellhop who claimed that Dylan was in San Francisco on the day of Elizabeth Short's murder had only said so after he had been approached by an officer from the LAPD.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yes, there was many unconstitutional, unethical things going on when it came to Dr. Deriver and Leslie Dillon. Dr. Deriver soon became convinced that Leslie Dillon was himself the Black Dahlia killer. So he and the other investigative body helping out with the case, the Gangster Squad, they lured Dillon out west where they unconstitutionally detained and interrogated him.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
See, apparently bellhop was a bit of a roaming profession in those days because both Leslie Dylan and his bellhop friend ping-ponged between jobs in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
The prohibition. The prohibition was after.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah. Yeah, you've got multiple branches of the mafia, Italian and Jewish.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It's just scams upon scams, and everybody's got something to hide. And when everybody's got something to hide, nobody wants to talk, and everybody's going to try to protect their guy.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, I mean, the bellhop had originally said that he'd seen Dylan in Los Angeles during the time of the Black Dahlia murder. Yeah, we were working bellhops at a hotel together. But after the police officer convinced him maybe he wasn't remembering things correctly, the bellhop changed his story to say, actually, no, no, no. Dylan was definitely in San Francisco when the murder occurred.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Regarding cabin number three at the Astor, the supposed kill room, the LAPD had supposedly tested it for blood and came up with nothing. But DeRiver's PI sent in his own chemist, and their test came back positive for blood. The LAPD, however, dismissed the PI's findings because, quote, certain other substances were also found to be there. Let me just, okay.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
You're right. They didn't run any tests. You're right. They didn't.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It could be raspberry. Poisonberry. Now, as the grand jury prepared, the new crooked head of a gangster squad, Thaddeus Brown, had sent one of his officers to secretly meet with Leslie Dillon, who'd since moved back to Oklahoma.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
During six weeks of, let's say, extra-legal interviews... I like this term, man.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
The purpose of this meeting was to make sure that Dillon knew that he was supposed to say that he was definitely in San Francisco during the Black Dahlia murder, which is not really something that cops usually do with a murder suspect under investigation by a grand jury. It's very fishy.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Admittedly, there was one detail that came out when the investigation began that discredits Leslie Dillon in one respect. Dillon did get it right that part of Short's pubic hair had been cut off and that a piece of flesh where she had a tattoo had been gouged out. But in the Palm Springs recordings with Dr. Deriver, Dillon got what the killer did with those parts wrong.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
He said that the killer would have probably thrown those pieces down the toilet and flushed them, whereas in reality, those pieces were shoved up Elizabeth Short's most private orifices.
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Her anus and vagina.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
To throw him off. I don't know. I mean, a lot of people point to that as like, ah, Leslie Dillon didn't know what he was talking about.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah, he did, but he definitely had a couple of burn marks from the radiator. And they also, they took him on road trips around Southern California to various Black Dahlia sites.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But when it came time for the original gangster squad investigators to testify for the grand jury, they said that they believed that Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen were involved on at least some level. But every time they were on the verge of a breakthrough, they were taken off the case without explanation.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But the gangster squad weren't the only cops who testified, and they weren't the only ones to talk about Mark Hansen. In particular, Finnis Brown muddied the waters as badly as he could and went to bat specifically for Mark Hansen one more time by telling a story that absolutely no one believed.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Finnis Brown testified that his connection to Mark Hansen was only through Lola Titus, the dancer who'd shot Hansen in the back. If you'll remember, Hansen had said, get me Brown from his hospital bed after Lola had shot him.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
We mean, like, paint him brown, get him a bowl of brown. Get me a bowl of brown. Yeah, get me a bowl of brown. Well, the reason behind that request, Finnis Brown was now saying, was because Hansen was a snitch. Finnis went on to say that Lola Titus was actually at the center of an underground pornography ring, and Finnis had actually flipped Hansen to help take this pornography ring down.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
None of this was true, and fucking nobody believed it.
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Yeah, she was in her early 20s. She was a very erratic human being.
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this theory. No, I don't believe it. Well, that's the thing. This isn't a theory. This is a grand jury testimony. Yeah, but then cops are just saying stuff. Yeah, but that's part of the fishiness here is how far Finnis Brown goes to try to make Mark Hansen a hero. To try to take Mark Hansen as far away from this case as humanly possible at every turn.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It's all the fucking side gigs. Oh, no, he did do side gigs. He was a bag man. He worked specifically for Mark Hanson. He was in debt to Mark Hanson. Wait, what do you say?
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Yeah, they drove him to the Black Dahlia murder site and just like, he looks a little ill.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And that might be a bit of my point later on.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But to really drive home his loyalty, Finnis said that Hanson had actually been very helpful to the police during the Black Dolly investigation.
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I love this guy.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But they said the reason why he was helpful is because he gave him photos of Elizabeth Short. Now, of course, the center of this grand jury investigation was supposed to be the Astor Motel. It was hoped that Mark Hansen could be linked to the case through the testimony of motel owner Henry Hoffman, who had been quite sure prior to the grand jury about the identity of the man from Batavia.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But when it came time to testify, Henry Hoffman and his wife changed their tune. See, in the Black Dahlia case, statements had a habit of becoming confusing and contradictory after witnesses spoke with Finnis Brown in particular. And by the time of the grand jury, Henry and Clora Hoffman were now saying that there was no man from Batavia at the motel when Elizabeth Short was supposedly there.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Now, obviously, the Astor Motel was a shady operation run by shady people. And there's no telling what all the Hoffmans were involved with while they were running the motel or what they did after they sold it. So there's no telling what, if anything, the cops had over them.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
The dump site. Thank you, Eddie's learning. Yeah, you're learning because the Astor Motel had not been discovered just yet. But they also took him to places in San Francisco where Dillon had worked as a bellhop during the time of the murder. And by the end of it, the men representing the LAPD discovered some interesting details about Leslie Dillon.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But it is telling that Clora Hoffman's sister and her brother-in-law, the oh my God, there's enough blood in here to fill a human body guy, they both stuck to their original story about the man from Batavia in totality. I say that every time I go in a room.
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Hopefully, right? But in the end, this wasn't anywhere near enough. Now, when the grand jury issued its report, they did declare that the investigation into the Black Dahlia murder was a part of a systematic corruption of the justice system that ultimately led to an increasing number of unsolved homicides in Los Angeles.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, that's the thing. They also noted in their report that the police officers who were supposed to be solving the Black Dahlia murder were evasive, corrupt, and prone to misconduct.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But in the end, the LAPD had introduced enough doubt to make the grand jury declare that there was insufficient evidence to investigate Leslie Dillon or Mark Hansen any further. Afterward, the new LAPD chief fired Dr. Deriver and abolished the position of police psychiatrist. In retaliation for going against the LAPD, cops harassed Dr. Deriver for years. They followed him.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
They broke into his house. They would shoot at him, like, just in his general direction, just bang, bang. Every once in a while, they'd leave dead fish on his doorstep. And this isn't just Dr. Deriver being paranoid. Like, his daughter came out and said, like, yes, for years we were harassed by the LAPD. Man, back in the day, you could shoot at somebody and it was funny. Yeah, yeah.
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Dillon had the same soft, modulated voice used when the Black Dahlia killer called the Los Angeles Examiner. He had experienced draining bodies of blood from working as a mortuary assistant. And he knew methods of mutilation concerning Short's corpse that were not public at the time.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Reporter Aggie Underwood also got harassed by the cops for continually insisting on more investigation into Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen. Enough, and she got harassed enough where she started carrying a gun everywhere she went just in case. Eventually, she backed down. But author Pew Eatwell discovered something interesting in the California State University Journalism Archives.
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This is about the most Black Dahlia fucking thing that could possibly happen. It was an interview with Aggie Underwood from 1974. But just as it appears as if she's about to talk about the Black Dahlia case, the film mysteriously cuts. So we have no idea what she may have said.
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Well, as far as what Leslie Dillon did with the rest of his life, he remarried quite a few times. And eventually, this is weird, even if he didn't do it, he had a daughter named Elizabeth.
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That is fucked up. It's real fucked up. Someone should just beat the shit out of him for that. Yeah, well, he's dead. He died in San Francisco in 1988. Of course he's dead. Still accusingly using that. Even if you're 25 in 1947, there's not a good chance that you're still around in 2025. Now, there are certainly holes in the Leslie Dillon case.
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There was no firm connection established between him and Mark Hansen. No, it was never incontrovertibly proven that he was in L.A. during the time of the murders.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But I think that one bellhop, I think the cop did have something on him. Yeah, definitely. It's like, either say that he was in San Francisco at the time of the murder, or you're going to jail.
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Yeah. But it fits me so well, doesn't it, Austin? Yeah. And, you know, and Leslie Dillon also got some of the mutilation details wrong in one of his interviews. And even the Astor Motel itself has its problems. I mean, witnesses got the color of Elizabeth's hair wrong. The shuffling of the rooms from nine to eight to three doesn't make a lot of sense. The interviews were all done two years later.
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When they were forced to arrest Dylan after the press discovered they were holding him, authorities searched the suitcase he had brought with him on the trip and discovered even more evidence that pointed towards his possible involvement.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And it's possible that the gangster squad, just like all the rest of the fucking cops, just simply leaned on these people until they told a story that the squad wanted to hear.
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I'd actually put Jack Lemmon as the grumpier old man.
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Everyone loves Meredith Burgess, though.
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You want to get him out of there. The problem with that is that it actually took the cops quite a long time to get the information out of these people.
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Yeah, I mean, you could technically say that about any witness in any crime ever. No, because I find that they're brave witnesses.
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wanted to tell this version of the story instead maybe but there's also the question as to why the lapd or mark hansen's underworld connections didn't just disappear leslie dylan but i think dylan might have had a dead man's switch set up that could have exposed everyone should something suspicious happen to him it's a stretch but it's certainly a possibility also he went to oklahoma get out of this town i don't want to ever see you again yeah he did he did yeah
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Having said all that, though, I do think that out of all the suspects I've looked into so far, the story of Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen makes the most sense. That Dillon was supposed to simply kill and dispose of Elizabeth Short, but got carried away. In my view, there are just too many coincidences to let this story go unexamined.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But I do wholeheartedly believe that the LAPD had an interest in keeping this case unsolved, either because they were connected or somebody paying them was connected. Right. Really, what this story shows is just how much damage police corruption and cover-ups can do to an investigation.
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Even if Mark Hansen had nothing to do with it, the meddling that took place to protect him at all costs stymied the investigation again and again. Instead of searching for the killer, Finnis Brown was often more concerned with derailing any line of investigation that led to Mark Hansen, organized crime, or the LAPD.
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and in the end was left with only a vague theory that the killer might have been an illegal abortion doctor. Mark Hansen may have even just been a rung on the ladder, someone tangentially related to the murders who had to take a small amount of heat on behalf of someone more powerful. But if that's the case, we'll never know, because the police made sure we'll never know.
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That, however, does not mean that we're at the end of our series just yet.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Everybody's guilty. Next week, we're going to return with two more suspects. The one you've all been waiting for and another lesser known suspect that just so happens to be Henry's top pick as the likely perpetrator of the Black Dahlia murder. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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I mean, at the very least, this man is a fantastic Los Angeles character. Yeah. He's just a fascinating person in and of himself.
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You're agnostic? You don't seem agnostic. You seem very passionate.
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I hate mysteries.
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I like stories where you tell me what happens and then we find out what happens and then the whole thing's over and done with.
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No, it doesn't work like that. But this has still been a fascinating series. And the thing is about the Black Dahlia murder is that, yeah, it's you know, that's one of the drawbacks of the show is that we have a limited amount of time to spend on all of these.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Everything that we do, we have a limited amount of time because we always have to get to the next thing and we're always finishing up with the last thing. But the more you look into the Black Dahlia murder, and the more you look into any single subject concerning the Black Dahlia murder, all you have is more questions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Because there were things that I would, even while I was writing this, I came up with more questions about, like, Mark Hansen as I was writing, and be like, ah, well... Yeah, actually, shit. Well, the people, she did have brown hair when all these people said that she had black hair. And it's just like these holes start showing up and you start asking all these questions.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And this case drives people insane.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
You're going to be angry. I'm probably going to get a thing or two incorrect.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
We're hearing you. Yeah. I'm hearing you. I think the reason why this story drives people insane is because it is just out of reach from modern day. It's just that you can go to the locations, you can see all the pictures, you can feel it, but... Fucking everybody's dead. You're just out of reach. Everybody's dead. Everything's already been muddled up and fucked up.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Oh, isn't it now? Yeah, 2025. It is the year 2025. What did you think you were going to be doing in 2025? Like, say when you were 15.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Fly a pterodactyl to Toronto. That's on May 3rd. February, March, April, May. That's Dallas, Nashville, Detroit, Toronto. And, of course, Atlanta a week from tomorrow on January 11th. Go to LastPodcastOnTheLeft.com to find ticket links for all of those shows. And make sure to follow us on all of the socials at LPOnTheLeft on TikTok and Instagram.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Oh, I'm sure everyone's yelling about how wrong I am about everything. I want it. Yeah, no.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I presented all the information. Works at all.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah, super excited about the shit that we got coming up. Some history, some new shit. We've got some current shit coming up. We've got some old conspiracies we've been waiting to get to for a very long time. By conspiracies, I mean like the dumbest shit in the world. It's my favorite.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, contained within Leslie Dillon's suitcase were 700 phenobarbital pills and a well-worn leather dog leash that appeared as if it had been used to hang something that was comparable in weight to a human body. It was three Rottweilers.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Oh, hell yeah.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, investigating Dylan further, they also found that his aunt lived two blocks from the diner where Elizabeth Short's purse and shoes were found and that Dylan drove a black sedan like the one seen twice at the dump site in the wee hours of the morn just before Short's body was discovered.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
You would be wrong, my friend. There was also the fact that the letter D had been carved into Elizabeth's flesh, and Dylan was the type of person to obsessively leave his initials wherever he went.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Nope. His interactions with Dr. Deriver, reaching out after the article and such, they suggested that he also had narcissistic and exhibitionist tendencies, which spoke to the highly theatrical way in which the Black Dahlia's body was displayed.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
After Dylan was arrested, however, he denied knowing or even meeting Elizabeth Short, and the LAPD backed away from him completely soon after, saying that they had discovered after further investigation that he was actually in San Francisco at the time of the murder. He was subsequently released without being charged. And then he'd go on to sue the LAPD for $100,000. As he should.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Until the LAPD said, hey, we kind of have evidence of you robbing a safe in Santa Monica. So unless you want to go to jail for that, drop the case. And he dropped the case.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Bygones. So he got away with that. Yeah, he got away with it. Another bellhop crime. Now, all of this is admittedly thin, and if this was all we had, then I would agree with you if you said that Leslie Dillon was a man tangentially connected to the case who took Dr. Deriver and the gangster squad for a ride. But after Dillon was arrested and released, the gangster squad discovered the Astor Motel.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Now, around the time that Leslie Dillon was arrested, his mother gave an interview to the Los Angeles Examiner in which she gave as much information as she could about her son in an effort to exonerate him. Look at how good of a boy my boy Leslie is.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, as we all know, the more you talk, the more trouble you're likely to get. And Dylan's mother mentioned that when he lived in L.A., he sometimes stayed at a place called the Astor Motel, which was just a 15-minute drive from the vacant lot in Leimert Park where Elizabeth Short's body was found. Now, the Astor Motel was a ground-level strip of tin concrete cabins. It was gross.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Very thick walls. It's still there, by the way. Oh, really? It's now called the New Astor Motel. Well, the Astor back then had a reputation not necessarily for where sex workers did their business, but for a place where sex workers lived.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, the Astor was owned by a syphilitic ex-con named Henry Hoffman who'd done time for mail fraud involving an oil scam in Texas. When you say syphilitic, that means he had syphilis? Yeah.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah, syphilitic. It's like, you know how syphilis took like 20 years to take Al Capone down? Yeah. It's kind of like this. At this point, Henry Hoffman was about 60 years old and, you know, the syphilis hadn't took his brain, but, you know, there was some floating around there.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Well, he'd been in trouble with the law on a domestic violence charge just weeks before the Black Dahlia murder. This colorful past, Hoffman and his wife said, was why they didn't report what they found in cabin number three of the Astor on the very morning that Elizabeth Short's body was found 15 minutes away.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Motel owner Henry Hoffman said that when he opened the door to cabin number three that morning, he found a room covered in feces and blood. Not feces. Feces.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
It soaked the bed sheets and blankets. It was smeared on the bathroom walls. It was fucking everywhere. And after cleaning the room from top to bottom, again, again, again, Again, not reporting it because Henry Hoffman had just been arrested. The Astor Motel sent out what laundry they could salvage and they burned the rest. Yeah.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with true detective Henry Zebrowski.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
And it is documented that just after January 15th, the Astor Motel did indeed have a large laundry bill. The only large bill in its history.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Extra money.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
But cabin number three was not the only room at the Astor that was in suspicious condition on January 15th. The motel owner's wife, Cora Hoffman, found a pile of clothes neatly tied in a bundle on the bed in cabin number nine. I mostly consider myself a roommate to my husband, Syphilis.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Soon after, a small war breaks out between the isolated group and the middle manager's group, and it's only settled when the bosses finally return in a gilded helicopter. This is more or less the story of the Batavia and the corporation that made it all possible, the VOC.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, it's a heist movie mixed with a horror movie, mixed with a survival movie, mixed with a drama, mixed with a war movie. It's fucking got everything. It's incredible.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
That's, of course, the Dutch oven at Larson.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But before we get to the story of the Batavia, let's acknowledge our main source today. Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash, which is an absolutely incredible book, but definitely on the nerdier side due to the massive amount of historical context, which is, in my opinion, wholly necessary and utterly fascinating.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, and also why everyone feels like they have permission to act like they act and to do the things they do. I'd also like to thank listener Peter V for bringing this story to our attention by sending us Dash's book in the mail last August. So, thank you very much, Peter.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now to really understand how the tragedy of the Batavia came to be, how over a hundred people were slaughtered by their co-workers and shipmates, we've got to understand... What?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Oh my god, it's fucking awful. It's the worst.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. We got to understand the history of the company that fostered the environment that made all this possible. That corporation is, of course, the Dutch East India Company, or the VOC. This corporation, one of the first to ever exist, were the owners and operators of the Batavia. And I make it very clear up top, because I'm really going to do my best to make the story easy to understand.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I'm fucking, I'm doing, I'm really fucking trying hard here.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the Dutch name of the Dutch East India Company is, I'm going to butcher this, but Weringida Ossendiese Compagnie. Or the VOC. Top of Dutch East India Company. Weringida Ossendiese Compagnie. We are not going to get the Dutch accents correct. No. Nor are we going to really pronounce anything in Dutch correctly. But we have phonetic things written out. Doing the best we can.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, we're trying.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, just know from now on, we're going to be referring to the Dutch East India Company as the VOC. Okay. The VOC is the big corporation here.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, by the 17th century... Oh, wow. We're starting early. Just remember we're starting early, but just lock it. No, the 17th century is when all this happened. I agree. Which is the 1600s. Yes. You're welcome. Thanks for clearing that up. Now, by the 17th century, Amsterdam was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and that wealth was almost entirely owed to shipping.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Dutch had figured out how to ship goods faster, cheaper, and at a larger volume than any other European power. But the Dutch came out on top because of that most precious of commodities.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I have my theories, which we'll get to, but my God, this story is massive. I mean, it's almost the story of the birth of the modern world with a lot of murder involved.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
There is actually a story behind why British food was so bland for so long is because spices became so pervasive in society that the upper classes started seeing spice as a lower class thing. So they made their food purposefully bland as to make it quote unquote pure. And that just sort of pervaded all of English society up until fairly recently.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You just become such a pussy.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I don't know why. Now, today, we take the spices we buy at comparatively impossible prices for granted. But the road that leads from the grocery store all the way back to the 17th century is a long and bloody one. And it heavily involves the VOC Corporation and ships like the Batavia.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I'm sorry, Holden. Now, it seems somewhat ridiculous that something as simple as Spice could lead to the creation of one of the most powerful corporations the world has ever seen.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So to show you how the VOC and the Dutch came out on top, let's take one spice and see how its introduction into European society changed everything. Baby spice. No, that spice is nutmeg. Oh, nutmeg. Oh, so stupid. Now, nutmeg trees were handy little two-in-ones that also produced the spice mace.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And they grow naturally in exactly one place on Earth, the Banda Islands of Indonesia in Southeast Asia. Now, after nutmeg was introduced on a wide scale to Europe in the late Middle Ages by Muslim traders who'd been dealing with the people of the Banda Islands for hundreds of years, it began to be used in all manner of practical ways. And that's also how we got the Black Plague. Mm-hmm.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
For example, by the late Middle Ages, that's the 13th to 15th centuries, doctors in London had come to believe that nutmeg was a cure-all, prescribing it for arthritis, gallbladders, the bloody flux, and even the plague.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, this today is a naval tale. The story of the Batavia. Let's fuck some dudes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes, here in London town we cure everything with Christmas cheer.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Speaking of the plague, those infamous plague masks with the long noses, they were stuffed with a blend of spices, including nutmeg, to protect against the Black Death because it was believed that the plague was spread through bad air. Outside of medicine, Europeans also came to depend on nutmeg for the preservation of meat because nutmeg naturally slows down rot.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And nutmeg was also used to extend the life of ale. And that was very important because this was a time when fresh water was in short supply in cities because the rivers were full of piss and shit. Ah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes. That's also not to mention that nutmeg is yummy.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I don't mind a pumpkin. I don't care about nutmeg. I mean, it's fine.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But that's as far as I go. Well, before nutmeg, beer with like ale would only last like five days max. And then it would go bad.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So in 1628, a massive merchant ship called the Batavia wrecked on a reef on the western coast of Australia. 340 souls, including a fair amount of women and children, were aboard. 240 people survived the initial wreck, but their only escape from the seas was a mostly barren chain of islands that were individually no larger than a mid-sized city park.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Sure, sure. Well, in addition to the practical uses, nutmeg was also tied to the surefire moneymaker that is human sexuality. Nutmeg was considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And one British lord even wrote a poem about his nightly ritual of eating a spoonful of the stuff in order to have arousing dreams.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, so he doesn't like eating nutmeg, but he loves the boners it gives him.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Sometimes, though, as it usually goes with aphrodisiacs, the sexual component of nutmeg would get people into trouble, as it did with one particularly rakish young Danish man whose experiments with nutmeg landed him in the defendant's box at his very own witch trial. In 1619... Experiments with nutmeg. Sounds like a Ween album. Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
In 1619, this Dutchman, who very well may have just been playing a prank, if we're being honest, he told his friend that if he wanted to capture the object of his desire, he should do exactly this. Okay. First, eat an entire nutmeg seed whole. Got it. Yep. Then, sift through your feces in the days after to retrieve the semi-digested material. Sure.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You bring it to me and I'll tell you. Thank you. Okay, that's all I have to say. You can also suck on it for a little while and then you can get the nutmeg taste. Yeah, rinse it off first. Okay, sure.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Next, grate the nutmeg seed that has passed through your entire digestive tract into a glass of beer or wine. Then give said drink to the object of your affection. After she gulps it down, she will fall hopelessly in love with you.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, presumably, the woman who was giving this disgusting swell noticed the change in taste.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the whole plot was quickly uncovered and the prankster was thankfully not executed. He came very close.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The guy who tricked him? Yeah, the guy who told his friend to swallow it and all that. Yeah. And the other guy also got in trouble. Yeah, I was going to say, kill the idiot. Yeah, but it's sort of like, you know, when you hire someone for murder, you're the one who gets charged with first degree murder. Yeah. It's sort of like that. Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But, I mean, the man was, both men were punished for robbing the young woman of her virtue. Now, by the 17th century, nutmeg had been completely integrated into European society as nutmeg spiced ale and nutmeg seasoned meat had become the expected standard as opposed to the occasional treat. That meant that Europe needed a shitload of nutmeg delivered to the continent on a constant basis.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the Portuguese, Spanish, and English had already supplanted the original Muslim suppliers by this point. But while the Dutch were late to enter the spice trade, they soon became the number one supplier of nutmeg after the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, the VOC.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
What occurred in the weeks that followed on those barren islands is quite possibly the most horrific, bloody, and downright disturbing survival story in modern history. Murder by the dozen. Because if there was ever a tale where the adage hell is other people applies, it's this one.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, just to make it clear, we're going to be referring to the Indies a lot in this series. By the Indies, we mean the islands of Southeast Asia, which includes the Malaysian, Philippine, and especially Indonesian archipelagos. Y'all got to say archipelagos or archipelagos. It's archipelago. Archipelago. I've never said it before, but archipelago sounds great. Doesn't it, though? Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But, I mean, the point is, though, these are areas of the world that are rich with spice. Yes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, one of the reasons why the Dutch became so much better than anyone else at the spice and shipping game is because they understood navigation on a level that surpassed even the vaunted British Navy. See, as all the European powers spent more time on the high seas, they developed dossiers for specific routes that included maps and sailing instructions.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
These dossiers were called rudders, and the secrets contained therein were so closely guarded that if a captain were to fail to destroy the rudder for their journey upon capture by enemy forces, or if he just lost the fucking thing, he could be executed for treason.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the Dutch eventually developed the best rudders out of anyone. mostly because their cartographers had put together the most comprehensive and accurate maps of the time.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But since the Dutch caught on late as to how valuable the spice sourced from the islands of Southeast Asia could be, their fleets in the beginning were made up of a lot of smaller companies in the Netherlands competing against both each other and the more consolidated companies of Europe, like the British East India Company.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Ah, yes, very good.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
There's a lot of stuff.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, a lot of shit. Well, the Dutch government decided that in order to dominate the spice trade, it would be in the country's best interest to form a single joint stock corporation made up of a bunch of small investors. And in 1602, that was how the VOC was born.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the VOC was just the second company in history to do business like this, to be a joint stock corporation. They were right behind the British East India Company. And all the corporations since have followed in the footsteps of these two businesses. Basically, this is the birth of the modern corporation.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. But while today's corporations wield enormous power over our daily lives using politics and lobbying, the strength of the VOC and its competitors in the 17th century was far more literal. As the VOC and the English East India Company, they both had their own private armies made up of mercenaries from all over Europe.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The VOC had thousands of soldiers on its payroll, which meant that they were capable of waging war and colonization. And at times, these companies would go to war with each other over colonized lands, killing thousands in the process.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Everything begins. It's just somebody just sitting there being like... Why do I have to wait for an orange? Why can't I have one right now?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Take the nutmeg.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, as for the people who invested in the VOC went, and to give you an idea of how much money we're talking about here, the investors were made up of 200 merchants across the United Provinces of the Netherlands. At minimum, an investor required 5,000 guilders to join. which is roughly $26,000 in today's currency. Doable. Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I don't know. I don't see why you're here all these years with this woman, Darcy, that you're ruining his best years of attractiveness.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The largest investors, however, contributed the modern equivalent of $11.5 million. And the return on these investments could be as large as 10 times their original outlay. In other words, the top VOC investors were the Bezoses, the Musks, the Buffetts, and the Zuckerbergs of their day.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, as far as who these people at the top were, the VOC was led by a sinister sounding group of capitalists named the Gentleman 17.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Gentleman's 17 directed the VOC's overall strategies and in the process reaped the majority of the profits gained from Southeast Asian imports, which those imports also, it wasn't just spice. They also imported precious metals. They imported cotton, indigo, and eventually people.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the VOC transported pretty much anything that would fit on a ship and anything that could be sold at a profit in Europe. The profit margins, at least for those at the top, were astounding. And that was due in large part to the absolutely ruthless policies the VOC instituted.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
As for the men in the middle and the bottom, they were told that they could earn a fortune working for the VOC with just one trip across the ocean. Now, that, of course, wasn't always the case, as most sailors and soldiers received a set salary that was well below a living wage.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. But that's the thing. You kind of already had to start above the line in order to get above the line. You had to at least be born of a higher social status. You couldn't work your way up from a sailor to the boss.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Let's go kill a bunch of villagers full of babies to get some, right? I think it's worth it. And then we set up an entire civilization around getting nutmegs. Yeah, we might get enslavement and we'll get all the nuts from it.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. No. I really want people to pay attention to the fact that the world is quickly returning to the way it used to be. It's very much returning to the way it was back in the fucking 17th century when these motherfuckers were in charge.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, I mean, as we were saying, you know, there was room for upward mobility for a merchant who had a successful voyage. And men often rose in rank and opportunity in the VOC by taking a cue from the top and operating from a place of cold cruelty, all in the name of profit.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
See, as it still is with most corporations today, the VOC's primary goal was to maximize value for shareholders. But there was not a single guardrail in place back in the 17th century to keep the VOC's bosses or employees from going too far in pursuit of higher profits. This is what completely deregulated capitalism looks like.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Basically, the VOC's policies resulted in not only inhumane conditions for their employees, but all-out wars against indigenous populations in which men were handsomely rewarded for the torture and slaughter of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I think we can make an arrangement, right?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, this slaughter was especially prevalent in the conquest of the Banda Islands and the subsequent establishment of the Batavia colony on the island of Java. So let's take a moment to explain just how the VOC established a foothold in the Indies and how they came to be the world's number one purveyors of spice.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, in the early 17th century, the Dutch and the English were neck and neck when it came to the international spice game. And one of the most valuable spiceries in the world, the aforementioned Banda Islands of Indonesia, were in dispute between the two. Now, as I said earlier, the Banda Islands are the only place on Earth where nutmeg grows naturally. But that wasn't its only valuable spice.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
It's also the only place on Earth where clove trees grow naturally. Ugh. You don't like cloves? No. You don't like spiced wine? No.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, as far as the Europeans went, the Bandonese have been trading with the Portuguese for about 90 years when the VOC finally showed up. Now, the Portuguese have, of course, not been the kindest of trading partners, but the Dutch were far worse. Worse than anyone, in fact. Somebody's got to be the worst colonizer. It's the Dutch. We will take that. Thank you.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
It's honestly... hell trying to play horse. Have you ever tried to play horse in wooden clogs?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the Dutch's arrival on the Banda Islands was marked with an omen. When they stepped foot on land, a volcano that had been dormant for centuries suddenly erupted. For the Bandonese, this was the fulfillment of a prophecy foretold five years earlier by a Muslim holy man who said that an army of white strangers would soon arrive to the Banda Islands to take them by force.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And as you might expect, the prophecy very quickly came true.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, to begin the campaign to take the Banda Islands, the VOC invaded one of them in particular and slaughtered the entire population. 1,800 people died. All because the natives had been trading with the English after signing a treaty with the VOC for 100% trading rights.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I mean, with this slaughter, I mean, the Bandonese were basically killed for breach of contract. And out of 1,800 murdered, 400 died by drowning when they tried to escape the VOC's vicious private army by swimming to another island.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Once depopulated, the VOC replaced the people of this island with natives from other islands as workers, and they built a fortress with the highly unsubtle name of Fort Revenge.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
no shit revenge for breaking a contract yeah they broke it they broke a breach a contract you were meant to just trade with us you fucking went with our you go to our competitors i'll fucking show you what happens when you go to our competitors it's it's negotiation now after the voc had been operating from fort revenge for almost a decade the bandonese decided to finally throw in their lot with the english because as bad as the english india company was the voc was worse the
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Bandonese, however, had no idea just how far ahead of the game the VOC was by 1620. To begin with, most VOC ships were heavily armed with cannons, which had originally been installed to defend themselves against Portuguese, Spanish, and English ships also on the lookout for spice.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The story of the Batavia is not a well-known survival tale. As to why, I think it's because people usually like survival stories to be inspiring. And the tragedy of the Batavia is quite the opposite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And you send them out like 15 at a time.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, but within just a few years of its founding, the VOC went on the offensive and began to intentionally sink the ships of foreign competitors in full naval battles. The VOC also had far more capital, stronger support from the government, and better ships than anyone else.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
We know Hitch.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I don't want to fucking get on the fucking Joe's Crab Shack ship and have to go fight the Logan's Roadhouse ship. You might have to, man. Well, putting all these factors together, the better ships, the stronger government, the bigger capital, the VOC had nearly wiped out the English East India Company by 1620, which meant that the Bandonese of Indonesia never stood a chance, nor did the English.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the VOC's man on the ground in Indonesia, the man who eventually wiped out the Bandonese, was a right Dutch bastard named Jans Pieter Zoon Koon. If I were to cast the biopic, Jans Koon would be played by Ralph Innocent, the father in The Witch. Very much so. That's great.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Nicknamed Disclale because of his thin figure and bony fingers. Come here. Come, daughter. Coon was a humorless and ultimately genocidal VOC company man through and through.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Coon was a chief merchant, a high management position in the VOC, and his only goal when he arrived on the Banda Islands in 1612 was to subjugate its people and secure the world's largest supplies of nutmeg and cloves for his company.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Some do survive, but it's definitely not alive. It's not one of those where it's a tale of the human spirit persevering over nature and over each other. This is a tale of the human spirit giving in to its worst impulses at every turn.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, to start with, Jan Koen took a thousand men on the VOC payroll and invaded the island of Java to conquer the city of Jakarta, both as a show of force and to further drive the English East India Company out of the Indies. Once captured, Koen burned Jakarta to the ground and built the VOC capital city of Batavia on its ashes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
This settlement, one of the first company towns in history, was named after the Germanic tribe that were thought to be the ancestors of the Dutch people. So we got Batavia the colony and Batavia the ship. Now, Kun spent the next year building up his forces. And before long, he'd amassed an army of 13 ships, 1,600 soldiers, and this is fucking incredible, 80 Japanese ronin.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Fucking samurais without lords or masters. Well, I guess they're right over there. Yeah. They're mercenaries. Yeah, they're total mercenaries. So he's like, yeah, let's get the fucking samurai. They'll show him what's what.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes, my favorite is when they all get together and they do that cheeseburger cheeseburger scam. Absolute favorite, a little sculpturally insensitive.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, true to form, the Ronin were the deadliest and cruelest men in Coon's crew. Besides being vicious warriors, they would torture prisoners psychologically by beheading some of them and rolling the heads around the feet of the other captives while laughing at the panic it caused.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
On one occasion, six Japanese ronin on the VOC's payroll quartered and beheaded 44 Bandonese prisoners with samurai swords. Why? Because that's what they wanted to do. Then they displayed the heads on bamboo spikes for all to see.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Honestly, I'm looking for self-starters. I'm looking for people that anticipate needs.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I mean, this whole story is, I mean, it might as well be called the evil that men do. It's what happens when people are left unchecked. When you just say, go out and be as cruel and mean and savage as possible and come back and we'll give you a nice little fat paycheck.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
No, that happened again and again. You know, it happens with, you know, it also happens, you know, when native populations start dying of disease that the Europeans would bring over, they would say, this is God's judgment on these people. They're dying because we are meant for this land.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, Yang Kun's orders from the VOC, they were just to subjugate the Bandonese. He was not supposed to slaughter them en masse. But when a torturous interrogation of a Bandonese warrior revealed a plot on Kun's life, he took it very personally. I do tend to do that.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
and thereafter set himself on the task of completely annihilating the Bandonese people. Many Bandonese were driven into barren areas by VOC armies and starved, while others were simply beaten to death. Many more were enslaved and forced to work the plantations that were quickly springing up around the islands, but not that many. Dude, have you heard of garlic salt?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Honestly, there's some crazy shit over there. You should go to that other island over there.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
In the end, it's estimated that out of the 15,000 people that Kuhn found on the Banda Islands, fewer than 1,000 survived his campaign of terror. Furthermore, the VOC ordered that all clove and nutmeg trees not controlled by the VOC were to be destroyed so as to regulate the supply and keep the prices as high as possible.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Oh, it was... Well, this is a tale of greed, mass murder, manipulation, and savagery. An example of how just one man can create a band of demonic brutes with just the slightest nudge. A man with the unlikely name of Euronymous Cornelis.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Anyone on the islands caught growing, stealing, or possessing these plants without authorization were subject to the death penalty carried out by VOC employees.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, but if it's on your land, if it's in your room, if you've got it with you, you're fucking dead.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So we'll just take it. Well, it only grows in certain climates. Like you can't just fucking, you can't, I don't think you can grow a nutmeg tree in like Bristol. Yeah, but you can. It sounds like a children's book.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Eventually, they did start planting them on other islands. Oh, sure, yeah. But for the longest time, this was the only place where you could get nutmeg.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
As long as blood's squirting on her shoes, she's fine. Yeah, she loves it. Now, for taking the plot on his life personally, Coon received a strongly worded letter from the men who ran the VOC, the aforementioned Gentleman 17. But their issue was not with the genocide per se, but what the genocide might do to trade relations. I'm sorry I didn't think about it like that. I got ahead of myself.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, one of those emojis. You've been a bad, bad little boy. Yes, I have. I guess I should get a spanking.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
See, word of genocide tends to get around, and there were plenty of other native civilizations in the Indies that the VOC planned to do business with. In other words, Kuhn was reprimanded not for crimes against humanity, but for bad business practices.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Despite the reprimand, Jans kept his position as one of the VOC's chief merchants, and was thereafter considered a Dutch national hero in the mold of so many colonists before and after, and even has a statue that stands to this day.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, sure. I can't wait to watch. Now, while the Dutch government was somewhat involved in all this, the genocide and subjugation of the Bandonese was planned, authorized, and carried out by employees of the VOC. Again, it's just a private company. And with this conquest, they'd prove that they would do and allow just about anything if it increased their profit margin.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Once the Banda Islands were in their grasp, the VOC completely controlled the world's nutmeg and clove supply, which brought them close to a total monopoly on the global spice trade at large.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And just like how we can't avoid putting money into Amazon's pockets, even if we don't buy shit from Amazon directly, most likely the people we buy shit from do use Amazon, anyone in Europe who wanted their spiced wines and erectile aids were now contributing to the profits of the VOC somewhere down the supply line.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes, it's really very sad. That is very sad. That is true. Now, concerning the type of person that was willing to work for the VOC, the number one quality needed was a tolerance for risk. See, out of the million some odd people who sailed with the VOC to the Indies over the course of their existence, less than one in three returned to Europe alive.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, and you were just as likely to die on the trip as you were when you got to the East Indies themselves. Statistically speaking, you were far more likely to die than you were to get rich. Some who sailed to the Indies did end up settling in Southeast Asia, but most of the settlers were killed by various plagues, diseases, or in skirmishes with the natives.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The VOC's reputation for brutality and this acknowledged risk, however, attracted a certain type of man to their employment. A type whose morals were flexible, to say the least.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Indy's leg. It was the longest. It was the worst. It was the most dangerous.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. They went around. They would start from Europe. They would sail down to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, stop once, and then make the rest of the trip to Indonesia.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I'm going to cast everybody. I disagree wholeheartedly with the Paul Dano here. Really? Yes, because Paul Dano is not in any way charismatic, and Euronymous was a very charismatic man.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yep. Now, the roll call on a VOC ship was made up of sailors, soldiers, tradesmen, and merchants. The soldiers and sailors were often otherwise unemployable men who were violent, often lazy, and above all else, expendable. And that's how I like to be.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Please kill me and forget me, because I don't even know my name. I'm a random man with a banana. And I'm next to a cannon. But you'll never know me, will ya? All right. I am his brother. I look just like him.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And sound just like him, too. Where'd you come from? Home. Doesn't really matter. Because I'm a walking corpse.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, the tradesmen on the ship, which included carpenters, cooks, surgeons, and what have you, they seemed like men who were just looking for steady work. But if a man ended up on a VOC ship, it usually meant that he had fucked up pretty badly at some point in his life. This is last stop shit. But speaking of fuck-ups, let's talk about the merchants.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The merchants were the men responsible for protecting the goods and the profit potential of the voyage. And as such, they were given authority to override the captain's orders if the merchant deemed it necessary to protect the VOC's interests.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, he's over the captain.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Let's surprise the newspapers and go full speed ahead with this ship called the Titanic. It's like all these guys do.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I think they just keep going, like, promoting from within the sailors. But that's the thing, is that the captain, we're going to get to his job later, but mostly he's there to navigate and to manage the sailors, keep the sailors in line.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
That's who I'm putting him in. Sure, sure.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, if the merchant survived the sea voyage and landed in the Indies, they then had the task of maximizing profits on the ground by negotiating with the local leaders the VOC hadn't killed yet to obtain spices and or goods to bring back to Europe. Now concerning the social standing of the merchants, many of them were most definitely in the past fuck-up category.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The majority were down on their luck financially, disgraced debtors who'd lost everything, or businessmen on their way down the economic ladder who would do anything to turn around their failing fortunes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, this story is also highly complex because the conditions that made the tragedy of the Batavia possible were created by one of the most evil corporations in history. The court that served as the mold for exploitation and profit above all other concerns.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Just a few. Yeah. Yeah. There weren't, there weren't very many. Now, on a VOC ship, merchants were divided into two ranks, upper merchants and under merchants. These were the middle managers of the company. But since most of them were in dire financial straits, even they were desperate men.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
As such, one of the VOC's desperate under merchants will play the psychopathic villain in today's tale, a man named Euronymous Cornelis.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You don't have to call them under merchants. You can just call them merchants. Well, that's the thing. It's to separate them from the upper merchants.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes, their bosses execute people. Now, to be perfectly clear here, the dictatorial middle manager in the Amazon allegory that began today's episode, that represented Euronymous Cornelius. Because after the Patavia wrecked, Euronymous would use his psychopathic charm to trap the survivors in a nightmare of his own making. None of this happens without Euronymous.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, Euronymous Cornelis was indeed a complete and utter psychopath, but he was not the same stripe as, say, a Ted Bundy. Rather, Euronymous is more like a Nazi who probably would have gone his entire life without hurting another person had circumstances not opened the door to savagery.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, Euronymous' whole thing is not that he would kill anyone. It's that he liked to get people to kill for him. The true capitalist. Born in 1598 in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden to wealthy landowning parents, Euronymous was raised as an Anabaptist.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Anabaptists were a fascinating and highly aggressive Christian cult, and their philosophy of violence undoubtedly influenced Euronymous Cornelis in the most negative of ways. Now, the core principle of the Anabaptists was that they believed that only adults acting on their own free will should be baptized.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Infant baptism, in their opinion, was utter horseshit because babies can't really decide anything for themselves.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
That corporation was the Dutch East India Company, commonly known as the VOC.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, of course. It's stupid. It means nothing. Yeah, it's theater. This belief about baptism, however, was considered heresy to both the Catholic Church and the Protestants, which put the Anabaptists at odds with the rest of the Netherlands from the get-go.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Additionally, Anabaptism was a millenarian cult, meaning they believed that a vengeful Christ was sure to return any day now to kick off a vicious apocalypse.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, trying to wrap our brains around not just the Dutch accent, but the Dutch language, which is a very difficult language.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But most importantly, as far as the Anabaptist neighbors went, they believed that it was their duty to build a new Jerusalem by force, which led to mass murder in the year 1534. Yay!
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
To be clear, 44 people have been beheaded in this episode already.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, in the year 1534, Anabaptists seized the German town of Munster, where they expelled or killed any non-believers and spent 16 months as rulers of their own little theocracy. The leaders, predictably enough, soon began practicing compulsory polygamy because they'd expelled or killed many of the men in Munster.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The VOC was a shipping company with enough power to be almost a country unto themselves, complete with colonies and a private army. And from what I can tell, it wasn't until modern times that businesses were able to again wield so much power and influence.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
They had to do it.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Finally, though, the city was retaken by a joint force of Catholics and Protestants. Oh, wow. Yeah, working together. Look at that. Who executed the leaders and nailed the genitals of one in particular to the city gates. It's usually what they do to polygamists, stuff like that. They do really don't like it. They really like to mutilate the genitals and display them.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. By the end, around 3,000 people had died in the so-called Munster Rebellion. This was all due to the Anabaptists.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The Munsters reference, yeah. Well, after the rebellion was put down, the Anabaptists splintered, and some factions continued robbing and killing anyone who wasn't a member of their cult. Others, however, followed an Anabaptist named Minnow Simmons, who adopted a philosophy of nonviolence. Well, we now know the descendants of these followers of Minnow as the Mennonites. Oh, the Amish.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, the Amish light, as we like to call them in Texas. Yes, Amish light. Because they would make their own clothes, but they would still wear Nikes and shop at Walmart.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, I never got what the point of Mennonites was. They're just bad social people. No, no, no.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Yeah. But I never got the point of like, you have to make your own clothes, but you can buy Nikes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
There were, however, some Anabaptists who assimilated into the Mennonite religion in name only, while still following the violent ideologies of other Anabaptist leaders, if only to survive in a decidedly anti-Anabaptist environment. Amongst those who still believed in the philosophy of violence were the parents of our villain, Euronymous Cornelis.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
For Euronymous, using organized violence to get what you want would very much have not only been an acceptable path, but second nature.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Tell me if this sounds familiar, but the VOC were able to get away with a list of atrocities a mile long because they did shipping better and faster than anyone else.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, after school, Euronymous became an apprentice to an apothecary on the road to becoming one himself. Apothecaries were, in essence, the pharmacists of their day, concocting potions and treatments from roots, herbs, and other exotic ingredients like animal excrement.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, as far as the exotic ingredients went, specifically the animal excrement, pigeon shit was supposed to be a cure for epilepsy, while horse manure was said to cure the lung condition known as pleurisy.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Animal penises were also held in high regard by apothecaries. Dried boar penis, for example, supposedly reduced phlegm and balanced the humors. The way you used to do that was the old-fashioned manual where you used to go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. That's how you get rid of the phlegm, yeah. Because a lot of the apothecary stuff, it was all around, like, you know, the four humors theory.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You know, what was that? Phlegm, blood, bile. What's the fourth one? Snooberance? I think it was snooberance. Snooberance, yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
That's fucking stupid.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But if you really wanted the top-of-the-line cure-all from an apothecary, it was believed that nothing was better than ground-up mummy flesh.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. I mean, I try it once, you know, twice if you ask. It could probably get you sick. Interestingly, though, in addition to cures, apothecaries also made poisons. They were kind of exterminators. They made rat poison and such. They did a lot of weird shit. Yeah. I always remember from Romeo and Juliet.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But as we'll see later, after the wreck of the Batavia, Hieronymus was just as bad at making poisons as he was at the rest of the apothecary business. And after trying to run his own shop for a few years, he declared bankruptcy. in 1628.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And if there's one thing that modern humans value above everything, the sin that we all contribute to in one way or another, it's the concept of convenience at any cost.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Is it just like orange juice?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. You're bad at making poison is you make them sick, but you don't kill them. And so they just sit there screaming and screaming in pain, which, you know, isn't really the point. Unless it is. Unless it is. Now, in addition to his bad business sense, Geronimus' personal life was also an absolute nightmare.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The year before his business failed, he got married to another Anabaptist and settled in the Dutch city of Haarlem. His wife soon became pregnant, but the pregnancy was difficult.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
For some reason, Euronymous hired an absolute lunatic as a midwife, an uncouth, deranged, and dangerously incompetent individual who danced and sang compulsively, frequently spoke of so-called torments inside her head, and slept every night with an axe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yep. Since nannies existed. So when the baby finally came, the midwife mishandled the delivery and left the placenta in the womb of Euronymous' wife, which became infected and septic. The new mother was therefore unable to breastfeed. What? Yeah. That's what happened? You leave the placenta up in? That's what can happen. You're supposed to take it out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Did your mom eat your percentile? Absolutely not. I don't think my mom even knows that that is a thing that people do. Did your mother eat your placenta?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Whose sandwich?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, because the new mother was sick, she was unable to breastfeed. But Euronymous was like, all right, the first midwife, she's insane. Let's get rid of her. But instead, he hired a wet nurse to handle the breastfeeding who was just as bad, if not worse, a woman who had already gone mad with syphilis. And the baby contracted the disease as a result.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Within weeks, if the average 17th century infantile death from syphilis is anything to go on, Euronymous' child died a horrible, horrible death.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
By the end, babies who died from syphilis bled profusely from the mouth and anus and were covered in so many sores and rashes that they were said to have looked moth-eaten when they mercifully died.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But concerning the woman who gave the baby syphilis, the author of Batavia's Graveyard speculates that Euronymous might have had an affair with her and contracted syphilis himself, which would partly explain his horrific behavior after the Batavia wrecked.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, again, this may have just been one factor that unlocked Euronymous' true psychopathy. See, after the Batavia wrecked and its passengers and crew were stranded, Euronymous was definitely acting on a philosophy, and that philosophy was heavily influenced by a man named Johannes Torrentius.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. See, Torrentius was Euronymous's fencing partner and friend, but he was better known in the Netherlands as a highly controversial painter who was infamous for openly using sex workers, refusing to financially support his wife, and allegedly being in regular contact with Satan. He's the most actual Dutch person we've met so far. Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Thank you. And make sure that the box is way too big for what I ordered.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, Torrentius claimed that all of his artistic skills came from black magic rituals. Yeah, you wouldn't know what they're like.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. He said he would place blank canvases on the floor and the paintings would magically create themselves. Torrentius also bought black chickens and roosters exclusively so he could sacrifice them to Beelzebub.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
He's nice. And Torrentius claimed to go on long walks in the woods where he would have extensive conversations with Satan himself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Terentius, however, was not a Satanist. He was a Gnostic. Which is basically a Satanist, according to these fucks. Agnostic means you don't believe in shit. No. Gnostic. Not agnostic. Gnostic. That meant that he believed that God and Satan were equal. Yes! Oh, cool. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And since Terentius had friends in high places, he was able to openly discuss his Gnostic beliefs where others might be charged with heresy. And who else was listening but Hieronymus Cornelius?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, and the... The book of Enoch.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, and it means they don't get your money. Yeah. Before long, Euronymous was mixing Torrentius' Gnostic beliefs with Anabaptist dogma. And eventually, Euronymous came upon the conclusion that he was incapable of sin. That no thought or deed, not even murder, could be described as evil. Because what is evil anyway?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You can start talking like a douchebag when you say that. No, listen, no.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But in 1628, the same year Euronymous went bankrupt, Torrentius finally wore out his welcome in Dutch high society. He was arrested for heresy at long last, tortured on the rack, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. I can't imagine who he pissed off to make this happen.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
After Torrentius' trial, Dutch authorities declared that all suspected heretics be banished from the city of Harlem, which ended up working to the advantage of Euronymous Cornelius. See, by that point, he'd failed as an apothecary, he was bankrupt, his baby had died of syphilis, and his wife still hadn't recovered from the womb infection.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
There's a lot of energy to draw upon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So, Euronymous, his life in fucking ruins, more or less used the heretic order as an excuse to abandon his wife for a job with who else but the VOC. Now, the only explicit criteria to sign a VOC contract was that you should not be bankrupt, nor Catholic, nor infamous.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, Geronimus was bankrupt, but he still had a fairly high social status because he came from a wealthy family, and he had connections. As such, a wealthy captain, who I'd imagined regretted this decision later, vouched for Geronimus to the VOC. Geronimus was therefore hired as an undermerchant and was soon bound for the Indies to make his fortune.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, I mean, he's definitely on the road. He's abandoned his ailing wife. He went to go make money.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And honestly, you spend an afternoon with her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, being an undermerchant made Geronimus a member of the upper class on a VOC ship. That upper class included upper merchants, bookkeepers, clerks, and their assistants. Basically, on a ship the size of the Batavia, you had about a dozen of these guys. And so, Geronimus and a dozen others of his class would make up the business staff on one of the most impressive ships in the VOC fleet.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Finally, we arrive at the Batavia. Now, a big factor in the VOC's success on the high seas was their ability to streamline mass production of ships on an industrial scale. And in fact, they were one of the first companies to ever do so. Dude, I was like looking at pictures of it.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
A lot. Well, while other shipbuilders in Europe took at least two years to build one ship, the VOC could construct and launch sea craft in just six months. This, of course, helped with their strategy of flooding the zone. But besides just building them fast, the VOC also built them better.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
VOC ships were the most complex machines in existence at the time, conveyances that maximized loading, cost, cargo space, and defense. and the Batavia was considered the top of the line when it came to VOC ships.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the Batavia was a class of ship the VOC called a return ship, which was designed to carry both high-class passengers and cargo on long voyages to and from the Indies, a distance of some 15,000 miles journeyed over an average of eight months one way.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Measuring as long as a football field is wide, the Batavia had four decks, three masts, and 30 guns. Its upper works, it sounds like the gaudiest fucking thing in the world. Its upper works were painted bright green and gold, while its stern was decorated with gaudy flourishes specifically requested by the Gentleman 17 so as to, quote, overawe the people of the East.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, the Gentlemen 17 were like, fucking go all out with this ship. In all, the construction of the Batavia cost the modern equivalent of $13 million. But if all went well, it was expected to pay for itself a dozen times over.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Over the course of 10 to 20 years, ships of the Batavia's class were supposed to last for six round trips to and from the Indies before they were dismantled and their timber used to build houses. But unfortunately for the VOC, the Batavia would not make it to the Indies even once.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
As far as cargo bound for the island of Java on the Batavia went, it included a 25-foot prefabricated gateway and 137 sandstone blocks weighing 37 tons. They were going to use these building materials for a castle.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Let go of me. The obvious analog to the VOC, the one that puts convenience and profits over people at every turn, is, of course, Amazon. Through thousands of different chains of exploitation, Amazon has created a world where we can have our heart's desire delivered to our doorstep within just a day or two from any one of Amazon's 185 distribution warehouses.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
We got rocks. Not the good rocks. Not the good rocks. Well, concerning treasure, the ship was loaded with boxes of silver, millions of dollars worth of the stuff.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And the silver was earmarked for trade with the locals and the Indies. But most impressive were the massive 500-pound wooden chests full of guilders, worth $32.5 million in today's currency. One boat. These chests were the last things loaded on board the Batavia before it set sail. And as was custom, the loading of the treasure was done under the personal supervision of the Gentleman Seventeen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
This is the only time they actually came out to the docks to watch the money be loaded onto the boat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
No, no, no. Does Jeff Bezos work at the fucking Amazon factory?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the captain of the Batavia was a man named Ariana Jacobs. Jacobs was in his mid-40s, which actually made him one of the oldest men on the Batavia. This is our Nick Nolte.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yep. Jacobs was a quick-tempered alcoholic rapist, but an excellent sailor nonetheless.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
That's the whole thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Well, that made him right at home working for the VOC. But as I mentioned earlier, the captain was not the true commander of a VOC ship. While Jacobs was in charge of the navigation and sailor management, the person who was really calling the shots on the Batavia was the upper merchant, a man named Francisco Pelsart.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. This is our lovable scamp.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, Pelsart's job was to place the cargo and profits of the company above all else. When the Batavia launched, Pelsart was one of the VOC's most valued upper merchants. He'd been hired at the lowest merchant rank, but had worked his way up because he had a knack for languages and was particularly skilled at negotiation. This guy, I mean, he's just some dude, but he knew how to speak like Urdu.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
He knew how to speak a whole bunch of different languages. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Every once in a while, he fucked up. It's the penis. Well, Pelsart had been responsible for establishing the VOC's lucrative indigo trade, and it even urged the Gentleman 17 to expand the company throughout India before the British had a chance to do so. They refused his advice and let the British take India.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But had the Gentleman 17 listened to Francisco Pelsart, the modern world would be a very different place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Pelsart's weakness, however, was women. The ladies. And his dalliances once almost cost the VOC dearly. While negotiating at a court in India, Pelsart seduced a noble woman. But just before sex, she mistook a bottle of clove oil for a bottle of wine. And after drinking the whole thing... I mean, come on. I mean, you can only be so responsible. Ha ha ha!
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So before we begin the story of the Batavia, I'd like everyone to take a little trip with me to one of those 185 Amazon distribution centers.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
She fucking... After they fucked, she dropped dead.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
No, and he immediately went into this, like, cliche, like, you just fucking said, man, you gotta help me.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You think it's time to get some new shit, you think?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Lucky he had a boat full of lady murderers. Yeah, he called upon his fellow VOC employees to help him cover up the death of the noblewoman. And they were able to secretly bury her body without the Indian court discovering what had happened.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I've always wanted to go. I love trips. It's like seeing Santa's workshop.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
We're talking about it now.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, this sort of shit happened all the time with the VOC, as cover-ups and corruption became baseline behavior for just about every merchant. As the common VOC saying went, there were no Ten Commandments south of the equator.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
When do you go south of the equator? When we go to Australia? There's no Ten Commandments in Australia? When do you follow the Ten Commandments?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
This is so we may transpose the tragedy of the Batavia to a modern location. Get it straight in everyone's heads.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You really are.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And so, with Francisco Pelsart acting as the leader of the expedition as upper merchant, Ariana Jacobs as captain following Pelsart's orders, and Euronymous Cornelis assigned as one of the ship's undermerchants, the Batavia set sail on its maiden voyage for the island of Java in October of 1628.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
He had just gone through a whole scandal, a whole thing that I didn't even want to go into. But yeah, he's like, this is like last chance time for Francisco.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, that's what I was about to get into. These three men made up just a fraction of the Batavia's full passenger manifest. And all the Batavia was loaded with 340 people. A hundred of these 340 were soldiers who had been contracted by the VOC for garrison duties in the Indies. Desperate men with nothing to lose and nothing to do for the entirety of their eight-month journey.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
For the most part, the soldiers were German, but their ranks included men from France, Scotland, England, and the Netherlands. They were largely untrained, and from what it sounds like, they lived by prison rules in prison-like conditions while aboard the Batavia.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
For example, casual violence and thievery amongst the soldiers was the norm, and the only bonds were friendships of convenience or between guys who just happened to be from the same town. And also, they didn't always bugger each other. Mostly they saved that for the cabin boys. Yep.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Your friend would keep an eye on your possessions, share their food and water, and take care of you if you got sick, because the sick bays on the Batavia were reserved for officers, VOC merchants, and higher class passengers only. Everyone else... Get better or die. As far as where they lived, soldiers' quarters were on the orlop, the lowest deck of the ship.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The ceilings in the orlop were low enough so as to make standing upright impossible, and it was so close to the waterline that the men didn't have vents or portholes for air or light. Now, this might have been bearable if not for the fact that the soldiers spent the majority of the eight-month-long journey in the orlop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The largest Amazon distribution warehouse in the world is in Ontario, out in Orange County. It has 7,000 robots working there. Wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And like prisoners, the soldiers were only allowed outside of the orlop for two 30-minute periods a day to use the latrines and breathe fresh air. For their health. Oh, good. For their health. If it's any indication as to how the VOC regarded soldiers, the Orlop did double duty. That was where the spices were stored on the return journey.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
As a result, I'd imagine the Orlop developed quite the interesting aroma after a few voyages.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
They didn't. They would be filled with stuff. No, that's the whole point. The place where the soldiers were brought to the Indies. They would just become cops of that place. And on the way back, that hold was filled with spice. Okay, good.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So it just starts smelling like nutmeg, shit, piss, you know, body odor, and clothes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Now, the soldiers were the lowest station aboard the Batavia, but the ones right above them, the sailors, weren't much higher. The Batavia's crew was made up of 180 unwashed men with no changes of clothes who lived in less than 70 feet of deck that shared space with a dozen heavy guns and miles of cable.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
To be lower than a sailor. It was said that the ordinary VOC seaman was such a horrifying sight that they were kept far away from the higher class passengers so as to not offend the passengers' delicate sensibilities.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Some people have a dick. Honestly, they're allergic to me. And I don't know if it's my personality or if it's the fact that I'm covered in barnacles.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Honestly, just for fun. Just for something different.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I'd place it at the open swords that you're covered in.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, and they make sure to cut out the part where the robot knocks over the piss bottle that the fucking employee had to use because they don't get bathroom breaks. Yeah.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Speaking of passengers, though, the Batavia also held the families of any VOC employee who could afford to bring them along. That meant that there were plenty of women and children aboard this ship, and the women especially had to constantly be on their guard to protect themselves from the rapacious soldiers and sailors.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, so you could keep an eye on them because it's safe. You just didn't want to be apart from them if you planned on settling in the East Indies. Yeah, many reasons. Other passengers on the Batavia's maiden voyage included a 52-year-old Calvinist minister named Grisbert Bastions, who had brought along his wife, seven children, and their servants.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Minister Bastions was headed to the Indies not as a missionary, but to serve the Dutch coloners who'd made a home there. But unfortunately for the minister, booking passage on the Batavia would be the worst decision he ever made. What?
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
He's going to get it bad. Now the Batavia got off to a bad start. It was beset with delays and storms and even ran aground just after launch on a sandbank. Apparently one in five Dutch ships that were built crashed on this sandbank and fucking sank.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
So let's take a trip, everyone. Imagine an Amazon warehouse, a flutter with orders, where the bosses, the middle management, and the floor workers are going about their jobs day after day, ensuring that millions of dollars worth of merchandise gets to its destination on time. Ha ha ha! Everyone is a cog in a machine within the biggest machine of all, the Amazon Corporation.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
It's right outside. It's right outside of the Netherlands. That's so aggravating. Absolutely. But the ship was saved by Captain Jacob's excellent instruction, and once it got to sea, it began its 15,000-mile journey with a fleet of six other ships, all overseen by upper merchant Francisco Pelsart. Now, after six months at sea, the Batavia put in at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
which was the only acceptable port of call mandated by the VOC because they wanted round trips to take the shortest amount of time possible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, they also don't have any words for compassion or friendliness. Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Yeah! My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the... Henry Zabrowski.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
From what it seems, though, during that six months on the water, Hieronymus Cornelius became friendly with Captain Jacobs because the two of them, along with a group of sailors, they got drunk one night and stole one of the Batavia's boats for a little ride around the Cape.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, Upper Merchant Palsart couldn't have been more angry with this little adventure, and as a result, cut the Batavia's time in port to just eight days, less than half of what was expected. This naturally led to some resentment amongst the crew, especially the soldiers, because now it's like, well, you're not going to get two and a half weeks anymore to breathe fresh air and just be a human.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You now have... a little over a week. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's also around this time that Captain Jacobs and Euronymous Cornelis began plotting the mutiny that would result in six weeks of bloody mayhem, the one that was supposed to make them both very rich men. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for the tragedy of the Batavia part two.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And how it all gets fucking just destroyed in a second. I love that it's already horrible, but it gets worse. No, you have no idea how bad it's going to get.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
No, it is a full descent into hell. As much as I've ever seen. But the families will be fine. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
They do great. Yeah. You ever heard of Minuto? That came from this. That was the kids.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
They became Minuto. Wow! No shit! And then, you know, Liv and Liv eat a loca. There, and now he's an actor. Incredible. All from the Batavia.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
It's going to be, you know. A couple episodes. Yeah, definitely. A few. It's going to be a few episodes.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Eastern. And that is, of course, starring Mr. Ed Larson.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I was on the last Hoopa Goo Goo. Dr. Nurse. Yeah, Mr. Nurse. Mr. Nurse. Yeah, Mr. Nurse, the musical accompaniment. Yes, wonderful music. Thank you, thank you. I played the best Christmas music my synth could make.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And just as long as everyone in the warehouse does their job, no matter how difficult it might get, everything goes smoothly and the shareholder stock keeps going up. One night, though, a particularly charismatic middle manager from a wealthy family who's failed at every job he's had before this one... Hey, my name's Aaron. You can call me Thor. ...
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. On the high seas? Yeah, I'm not going to the high seas. No, you are. You actually had a meeting today specifically about you going on the high seas.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I still feel like the low seas.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to stay home.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Hail Peter. Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping you would.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Oh, that is nice. I was hoping you would.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I bet he's feeling a lot of conflicted feelings right now because he did get shouted out by his favorite podcast. But then he's also having to relive probably the lifelong trauma about his name. Being a computer, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, what are you going to do? Double-edged sword. Life sucks. See you later.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, he's just in the middle. He's not one of the guys at the top. He gets drunk with his work buddies, and they hatch a plot to take over the warehouse by force and sell everything contained within on the black market, all while they keep the warehouse itself as a base of operations.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Ha! Now, the warehouse is staffed with some good people and some very bad people. But most are somewhere in between.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But no matter their morals, most of these people, excepting those at the top, are quite unhappy working for Amazon because of the shit conditions and the shit pay, especially when they consider how much the shareholders at the top are making. In other words, this warehouse is filled with desperate people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And as we've seen time and again throughout history, desperate people are often the most easily manipulated by those who are able to offer a simple solution to all their problems.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yes. So the middle manager gets all the support he needs for the coup fairly easily. But just before he's able to put his plan into action, a massive earthquake isolates the warehouse from civilization and buries much of the merchandise inside under rubble. Likewise, the warehouse is no longer fit for a base of operations either.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The bosses, of course, immediately hop into a helicopter to both escape the situation and to get help so everyone else who's trapped can be rescued. Listen, Demetria, I love you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
But as soon as the bosses leave, the middle manager who'd been planning the warehouse coup, he steps up as the leader of the hundreds of people left behind. It's at that moment that everyone discovers that the middle manager is a total psychopath on par with the worst dictators in history. And he quickly uses his charisma to turn this Amazon warehouse into an NC-17 version of Lord of the Flies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Well, first, the middle manager divides the workers into three separate areas of the warehouse so he can consolidate control. Then he makes sure that the groups can't communicate with each other. After division and isolation, the middle manager and his inner circle turn their attention to the people in their immediate vicinity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
and begin committing senseless and grotesque atrocities on their fellow employees on an almost daily basis. Weeks pass, and the bosses still aren't back.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
The warehouse coup is still sort of in the background, but the middle manager is now mostly focused on total control over everyone who's left through rape and murder, partly to save resources, and partly because he and his cronies just develop a taste for it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
It's covered in goods. Well, the people not in the manager's inner circle then start joining in on the murder just to avoid becoming one of the dozens of victims. And some of those people get so hooked on the feeling of murder that they beg the manager to give them more people to kill. And that request is often obliged.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. After six weeks of this, though, one of the people living under the terror of the middle manager escapes to one of the groups that the manager had isolated. And he tells them about all the atrocities being committed on the other side of the warehouse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, and America is the pussy. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So in 1947, when the Black Dahlia murder occurred, there were still plenty of LAPD officers on the take at every level. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Short, it just so happened that the two homicide detectives in charge of her case, Fennis Brown and Harry the Hat Hansen, were just about as corrupt as they come.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Around the offices of the Los Angeles Held Express, Finnis and Hanson were called the Ego Stoops, which was a portmanteau, meaning they were a combination of egotistical, arrogant, and stupid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Lieutenant Harry Hanson was described by author Pew Eatwell as a tall, balding redhead with a basset hound face, Mickey Mouse ears, and sleepy eyes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Along with his pinstripe suit and loud ties, Hanson also never took off his fedora for anything, which is why they called him the Hat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, medicinal hat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's my medicinal hat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's like when some people get half a face, you know, we give it after they get blown off in the war. He got a hat. I got a scalp that I have to screw up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
A nearly 20-year veteran of the LAPD by the time of the Black Dahlia murder, Hansen was known as a brute who beat suspects mercilessly and would pressure newspaper photographers to edit photos of suspects' faces to remove the blood produced by his enhanced interrogation techniques.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hansen was particularly proud of what he called his Third Street Bridge Confessions, where he'd dangle suspects over the Third Street Bridge if they didn't cooperate. Hansen was also known to call a suspect's bluff, often dropping them to the concrete below if they didn't tell him what he wanted to hear.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I had dish soap on my hands from earlier today. So he's like a serial killer. Ha ha!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
More mass murderer kind of. We don't know how many people Harry the Hat killed or if he killed anybody in particular.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He just said he dropped people off the fucking bridge all the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It wasn't that tall of a bridge.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They never do that. Harry Hansen's partner, though, Finnis Brown, was Hansen's polar opposite in both looks and demeanor. While Hansen was a smooth talker, Finnis Brown was clumsy and strange. A squat and swarthy cop with heavy jowls and rumpled suits.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
While Harry Hansen got the relatively flattering nickname of The Hat, Finnis Brown, the other guy in charge of investigating Elizabeth Short's murder, was called F.A. or Fat Ass.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, in addition to being corrupt, Finnis Brown also moonlit as a bookie and a bag man for the mob, collecting money from shakedowns and protection rackets throughout Los Angeles. Finnis's brother, Thaddeus, however, was known as a cop's cop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Thaddeus was a beloved figure in the department who didn't have much regard for the Constitution either due to his obsessive hatred of communists and his obsessive love for cops.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I mean, he's like, he's like lawful evil.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He's the one that is- He's a quieter, murdering cowboy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
corrupt and then double teaming and everybody's on two separate teams they're on their own team and somebody else's team it doesn't begin to muddy the waters very significantly you get paid twice yeah and that's what makes uh black dahlia so interesting and so confusing is because every person in this story is running a game within a game within a game because it is so corrupt and there is so much crime going on here from the top to the bottom
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, who did their mother love more, though? That's what I want to know. Thaddeus.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, the mother always loves the fuck up more. Always. I guess they're forced to. They're forced to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thaddeus Brown, he was such a looming figure in Los Angeles that on the radio version of Dragnet, Joe Friday referenced Tad Brown as his boss. And Orson Welles based the character of Hank Quinlan in the film noir classic Touch of Evil off Tad Brown as well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, it's not. And so with Finnis Brown working directly with organized crime and Tad Brown working solely for the interests of the cops, they made an extremely powerful pair that were difficult to stand against if you thought they might not be doing their job correctly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Or at least Finnis was tossed on it. Thaddeus was doing his own thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They were the cops that show up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They were told to go take care of this body we put there. Don't know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
We don't know. It might have just been their turn in the rotation and it just so happened. That's the thing. The room for coincidence in this case is astronomical. There really is so much room for coincidence.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it was much smaller. LA at this point was half the size that it is now. It's half the population that it is now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, and it's just a bunch of vacant lots.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
At least in places like Leimert Park.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, to the press, it seemed like the cops really weren't trying all that hard when it came to investigating the Black Dahlia murder. Because as we established last episode, all the most important aspects of the case have been uncovered by journalists like Jimmy Richardson and Aggie Underwood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jimmy's people had discovered all the weird shit that had gone down in San Diego just before Elizabeth's death, for example. and Aggie Underwood, who put together a clear timeline of Elizabeth's last days during her interview with Red Manly. The cops hadn't done any of this shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Therefore, rumors that the Black Dahlia investigation was being shut down and covered up were being spread as early as late January 1947, about a week or two after the murders.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The play, you know, the musical. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it does. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the in-too-deep Henry Zebrowski.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Also, when a murder is this elaborate, it's probably easier to solve. And so I imagine that when you go two weeks without no fucking clues or no answers, people are definitely asking questions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Which is most murder, right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
In one way or another, like you're associated with them or a lot of times it is someone you know personally that kills you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jimmy Richardson in particular began to believe that the investigation was being purposefully stalled. And it was his theory that the LAPD wanted it gone because of its possible connections to organized crime, and the Los Angeles political elite.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Furthermore, the LAPD were trying their best to distance themselves from even putting work into the investigation, going so far as to say that the murder had probably taken place outside the LA city limits and was therefore none of their business.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The chief homicide detective in the city, Captain Jack Donahoe, was likewise drawing criticism because of his ridiculous public statements, like his assertion that Elizabeth Short was cut in half solely so the body could be carried more easily, despite the fact that Elizabeth Short only weighed 123 pounds.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Gonna cut her tits off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh, my God. That's a pulley system. That's a...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But the problem with that, though, is the clean surgical nature of the cut. Is that if they're just cutting her in half solely to transport her body, why did they take so much care in cutting the body? Because of the guy they brought her to. But that doesn't make sense because why are they bringing her to a guy to cut her in half so they can transport her somewhere else?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They're transporting her to transport her? Guy went to her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And the newly traumatized Ed Larson, who just saw the Elizabeth Short crime scene photos for the first time just before walking in here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now I'm here. This is just one of the days of this. So you think it's an evil doctor? No, I think he's... Dr. Giggles. It wouldn't be so straight if it was Dr. Giggles. Dr. Serious.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Was the spine cut cleanly? Yes, it was.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Like the spine was cut very cleanly and very deliberately. Specifically cut very nicely. But yeah, and that's the thing is that we're going to really try really hard in this episode. There's so many different lines of questioning. We really have to stay like fucking laser focused. All right. And the investigative lines that Donahoe pushed were even more ludicrous. The Hawaiian guy, Donahoe?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, you just sent them to me. I asked you to. Yes, you asked me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, as Donna Ho, he had become a big proponent of the homicidal lesbian angle. This was a line of investigation that was sure to go nowhere except to the harassment of LA's LGBT community, which was at the time a target of the LAPD anyway.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, you may ask why the head of homicide would be so invested in derailing the murder investigation of one young woman, especially when leaving the case unsolved made his department look that much more incompetent. Because people were getting killed every fucking day in Los Angeles. It was a bloodbath out here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I never send them to people without permission or direct request.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Fucking innocent citizens were getting caught in the crossfire of all these fucking gang wars. Women were getting killed. Hell, we talked about two murders last week that occurred just after Elizabeth Short that also went unsolved. Oh, yeah, because we all say, what, the werewolf murders, which we haven't even really factored into any of this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The answer is that Captain Jack Donahoe was one of the men who arranged bribes for the organized crime syndicate that had Los Angeles in a stranglehold in the late 1940s. And the more that investigators looked into Elizabeth Short's death, the more it led them to organized crime figures.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I was like, while we're doing the show, I might as well see it. And I did not finish my lunch. It was very upsetting. Hey, no, Eddie, you got through most of it. I definitely had a couple more bites. But I officially, I think I have a good theory before we get started on who it was. World's worst magician. Yeah. He cut the box in half and then he's just like, oh no.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, organized crime was such a fact of life in Los Angeles during the time of the Black Dahlia murder that mobsters were hired as consultants on noir movies for accuracy. And in some cases, they even got producer credits.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
That's kind of amazing. I mean, it still happens, especially with military movies. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Mobster Johnny Rosselli, for example, produced a prison break movie called Cannon City. And this was in addition to Johnny being responsible for getting Marilyn Monroe some of her first roles, as well as Johnny being involved in CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. And he was also quite possibly the man in the sewer at Dilley Plaza when JFK was killed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hey, hey, hey, hey, that's just where I was.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, that is true. Johnny Rosselli, he was responsible for getting Marilyn Monroe some of her first roles. He was in the business. And he was... heavily involved in a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. In other words, people like Johnny Rosselli, the ones involved in both organized crime and the movies, they had connections to the government on both a local and national level.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And they had the power to pull strings if they wanted something covered up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, but she's out-of-pocket because they were filling her full of drugs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it really is. And the things about these conspiracies is that I think it really does start with one guy telling another guy, take care of it. And then another guy tells another guy, why don't you take care of it?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, bombings, shootings, and murder of all stripes were committed by the mob with near impunity during this time period, giving Los Angeles the reputation as the gang capital of the nation, in addition to being the center of the world's entertainment industry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Such was the prominence of mob violence in Los Angeles that coverage of the Black Dahlia murder shared headlines with a gang war that ultimately culminated in the assassination of infamous gangster Bugsy Siegel just five months after Elizabeth Short's body was found. Have you ever heard about how Bugsy Siegel was fucking assassinated?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
God, he was sitting in his house and some guy from outside shot him in the head with such accuracy that the bullet ricocheted off his nose and blew Bugsy Siegel's eye across the room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Out West, yeah. Well, Los Angeles was one of America's newest cities, and a lot of mafiosi came to California to escape either the law or previous associations with crime families, mainly on the East Coast. Now, the other big crime cities, New York and Chicago, thought of the L.A. mob as a bunch of country bumpkins. And that's if they thought of them at all. And you're not wrong.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Or because they'd gotten into trouble. A lot of them came out because they were too hot-headed to be out there. And they'd beaten the shit out of the wrong guy. And it's like, okay, you've got to go to fucking California now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Mickey Cohen was a guy they sent. I was like, okay, yeah, now you got to deal with Mickey Cohen. And then he ended up becoming one of the biggest gangsters in the city's history.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Yeah. But what Los Angeles had that no one else did was Hollywood, with all the new opportunities that the movie business brought. See, the motion picture industry was essentially contained within a 20 square mile grid with supply chains that could be manipulated and squeezed at any point. And its workforce was almost fully controlled by unions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
At one point, gangster Bugsy Siegel had complete control of the Screen Extras Union, of all things.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Also, it's a good way to go make sure people are on set taking a look at the director and having informants getting back to you and what's going on on set. And it's also a good way to get hot, new, desperate ladies. Also, you think about this because when you said... It's actually served a lot of great... It really is a very good podcast. L.A. had Hollywood. New York had Broadway.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And that's why L.A. and New York are better than Chicago because Chicago just got the Cubs. It just got Cubs and heart disease.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
You also out here had a lot of rich and famous people with, shall we say, predilections. And we talked about predilections. And those predilections could be exploited and used for extortion should a movie star or producer or director need some help getting rid of a dirty little secret.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And I've had them all over the world!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And when it comes to dirty little secrets, Elizabeth Short may have gotten herself involved with a shady, publicity-phobic Hollywood businessman heavily involved with both organized crime and the LAPD, a man named Mark Hansen. And she just may have gotten killed as a result.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The man from Batavia. Hansen's great-grandfather. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Everyone was always talking about the Olsen twins when we were growing up. I was thinking about the Hanson sisters.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, if you'll remember, when the LAPD received the package from the man who had claimed to have murdered Elizabeth Short, included with that package was an address book with the name Mark Hanson printed on the front. I believe whoever sent the package is the only person who knows who killed Elizabeth Short.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hansen claimed that he barely knew Elizabeth and that she'd stolen this book from him to use herself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And that was the extent of their relationship. It is, however, almost positive that Elizabeth Short and Mark Hansen were involved in an affair shortly before the Black Dahlia murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. When I say affair, I use that term loosely. Like, there was definitely some sort of relationship between the two of them, although it's very murky as to what that relationship really was.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, in many ways, Los Angeles is the promise of the American West. It's a place of reinvention. The farthest you can run before you hit ocean. A place where there's ample opportunity to become somebody else entirely if that's what you so choose. But within that rebirth lies great vulnerability. And L.A.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I'm sure it was completely innocent.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hanson, his story is quite interesting. Yeah. Mark Hanson was involved in motion pictures, but his business was on the distribution side. He owned movie theaters, and he'd gotten his start in Minneapolis, where he opened a chain of theaters that were successful enough to necessitate a move to Hollywood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Once in Los Angeles, Hanson opened a nightclub called the Florentine Gardens, where you could find an aging Errol Flynn or a young Marilyn Monroe hanging out if you went on the right night. But the big secret at Florentine Gardens was that it was also a mob casino.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And a big part of the reason why Hansen and his mob associates were able to operate Florentine Gardens so successfully was because they worked hand-in-hand with the LAPD.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yep. And there was also actual mobsters involved. Oh, very much so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jimmy the Little Giant Utley was his mob contact. The Little Giant. But remember, you know, these guys, like, no matter how, like, there are these huge syndicates that are operating out of Los Angeles that involve Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen. But then there are also these small ones that work together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
directly with the police. Because Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel fucking hated the cops. They hated anyone who worked with the cops.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They came from New York.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, they were New York guys. But these guys, guys like Mark Hansen and the mob associates he had, they worked directly with the police. Because if you'll remember, I mentioned earlier that one of the homicide detectives in charge of the Black Dahlia murder, Finnis Brown, was a bag man for an organized crime figure. What the organized crime figure Finnis Brown worked for was Mark Hansen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And one has to ask how much of a coincidence it is that while Finnis Brown was investigating Elizabeth Short's murder, a package should arrive from the killer that has an address book with his boss's name on it and the investigation stalls soon after. I think that's quite possible. Yeah. But also, why would he be incriminating himself? He's not incriminating.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
has always been host to parasites constantly on the search for a cocoon to suck dry and throw away without a second thought.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He's saying by receiving the package that he's eliminating himself as a suspect.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But it's Mark Hansen. Mark Hansen didn't send the package. No. Mark Hansen had no idea that the package was being sent. All of this was happening outside of Mark Hansen's purview. And that's the problem here. Now, as far as how Mark Hansen came to be involved with Elizabeth Short, we really are looking at a very Laura Palmer-esque plot straight out of David Lynch's creative universe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But it's like filled with serial rapists. Yeah. And all the songs are about trains.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
See, in the 1940s, Mark Hansen had a sort of casting couch situation going on in which he would recruit young girls for his nightclubs. And these girls were found and recruited by a man named Nils Thor Granlund. And they called him Granny for short, NTG. Nils Thor had actually pioneered the New York City nightclub scene of the 1920s. Hearing about the Charleston, I invented the Louisville.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Tell us how you really feel. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So his name is Thor and they called him Granny? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Because his last name is Granland.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Well, he was the one who kind of pioneered the concept of the girl in the G-string wearing high heels. Thank you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Thank you, Granny. Well, he was a very particular flavor of piece of shit. He would travel to rodeo shows across the country where he would find jailbait that he could lure to L.A. for Mark Hansen. But from the girls that worked for him, Mark Hansen would choose a sort of harem for his own home, which was located just behind the Florentine Gardens Club.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
That's right, though. It's pretty close, but that's kind of why I like it. One might even say that much of the entertainment industry has been built on this very principle since day one.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Not all the girls who stayed at his home, however, worked for Mark Hansen. According to well-placed sources, one of the girls that came in and out of Hansen's home who fit that bill, didn't work for him, was Elizabeth Short. So he was married.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yep. Now, Elizabeth had been introduced to Mark Hansen's world through a friend named Marjorie Graham. Graham, a heavyset girl who was also from Massachusetts, like Elizabeth, she had a weakness for the sauce and often found herself... Nara Nara? Yeah.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Elizabeth and Marjorie had been staying together at the Hawthorne Hotel in Los Angeles during the summer of 1946. This was shortly after Elizabeth's relationship with Major Matt Gordon had ended. Remember him? He was the guy that supposedly had died over India and that she had supposedly married him and she supposedly had a kid with him that supposedly died and all that.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No matter what happened, this is around the time that that whole thing ended. And Elizabeth and Marjorie were running out of money. But they could, according to Marjorie, stay for free at the home of a club owner named Mark Hansen. Although it's unclear if Marjorie told Elizabeth what was expected of her if she did choose to stay at Hansen's home.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Come on, baby, do this for me.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. But since Los Angeles is known to attract desperate people... Or at least people who are apt to become more desperate the longer they're here. It's also attracted criminals of every kind, from gangsters to rapists to murderers. And that was never more true of Los Angeles than it was during the time of the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, while Mark Hansen did have sex with the young woman who stayed at his home, Elizabeth was said to be different from all the other girls. According to a friend of Elizabeth's who lived there, Mark tried having sex with Elizabeth on many occasions, but she was always able to get out of it, which only made him want her more.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. Well, this yearning was only made stronger by the steady stream of dates Elizabeth would go on while staying at Mark's house. Now, Elizabeth was well aware of Hansen's jealousy, so she would always make sure her dates picked her up and dropped her off on a corner a block away so Hansen would never see her with another man.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But in early December 1946, about a month and a half before Elizabeth was found dead, Elizabeth and Mark Hansen had some sort of disagreement and he kicked her out of the house. Briefly, Elizabeth lived in an apartment where each room had eight young women crammed together in bunk beds, costing just a dollar a night.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But since Elizabeth didn't even have a dollar, she skipped out on paying the landlady and disappeared. A few days later, she reappeared in the Aztec theater in San Diego, where she was found by the aforementioned Dorothy French. Soon after, you had the mysterious couple knocking on the French's door looking for Elizabeth. You had the ride back to L.A.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
with Red Manley, the disappearance that night, and her body being found six days later.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There are so many fucking characters. Yes.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
You'd be on, like, a three- or five-picture deal, and you'd live there, and as soon as your deal was up or they fired you, you would lose your home and your clothes. Just very Three Amigos. It was real. Yeah.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, Mark Hansen was able to evade investigation for a long time after his former address book showed up at the Los Angeles examiner offices, along with Elizabeth Short's other belongings. But that was because he was in cahoots with one of the homicide detectives. Hansen, however, almost got a dose of street justice in July of 1949. a year and a half after Elizabeth's murder.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
That month, a dancer at his club named Lola Titus shot him in the back after an argument, accusing him of being, quote, a goddamn cop lover.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hansen, however, survived the gunshot to the back. And when he arrived at the hospital, the first thing he said was, Get me Brown! Get me Brown! He did not, however, mean Finnis Brown. He wanted Finnis's brother, Thaddeus Brown, the cop's cop. And Thaddeus Brown quickly rushed to Hansen's side, I suppose to make sure that Lola Titus got what was coming to her.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No one really knows what went on between Thaddeus Brown and... Mark Hanson during that conversation. All they know is he said, get me Brown and Thaddeus Brown fucking jumped.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So was Hanson dying and he just wanted to get Thaddeus some information?
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I don't know. I think he wants, I think what he wanted to do is bring Thaddeus and say, Get the bitch who did this to me. Get her. It was Lola Titus. Get her. Make sure she goes down.
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Yes, you're making things purposefully confusing for people.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But Mark Hansen's close relationship with the police wasn't the only reason why she shot him. Allegedly, Lola Titus and Elizabeth Short were friends, and Lola had accused Hansen of being involved in Elizabeth Short's murder.
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What did the guy say who killed Elizabeth Short after he killed her? What? Abracadabra. Marcus liked it.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Did you think it was crocus pocus?
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There we go. Unfortunately, though, Lola was not the most stable witness. After she was arrested and taken to the Hall of Justice, the officer in charge of taking her to the courtroom opened the door to the room where she was being held to find her nude and spread-eagled lying on the floor. Want to check me for a gun?
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The officer ordered her to get dressed, which she did.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The whole, everything.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Quite fragrant. It's quite fragrant. You're welcome. I wasn't sure what it was, but once you said pussy, I knew exactly what it was.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But after her picture was taken by court photographers, she got nude again, remarking, my God, it's hot in here.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hey, son, your new name is air conditioner.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But when it came time to finally make arguments, Lola's attorney said that according to Lola, Mark Hansen's game was to scoop up young girls and make a lot of promises about opening doors in Hollywood. If only they did a little something for him first.
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I like my suspect a lot. I really do.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Bingo the okay.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And off that statement, amongst many others, Lola Titus was convicted of attempted murder and sent to the Patton State Hospital for the insane.
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Nope. She died there 10 years later at the age of 30.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I don't just fucking shock their brains and give them crazy experimental drugs. I don't have any checks and balances on these.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
She was probably lobotomized.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, specifically a state hospital where she could be shut the fuck up and never listened to ever again. Because she's legally crazy. Yep. And with Lola put away, even considering her unstable nature, a possible window into Mark Hansen and Elizabeth Short's relationship was closed. Although Lola's perspective was far from the last vantage point, as we'll soon see.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, there have been many people who have made connections between Elizabeth Short's death and organized crime, chief among them, author Donald Wolf. In his theory, Elizabeth Short was a high-end call girl who worked at a mob-owned brothel and had become pregnant by the owner of the Los Angeles Times, a man who also happened to be from one of the most powerful families in Los Angeles.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
This, some people say, is why the Los Angeles Times had relatively scant coverage of on the Black Dahlia murder, and had begrudgingly covered it only after seeing how well the story was doing in the other city papers. This story feels too much like the perfect arc to me.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's a very pulp fiction novel type way to tie all the story up.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
She was like, what I'm catching here is she was like the hottest chick in town, and she was being sold to the most powerful men in town, and she probably slept with a lot of the most powerful men in town. And so a lot of people could have been connected to her when she turned up dead. Everyone was like, let's sweep this under the rug, whether it had something to do with it or not.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, she liked guys and nice things.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I think it's how Jimmy Richardson put it. Lost. Like, just not really know. She's in her early 20s. She doesn't know what the fuck she wants. All she knows is that she doesn't want the life that has been laid out for her, you know, as society demanded it. She's trying to find something, and she just keeps coming up with goose eggs every time.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But as far as why Elizabeth was killed, it's theorized that she may have refused to get an abortion after being impregnated by such a high-powered client, which is why she was hiding out in San Diego and became disturbed any time someone came looking for her.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And why she had her body hollowed out.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. She was killed. According to the theory, she was finally captured when she returned to Los Angeles and was killed brutally and publicly so as to send a message to any other girls who may have been thinking of stepping out of line. But while this theory has the right idea, I think it comes to the wrong conclusions.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I do believe that Elizabeth Short's death was directly related to organized crime. Yes. But... I think it had a lot more to do with her associating with dangerous people than it did with her participating in risky activities like sex work in a mob-owned brothel. I think that the organized crime figure responsible for Elizabeth Short's death was Mark Hansen.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And he had a lot of help from the LAPD to make sure the Black Dahlia murder was never solved. But notice I said responsible for her death. I do not believe that Mark Hansen was the one who actually killed Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Well, as one mob lawyer put it, in places like Chicago, the gangsters paid off the police, but the gangsters committed the crimes. In Los Angeles, the police were the gangsters. And since the police were so corrupt, Los Angeles was an attractive place for organized crime figures who were either on the run for the law or looking for new opportunities.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. And I think that all of this happened within a span of months. I think Elizabeth Short's life fell apart very, very quickly. And I think she found herself involved in some really bad shit very fast, like faster than she even knew what was happening.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, it's important to note that for almost two years, there was very little to no movement on the Black Dahlia murder investigation. A lot of people have been questioned and a lot of theories have been put forth and more clues had even been found. Elizabeth Short's purse and shoes, for example, had been found in a trash can outside of a cafe four miles from Leimert Park.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But none of these clues had led anywhere meaningful because Finnis and Hansen had made sure, especially after Mark Hansen's name came into play, that the investigation had stalled.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
See, now, if they found the purse and stuff four miles away in a trash can outside of a diner, someone had to have been tipped off. Like, because that shit's just getting picked up and thrown in the dump. No one's searching every trash can within four miles of her body.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it just happened. They just happened upon it. I mean, that's another just happened upon it. Fucking story here. Reporters later uncovered that Finnis was in debt to Hansen for $5,000, 70 grand in today's money. And it's speculated that Mark Hansen used Finnis Brown to shut down any lines of investigation that led towards him in exchange for forgiveness on his debt.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, that by itself is not proof that he killed Elizabeth Short or that he was responsible for the death of Elizabeth Short. But... A person was just about to be discovered that was going to lead towards Mark Hansen.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The one man in the LAPD who just couldn't let it go, the man who tried to fight the tide of corruption and cover-ups, was the aforementioned Dr. Joseph Paul DeRiver, which I mispronounced in the last episode as DeRiver. DeRiver!
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, as we said last week, DeRiver was in charge of screening all the confessing Sams who either arrived at the police station claiming they'd killed Elizabeth Short or were sending weird shit through the mail. After a year and a half of sifting through the muck, however, DeRiver finally decided to get proactive. I got a copy of his out-of-print book, The Sexual Criminal. It is very... It's dated.
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This moral ambivalence trickled down into the very fabric of this city and gave all sorts of people tacit permission to be horrible. Because when you mix a virtually untouchable group of powerful individuals with a never-ending stream of desperate, naive people, shit's going to get real ugly and real weird real fast.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. But it is very, very interesting. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Dr. Deriver is a fucking hero.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He behaved like a monster much of the time.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. See, Deriver had a theory that the killer both craved attention and was most likely a true crime fan. So he planted an article about the Black Dahlia murder in True Detective magazine to try and lure the killer out from hiding.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The registration, yeah.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, the article described the Black Dahlia killer as a sadomasochistic type with at least half a dozen victims already. A cunning, studious, scientific type. who would be compelled to boast about the details of the crime. And sure enough, soon after the article was published, Deriver received a letter from Miami Beach, signed with the obviously fake name of Jack Sand.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jack Sand wrote that he'd read the article about the Black Dahlia murder, and he believed that a friend of his was the killer. Intrigued, Deriver and the mysterious Jack Sand began exchanging letters. And Jack eventually said that his friend was a guy named Jeff. Jeff!
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
That's like three feet deep.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, allegedly, this guy said that he'd spent six weeks in San Francisco with Jeff just after the Black Dahlia murder. Jeff, Jackson wrote, had bragged that he'd gone to the same bars as Elizabeth Short, but had fled Los Angeles before the cops could question him.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jeff also liked to draw. Yes, he did.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, in one letter, Jack included a sketch that he claimed had been drawn by Jeff.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, while the contents of the letters themselves were interesting, the sketch really was the sort of wow moment for Dr. Dereva. Wow! It featured a fair amount of crosshatching that was very similar to some of the extensive mutilation inflicted on Elizabeth Short's body, namely the crisscross lacerations that have been found on her pubic bone and right hip.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jack Sand also wrote a letter that speculated on the motive behind the killing, saying that Elizabeth may have threatened exposure of something, an affair not considered proper, as he put it.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Where are you from?
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jack Sand also said that the killer may have experienced a new sensation by accident during the murder, thus leading to the Black Dahlia's complete annihilation. The letter also showed many of the same spelling, grammar, and syntax peculiarities as the letter sent to Jimmy Richardson at the examiner.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And Jack Sand also referred to the victim as simply Elizabeth, rather than Elizabeth Short or the Black Dahlia, inferring that this person may have known or felt Not like he had known Elizabeth Short intimately.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Right in those moments before. That's where L.A. was fun. I think like days before it was fun. It was fun.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, I can hear him saying the game is afoot over and over again.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He had that perfect little mustache. He had that perfect mustache for it. Now, when he was calling her Elizabeth, was she known as Elizabeth? Because you called her Beth earlier. She was Beth to her friends. Okay.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Now, since Finnis Brown and Harry the Hat Hansen had all but given up on the case, the aforementioned gangster squad was tapped to pick up where they left off. Because not everyone at the LAPD, nor everyone in the mayor's office, was on the take. There were some people who wanted this fucking thing solved.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, it's a razor's edge. That's the thing about Los Angeles. It's a town where you can walk this razor's edge of danger and you never know when you're going to fucking fall off.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So Deriver told the gangster squad all about this Jack Sands character in Miami Beach, which prompted the squad to send one of their officers to Florida undercover to track Sands down.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Before long, they discovered that Jack Sands was a pseudonym for a career criminal named Leslie Dwayne Dillon. 27 at the time, Dillon was described as tall, lanky, and sloop-shouldered, with a habit of dyeing his hair different colors. Originally from Oklahoma, Dillon had served less than a year in the Navy during World War II before he was dishonorably discharged for stealing watches.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Remember that. A few years later, Dylan was arrested for pimping in San Francisco. Then, after marrying and fathering a child, he became, much like Elizabeth Short, just another drifter in post-World War II America. He was free. Using the aliases of Jack Diamond, Jack Maxim, and Jack San, Dylan wandered between California, Florida, and Oklahoma...
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with his family in tow, working alternately as a bellhop, a rum runner, a bootlegger, a pimp, a professional gambler, a taxi driver, and, for a short period of time, a dance instructor.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Out of all the professions that he had, the one that he returned to again and again was bellhop. He just liked it. And pimp.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Lots of cash. Both jobs.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I tell you what I like. It's the little hat. I mean, bellhop and pimp, that goes hand in hand. You're dropping off a guy, you say like, hey, looking for some fun tonight? Exactly.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And then you think the bellhop's getting the lady? No, the bellhop's the one who's telling you, like, hey, I got some girls. You looking for some fun tonight here in San Francisco?
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Well, in this case, it was. Yes. Wow.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, the head bellhop is the pimp. Now, Leslie Dillon... You wanna fuck, Greg?
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And so, on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the disreputable, disgusting men who thrived in the underbelly of Los Angeles during the time of the Black Dahlia murder. Along the way, we'll also explain how these men gained enough power to possibly cover up their involvement in one of the most high-profile murders in America's history.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, it's clear. Yeah, it was part of the turndown service.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, concerning 1940s sex parties. There is a whole other line of investigation here involving the real Los Angeles sex parties. I think Mark Hansen was just having fun. He was just taking a girl here and taking a girl there. There's a whole other line of questioning that involves a man named Hodel, who was actually having horrific orgies at his house all the time.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But George Hodel doesn't really fit into this world.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, Leslie Dillon soon caught on that someone was following him. So he turned himself over to the FBI, suspiciously telling the authorities that the cops were after him for, quote, some offense in Los Angeles.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But since the gangster squad operated totally in secret to protect themselves and to honestly take a shit on the Constitution whenever they wanted. Dental dam. Yeah. The FBI had no idea who Dylan was or what he was talking about, so they told him to get lost. Now later, one of the gangster squad members said that they would have been indicted many times over for the shit they did back then.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, which meant that the guy who had traveled to Miami Beach to investigate Leslie Dylan had no problem breaking into his house without a warrant to search for clues. Amongst violently torn clothes and piles of books, magazines, and newspapers, the officers found numerous true crime articles cut out and saved. Stories about prison guards being killed in riots.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
A lot of stories about girls getting shot in the face.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But he's just into the occult.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He's not into the occult. He's into true crime.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He's into true crime. But back then, there weren't many books on it.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
If you wanted to read it again... The magazines were everywhere.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Back then, there were so many detectives. Like, they called them detective magazines.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. They'd read anything about these people. The officers also found a treasure trove of short stories that Dylan had written involving situations that usually ended with a woman being raped and murdered. Finally, though, the cop came across the copy of True Detective magazine that featured the article that Dr. Joseph DeRiver had planted.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, while organized crime was certainly a problem, it operated hand-in-hand with the LAPD. And in the time period we're talking about here, the 1930s to the 1950s, it's been said that the LAPD had absolute disregard for both the Constitution and the law itself.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
On a picture of a telegram Red Manley had sent to Elizabeth Short, Dylan had signed the page with the name Jack Sand using a ballpoint pen, which appeared to be similar to the pen used to write the printed postcard in which the so-called Black Dahlia Avenger had said he's going to turn himself in.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, this may not seem like a big sticking point here, but in 1947, ballpoint pens were relatively new, rare, and expensive. They cost about $175 in today's money.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, none of this is, of course, concrete proof of murder, but it was enough for the undercover officer to call his superiors in L.A. to say, quote...
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Everything the cops do is illegal except they try to get this guy legally back. Why don't you just hit him over the head and fucking throw him in a train car?
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, that's kind of what Deriver said they did. But this is the other side of that story. Deriver contacted Dylan and asked him to meet so he could give him more information about this Jeff character.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Jeff. Jeff. That had supposedly killed Elizabeth Short. But while Dylan had been all too ready to help before, he was reluctant to return to California. I get sunburned. So, Deriver and Dylan agreed to meet in Las Vegas.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Where the gangster squad planned to set up wiretaps to record everything Dylan said. When they got there, though, Dylan was too nervous to talk and suggested they go to Palm Springs instead. Much nicer. It is. But during that drive, Dylan began to talk more about himself.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He told the driver and the gangster squad member driving them that one of his many jobs had been as a mortuary assistant, where he'd learned the proper way to bleed a corpse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's so crazy. Mum's the word from Florida to Vegas, but from Vegas to Palm Springs is an open book. I actually spent many years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Dylan also spoke in the same soft, modulated voice that had been used when the alleged Black Dahlia killer had called Jimmy Richardson at the Los Angeles examiner offices. Now, once they got to a lodge in Palm Springs, the gangster squad wired up a cabin and listened in as Dylan and Deriver talked about his mysterious friend Jeff, the one who had supposedly killed Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Dylan told them that the perpetrator's full name was Jeff Connors. Yes, Connors. And soon after began to pontificate about Elizabeth Short's murder, starting with speculation on why her body had been cut in half. Just sort of thinking out loud.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, Dylan said that the killer might have wanted to physically see how far his penis went into the body of a woman when it was inserted into her vagina. Fascinating. Cutting. Yes.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So curious. All right. So I'm going to have sex with her. You peek in the top.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Cutting her in half, Dylan opined, would enable the murderer to stick his penis inside the severed bottom half of Elizabeth Short's body and see it poke out the other end.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No. This is a very long time ago.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
More details you'd like to know?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh, your penis could poke her that long. You know what's interesting is when you can do this, you can also shake her hand.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There it is. Well, as far as where the bisection took place, Dylan said she was probably cut in half in a bed, a bath, or on a floor. And the blood was probably drained by hanging the two halves in a shower. Jeff Connors, Dylan said, would have done all of this on the ground floor of a motel so we wouldn't have to lug the body down any stairs.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, as Deriver listened to Dylan, he began to get a hunch. So he asked Dylan to strip naked. Now, listen, this might sound like a total non sequitur.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's just us. It's Popspring.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I'll do too. Well, hesitatingly, Dylan did as he was asked, or so DeRiver says. I think it's more likely that a gangster squad member forced Dylan's pants down.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But either way, Deriver's hunch was correct. He had suspected that Dylan had a micropenis. And sure enough... Don't tell me why. I don't know how it was.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And sure enough, when Dylan's dingle was exposed, Deriver, with disturbing accuracy, compared the size of Dylan's penis to one belonging to a boy of exactly eight years of age.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
His penis was larger than a seven-year-old's, boy.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The small penis, Deriver hypothesized, was why there was a vertical cut in Elizabeth's pubic region just above her vagina. Yeah? The micropenis would not be long enough to reach the bisection. But if the killer did want to see how far his penis went in, he would have to mutilate the body further if his penis was particularly small. For the next time you do this app, what I recommend to you,
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
to use an orange. Well, just guessing. Deriver thought that it was possible that Elizabeth Short may have mocked or threatened to expose Dylan's micropenis to his friends. And he had reacted in the most brutal way possible.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, that's why I think his pants were probably pulled down because it didn't seem like Dylan was super pleased with his micropenis.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There absolutely weren't.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There really weren't. Now, that's not to say that law enforcement during this time period was a paragon of virtue across America, but the LAPD were especially renowned for their lawlessness and brutality.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
What do you think of that? Not pretty small, huh?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Well, to bolster this theory, Deriver noticed that out of the many true crime articles Dylan kept at his home, many were stories in which the perpetrator had taken revenge on the victim for some slight, meaning that the Black Dahlia Avenger moniker may have held some element of truth. Additionally, Dylan knew far more about the exact details of the mutilation than what was made public.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And here's where we're going to get into some of the really fucking horrible shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. Dylan knew that Elizabeth Short's pubic hair had been cut off and shoved in her rectum, while the skin on her left thigh featuring her rose tattoo had been carved out and shoved in her vagina. There was also the little matter of one of the final indignations bestowed upon Elizabeth's corpse, the carving of a single letter on her skin.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The letter was D. And it was quite possible that the D was a sort of signature carved by who else but Leslie D. Dylan. Not Jeff. Actually, no, not Jeff.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, as we know from the last episode, some of the details had already been leaked to certain individuals connected to the LAPD. So it's not impossible to think that Leslie Dillon could have heard about them from someone. It is, however, extremely unlikely.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They struck deals with anyone who could line their pockets, from lawyers to snitches to bail bondsmen, and they created a grift in which the criminals, the cops, and the lawyers were all on the same side trying to squeeze as much money as they could out of the city of Los Angeles.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Leslie Dillon changed many of his answers after the fact. Yes. Now, after five days of conversation that only made Dylan look more guilty, conversations where he said he liked girls with big mouths. You get it? Jesus. He was trying to get caught. Yeah. He also just straight up said, like, yeah, I drug and rape girls all the time. It's my thing. It's my hobby. Yeah.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
We should have just killed him for fun then.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He was finally driven to San Francisco to track down the mysterious Jeff Connors. Jeff could be behind any corner. But after driving around San Francisco for a full week to no avail. No Jeff, nothing. No Jeff, no Jeff nowhere. Visiting dozens of hotels and haunts where this Jeff Connors might have been.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, not you. Not you.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I'm Jeff. Let me see your license. Not with a G. Idiot. Well, Dylan was taken back to Los Angeles. There, he began to realize he had basically been kidnapped by Dr. Deriver and the gangster squad. Oh, yeah. And he had no way to free himself.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So Dylan threw a postcard out of his hotel window in L.A. that said he was being Jeff.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The postcard said that he was being held in room 219 by Dr. J. Paul DeRiver in connection with the Black Dahlia murder. And he was requesting legal counsel.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Interestingly, especially for a man of such little means as Leslie Dillon, the postcard was addressed to a high-powered attorney, a man who had represented Errol Flynn on statutory rape charges, a man who had represented Robert Mitchum for marijuana possession, and most importantly, had represented mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen on a number of criminal charges.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And how long do you think this lasted? Like 15 years? No. About 2024. I mean, there's always going to be police corruption, but obviously.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The incredible coincidence here, though, was that the person who found the postcard was none other than one of Aggie Underwood's reporters for the Herald Express. You can't write this in a movie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But it literally happens. Yeah. They called their contact at the gangster squad and asked them what was going on here with this Leslie Dillon guy. That forced the LAPD to either arrest Leslie or set him free. And they chose arrest.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now when Dylan was taken downtown and his belongings were searched for the first time, cops found that Dylan had packed a number of harrowing yet ridiculous items for his trip out west to speak with the police.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, along with 700 phenobarbital pills. I just like to be awake.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh, nice.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it's what you use to roofie women.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh, really?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Oh, I thought it was to roofie yourself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
That's why Tootsie sleeps so much.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, phenobarbital is bad. If you're found with a lot of phenobarbital pills, it's a bad person.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Really? Yeah. I'm blown away right now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But they also could have epilepsy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
At its worst, it was a decades long thing that lasted from the 20s up until around the 50s. Okay. Where there was no law. Yeah. None.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He does not have epilepsy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
All right, get the nap.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Dylan had also brought seven razor blades and a dog leash with a massive leather strap that had appeared as if it had been thoroughly scrubbed and scraped.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's for the dog. I mean, I'm going with the dog theory now. You got a dog leash, phenobarbital, like...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The scrap also showed signs of strain, as if a heavy weight had been suspended from it. If you'll remember, the way Elizabeth Short's arms had been placed made it look as if she'd been hung from something for a very long period of time.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And he also said that's the best way to drain the blood out of the body is hanging it in the shower.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
You can use a belt for lots of stuff.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It's my choking belt. Yeah. All right, this is just so I can relax. Now, when it was announced that a suspect had been arrested in conjunction with the Black Dahlia murder almost two years after it had occurred, the press started looking into Leslie Dillon, and they found that his aunt lived on Crenshaw Boulevard. This location was less than four miles from Le Merritt Park.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Not super close, but not super far away. But... It was only two blocks away from the cafe where Elizabeth Short's purse and shoes had been found in the trash can.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
At another one of Dylan's Los Angeles addresses, his landlady said that he'd driven a black Ford sedan when he'd lived there, which was the same type of car seen by eyewitnesses on the night that Elizabeth Short's body was dumped in the vacant lot. But when police began interrogating Leslie Dillon directly, he denied ever knowing or even meeting Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Lots of, you know, lots of good movies and lots of bad movies made about it.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But what the LAPD and the press did discover was that Leslie Dillon had been involved in organized crime when he lived in Los Angeles.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes. Well, all this only got worse in 1933 when a man with an actual Hitler mustache named Frank Shaw was elected mayor.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I forgot my pants once. I didn't know. It's so hard. You're just rushing because of the deadlines.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, Dylan was decidedly small time. He worked as a pimp and a bootlegger. But the kicker was that he had done so in the same territory covered by associates of Elizabeth Short. Namely, he worked in the same territory as Mark Hansen, whose address book was still a big question mark for a lot of people when it came to the murder.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Now, Dylan had been arrested but not charged, and time was running out before they had to let him go. Deriver was convinced that Dylan was the killer, but not just because of what Dylan had told him. See, Dylan was still saying that his friend Jeff Connors was the killer. Jeff did it. And Jeff was the one who had told him all the mutilation details. He loves details.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But at one of the hotels where Dylan had worked in San Francisco, the driver had showed the manager a picture of Leslie Dylan. The manager said, sure, that guy worked here. I know him. But the manager did not call him Leslie Dylan. Rather, the manager identified the man in the picture as Jeff Connors.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Fuck! Oh my God, Jeff did do it! It's been me!
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Obviously, Leslie was using Jeff as his alter ego.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I cannot believe how good I am. Leslie is just one of the man's name. Yeah, for once. Jeff, the most masculine of names.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But since there was no hard evidence linking Dylan to the murder just yet, and since there was little evidence linking him directly to Elizabeth Short, the LAPD was forced to let him go free.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But concerning the LAPD... There's so much evidence.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
all circumstantial and it's all just shit he said and like they did take the strap and they sent it off to the lab and they're like nothing here it's been scrubbed clean you know like it's all circumstantial it's all just like weird shit there are no pictures of Leslie Dillon with Elizabeth Short
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, but concerning the LAPD, there was a confluence of events around this time that left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. See, as it turned out, Jeff Connors did actually exist. He was found in the town of Gilroy at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. As it turned out, Jeff Connors was a 40-year-old busboy, pulp fiction writer, and failed actor turned cosmetic salesman.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I'm Jeff. But he was questioned at length while Dillon walked free. The LAPD police chief had also made a total reversal on Dylan. Where he's just days prior to Dylan's release, it had been publicly said that they had incontrovertible evidence that Dylan was in LA at the time of the murder. The chief now said that Dylan had actually been in San Francisco at the time.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, because there's no brim. The lip. It's a chaplain mustache at this point. But in 1933, though, Hitler was a world-renowned figure. So you do know that you have the same mustache as a... It's kind of like now having the same haircut as Elon Musk. Okay.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
He's been talking about that for years. I was hoping he didn't do it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
But I'm Jeff, so... But cops also stopped making the point that Dylan knew secret facts about the murder, the mutilation details. So the media was left once again with suspicions that something in the Black Dahlia case was being covered up by the cops.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Dylan, however, began talking himself to the press, and he had a very different story to tell about the treatment he'd received at the hands of Dr. Joseph Paul DeRiver and the LAPD, much of which could very well be true. Dylan claimed that DeRiver lured him in with the promise of a job as a doctor's secretary.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, no, Deriver did all kinds of horrible, weird, illegal shit.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, but then Dylan said that Deriver handcuffed him and kept him in custody for weeks. Dylan said he'd never claimed that his friend Jeff Connors was the murderer, nor that he'd ever even known who the killer actually was. But that also doesn't explain why the cops went and talked to Jeff Connors. Yeah, especially if he's all the way in fucking Gilroy. Yeah.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Dylan also said, and this part I believe, that the LAPD handcuffed him to a radiator with the heat turned all the way up during their interrogation. Driver, meanwhile, played good cop, saying that if Dylan confessed, they'd treat him well, like a sick boy instead of a common criminal.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It was also uncovered that Dr. Deriver may or may not have been completely upfront about his background.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The Los Angeles Daily News discovered that Deriver's real name was Joseph Israel. So a city councilman called for a public hearing to investigate Deriver's credentials. Now, this is often pointed to as something that discredits everything Deriver ever said or did, notwithstanding all the unconstitutional and illegal shit that he did. But the hearing did not discuss the Black Dahlia case at all.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
And Deriver was allowed to keep his job at the end of the hearing. That sucks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Thank you. But even though the arrest of Leslie Dillon had been a fiasco that resulted in a $100,000 false arrest lawsuit that was later dropped, some interesting information did come to light as a result. Through Leslie Dillon, the cops did find and question Jeff Connors. And while it was obvious that Leslie Dillon was using the name Jeff Connors as an alter ego, Connors was not a dead end.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
See, Connors himself was full of shit. He told police that he'd hung out with Elizabeth Short the night before she'd been murdered. Oh, yeah. He was kind of... He's also a busboy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They never tell the truth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, man. What are you talking about? You worked in the restaurant industry for a while. You know busboys.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, Connors was known, he was a Walter Mitty type of character. You know, he would tell people that he'd acted in movies when he never did. And he was just known to make up stories to make himself more interesting.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. But Jeff Connors was like sort of the fun part of that. He was like, he was the fun guy that, you know, made up like fun stories. And Leslie Dillon was the guy, the very dark side of that, who says horrible things like, supposing you did cut a woman in half that you could maybe stick your penis inside of her and see it stick out of the bottom.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, Frank Shaw was essentially bought and paid for by organized crime. And his first action in office was to appoint his brother, Sailor Joe Shaw, as a secretary whose sole purpose was to organize and collect bribes. By making an under-the-table payment to Sailor Joe, a police officer or even a firefighter could easily— Yari, give me how you want to be up there.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I really enjoy your lies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Your lies are fun. Your lies are gross. But in checking out Connors' alibi, they came across his ex-wife who had some very interesting actual connections to the case. Jeff's ex-wife knew nightclub owner Mark Hansen, and she had lived with Mark Hansen after her divorce from Jeff.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Leslie Dillon had also showed up to Jeff's ex-wife's house after he was arrested and set free, shouting through a closed door that she better not say shit to the police about anything she knew or else.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So, another connection between Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen, however faint, was made, and the gangster squad was slowly connecting the dots as far as what may have really happened to Elizabeth Short.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The entire scenario, however, began to come into sharp focus when the gangster squad discovered reports of a motel room in Los Angeles that had been found covered in blood and feces just after Elizabeth Short's murder. And it's with that disgusting little room that we'll return next week for Black Dahlia Part 3.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
You need helping hands. I just put together a bench. I need another pair of hands.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, there's three parts for a reason. Yes.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
It is very murky.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. It's a massive story and there are a million different theories.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I also feel like, you know, as someone who likes like older movies, I feel like there's like things taken from this story that's in like several different movies. Oh, yeah, dude. Just like little pieces here and there and stuff. It's very interesting.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, very much so. And also, I really want to thank our team on this one who's done a fantastic job. I want to thank Shaw. I want to thank Joel. I want to thank Carolina for her help in editing the script on these last couple episodes. It's really been like a nice team LPN effort here for the Black Dahlia series.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, indeed. And also, don't forget to go to LastPodcastOnTheLeft.com to check out where we're going to be playing a show near you. We're going to be coming to all kinds of fucking places this coming year.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The show's hot right now, by the way, guys. That New York show was fucking nuts. It was incredible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, no, no. We're fucking, we're rolling on, we're firing on all fucking cylinders with this one. We've got Atlanta, Georgia on January 11th. Dallas, Texas, February 22nd. Nashville, Tennessee, March 14th. Detroit, Michigan, April 18th. Cannot fucking wait to go to the record stores in Detroit and Toronto, Ontario on May 3rd. Also can't wait to check out the record stores there.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Just fantastic record store towns, both of them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
I can't swim. Through him, a police officer or even a firefighter could easily buy a promotion. And Joe is even known to sell the answers to local civil service exams to anyone who wanted them. As one person put it, everything in City Hall from the furniture to the toilet paper was up for sale just so long as you paid cash.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Hail, um, who's cool today? Count Basie. Yeah! Yeah, that's good.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
What Shaw was in office, he was able to flip the tables on organized crime by forcing them to pay him protection. And as long as you stayed up to date on your payments, you never had to worry about a raid on your brothels or your casinos by the biggest gang in town. That was the LAPD.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
A little something to make him... Hitler.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Shaw's entire operation, however, came crashing down when he got involved with the attempted murder of a private investigator in 1938. The investigator was working with a concerned private citizen to expose the LAPD as essentially a legalized mafia.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
The entire operation had been orchestrated by the head of the LAPD intelligence squad. And interestingly, that officer was convicted for his crime partly due to testimony from Jack Parsons. That's, wow, holy fucking shit, another connection. Yeah, that's actually, this case is actually how Jack Parsons made his name. That's how Jack Parsons got famous was by being an expert witness in this case.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, because when I was reading about it, I was like, I know this case from somewhere. Yeah, it was Jack Parsons. And after the intelligence officer was convicted, Mayor Frank Shaw resigned along with the LAPD chief, James Tugun Davis. Woo! And dozens of LAPD officers, quote-unquote, retired to Mexico soon after to escape further scrutiny.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Soon after, another 200 cops were demoted or fired, and the administration that followed Mayor Shaw's corrupt regime appointed an elite group of cops dedicated to removing mobsters and the corrupt officials from within. That group was called the Gangster Squad.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh yeah, but these guys weren't the runners. They weren't first responders. They were like third and fourth responders.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They were call me when you get them responses.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
These are the new good guys. These are handpicked recruits. This is like Gotham City. This is Commissioner Gordon combing the ranks of the fucking police department to find the few guys who aren't paying the Oswald Cobblepot.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They had that horrible movie that came out like 10 years ago called Gangster Squad. Oh, is there like Jeremy Renner in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He plays like the flute in it or something? Yeah, and I think Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohen or something like that. Yeah. But then they had to...
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
halt the release of it because they had this scene where it was in the preview where they came out and they just shot everyone in a movie theater and then the batman thing happened yeah and so they're like okay i guess this movie's coming out in winter instead of summer and they had to go like reshoot a bunch of shit jesus no it's just them handing out gum to a bunch of people in the theater being like don't say we didn't give him anything you see enjoy some sugar-free gum i won't hurt your teeth see
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
No, Mickey Cohen hated the gangster squad. He called them more like the stupidity squad. The mobsters aren't super clever when it comes to names.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Especially not them.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah. Working deep undercover, the seven-man gangster squad operated solely out of two unmarked sedans. They had no offices, and they began making a name for themselves as crack investigators who were just as unconcerned with the Constitution as the men they were hunting.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
As such, the gangster squad was sometimes given special assignments outside of their purview, which is how they came to be involved in the investigation into the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
In other words, if you'd fucked up as badly as upper merchant Pelsart had just fucked up by sinking the company's flagship, stranding 270 people, and losing over $50 million in guilders and treasure, Jans Koon was the last man you wanted to go to, hat in hand.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Making matters worse for Pelsart was the fact that Jans Kuhn was in a particularly bad mood in July of 1629 because things were not going well at all for the VOC in Batavia. And to really understand the decisions Pelsart and Kuhn were about to make, you've got to understand what was happening in the Indies outside of the shipwreck.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
See, as we discussed on episode one, Jans Koon had secured the nutmeg and clove fields of the Indies by committing genocide on the people known as the Banta. And while the VOC didn't necessarily agree with Koon's methods, they still made him governor of the islands after the genocide because Koon was a loyal company man who got results.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But the Bantanese weren't the only people native to the Indies. Amongst many established societies, there was an entire kingdom of indigenous people called the Mataram Empire. They ruled over much of the island of Java, where the colony of Batavia was actually located. And these are the guys that are always a problem at the beginning of Civ VI.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, meanwhile, the Russians got fucking nothing around them, and they're just going miles ahead of you. They've already discovered a goddamn art, and I'm sitting over here trying to just get a settler made.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, the Mataram Empire was an agrarian society. Should I? Please. Agrarian. That operated on the barter system. So the VOC was fine with letting them do their own thing just so long as they didn't interfere with the spice trade. Spice. But the leader of the Mataram Empire fancied himself a bit of a conqueror. They always are. And suddenly decided that he wanted Batavia for himself.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So about a year before the VOC's flagship sunk to the bottom of the ocean, a force of 10,000 Matamorese warriors attempted to take the VOC's colonial capital.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
A couple thousand. Well, they've got fortifications. That's the thing is that the other soldiers, I mean, it's not like these 10,000 people are showing up with guns and catapults and trebuchets and all that shit. They've got pretty primitive weapons. And Batavia, like they have built an actual castle on the ashes of the town they destroyed. So they can just go behind the walls. Oh, yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And that's exactly what Jans Koon did. Like, he led his people into the most fortified section of the fortress, and he burned down the rest of the settlement in your classic scorched earth maneuver. The VOC were under siege for three months before the Mata Maris ran out of supplies and left.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But Jans Koon knew that when the Mata Maris harvest came in the next August, the indigenous forces would return and attempt to take the city again.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
How? By hiding behind the castle walls?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, this inevitable second attack was a big part of why Jans Koon was counting on the Batavia to arrive, because he desperately needed the soldiers the Batavia was carrying to fortify the castle defenses when the Mataram Empire mounted its next attack.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The Batavia colony was also still mostly in ruins almost a year later, which would have made those sandstone blocks being carried by the ship Batavia quite useful. There was also the matter of the cash, the equivalent of $52.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
million dollars which was central to the voc's future plans in the indies but that's all to say that when upper merchant palsart showed up in java with a boat of mostly sailors and nothing else he was about to deliver the worst news possible to the biggest hard ass in the voc right when said hard ass desperately needed good news why wouldn't he bring some gold
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. And we have the future boofer, Ed Larson. How you doing?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, that's actually what Jan Koon brought up. Like, you didn't bring anything? Like, nothing?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Oh, yeah. He's going to lose out no matter what.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, luckily for upper merchant Pelsart, Governor Kuhn had nearly been shipwrecked two years earlier in almost the same spot where the Batavia sank. So he did have the tiniest bit of sympathy towards Pelsart's plight. But Kuhn was ultimately unimpressed by the fact that Pelsart had arrived with no valuables whatsoever.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Coon was a company man through and through, and since he knew that the top priority for the Gentleman 17 would be the cargo, Coon's first priority was the same. So Coon gave Pelsart explicit instructions to return to the islands immediately, where he would prioritize not the survivors, but the loot. Yes, Mr. Coon. Absolutely, Mr. Coon.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, it took months. And whoever was still alive when Pelsart returned would just have to wait until the VOC had scraped every inch of ocean for every last bit of recoverable loot before being brought back to civilization.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The implication here was that if Pelsart did not recover enough VOC property to satisfy Governor Kuhn, then Pelsart could very well have found himself totally responsible for the losses. which could have resulted in jail time or even execution if Coon was feeling particularly saucy on the day he made his decision. And you better be careful because it's marinara Monday.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I mean, people casually say today, like, oh, my boss is going to kill me. But with the VOC, your boss could actually kill you. We really need to bring that back. Up to you two to do it. I can't wait. All right, well, we'll have a powwow.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Let's put it out on the slack and see what everyone thinks.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But then there was, of course, the matter of what to do with the mutinous Captain Jakobs and the boatswain. Now, we don't know exactly how it went down, but soon after their arrival in Java, Pelsart distanced himself from his former shipmates. At some point, Pelsart had to tell Governor Kuhn, on top of everything else, that a mutiny had been fomenting on the ship just before it wrecked.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
This was the cherry on top of Pelsart's Sunday of Incompetence, and it seems like it took Pelsart about four days to work up the nerve to mention it to his boss. But once Coon was told, Captain Jacobs and the Boatswain were immediately arrested and thrown into the dungeons of Castle Batavia to either await justice or rot until the end of their days.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, on our last episode, we took you on a journey through the nightmare world created by Euronymous Cornelius and his band of brutes on the islands where upper merchant Pelsart left the survivors of the Batavia to live or die by the whims of fortune. Nice. But if you'll join us as we go all the way back to the end of episode two.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, two days after the captain and the boatswain were arrested, Upper Merchant Pelsart was given command of the Sardum, a smallish yacht staffed with a skeleton crew of 30 guys, so as to make sure they had enough room for survivors and loot. Mostly loot. Mostly loot.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
They set sail from Java for a relatively short journey to the islands, where Pelsart hoped he would find most of the survivors still alive, if not thriving. You just never know with these people.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, instead, when Palsart arrived at Batavia's graveyard, he found the survivors in the middle of a war. And so, now that we've told you all about what happened to Upper Merchant Pelsart after he left the survivors, let's back things up a couple of weeks in the timeline to where we left things off in episode three.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
We're now back on the island chain with Viva Hyas and the Defenders on the highlands and Euronymous Cornelius on Batavia's graveyard with his band of murderous mutineers. Back to the boredom.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, if you'll remember, refugees from Batavia's graveyard were washing up on the highlands for weeks in groups of four or five, where they found that Viva Hayes and his men were having a grand old time enjoying near unlimited water and a veritable buffet of island creatures for sustenance.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But each and every person who arrived at the Highlands had a new horrific story to tell about what was going down over on Batavia's graveyard, from casual murder to full-on massacres, all committed in service of Euronymous's fantasy of becoming a pirate.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Upper Merchant Pelsart had a journey of his own ahead of him, as he still had to go to Java to request help for the survivors, but more importantly as far as he was concerned, Pelsart also had to report to the VOC on the full extent of just how badly he'd fucked up.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, after hearing all this, Viva Hayes knew that it was only a matter of time before Euronymous and his men came for them. See, both Viva and Euronymous knew that the first group who made it to the rescue boat was going to be the ultimate winner here. If Viva made it first, then his group could warn their rescuers about the mutineers and after defeating the mutineers.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
they could all go to Java to continue living the soldier's life. But if Euronymous made it, the mutineers would likely kill everyone aboard the rescue ship and leave Viva's men to die. And that's if the mutineers didn't use the rescue ship's cannons and weapons to slaughter Viva's group just because they wanted to.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. But aren't the mutineers like fucking weak as hell at this point? At this point they are, but if you've got weapons, especially if you've got superior weapons, it can really make all the difference.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
We'll see. But that's all to say that Viva knew that the stakes were high, and he had to be prepared. The biggest problem Viva had, though, was that Euronymous's men had all the muskets and swords. But that didn't mean Viva didn't have advantages himself. Most importantly, Viva had made sure that everyone who showed up on the highlands was well provided for, which engendered real loyalty.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And the abundance of resources on the highlands meant they had no less than 50 healthy people willing to fight. In contrast, Euronymous ruled his men by fear, and their rations were limited to what rainwater they could catch with tarps, along with stray birds and a rapidly dwindling supply of hardtack.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Viva was also a hell of a soldier, so he and his men studied the geography of the highlands to surmise where they could best defend the island against Euronymous when he and his men finally mounted their attack.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Eventually, Viva pegged a shore of mudflats as the most likely landing spot, so a lookout was posted there at all times with clear vantage points to send signals inland, where most of the real defenses actually were. But since their strategy was based almost solely on defense, Viva's men took to calling themselves the Defenders.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So today, before we return to the battle between the so-called defenders and the evil hordes of Euronymous Cornelis, let's rejoin Upper Merchant Pelsart and Captain Jakobs for their trip to Java.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The Commanders. I like the flotellas. Yeah, that's fun. The tiny kangaroos. Yeah. The cats. Ooh, the cats. Now, having no military experience, no understanding of strategy, and a shallow bench when it came to military advisors, Euronymous Cornelis fell back on manipulation and deceit as his opening volley in the war.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He wrote a letter to Viva, warning him that the people who'd escaped to the highlands were all... All telling lies. They were the evil ones who were planning to betray Viva. So, Euronymous suggested, it would be in Viva's best interest to arrest those who had escaped and wait until Euronymous came to take them away. Yes.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, Euronymous' letter was delivered by a young VOC cadet who'd helped with the drownings in the early days of Euronymous' executions. But since Viva wasn't an idiot, the defenders took him captive as soon as he landed. When the cadet didn't return, Euronymous knew his plan hadn't worked, so he decided for an all-out attack.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
A group of 20 men, led by the psychopathic David Zivank, boarded boats to attack the highlands. But the defenders were well prepared. The mutineers landed exactly where Aviva thought they would. But when faced with the full force of healthy soldiers armed with homemade weapons, the mutineers retreated immediately. They figured out that... So muskets take a lot.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's about around a minute.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So now that the mutineers knew what they were up against, they returned with their entire crew a few days later, all, of course, except for Euronymous, who stayed behind on the graveyard. This time, the defenders and the mutineers actually clashed, but the mutineers again retreated without any real casualties on either side.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Totally at a loss on how to break through, the mutineers made no further attempts at attack for another month. But in that month, the survival situation for the mutineers became dire. Their food and water rations were running dangerously low, while it was quite obvious that Viva's group was living high on the hog, relatively speaking.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So what started as a war to save the mutineers from execution became a battle for resources. Now, like many demagogues throughout history, Euronymous thought he was much more clever than he really was. While he had no problem manipulating men who were already dissatisfied, ignorant, and prone to violence, he had a much harder time fooling anyone with a sense of decency.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So, when Euronymous moved on to his next plan of taking the highlands through subterfuge and deception, Viva Hayes saw through Euronymous' bullshit almost immediately and was able to turn Euronymous' plan against him.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now to keep the timeline straight in your head, we're rewinding the story all the way back to the days just after the Batavia shipwrecked, long before Euronymous took over and began ordering the murders of over a hundred people. This is the journey to Java, made by the rescue vessel that was supposed to return to the islands with help.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. See, the defenders had plenty of food and water, but they were dressed in rags, and they had to use driftwood planks strapped to their feet for shoes. Hieronymus, meanwhile, had plenty of material for clothes since Batavia's graveyard was far closer to the wreckage of the Batavia itself, and more stuff had washed ashore on his side of the archipelago.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So, Euronymous proposed a simple trade. Red wine and canvas for food and water. The trick Euronymous planned to pull, if you could even call it a trick, was that when the trade was made, the mutineers would take a few of the defenders aside to sow dissension and convince them to come and turn coat. I want to ask you a question. Is it harder to kill a baby or a six-year-old?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, if the mutineers were successful, then it would be far easier for Euronymous to mount an attack and murder every defender on the highlands. But like most of Euronymous's plans, it was about as ham-fisted as you could get. No offense.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, not just shoes, but how about shoes and gold? We've got a lot of treasure over there.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It doesn't matter at all. That's why the plan's fucking stupid. Now, this time around, Euronymous got a little more clever with his envoys. Instead of sending a mutineer with a trade offer, he sent the minister, who was received kindly and told that the defenders were open to negotiations, even though they knew Euronymous was planning something.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So, Euronymous took his full company of 37 men to the highlands with the red wine and canvas to complete the illusion. See? Yeah, see, see?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And it's also, this just, it speaks to Euronymous' narcissism as well, that he even, this is very much magical thinking, you know, that he knows that 20 people have showed up and told Vive Hayes all about the massacres that have happened, but he thinks that he's clever enough to work his way through it. And how did they get there? Did they swim? No.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, so as to not appear too aggressive, Euronymous left most of his men on a small islet 400 yards off the highlands when he went to go do his little trade subterfuge, while he and his five best men continued to the mudflats to meet with Viva.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So the longboat that sat on the Batavia's deck prior to the ship sinking was a 30-foot long craft with 10 oars and a single mast. Very much the sort of ship you'd expect to see being piloted by a few dozen Vikings. Eddie, you were correct. Hell yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, Viva could immediately see how pitiful Euronymous and his men really were once they were not in the heat of battle, as each man was rail thin from three months of trying to survive on whatever meager rations they could obtain on their barren wasteland.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And they're also all dressed in these ridiculous costumes that they've put together through other officers, people they've killed. I couldn't notice, but you don't have a hat on.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, exactly. Viva also saw through Euronymous' plan immediately, especially after Euronymous' five companions walked up to Viva's men and clumsily offered them guilders to switch sides right in front of Viva.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's a video game. This is people. Now, when the mutineers attempted to bribe his men right in front of him, Viva figured enough was enough and took the opportunity to arrest Euronymous and his five mutineers on the spot.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He's such a fucking bitch. Yeah. 400 yards away on the islet, the rest of the mutineers saw the arrest of their companions and prepared to advance. Seeing this, Viva Hayes ordered the immediate execution of every mutineer except Euronymous and five men, including the psychopathic David Zivank, were exterminated on the spot. This is when bullies meet actual bullies. Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The other mutineers were shocked and demoralized by the executions, although I don't know exactly what they expected to happen here. Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But instead of attacking, the mutineers returned to Batavia's graveyard. And in the end, the defenders also got the red wine and the canvas without having to give anything in return.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, it's the paper tiger thing. Where they immediately see, like, oh, fuck. Just a bunch of talk doesn't really work.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
We could get you into a prison easier than we can get you into a war.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Ah, that's, I believe, an Arrested Development plotline. Wow, yes, it is. Or the Escape Plan movie with Stallone and Schwarzenegger.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Oh, okay. All right. Now, after arresting Euronymous, the Defenders tortured and humiliated the now former mutineer leader by throwing him into a limestone pit. Yeah! Where they gave him the task of plucking and cleaning all the birds the Defenders hunted. Oh!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
They allowed Euronymous to keep one bird out of nine as so-called salary, but his job kept him constantly covered in blood and feathers, languishing in a pit quickly filling with bird guts. The health department have a field day with that. Not anymore.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
That's a Curb Your Enthusiasm plotline. Yep. Meanwhile, back on Batavia's graveyard, the mutants... The mutineers were going through a crisis of leadership. The next in command, a soldier named Stonecutter Peteres, was ineffectual and unpopular. So the mutineers elected a 24-year-old Dutch soldier as the graveyard's new leader. Might be the worst name I've ever heard. Wouter Losch.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Wouter Lars sounds like the cum boy at a Berlin nightclub.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, under Valderlosh's command, nobody else was murdered on Batavia's graveyard. And the reign of terror was effectively at an end, unless, of course, you were a woman. Things continued to be horrible for them.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Solved. Finally. But at the very least, no one lived in fear of random stabbings or stranglings from that point on, and they even reinstated the council. But even though some semblance of civilization had been restored, it didn't solve the inevitable execution or resource problems, so the plan to attack the highlands was soon back on.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And so, after trying to send the minister one more time with a false peace offering that was immediately rejected, the mutineers launched another attack on September 17th, an attack that would prove to be their last. Why wouldn't the minister just stay at the Highlands? I've actually asked myself that question. I think it's fear, partly. And he also signed the loyalty oath.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And for these people, paperwork is sacred. I'm not even fucking joking here. Paperwork is very sacred. He signed a loyalty oath to Euronymous Cornelius and his men. His men are still there. They're still fucking hanging out. So he has to honor that loyalty contract.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. Yeah. He sure did. He sure did.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He'll just do his part, though. Yeah. So, over. Yeah, his contract ended. Yeah. Now, the mutineers were at their greatest disadvantage yet in this offensive. All their best military men had been executed on the mudflats, and Viva had larger numbers who were better fed, as well as the high ground. But the advantage the mutineers still hadn't brought into play were the guns.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Either because they were saving them for the rescue ship, or because Euronymous thought he was clever enough to get by without them, the mutineers still hadn't fired the muskets that they'd had since day one. But with no other options, the mutineers incorporated the muskets into a strategy that had a good chance of working out.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, once the mutineers loaded into their boats, rode over to the highlands, and landed on the mudflats, they used their two muskets to keep the fight at long range by firing one round a minute. And while this sounds like it wouldn't work, the mutineers were able to injure three defenders and kill one. The rock thing, it sounded like a good idea, didn't really work in practice.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
That was a whole thing. Now, there's tactics to every single one of these weapons. If there wasn't tactics behind them, they wouldn't be a part of warfare. Now, this strategy very well could have translated to total victory for the mutineers, a rescue for Euronymous Cornelis, and the slaughter of every man, woman, and child on the highlands.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But just as the mutineers were about to overtake the defenders and kill them all, they spotted something on the water off in the distance. It was upper merchant Pelsart, returning after three months with 30 men and a fully stocked VOC ship right in the middle of a battle. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, as far as the crew on the longboat went, Upper Merchant Pelsart made sure to bring the most experienced sailors from the Batavia, so his chances of reaching his destination 2,000 miles north was about as good as it could get.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Why Jurassic Park? I don't know.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, Pelsart should have shown up days before his dramatic entrance. But with Captain Jacobs and the boatswain in jail back on Java, it took Pelsart forever to find the islands again.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Okay, let me orient myself. Let's go back to Java, and then I'll think about it. It's this way more than this way. Well, Pelsart actually had no idea if anyone was even alive on the archipelago. But when he saw smoke coming from the islands, he dropped anchor and had his crew load the ship's boats with supplies. and just by a fluke of geography, the first island Pelsart came to was the Highlands.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, had Pelsart landed on Batavia's graveyard with no knowledge whatsoever of what had transpired in the three months he'd been gone, it was entirely possible that the mutineers could have surprised them and taken the ship, because Pelsart's crew was mostly people focused on recovering the loot.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But the mutineers didn't know that, and when they saw that the rescue ship was definitely heading towards the highlands, they broke off their attack and retreated to their camp, while Avivahias raced to meet Pelsart's boat to warn him about the mutineers. Yeah, it's the Lost music playing in my head.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The experienced sailors, however, included both Captain Ariana Jacobs and the Boatswain, who had both been pegged by Upper Merchant Pelsart as mutineers before the longboat even shoved off. It does seem, though, like all three of them had to just pretend like nobodies Nothing was going on for the entirety of their journey to Java.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
No, they suck! I think he said they fuck. I mean, I fuck. You fuck. Do we fuck? Yeah, I think we could. I wish I could. Why don't we go to the other island?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, with the VOC back in the picture, the fight had gone out of many of the mutineers. But of all people, the rabid yet impotent cabin boy, Jan Pelgrim, acted as the mutineer's mascot and got the men fired up again.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
You fucking stabbed the little girl to death. Within minutes, Jan Pelgrim convinced a group of mutineers to get back in their boats and row for one last shot at taking the rescue ship and killing everyone who stood in their way. Because at this point, death was coming for them no matter what they did.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
You know, he's a good mascot.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, I guess it's not fun if everyone's got a bad attitude.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
All right, well, continue. Now, over on the highlands, the problem the defenders had was that they'd hidden all their boats on the north side of the island to keep them safe from capture during the battle. That meant that Viva had to cross two miles of rough ground, then row his boat another three miles to the sardum before the mutineers got there first.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Upper Merchant Pelsart had also somewhat foolhardily boarded a boat full of supplies along with half his men to look for survivors on the highlands, so the sardom was lightly crewed by just a dozen sailors. Easy pickings for armed mutineers. But once Vivahias reached his raft, he rode out until he spotted Upper Merchant Pelsart standing dumbly on the beach waiting for something to happen. Heh.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He's got his hands in the small of his back and just waiting. The only ship that survives. Something's got to happen soon. Well, Viva quickly made his way to Pelsart and told him to go back to his ship immediately because a party of scoundrels from the other islands had intentions to seize the Sardom. After hearing a very brief version of what had transpired over the last three months...
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
We call them cats. Pelsart jumped into action and got back in his boat, but not before he told Viva to bring Euronymous Cornelius to the Sardom with all haste. Pelsart, however, was still some distance from his ship when he saw, rounding the southern point of the highland, a sloop carrying the mutineers. So he told his men to row, row, fast!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And he barely had enough time to clamber up the side of his ship to alert his crew before the mutineer's sloop pulled aside.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But the defenders had warned Pelsart just in time. Minutes! And when Pelsart looked down at the eleven men in the sloop below, dressed in their ostentatious homemade uniforms and armed with swords, he knew that Viva Hayes had told him the truth.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
After a brief standoff, the mutineers saw sense that their cause was finally lost. And with their surrender, the three month long mutiny on the Batavia was finally over at the cost of over 120 lives.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, so three months from the arrival, it's like June to September. 120 people? 120 people, over 120 people. They don't really know exactly how many people died, but they think it's somewhere between like 120 and 130. And I got to say, that was the best summer of our lives. Summer of 1629!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, Pelsart began interrogations immediately, and one of Euronymous' top men, perhaps tired of the whole goddamn affair, he quickly confessed to the murders of 20 people committed on the orders of Euronymous Cornelius. We were bored.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He then laid out the entire conspiracy, starting with the original mutiny plot that began three months earlier on the Cape of Good Hope, continuing with Euronymous' brutal reign, and ending with the attempted capture of the rescue ship.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, once Euronymous was brought before Upper Merchant Pelsart, still covered in the blood and feathers of dead birds, he tried blaming everything on the men who'd already been executed by the defenders on the mudflats a month earlier, who were too dead to say otherwise.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
because all Euronymous had ever wanted was to maintain the peace and save as many survivors as he could from these terrible soldiers and sailors, and he'd never had any plot to seize the Batavia nor any other ship.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, Pelsart was understandably overwhelmed with information here, so he put Euronymous in the brig and sailed to Batavia's graveyard the day after his arrival to arrest any remaining scoundrels and save whoever was still in the thrall of the mutineers.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Pelsart was of course prepared for a fight, but once the mutineers saw a boat of fully equipped soldiers sailing towards them, the defenders with new gear, they all surrendered and were arrested, then bound on the spot. In searching the island for VOC valuables and guilders, Pelsart found the written oaths the mutineers had sworn to Euronymous, but that was only part of the evidence.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Euronymous had also kept extensive journals, which were soon cross-referenced with the accounts of survivors and the confessions of the mutineers.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, not just Euronymous, but many people detailed it. A lot of people, like the minister actually wrote a book, an entire book after being rescued from the island that detailed like everything. So there's a ton, a ton of firsthand accounts, primary sources on this. I feel like no man should ever have a diary.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, as I said earlier, Pelsart's ultimate mission here was not the rescue of the survivors. This was primarily a recovery mission. So while Pelsart sussed out the crimes of Euronymous Cornelius and his men, he ordered the divers he'd brought with him to begin scouring the Batavia shipwreck to salvage whatever they could. an operation that was set to take months.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But I suppose, thankfully, as far as entertainment went, the months of recovery gave Pelsar plenty of time to form a council that would be in charge of punishing the mutineers right there on the island, with full criminal trials and executions backed by the authority of the VOC, which, again, was a private company.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Ironically, though, one of the men on the council was himself a mutineer and a murderer. Pelsart's former clerk, the man who killed the baby on Euronymous's order, the one with the tiny little noose. Sorry. He was the only person available who could read or write. So he made recordings of the proceedings and signed judgments of his former comrades.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
How are they going to do that? Don't most oars have like the T at the very end of it? Oh, yeah. You work it in the old corner way.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Trying to find it, trying to recover it. Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they have.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Sorry.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Why are you doing this to me?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I imagine they held their breath. Yeah, probably. But there might have been hoses. They might have been something like that.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. All right.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
They're just really good swimmers. Okay.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
That's kind of fun. Now, the proceedings were held in accordance with Dutch law, which stated that a man could only be condemned to death if he freely confessed. The loophole was that confession under torture still counted as freely confessed, so if a mutineer resisted questioning on the island, he was tortured until he admitted to murder.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I see.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. Euronymous, however, held out for a surprisingly long period of time and only broke under the dreaded water torture, which is far worse than it sounds. But he was, like, super-duper thirsty.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, if Euronymous went through what most people went through with water torture, he was stripped naked and tied up spread-eagle to an upright wooden frame.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Where his captors tied a canvas collar around his neck that reached up to his eyes. Something like a doggy cone. I can hear that, too. It's the...
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, the experienced sailors had correctly surmised that they'd shipwrecked about 50 miles from Australia, which Australia back then was little more than a large blob on all the maps. And it was still about a century and a half away from being settled by Europeans. But land was land.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Right. After going through that cycle three or four times, Geronimus' body was swollen to two or three times its original size. His cheeks would have looked like balloons, and his eyes would have swollen out past his forehead. And he would slowly have slid into modern Marlon Brando. Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But even as horrible as this is, it still took several days of water torture before Euronymous confessed to both the mutiny plot and ordering the murders, although he continued blaming others for his crimes. It was only after, and I don't know why I find this funny, but they brought in all the confessed mutineers one by one to confront him.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And that's when Euronymous finally admitted to ordering the murders of three dozen people of his own free will.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Euronymous then signed a confession, entrapping all the mutineers at once. And with that, it was time for sentencing. Yeah! For leading the mutiny and turning Batavia's graveyard into a slaughterhouse, Euronymous Cornelis was given the maximum penalty under Dutch law. He would be hanged, of course, but the Dutch added the extra indignity of cutting off the condemned's hands first. Yes! Whoa!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, also in...
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, it's fucking awesome. It is crazy.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So the rescue boat's initial plan was to find water somewhere off the coast of Australia and bring it back to the survivors on the islands before the boat made its final push to Java. But after taking six full days to find even a safe spot to put in due to the coast's cliff-ridden geography, the rescue boat was too far away to return to Batavia's graveyard once they finally found water.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I find it interesting that the first place you went to was Borders, manager at Borders, which was a job that you once held.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And also, they're asking you, of all people, at 18 years old, to chase down... I was a unit.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, also in accordance with Dutch law, all of Euronymous Cornelis' worldly goods and possessions, including anything owned by his wife, were to be given to the VOC because it was deemed that the corporation had been the one most harmed by Euronymous' actions.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, four more mutineers were given the same sentence as Euronymous, while five others, including cabin boy Jan Pelgrim, were allowed to be hanged without having their hands chopped off first.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Could you please chop off his fucking hands?
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He won't shut up until you do what he asks you to do.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And then all the mutineers do the thriller dance at the same time. Oh, yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Fourteen more mutineers would be taken to Java for further interrogation and punishment. While the rest of the men who'd signed loyalty oaths to Euronymous just to survive, they were freed until it was proven that they had done something to deserve punishment. Really, the only person who came out of the wreck of the Batavia on top was Viva Hayas.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Pelsar raised his rank to sergeant, placed him in charge of the soldiers, and doubled his pay. He fucking did his job. He fucking deserves it. Yeah, all the defenders actually got raises.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, you know, we're going to get to it again.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, because you're just kind of going to sleep. What if you slap them to death? They wrap them up. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, we'll get into it. Now, the executions were set to take place on Seals Island.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, this is, of course, where Euronymous had ordered the massacre of well over a dozen people just a few months previous. The condemned were therefore held in makeshift jail cells on the island until the execution date. But Euronymous decided that he was going to take himself out before the VOC had a chance to.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He somehow convinced someone to bring him items from his apothecary kit, which he used to concoct a poison to kill himself. But again, Euronymous was a shitty apothecary. And just like the botched murder of the baby months before, Euronymous only succeeded in making his last hours on Earth a living hell of writhing stomach pain.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So upper merchant Pelsart had his men gather what little water they could before heading straight to Java, with the hope that the survivors would figure out something until they got back.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He deserves the fuck out of this. Yes, he deserves every cent. I thought about cutting that from the story, but I thought, nah. Fuck him, man.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I'd say almost 100% of the time, like much of the time, they do collide with the consequences. The consequences come in hard and fast. But yes, you're right. The problem is all of the damage they do before that. Yes.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, once the gallows were constructed on Seal's Island, the condemned were executed on October 1st, with Euronymous going first. After his hands were chopped off with an axe by the executioner, tourniquets were tied around his wrists to ensure he was conscious for his ultimate death. Because it hurts having your hands chopped off. Yeah!
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Euronymous was then walked up the gallows ladder to meet his doom with the minister at his side, the very minister whose family Euronymous had ordered to be slaughtered. Doing his job, the minister asked Euronymous if he wanted to confess his sins. Euronymous, however, ever the heretic, refused.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now in those days, Dutch gallows involved a short rope tied to a horizontal beam. The prisoner was walked up a ladder and the noose was wrapped around his neck. Then it was the executioner's job to thrust a knee into the small of the prisoner's back, launching him to his death.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, if the condemned was lucky, his neck would snap instantly. But that was a rare occurrence. Most slowly strangled to death over 20 agonizing minutes. And indeed, Euronymous Cornelius entertained the crowd with his convulsive kicks for quite a while before the evil bastard finally left this earth.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, many other mutineers did confess their sins to the minister, and many pled for mercy. But only one mutineer was successful that day. The half-mad cabin boy, Jan Pelgrim, wept and wailed and begged for grace. So Pelsart took pity and spared the boy's life because he technically didn't kill anyone despite his best efforts.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Instead of execution, Palsart exiled Jan Pelgrim to Western Australia, making Jan the ineffectually murderous cabin boy. And this is absolutely true. One of the first two white men to settle Australia. That explains it.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The other man cursed to survive the wilds of Australia with Jan was the same guy who took over for Euronymous after his capture by the Defenders. Vooderloosh. Despite the fact that he'd been the one who bashed in the minister's wife's head during the massacre of her family, Wouter also earned exile.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
This put Jan and Wouter 160 years ahead of the first British convicts who eventually settled Australia. Unfortunately, though, we have absolutely no idea what happened after this odd couple was dropped off on the coast with nothing more than supplies and a couple barrels of water.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, no records exist as to what was done with the bodies of the executed men, but the tradition in the Netherlands was to leave the bodies of executed prisoners on display as a warning to others, so it was likely that these nine men were left on the gallows as food for the mutton birds.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's actually almost certain that the bodies were just left there, because subsequent voyages to the islands, even 10, 20, 30 years later, noted a sudden spurt in plant growth, which was likely due to the fertilizer the corpses provided.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But those men would not be the last to die because of the Batavia. See, Pelsart was eventually able to recover almost everything of value from the shipwreck, including six out of the seven VOC money chests, most of Pelsart's personal valuables, and all but two of the treasure chests. But as we said, Pelsart was trying to make the best impression he possibly could on the VOC.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So he was dead set on recovering every possible piece of merchandise so he could bring it back to his bosses to show what a good boy he was. So he ordered five men to try and recover a barrel of vinegar from the treacherous coral reef. But during the recovery, a storm swept in. This was expected. The weather had been bad for almost the entirety of the recovery operation.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But because of Pelsart's need to please his corporate masters, the five men on the recovery boat were swept out to sea. They disappeared on the open ocean and likely died terrifying deaths by thirst or drowning, all in the service of recovering a goddamn condiment. Hey! Don't you like salads? I do love vinegar. Vinegar is one of my favorite things on earth. Exactly.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Not worth the deaths of five men. You're the white men that did this.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
By the time Pelsart's boat left Australia, they'd already put a good amount of sea behind them. But there was still 900 miles of open ocean to go. But with a good crew and boat sailing fair weather and winds, they made it to Java, presumably without incident.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
You can spit anything in your boss's asshole.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
No, you never know. This is like the historical equivalent of not knowing whether or not you should say you really like a video because you haven't checked out the person's Twitter yet.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yes. But this is good. Yes. Well, finally, after making sure he recovered as much loot as possible, Pelsart ordered the Sardom to leave the islands on November 15th, two months after he returned and almost six months after the Batavia shipwrecked. Out of the 270 people who'd been left behind by Upper Merchant Pelsart, only 77 remained alive, but most of the survivors were Viva's defenders.
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Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The rest were a part of the 133 people who'd remained on Batavia's graveyard after Euronymous sent his competition away. Out of those 133, only 32 people from Batavia's graveyard were still alive. And that included the 14 mutineers that were taken back to Java for further questioning and torture.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Worst of all was that out of all the children who'd set sail on the Batavia, only one had survived to their ultimate destination.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Give me a break. It's a big bummer. Biggest bummer eight-year-old I've ever met in my life.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Although we don't know exactly what transpired during the journey, because Pelsart only recorded notes about weather and estimated locations in his journals.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Shivering.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
He's fully, entirely traumatized. That's why they call him Shivering Johnny. Yeah. Shivering Johnny of Batavia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, I'm sure that Upper Merchant Pelsart was dreading the return to Java to fully report on all the atrocities that had occurred on his watch to Governor Jans Kuhn. Because, man, that's the thing. At the end, on top of everything else, he has to come back and be like, oh, yeah, no, I created a full nightmare world.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, that's the thing. Unbeknownst to Pelsart, he didn't have to worry about Kuhn anymore. Just after the Sardom set sail from Java to recover the merchandise on the Batavia, Jan Kuhn collapsed and died at the age of 42 after a history of heart issues and a bout of dysentery.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
To be a genocidal maniac, it wears on your heart.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. And I think Yang Kun, he was certainly more concerned with merchandise. He was certainly more concerned with cash. But there were passengers on that ship, which was a part of the VOC business. And very few of those survived. Oh, yes. Very, very few. Eighteen! Gracia Jansdokter, the woman that was the... She had one of the saddest stories, actually.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Remember, she was the one who was attacked by the feces and tar. Yeah, the super beautiful woman. The super beautiful woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yes, she was staying with Euronymous. Forced to stay with Euronymous, yes. Once she got to Batavia, she found out that she was there to meet her husband because all of her kids had died back in the Netherlands. When she arrived in Batavia, she found out that her husband had died the previous June.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. Yeah, dude. But it was very dangerous. She remarried, moved back to Amsterdam and lived until the age of like 70.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Mm hmm. Nice. That's very nice of you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
That is true. I hope so. Yeah. Well, Jan Cohen's replacement was no less brutal to the mutineers brought back from the shipwreck than Jan Kuhn might have been. Out of the 14 brought back, five were hanged, eight were flogged, and stonecutter Peteres, said to be just as bad as Euronymous Cornelius, he was broken on the wheel.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And you can hear all about that particularly brutal method of execution if you listen to our recent episode on the Saints. Yeah, that's a wild one.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, but the difference between Stonecutter's breaking and what occurred in Europe was that while Stonecutter was waiting to die from internal hemorrhaging as all his limbs were broken and wrapped around the spokes of the wheel until his feet were touching the back of his head, he had to contend with the bugs. No.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
They're so about this. Great garage rock group. They were from Minneapolis. Don't do this. Bugs are really solid. Honestly, I'm going to write that down. I'm making it up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Check out the hangman. You'll love the hangman. You can tell me about Poison Ruin, which is amazing. Yeah. Also, I love Poison Ruin. Back to Stonecutter. As Stonecutter baked in the Southeast Asian sun, flies and mosquitoes quickly covered his body, filling his mouth and swarming his eyeballs until he finally died a deservedly painful death as the last mutineer from the Batavia to be executed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah. Now, as far as everyone else in the story went, very few lived a happy ending. Yeah. While Viva Hayas and all his defenders were promoted with raises, upper merchant Pelsart was found to be wanting by the VOC. I could see that. Who deemed his work unimpressive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The gentlemen 17 never gave him another command, although they really didn't have much of a chance to. 11 months after the execution of Euronymous Cornelis, Francisco Pelsart caught a fever and died at the age of 35.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, I mean, the oldest man on the ship was Captain Jacobs, and he was in his, like, early to mid-40s. Like, he was far closer to our age than anybody else.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, 42. Again, stress. But even though the VOC had not given Pelsart a command, his death robbed them of contractually obligated profits. So the Gentleman 17 had all of Pelsart's worth confiscated and absorbed into the VOC. Well, that's not true. It's not all of it. They left a small fraction to his mother, but they took, I would say, like 90% of his earnings. Everything. Yep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, if you're over in the corner writing, like, making sure that no one looks good. What's your journal?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, that's what he gets for fucking it all up. Yeah, well, that's what he gets for signing on with a fucking VOC.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, concerning Pelsart's nemesis, Captain Ariana Jacobs, records show that he was still in the dungeons of Castle Batavia in 1631, years after the other mutineers were executed. No further records exist, however, so it's likely that Captain Yakovs died in those same dungeons, having thrown his life away for a dandy from a rich family who'd sold him a fantasy of freedom. But he got a reality.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But there is, of course, the matter of what happened to the VOC, the most powerful corporation in the world for nearly 200 years, and only the second of its kind to exist. Yeah, I miss them. What happened to them?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, like most organizations built on the brutal exploitation of its workers and the idea of profit at all costs, corruption began to eat the VOC from the inside out by the 18th century. See, the company had always had a corruption problem. But when the VOC faced a serious shortage of capital in the 1750s, the Gentleman's 17 dramatically lowered salaries across the board regardless of rank.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
To compensate, the VOC simply changed their definition of what corruption was to permit agents to trade goods under the VOC's flag. Because it's not corruption if it's laws. Yes, it's not corruption if it's laws. And if you just start calling it something else, you don't have to worry about it anymore.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
In other words, they went with full free market capitalism with no rules or regulations, which always, 100% of the time, results in even more corruption and eventual collapse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But besides the practices of their employees, the VOC was also having a problem hiring and keeping employees. Yeah, you could see the turnover rate would be high. Well, throughout its almost 200 years of operation, roughly 4,000 VOC employees died every single year, both directly and indirectly due to VOC policy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
That tended to discourage recruitment as Europe moved more into the modern age and human life became a little less disposable. Yeah, man, because now it's very sacred. Yeah. Well, it's a little more sacred now than it was in 1750. That's true. Yeah. Now, there were half a dozen other reasons that contributed to the VOC's downfall.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But what finally killed the VOC was a war between the Dutch and the English, in which the VOC lost tens of millions of dollars in guilders because the British Navy finally caught up. The VOC's charter was therefore allowed to expire on December 31st, 1799. And with that, the VOC died just as the 19th century was born.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
having gone down in history as one of the most evil, callous and exploitative corporations to ever exist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, I enjoyed the smell of cloves. Yes. So, yeah, like, that's great. We just need to kill a bunch of people so I can enjoy a smell.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, I've been thinking a lot about why none of us have ever heard of the Batavia until a listener brought it to our attention. Why such a fantastic story has been all but lost to time. In comparing it to other survival and disaster stories, my first thought was that the Batavia hasn't survived because it doesn't have any meaning.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Unlike, say, the stories behind the Uruguayan rugby team, the Donner Party, or even the Titanic. If you look at it simply, the Batavia could be seen as nothing more than a brutal story about a shipwreck that resulted in one man turning the lives of the survivors into a serial killer's playground.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
But as I thought about it a little more, I realized that the reason why the Batavia story hasn't survived is because it has too much meaning. As the story of the Batavia is, at its essence, the story of what happens when the ugliest and most uncomfortable parts of humanity are allowed to run wild. See, the VOC doesn't just represent simple corporate greed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's a company that knowingly and callously sacrificed the lives of 4,000 employees a year and killed who knows how many of the people it enslaved. And it looked at their deaths as not just acceptable losses, but as central parts of their business model. Likewise, the mutineers don't just represent human cruelty.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Their actions show just how quickly men can turn into monsters willing to crush a child's skull on someone else's say-so with all the emotion of stomping on a cockroach, and they show just how easily other men will join in if only to save themselves. Furthermore, the lessons from the Batavia are difficult to absorb considering how companies like the VOC effectively created the modern world.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's been proven time and again that unrestrained capitalism inevitably leads to foul exploitation. And it's a system in which every single one of us participates.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It's also difficult to accept that men like the gentleman 17 are more in charge now than they've ever been. And it's hard to see how that's ever going to change, especially when it feels like we're in the final stage of a plan that was hatched hundreds of years ago. And especially when many of our fellow citizens are welcoming subjugation. But we cannot despair, and we cannot lose hope.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
For every Euronymous Cornelis leading a horde of psychopaths, there's a Viva Hayes who sees right through his bullshit, and defenders who are willing to back him up. Every organization throughout history that's built on backstabbing, exploitation, and profit above all inevitably topples and falls. And things happen far faster in today's world than they did in the 17th century.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And while the corporations of the world seem like impossible monoliths that hold all the power, the one thing they can never take from you is who you are, just so long as you stay fucking strong. They can try to manipulate you. They can try to tell you what to think. They can try to cram AI down your throat and convince you that's what you want, but you don't have to let them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
As I said, it's not the fucking 17th century anymore. This is 2025, and I think it's high time we started looking at that as a good thing. People are smarter, healthier, and stronger, even though that's hard to see sometimes. And we're also far more numerous than we've ever been. For every one of the bastards in charge of this world, there are millions of us.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
And if we all stick together, it is possible, however slim the chance might be, that we can stop the Musks and the Bezoses and the Zuckerbergs from bringing the dark days of the VOC back into our daily lives. Even though the meaning of the Batavia is about as ugly as it gets, we can still take inspiration from the horror.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Absorb it as an example of what the world could look like if we don't fight back. And we can use that inspiration to resist the motherfuckers in charge in whatever way we can until the day we die!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Do whatever you can do. Find out what you can do and fucking do it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Try to. Yeah, if you need to fall apart every once in a while, fall apart, but pick yourself back up. Amen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
If you're listening to this, it's going to be in one week on February 22nd. We're going to be out there in Grand Prairie. My brother tells me the venue is built in the middle of a swamp.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Oh, yeah, no, no. Dallas is very swampy. Oh, okay. You're starting to get into East Texas, and once you start to get into East Texas, Dallas is like the gateway to East Texas, and that's when shit starts getting real swampy and real racist. Fuck.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah, it'll be cool. I'm looking forward to coming back to Texas. It's been a while since I've been back. So, yeah, looking forward to coming back home.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
You know what? If you keep your expectations at the appropriate level, you'll be fine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, if you want to give money directly to us, and if you want to see actual video episodes of Last Podcast on the left, go join our Patreon page. Patreon.com slash Last Podcast on the left. We've got all kinds of shit there for all the different levels. You can watch our stream live every Tuesday if you're a Patreon member. That is Last Stream on the left. That's every Tuesday. at 6 p.m. PST.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
You can also follow us on the socials, TikTok, Instagram, at LP on the left. And don't forget to check out all of our other streams at twitch.tv slash LPN TV. And we've also got a ton of other shows coming up after Dallas. You can go to lastpodcastontheleft.com, click on shows to see when we're going to be coming near you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Thank you. And I'll also say hail Joel and Shaw, our research assistants, who absolutely fucking crushed it on this series. And of course, I could not have done it without them. So thank you. But also, hail them. I'm going to say this is my favorite series. I've been loving it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Did you bring your shovel or did you want to use mine?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Whoa, that would be neat, cute. My name's Casey and my name's Yosef.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, every person who left Batavia's graveyard on the longboat arrived safely in Java in late June. After just 19 days at sea. And that drives me fucking crazy. That when the Batavia, when it shipwrecked, it was... About two and a half weeks. And then we've been on the ocean for what, like a year? Six months. Crazy. Actually, eight months, I think. Six to eight months, somewhere around there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Well, Upper Merchant Pelsart soon regrouped with one of the other boats that had been in the Batavia's original flotilla, the Sardam. And by July 7th, the 48 survivors had arrived in the VOC colonial capital. which, confusingly, is also named Batavia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
So, just to make it as clear as possible here, there's Batavia the ship, dead and gone at the bottom of the ocean, and Batavia the colony, located 2,000 miles north of the shipwreck on the island of Java.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
I don't know. I don't think anybody is excited that Palsart's not excited to show up on one of his escort ships. And I'm about to get into exactly why the people of Batavia were very, very, very upset that the Batavia, the ship, had sunk. Let's rock. Now, if you'll remember from episode one, the colony of Batavia had been hard-won territory for the VOC.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
See, before the Dutch, Batavia was the site of a thriving indigenous community of 3,000 people, a town known as Jakarta. Today, this territory is known as the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, which won its independence from the Dutch in 1949, over 300 years after the VOC first arrived on their shores. But back in the 17th century, the Dutch weren't even the first European settlers to arrive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
The English East India Company had already begun building warehouses on Java when the VOC showed up. So after a series of skirmishes, the VOC engaged in a hostile takeover of sorts by sending 2,000 mercenaries to burn Jakatra to the ground.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
No. They then overthrew the local indigenous leaders, built a castle on the ashes of the town they destroyed, and named the settlement Batavia in 1619, making it the center of all VOC trade in the Indies. Because remember, when I'm saying like the Dutch did this, I'm saying like Dutch people did this. It wasn't the Dutch government.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
This is a private company, the VOC, taking land, killing people, enslaving people, and doing whatever the fuck they want.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, as far as who lived in this settlement, the majority of the population were enslaved locals, while the rest were a motley crew of 2,000 European soldiers, merchants, and craftsmen. Batavia, however, was a true company town, as every single person who lived there either worked for the VOC or was married to someone who did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Most of the people who lived in Batavia never actually left the castle walls in all the years they spent there, because the lands surrounding the settlement were filled with rhinos, tigers, monkeys, and bandits who were ever so happy to kill a Dutchman if given the opportunity. God, you know what they say, if you give a monkey some nutmeg.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
Now, the man who was in charge of Batavia the colony at this point in time, the one upper merchant Pelsart had to report to, was Jans Kun, the thin, spindly-fingered governor we talked about in episode one, who should be played by the same dude who played the father in The Witch if the Batavia movie is ever made.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!
It could be a hell of a miniseries. Yes. I'd say that. Give it three, four episodes and, man, you got something fucking special there. But Jans Koon, if you'll remember, he was the man who secured the world's nutmeg supply for the VOC through a campaign of genocide and slavery. He hid behind a strict Christian faith to justify his crimes against humanity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 610: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part II - Ticking Time Bomb
Yep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 610: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part II - Ticking Time Bomb
One day, you will meet your Deborah. Dearest Chad. No, Chad. Deborah won't make you happy. She will.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 610: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part II - Ticking Time Bomb
There's no place to escape to. This is the last. On the left.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Sydney Sweeney, please. And the reason why we keep doing that voice and why it's so different from the one that you just heard, he used to speak in this accent. He used to roll his, like, I am Lord Rael.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, Christ Has Returned. The other thing about them is that they don't really release shit all that often except for obsessive videos about the Torah codes. They love the Torah codes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Jake Young from Wizard and the Bruiser.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, Torah codes is a, if I'm understanding this correctly, I might be wrong on this, but it is assigning numerical values to letters in the Torah. It's numerology. Yeah, it's numerology. And by assigning these numerical values, you can figure out secret messages.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. That's the Torah codes. And these people are obsessed with the Torah codes. Okay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
My children. Ha ha. You are growing weary of the weight. You tire of the struggle against the unworthy, the wanton, and the wicked. You wish me to enact my final judgment upon them and be done with it. I do not blame you for this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
It still only has 8.8 thousand views. Very soon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And not until the martyrs have completed their tasks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Just a bit longer, my children. For what must be done, must be done.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
All right, let's get to the timeline of what the fuck this guy has been up to since we covered him. In 2012, he appointed Cardinal Richard Ruff as prime cleric of the International Congregation of Lord Rael. Ruff Dick? Yep, Dick Ruff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yep, Dick Ruff has been his right-hand man forever.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Like, that's been the guy that, he's the true believer, the guy that's never faltered in following Lord Rael. Hi, my name is Penis Soft. Dick Ruff's my brother. And so, from 2012 to, like, 2015, not a lot happened.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
They're still all there. Oh, we're going to talk about- This is weirdly successful in that way. We're going to talk about the travels of these people because they don't stay in Baja. No. In 2015, Richard Ruff was revealed through the Torah code, and this was something that he wrote himself, revealed to be the reincarnation of Moses. Yeah. He creates Torah codes using the keys to the Bible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
It's software that he created himself. Sells it for $99. To find out the secrets of the Torah?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Raymond Lear is actually not his real name. Is it Raymond Elwood Lear? It is Raymond Howard Lear. Raymond Howard. Whatever. That's one of the updates that we found out. We found out his real name is Raymond Howard. That's incredible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
That's all. That's it? It's been verified to be fake by independent rabbis. But he will also create codes to defame anyone who challenges his authority. Anyone who says that he's full of shit, he can make up codes to say that the Torah says they're wrong.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But in 2016, they moved from Baja to Jerusalem. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, people don't like it. And so once they moved to Jerusalem, they of course started seeing signs everywhere because they're looking for signs everywhere.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
So in 2016, there was a big sunspot. And this sunspot— This is ripe for them. The sunspot took the shape of a heart, which fulfilled a secret Catholic prophecy of the sacred heart of Christ. And they took that as a sign because it occurred about two weeks after they arrived in Jerusalem. Which tells them, hey, we're on the right track here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Because that was one of the things that we really debated in our episode, if I remember correctly. If Rey and Richard Ruff are in on it together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He needs a wrangler. He needs a wrangler. Because that's what every cult leader needs is you need a wrangler.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
You got to have the hand of the king. Like Jim Jones had like four wranglers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Welcome to the new show, ladies and gentlemen. What? This is a new show. No! It's the first new show that we've done in a while. And guess what? The new show? Hell of a lot like the old show. Yeah. Welcome to Last Update on the Left.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, they killed a senator.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
That was just as that was the rank and file that killed the senator. Yes. As far as the people in Guyana itself, like he had a few women that were just these diehard ride or die like they're they're fucking they did anything that he said. And of course, there's debate as to how far Jim Jones kept them away from his ultimate plan.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But there's also some theories or at least because that's the thing with Jim Jones. You can really only theorize what was going through his head. Oh, of course. And it's very possible that he got so far away from anybody that he lost the thread completely. Yeah, I think. And he just this paranoia, like all the drugs, all the paranoia, everything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And just and having so much power over so many people. In such an isolated place that he just lost it. He you know, they killed the senator. They knew like he knew that the game was up for him. And so he since he was so he had this group of people that was so behind him, they were able to force.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Because that's the thing about Jonestown is that most of those people were forced to drink the flavor aid slash Kool-Aid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
It very much was. And so on May 24th, 2016, this is about two months after they arrive in Jerusalem. An unscheduled egg-shaped blood moon appeared above Jerusalem, fulfilling a secret Catholic prophecy called the Red Egg. And according to the Return of Christ, which, by the way, the Return of Christ is the book that Lord Rael wrote, which we didn't have time to read, unfortunately.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
This plus the sunspot further confirmed and validated the sacred heart of Christ prophecy, which again proves, hey, we're doing the right thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He has many different aliases. One of them is Angelus Domini.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
The red egg, the heart, so on and so forth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Of course. Because it's the same thing that so many cult leaders say over the years. Like, I talk to God. The Pope doesn't talk to God. The Pope is a false prophet. The Pope is a fraud. I mean, I agree with him there. Well, of course.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But he says, I'm the one that talks to God and I'm the one that says what the Bible should really say because the Bible has gone through so many translations over the years that so much of its meaning has changed from the original text. And so he can say whatever the fuck he wants to say.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He can say that when it was translated from this version to the King James Version, this was lost in translation. And what it really means is what I say it means. And, of course, what he says it means always feeds back into what is best for him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, that's usually how it happens.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Speaking of which, on June 16th, 2016, three months after they arrived, members of the clergy were arrested in Jerusalem.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
They were reported to have stayed there illegally, threatened the state of Israel, stalked rabbis, and generally causing a nuisance.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, after they got arrested in Jerusalem, it almost went from harmless to mass suicide because authorities were contacted by family members of the cult who got word from members of the cult that they were planning a mass suicide because Lord Rael did not show up for Purim, where he was allegedly going to be announced as Messiah, as foretold by Cardinal Kelly Patrick via what else but the Torah codes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I find it interesting that it was Purim was the holiday he chose. He chose Purim again and again. Is it Purim or Purim? Purim. Purim. Yeah, he chose Purim again and again and again as his special day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, the day that all of his people were arrested, Lord Rael tweeted, Denial was bad enough.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, it was a very small... It was, like, less... I think it was, like, 500 people at that point. We knew a lot of the... Like, we ended up meeting a lot of these people. We ended up becoming friends with some of them that we're still friends with to this day. Like, it was a very cool little group. And this group... infiltrated the Lord Rael Facebook group.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Oh, and also in Chicago before he was Lord Rael, he had like four failed runs for office.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Nineties, like early to mid nineties.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. As you can see, he's getting a little older, but he's got to be in his sixties.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Somewhere around there. Yeah. But, but by the way, speaking, you know, I mentioned the Pope earlier on July 20th, 2017, he did lay claim to Vatican city. It is, it is his.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, in 2017, we all know what was becoming real big that year. Cryptocurrency. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. So, on August 2016, 2017, Rael publicly declared possession of Earth's gold and silver and introduced a new monetary instrument called GodCoin. Oh. Yeah, GodCoin!
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
GodCoin is in favor of a universal gold and silver-backed currency system that provides abundance for all who are found worthy, along with providing a social safety net that will prevent falling into poverty. According to Lord Rael's website, GodCoin, it is the only authorized currency of the New Kingdom. That's GodCoin.gold. Dot gold.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, that's what they say. Being early, though, is worse than being late. Always. Yeah. If you're too early, you might as well not have done anything at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But on his website, when he talks about GodCoin and how big it's going to be, he says, Dominion is not subtle.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Very soon, buying and selling will not occur without accepting the new coin of the realm. He fully admits that it is the mark of the beast, but in a good way. In a good way. The mark of the beast is that for a very long time, Christians have been preaching that the mark of the beast was something evil and something to be avoided at all costs. They did not know what they were speaking of.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
The second beast of Revelation 13 is... is Lord Rael. Whoa! And any true theologian knows that the Bible uses the word beast to describe leaders, not to disparage them. So the Lord is called the Lamb. The Lamb is a beast. Therefore, the mark of the beast is a good thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And he says, it is the Lord who creates a monetary system that eliminates crime by tracking and tracing all financial transactions, thus removing the ability to commit money-based crimes without the ability to commit crimes motivated by money No more crime. There you go.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
A sheep is not a beast. No.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I mean, he's going to get a notification that you bought it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He's going to know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, he's going to get an email, and he's just going to go, ka-ching. Another.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And by the way, if you want God coin, the only way you can earn God coin is by working for the crown or crown licensed private companies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
So it is. He's very much looking at this as a theological dictatorship. The currency will be valid for all legal purchases, including purchasing leaves from the tree of life to remain alive and healthy while in service to the crown. So he's just going to be like shit from Michael's. I think because basically what he's doing is he's creating like Disney bucks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Where you can you have to buy Disney bucks when you get into Disney so you can buy stuff at Disney.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yes, exactly. So, Raymond Elwood. Oh, this book is all Torah codes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, it did. But by the way, Kelly Patrick that I mentioned earlier, he has a LinkedIn where he lists the entire corporate structure of the Lord Rael Empire. Richard Ruff is CEO. Kelly Patrick is COO. And the CTO, Chief Tactical Officer, is Bishop Samuel Grenier, who was the Scottish judo champion in 1980.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. And because it's one of those like very, it's one of those harmless cults, like completely and totally harmless.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
They also had an NFL player for a hot second. There was a very, actually, oh, man. Fridge? No, he was an American, like, NFL player who came out, like, Lord Rael was in the news for, like, just a little bit. He was, like, on ESPN.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, because this guy came out and said, like, hey, Lord Rael is the Messiah. I follow Lord Rael now. And he got fucking cut. Then he headbutted the wall.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
What was he with? The Vikings? Seahawks. Seahawks. Yeah. A very minor player. But yeah, I think it was... Yeah, I never heard of him. I think it was his rookie year too. So it's just like, he is...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. That is the thing is that he had a really good idea and really bad execution. Like that was his biggest problem. He just doesn't know how to execute. And by the way, what is the Jubilee birthday? Is that 75? I believe the Jubilee birthday is 50.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He might be. He said he turned 50 in 2018. No way. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
No. And in 2018, the Gary, Indiana Parole District Facebook page posted a wanted poster of Raymond Elwood for absconding parole.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And on January 10th, 2019, Lord Ryle issued his Pentecost address to the world and announced the end begins now. 2018? 2019. Yeah, that was the last time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yes. We'll get to that here in a second. Okay. Oh, and this is a funny one. On February 27th, 2019, they said this guy, Michael Haar, he self-realized that he was the cult's returned prophet, Elijah. Wow. Self-realized that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, we definitely had some questions about that when they moved to Baja, California, because it seemed like when they moved to Baja, California, it was very small here in America.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
On his 32nd birthday. He's been a part of the cult since 2016. Previously, the cult's Elijah, Oprah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And on Purim 2019, Raymond Lear was anointed King of Kings in Rosarito, Mexico at the Hotel Calafia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Oh, and I forgot this. Kelly Patrick is a woman. She was revealed as the bride of Christ through a Torah code. Whoa!
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I think you can do anything with it. At least they do anything with it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Again, broken clock.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, the big thing about these guys is if we can go to 2020, on January 10th, when the CDC announced that the coronavirus pandemic had begun, it was exactly one year. And this is actually true. Exactly one year after Lord Rael said that the end begins now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Oh, wow. And from there on, like, they just kept saying, yeah, COVID was us. COVID was us. This is what they're saying. Like, COVID was the sign. COVID is the you know, that that is the sign that the end has begun. And he you know, and the more people that died, the happier he was.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Fucking psyched when forty five hundred people died in India one day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And you may not be surprised to hear that he is anti-vax. No, why? Why? But the funny thing is, they're also anti-testing. They refused to even test for COVID-19.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He got re-baptized. In the Catholic Church? No, in the ocean. Oh. It is the funniest baptism I've ever seen. It is Lord Rael, who is, like, when I say he's fat, like, I mean he has one of those incredible massive Santa Claus belly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And so they moved from America. And it's very simple where, like, this guy, Lord Rael. Rael is a truncation of the name Raymond Elwood, which is – Elwood is his middle name. I think he changed his name to Raymond Lear, but he was born Raymond Howard. Oh. But Rael is a truncation of it. About 10 people started following him and he started putting out these videos.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
It's just this huge, gigantic belly. These four guys take him out into the ocean. It's at sunset. And one of them is holding a flashlight to make sure that the iPhone they're filming it on captures the whole thing. And Lord Rael, of course, as we heard, he has dropped the British accent completely.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. And then he lies down in the ocean. The fucking waves come over him and you can tell he's struggling to get up. He's like a turtle on his back. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Oh, and I also I forgot to mention that his mother was said to be a direct descendant of Joseph Smith, who was also the Mormon. Yeah. Yeah. And today, Richard Ruff and Michael Haar, a member, he's the Elijah, they run social media in most of the operations. They have a few Facebook groups active. They have Ray Elite Teachings, the International Congregation of Lord Rael, and the Torah Codes group.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
They also have YouTube channels, but the YouTube channels haven't posted anything in two years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He's definitely- He's going to die in Mexico. Okay. Definitely. He's never coming back to the United States. Because he does have enough. He still has online followers, too, who give him money like he has a lot of them are relatively a lot of them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I'd say, you know, they probably come in and out enough to survive in Mexico. Yeah. And their place is actually pretty nice. At least it was the first Baja place that they got was pretty nice, like nicer than you would think they would have.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
That's incredible. So, hey, guys, that is our first update episode.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, we're going to have 40 of these episodes this year. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. No, no. You're going to get all of them, man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He started putting out like after a massively destructive weather event, he would put out a video saying, I was the cause behind that because nobody is believing that I am the new Messiah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I mean, if you saw a picture of him back when he was Raymond Lear, he looked like, I mean, yeah, he did look like a criminal, but I also only saw pictures of him in mugshots. But he could maybe pass himself off as somebody, you know, some sort of congressman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. But it's very interesting. Yeah, it has been thoroughly debunked. But it's good. I like it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
All right. Well, thank you all very much for listening, and we'll see you all next time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Bye, Hesedian. Bye.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But what he did. Like the Jackson, Mississippi. Remember the Jackson tornadoes?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Joplin, Missouri tornadoes. He took full credit for that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And we're going to get to the update. For the longest time, the only footage, the only video footage of Lord Rael was a five-second clip of him riding on a horse. Yes. Because he has a costume. He has very long gray hair, a big beard, and he wears long robes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But he's also red. real fat now. Like, he is so fat. He's really fat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I think he looks better with some meat on his bones. When he was skinny, he looked like a criminal because, hey, guess what? He was a criminal. Yeah. He was arrested. This is just incredible stuff. Him and his mother were... Went and kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and kept her hostage using furry handcuffs. And then finally, either she got away or they let her go, one of the two.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I can't say serving cunts anymore. Oh, did you already use it all up on our makeover mandate?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And so Ray and his mother, like, fled to a local gym. I don't know why they went to the gym. That's the only time he ever went to the gym.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. Yeah, the why. The why, yeah. And so they went there and they called the police to try to get ahead of the story. They called the police and they're like, no, no, no. This woman kidnapped us. She was assaulting us.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
This was before he was Lord Rael. This was a couple of years before. And the funny thing about it is that no one really knows... how the Lord Rael thing started, like where he started from, you know, how he got followers. He just appeared on YouTube one day, like he appeared on YouTube with this like message to the world saying that I am the Lord God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And then people start calling him fat and making fun of him. My favorite is his second video is it starts with him going.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Brothers and sisters, and that is what you are. My brothers and sisters.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
I have... A love for the people of this temple and this room that I cannot properly express.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And I have a thankful mind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
For what all of you have done through some very trying times. This has been an amazing year in so many ways. We have... We have come so close to our goal.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
We can see home.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
He's got George Lucas neck.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But this is Lord Rael today. Yes. Or at least this is Lord Rael four years ago. Jesus Christ. All right. All right, get this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
it's nonsense yeah oh no it's it is total nonsense but that's that's vamping that's one of the things that we found fascinating about this guy is like where did he come from how because it was early days and when the internet was becoming ubiquitous when it was becoming like a part of every everyday life all the time imagine a imaginary world where they gave you money to make web series
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But that's what, you know, because Henry was the one that brought it to us, is that it was an Internet cult. It was just an Internet cult. And if I remember correctly, I think that they were decentralized for a while. Like everybody was just sort of all over America. He was in Chicago doing his thing. I think he had like one guy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And then when they finally got together, that was in Baja California.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
mexico and that i think is where some of the sexy stuff started because they started getting defectors because that's what happens when the sexy stuff starts people get their feelings hurt oh yes yeah people get their feelings hurt real bad uh and we did have one guy like one of our facebook group members did end up talking to one of the defectors yes and then he eventually returned to the cult and stopped talking so when we last left the cult
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, it's episode something something. It's in the first hundred episodes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
But remember, for you, it's today. For us, it's 12, 13 years ago.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Imagine who you think about who you were 12, 13 years ago. Some of you were like nine years old.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, part of the reason why they went to Baja, Mexico is because he had a warrant out for his arrest.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, it's not too bad at all. So we're going to pick back up in 2012. Okay. Right after we had our episode in 2012. And we're just going to kind of go through a timeline here of what has happened with Lord Rael and his followers up until a couple of years ago.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. Oh, and this is one other thing that I forgot that we definitely must put into play before we start on the current timeline. He claims to be protected by the Knights Templar.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, yeah. Again, coming back from the Anders Breivik series that we recently did. Yeah, but the funny thing is that you can only become a Knights Templar, you must await an email.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, the other thing, too, is that when he was in Chicago, you remember the Guardian Angels in New York? Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah, the Guardian Angels were a group of people who got together in the 70s. They had the hats. Yeah, they were a vigilante group that were like, you know, berets and all that shit. They had uniforms. But there were also chapters in other cities. And there was a Chicago chapter because like, I mean, he seriously is, he's Raymond Ellwood from Chicago.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Yeah. Yeah. And he was in the Guardian Angels. And there's someone who was doing some investigation on Lord Rael got a hold of one of the Guardian Angels that Raymond Lear worked with. Henry, I want you to read this Chicago man's estimation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Well, as you say, Ed, you feel like you're a decade behind. In some cases, we're talking about stuff that we spoke of 12 years ago. A long time ago. Yeah. Today's episode, in fact, the one that we're starting off with, was something that we first talked about in, I'm pretty sure, 2012. Pretty certain. Yeah, 2011, 2012. Lord Rael. Mr. Lord Rael. Now, Eddie, you don't know who Lord Rael is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
And lastly, before we get into the current timeline, he claimed to be, like, a high-ranking Freemason at one point before he was Lord Rael. Oh, sure. But the same guy who investigated him looked up, like, I mean, he was able to get a hold of, like, some Masonic records.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 1 - Lord RayEl Revisited
Like, when Raymond Elwood was supposedly a part of the Freemasons, and Raymond Elwood was suspended for nonpayment of dues. Yeah, right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Nobody wants. That's the great thing about watching this documentary series is because all of these people, all these interviews were recorded. And all of them, as they're talking about it, they're not talking about like, bro, this fucking was outside. I don't think I'm going to get any ghosts. This fucking cushion was on top of the house. Like, it was fucking great. No, they're all very coy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It's like...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But the guy, the ventriloquist who supposedly debunked it like that was this guy. He was a famous television ventriloquist and the Daily Mirror had sent him out there to get another story. Like basically this infield poltergeist thing has gone on long enough. Let's put an end to it. Let's get one big story where we say this thing is over.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
No. It's a tabloid. But they sent out this ventriloquist, this TV ventriloquist, who just shows up, pulls up to this council house in this poor neighborhood in a limousine. Yeah. And just pops out like, ha-ha!
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And so he takes the two girls in the room, Margaret and Janet. Janet is the one who the entire activity is kind of centered around. She's 11 years old. Margaret's a little older. I can't remember exactly how old she is. I think 14, 15. Yeah. And he closes the doors and he talked to them for a while. Nobody knows what exactly was said in that room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Can someone do it? I bet it exists. And someone's private collection.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And he comes out and he's like, OK, I talked to him. I'm getting out of here. And then the next day, the Daily Mirror runs a story in which this ventriloquist claims that the girls told him explicitly. Yeah, it was us this whole time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
What is reality? I don't know, dude. Because. Technically, if he did make it look as if they were saying it, then he could say with truthfulness in his mind that maybe they said it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But they brought the girl like that same day, you know, a guy play fair and Maurice Gross like talk to the girls and like, hey, what the fuck? Like, what happened here? And in the documentary, you actually they record this conversation and the girls are like, no, we didn't say that at all. Margaret, especially she was like. I didn't know what he was talking about.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
He was talking about a bunch of things that I didn't understand. He was probably talking about ventriloquism techniques and asking them about what they knew. And she said, I was thinking about what I had to do in school the next day. And I was nodding off, literally nodding. And he took that as them saying... Yes, we did fake everything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Ed, have you ever been privy to any of the slash fic, the last podcast slash fic people have written? I'll send you some. It's disgusting. It's not good.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I mean, they'd seen him on TV. That probably impressed him a little bit. But why would they choose that moment out of all moments? Like, when they know this man is here to debunk them, why choose that moment to... Just completely changed their entire persona, their entire attitude. Because he said they were giggling. Yeah, we did it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It was just a couple of girls just casually confessing to a prank. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I'll read it just for fun. Do you want to read a detailed description of Henry and I making love?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Quick side note on Uri Geller. At the end of the documentary, they show kind of what Maurice Gross, his paranormal life after Enfield, and it shows a video of him going to visit Uri Geller at his house. And Uri Geller had a Cadillac that was covered in 2,000 bent spoons.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Dude, that's some fucking shit, man. Fucking glued or welded tooth. He's like, yes, and these are spoons. I bet many of these spoons. Many of these spoons. It made you smile, right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. Like making love. Not fucking. It's nothing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, it's a lot of patience.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Well, that's what Guy Playfair thought. He thought that Bill was a part of Janet's subconscious. But in 1996, Bill Wilkins, his son, got a hold of Maurice Gross. And Maurice Gross went over to this guy's house and played him the tape of him saying, my name's Bill Wilkins. And he's like, that's my father. Because he said, my name's Bill Wilkins. I died of a hemorrhage.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Ah. I think it's 2016 or 2016.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, I don't know. That's how he died. But he said that he died of a hemorrhage in a chair downstairs. And this guy was like, yep, my father was named Bill Wilkins. He died of a hemorrhage in a chair at 284 Green Street. My mother had gone out to the store. She was gone 10 minutes. She came back and he was dead.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And then they showed the fucking death certificate that showed 284 Green Street cause of death. A man named Bill Wilkins did die in that house. She had no idea. Yeah, she had no idea.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
That actually, I mean, that's a good question. But he died in, he died 15 or 13, he died in 63. Okay. Oh, that's far enough away. Yeah, it was far enough away. She wasn't even alive yet. 14 years later.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
No, not really. And the other cool thing about it is that one of the big poltergeist activities that they had in the house was like consistently like three knocks on the wall. And the son told Maurice Gross that his father was an air raid warden during World War Two. You know, air raid wardens when, you know, the Germans would come and start bombing. Yeah. No, that's just the.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And France.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, the Blitzkrieg, lightning war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, tanks and planes. This is just the Blitz, the London Blitz. Gotcha. So when, you know, the Germans would come, bomb the fuck out of London, they'd turn on the air raid, and then the wardens would go outside and they'd tell everybody to get inside, get inside. You know, they were the people that, you know, saved lives.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And both Bill Wilkins and his next-door neighbor, who he shared a wall with, were both air raid wardens. So when the air raids would go off... They wouldn't go over to the door and say, like, hey, let's go. They would knock on the wall three times.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Three times.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yes, it was semi-hatched or whatever the term is. But yeah, they just hear that same shit. And the cool thing about poltergeist knocks... Before you get to that, the cool thing about poltergeist knocks is the sound waves are actually different from regular knocks. In regular knocks, you get like the big pop on the sound wave right up top and it goes down.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But in poltergeist knocks, if you look at the sound wave, the sound begins before the knock. So it's sort of the sound wave builds up and the knock happens and then it comes back down again. Wow. You fucking high enough for that, dude? Hell yeah, man. You fucking know what that fucking means, man?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
A guy had suffocated his young daughter. The father, her ex-husband.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. Well, the woman's ex-husband just got bought all of the fucking furniture from the little girl, the murder girl's house. It's cheap.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, but Maurice Gross, when he came into the house and they told him about this, he's like, I believe it would be in your best interest to get rid of this furniture immediately. They did, but it didn't do anything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
a member of the family he really did and after the hauntings after the poltergeist activity ended he didn't stop he'd go over there like once a month he'd like bring the kids malteasers he'd bring the mom flowers and he'd just be like hey so how's how's everything going you guys doing all right he became catch up he became a family friend but a part of that is i think that's what it takes to experience what everybody else is experiencing
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But that's the paradox. Of the way that Maurice Gross did it, because what you're describing as being necessary in order to investigate these cases was the exact thing that skeptics would say is the reason why none of this is true. Well, it's because Maurice Gross becomes it because he embeds himself in the family.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And he becomes too attached to it because the skeptics, specifically this woman, Anita Gregory, who is like the biggest one. She's the one. She's the biggest opponent against this entire study.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But that's what the skeptics always point towards. Because Anita, people like Anita Gregory say that you have to go into this thing as a complete skeptic. You have to get objective scientific evidence, completely objective scientific evidence in order to convince people like her. She looked at the case. She listened to the tapes. She visited the house like multiple times. She heard the voice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
You know, she when she was there, like Janet, you know, the whole thing where the door was closed and you could hear like around the room and Janet described how she gets pulled around. And Anita Gregory came to the conclusion at the very end. She said that this case is like, yes, there is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
A highly interesting and compelling case here, but she said that it withers on the vine on closer inspection due to lack of concrete evidence because the evidence that they have is eyewitness reports and audio recordings.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And photographs. And speaking of the photographs, that's one of the most interesting and famous things about the Enfield Poltergeist case. Because if you've ever looked into ghost stories, if you've ever looked at anything like this, you've seen the picture of Janet Hodgkin. Is it Hodgkin or Hodkin? Hodgson. Hodgson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, it's Bill Wilkinson. Yeah. You said Wilkins a bunch. It's his real name is Wilkins. But in the when he talks through Janet's Wilkinson. OK. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole thing. You've seen the picture of Janet Hodgson like floating in the room, like floating above the bed, screaming, looking terrified.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It looks like she jumped. It does. It looks like she jumped. But the person who was taking the pictures downstairs, he had the camera attached to a little, you know, one of those things like the clickers, the thumb clickers. And he said that the first photo in which Janet is still laying down on the bed. Under the covers. Under the covers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And the photo in which she is floating in the air is one sixth of a second between those two photos.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. And she was athletic. She was. She was a super athletic little girl. Yeah. But that's impossible. Absolutely impossible. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
In a way that's going to satisfy skeptics, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
They never. Well, they never asked for money. The mother never asked for money once. And at the very beginning, they thought that this was going to be a thing where a lot of people apparently in England, how they get move houses. If they're in a council house, they say that it's haunted.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, and so they say it's on, and they asked her, like, do you want to move? That was the first question the Daily Mirror asked her on the first day, and she said, no, I've been here 12 years. I don't want to move. I want this thing out of here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, it's quite accurate. I like how you're saying that with a straight face and you're staring at me like I told you that it wasn't quite accurate.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. But I don't think- she's just cunning. No, no, they're not cunning. They're not cunning people. No, they're, I don't think that they have that sort of, um, I don't think they have that sort of imagination, uh, in order to like completely, but create this entire story. And I don't think they're going to outsmart Maurice gross and guy play fair. And they're living in the
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
They're living in the house. They did 21 full overnight vigils. Guy Playfair alone did 21 overnight vigils. I don't even know how many Maurice Gross did, but he was in that house constantly. He was in there all the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And that's somewhat...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. And he did have like there was one time that he did see that to him, like it was sort of the exception that proved the rule where he saw like he caught Janet like moving one of the recorders like he did catch. But he was like the ease at which I caught her and how fast she confessed shows me that this is real. Because she is not very good at it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
She tried to do it and she wasn't very good at it and she's a terrible liar.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I wouldn't say the point of this series, but there is, you know, with the Enfield Poltergeist documentary, it's definitely talking a lot about how there is much more to, I guess, paranormal investigation than we can really understand as far as going through and like figuring out what exactly happens with these investigations and what the proper way to do these investigations are.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
14 years, still hasn't improved.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, she is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Well, she wasn't schizophrenic because they eventually took her out of the home. Yes. Once it got bad enough. And because she was having just I mean, just horrible nights where she was convulsing. You know, she was just like in obvious, like mental and emotional anguish.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
So they took her out of the home and they put her in a hospital where a neurologist like looked at her, looked at her brain waves, you know, checked her for epilepsy. And they kept her under observation for six weeks. And they're like, this is a normal teenage girl. There's nothing there's nothing wrong with her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And as when she was away from the house, like she there was a recording of her talking to Maurice Gross and she's like, I feel so much better. She's like, I do not want to go back. I got my own room. Yeah, that's exactly what she said. She's like, I've got my own room. You know, like the radio can keep I don't want to go back to sharing a room. I want to stay like this is nice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I don't want to go back there. Things are terrible back there. And they said that she was a completely different girl away from the house. But once she came back, it started up again. And it continued for a little while until it just sort of tapered off. And she didn't really talk about like Janet did not talk about what happened to her very often throughout the year.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
She didn't get many interviews. She didn't do many documentaries. I think the longest one she did was in the DVD extras for The Conjuring 2, in which I think she was paid to say that the Warrens were there for longer than they actually were. Yeah, she must have been. Because Ed and Lorraine Warren, we talked about this in the episode, Ed and Lorraine Warren did show up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
You've seen The Conjuring 2, right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It's the Enfield Poltergeist case. Okay, great. It is the Enfield Poltergeist case. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And, like, they travel to England, and, you know, it makes it seem like the Warrens were the ones that were a part of this thing the whole time. There is a Maurice Gross character. There is a Guy Playfair character, but it's framed as, like, the Warrens saved this little girl. Oh.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, Lorraine Warren, yeah, very pinch-faced. But these people are grifters. Yeah. And they showed up for a day. They were there for a day, and they were asked to leave. Yeah. Like, you need to get out of here. You're just getting in our way. Yeah, you're getting in our way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. Their entire lives were like, they'd hear tell us something and they'd go straight for it and see if they could insert themselves into it. See how much money they could make off of it because they were fucking grifters.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
We'll tell you all about them. But Janet, they bring her into this documentary series about three quarters of the way through episode three. Okay. And she is a haunted individual. She is still a haunted individual. And the way she talks about it is like it sent chills down my spine. She said that you do not feel like you are entirely yourself. Oh, yeah. And she was like, whatever myself is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
She's like, you do not. When this is happening, you do not feel entirely yourself. There's something else in there with you. And she says and fucking killed me. You know, she's in her, you know, 60s now. She said, it's never left me. She says it's still there. It's never left. So what? She just knows how to suppress it now? She just lives with it. She just deals with it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
No, the mother did come in every day and would get angry with Janet. And also there was the fact that their father had left just a few, like a couple months before. And the father was also very abusive while he was in the home. And he was an absolute asshole. Bad energy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But as far as it being, you know, this being something that she carried with her, like it could very well like I personally, I believe that a lot of this stuff has to do with the collective unconsciousness. And it could be that something like you could maybe look at it as like, say, like an infection.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Where this big ball of energy, like Henry was talking about, all this stuff coming together, it infects Janet. And you could kind of look at this thing, if it's strong enough, as sort of a chronic illness that she has to deal with for the rest of her life. There's something in Janet's consciousness that has embedded itself there, some sort of infection, that just will not leave. That she can't...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
She can no longer separate herself from that. I like the word infection. I think infection is a good way to put it because I don't necessarily believe that it's a consciousness per se. It's more like the program of a consciousness. If you look at the brain as a sort of program or if you look at the mind as a sort of program, that program has been installed there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Well, the Enfield poltergeist case was in 1977 in Enfield, which is, I think, a suburb of London. You know, it's a part of London in which this family, a mother and her two daughters and their son briefly, but mostly centered around a mother. The Hodgkin family. Yeah, the Hodgkin family.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
into janet's clock consciousness yeah it's from remote like a compute like a computer virus and now she just has to fucking you can't uninstall it you know and she just has to deal with it and that the reason why she knew things about bill wilkinson the reason why she knew how he died uh the reason why you know she knew like kind of his mannerisms you know his ways of thinking is because she had the bill wilkins program the framework installed into her consciousness
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
So that's kind of how I look at this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
This is a great documentary.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. In this documentary, the way they do it is they take Maurice Gross's actual tapes, the 200 hours of tapes, and they rebuild the poltergeist house exactly as it was completely. That was crazy. They built sets exactly as it was. And like Janet, at one point she walks into the set and she's like, yeah. Yeah. Just like so fucking freaked out. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And what they do is they have actors lip sync along with Maurice Grosz's tape. Very impressive. It's extraordinarily impressive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
The way they put it together is so fucking good. Put him on Drag Race.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
In that video, I think it might prove that she wasn't bending spoons, but it does not negate in any way whatsoever the thousands of incidents that Maurice Gross recorded.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Oh, yeah. The way she put it is that she said she moved out as soon as she possibly could and never looked back. And that has been our episode.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, 284 Green Street. And it's like your classic poltergeist haunting where it starts very slow with furniture moving around and then shit starts flying around the room. With credible witnesses.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I don't know if it's good or not, but it's nice that it's out there. Instagram at LP on the left as well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Thank you all very much for listening. Hail Guignol.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I heard he lived a very nice life. He was even on Ali G once.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
That's nice. Good for him. Bye.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Kids out. Yeah, it did not start with the Menarche. The Menarche came about halfway through, actually. Cool. Rock and roll!
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It is a British accent. Was it like this in Murder Fist? Like, would you ask him like, hey, Henry, we need a British character for this sketch and... Still better than mine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But as the haunting went on, the mother called up the Daily Mirror, one of the newspapers, one of the tabloids in London, in England, and asked, like, hey, do you guys know anybody that might know something about this? Yeah. Of course, the Daily Mirror did not help them. Instead, sent out a reporter to talk about the case, to talk to the family about the case.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And one of the big things before they came was that a lot of Lego pieces and toys and marbles and shit were flying around. Yeah. And when the reporter was there, apparently they were hit with a Lego piece. Yes. And it could have only come from the other reporter. Yeah. So either the other reporter was throwing a Lego piece and fucking with this guy or something paranormal had happened.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Over 200.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Okay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It was a motorcycle accident.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And it was like a year before this case. It's like 1976.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
pointed in the birthday card, she put an arrow towards the word head and wrote, and soon there won't be much of that left either. And that wasn't just the only coincidence, or not coincidence, synchronicity. Synchronicity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
No. No, no, no. She was a very happy, loving... She was a very up-and-up girl. And the other one was like there was a huge drought that year. It didn't rain all summer. But right after she died, the roof above her room was completely wet, although nothing else was wet. There was the fact that at the time that she had the motorcycle accident, it was like 4.20 p.m. Cock and roll.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
But her mother felt like so sick at the beach. She felt so sick that Maurice almost called an ambulance and a clock at their home that had always worked perfectly stopped at 420 p.m. And always 420 somewhere, man. Yeah. But that got Maurice very, like, he needed to know. At that point, he was like, I need to know if there's something going on here. Because he was a very curious man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
He was an inventor. He was a businessman. He just had a curious mind. So he went to the Society for Psychical Research.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
This story... The Enfield case.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I put a different word in there. It's not like we haven't done that before with two other things.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, he was a big guy. Yeah, and Guy Playfair wrote the book that really brought this thing into the world of serious paranormal research. It's called This House is Haunted. It's really fucking good. It's a great book. Actually, this case, you'll find this interesting. This is a fun little factoid. This case was where Dan Aykroyd got the name Gozer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
oh yeah during one of the um when guy play for or i think it was either guy play for or maurice gross was talking to the entity that you know we'll get into here in a second yeah he was like my name is goza and dan akroyd was reading this house is honey he's like that's the that's the name that's awesome that's the name of my fucking demon in ghostbusters
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
The demon had a lot of names, though, right? Yeah, because, well, as Maurice Gros started... And the haunting developed. The haunting developed over time. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And more people just kept coming in and out of the house. A lot of Brazilian psychics. Yeah. Two Brazilian psychics. A pair of Brazilian psychics.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, it's called The Flying Cow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
He really did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah, they really were. But they were also bringing in other psychical researchers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. And Bill was talking through Janet, who was an 11 year old girl. And it was this very deep voice like fuck off. Like it sounded like that. It sounded very it was scary. It's a scary voice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
It's a great ghost voice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Well, they did bring in a speech therapist to study how this little girl could possibly do it. And she may have been able to do it if she would have been speaking from the very back of her throat. I mean, it's like expert ventriloquist shit. Yeah. Very, very difficult and also impossible for her to do for hours on end because she would talk in this voice for hours on end.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And she used to say that it felt as if the voice was speaking from the back of her neck. OK. He said, you know, his name is Bill Wilkinson. You know, he's he was a bit of a he was a little dirty. Sometimes you like to say, fuck off. Shit. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
What are you talking about? I haven't heard about this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
Yeah. In this case, they also had coins fall from the ceiling. And there was also an instance in which like they actually asked the poltergeist to make a red pillow, a red cushion disappear. And, you know, they went out of the room, came back in, the red cushion was gone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
I mean, I do truly one day. I somewhat pray for the porno parody. Remember the transmetropolitan porno parody? Yes. I somewhat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 2 - Enfield Poltergeist Strikes Back
And there was some people outside like a crossing guard and a tradesman that said, like, we were looking at the house because we had heard there was a lot of weird shit going on there. And then suddenly a red cushion appeared on the roof of the house without the window opening.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
You can't get upset about it. No, that's the thing. I remember when I was in junior high, but I bought this felt top hat that had a bunch of aliens on it. It was green and it was black, and I wore it around the mall and got really mad when people laughed at me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But it is the reaction of a child. It's the reaction of a 13-year-old. And, you know, Martin Bryant's having this exact same reaction at 25 and, of course, is having homicidal thoughts while he's having that reaction. That's the main difference. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The only reason why is because... So, you know, Hepatitis C would have done wonders for your career.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, Martin also started drinking heavily, grossly focusing on straight Bailey's Irish Cream. Cool. Or Sambuca. Wow. All while he listened to the same albums over and over, or watched the same TV shows or movies continuously.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, that's true. Why are you making my gun tree illegal? This is
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. What did James Gandolfini... Did he just listen to the same thing over and over? Just the idea of all the Sambuca. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, the Sambuca. How often do you hit the Sambuca? I'm sure lots of Steely Dan as well. Yeah. James Gandolfini only listened to the Bee Gees. Well, primarily, Martin loved the stylings of 1960s British pop icon Cliff Richard.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Cliff Richard never broke through in the United States. He's kind of a bland combination of Neil Diamond and Tom Jones. Also had some very bland soft rock hits in the 80s. But Martin Bryant's favorite album was the soundtrack to The Lion King, which either proves his subnormal intelligence or proves that music taste has absolutely nothing to do with violent behavior.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, that's a wonderful soundtrack. It's unbelievable. Yeah. You know what's underrated? Little Mermaid. Oh, it's next on my list. I don't know, guys. I don't know. No. Imagine getting super stoned and dropping the needle on under the sea.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And, of course, the great horticulturalist Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, as far as movies went, Martin had a massive VHS collection of over 1,300 tapes. But while he did love action movies like Steven Seagal's Undersea. Cool. Jackie Chan's The Protector.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
His favorite movie of all was the pig-centric talking animal vehicle, Babe. Okay, so, like, what am I supposed to do here?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I feel like you're the kind of guy that had Babe on VHS and then upgraded to DVD and then now own it on Blu-ray.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
When you bury the VHS outside where you're like, that'll do, VHS. That'll do. Well, that same year, 1996, Martin did find a companion despite all his talk of loneliness.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And the way he found her, I think, tells you that he was far more in control of his faculties than one might expect. Now, I'm sure that the paper helped him out with this, but Martin still had the wherewithal to place a personal ad. It read, in a surprisingly sane tone, quote, Lady companion for scuba diving, tennis, camping, and whining and dining, for attractive, slim, caring, 29-year-old male.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. As do we all. And we're here for Martin Bryant Part 2. Yeah, get our laughter out now, folks. Yep. This is the conclusion to our series. So when we last left Martin Bryant, he was 25 years old. And within the previous 10 months, he'd lost the only two people in his life who had ever been able to maintain some semblance of control over his behavior.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Martin got exactly one reply from a 20-year-old horticultural student named Petra Wilmot. That's all you need. Or Petra. Petra Wilmot. Surprisingly, she had a way with Martin just like Helen had. But while she said Martin was gentle and kind with her, he became irritable and aggressive any time they were around other people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The weirdest incident in their relationship, though, considering what Martin would soon do, was when he and Petra went to see Casino. According to Petra, Martin had to leave after he got queasy during the scene where De Niro, you know that scene where De Niro has the car counter's fingers crushed with the hammer? Yes. Really bothered Martin. He got queasy, had to leave.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, as we'll see. He didn't, but people normally do. Normally, yeah. But even with the ups and downs, Petra moved in with Martin in 1996, and she would still be living with him when Martin perpetrated the massacre a few months later. Now, as far as why Martin did what he did, there doesn't seem to be a single event in his life that fully inspired the mass murder, a personal event.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Rather, it seems like the massacre was an idea that slowly developed over time because Martin did tell investigators after his arrest that he'd been planning on doing something like this for a couple of years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
For Martin's later testimony, though, while the idea was just sort of floating around the whole time he was buying his guns, the idea began to actually crystallize after Martin became obsessed with two true crime stories that occurred in Australia and the UK, respectively, in 1996.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The first occurred in the early part of the year, when an eight-year-old boy was kidnapped in a scheme masterminded by a career criminal named Jeffrey Peter Radloff. Directing a crew of three, including himself, Radloff told his guys to abduct the boy from his home in the middle of the night and take him to a hotel.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The henchmen, however, panicked almost immediately because they believed the police were onto them, so they dumped their abductee in the middle of the street just 18 hours after the kidnapping before the ransom had a chance to go through.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Where did he get a crossbow from? Now, Martin was obsessed with this kidnapping case. Such was his fascination that when he was arrested for the massacre, he recognized one of the detectives who'd worked the crime, and Martin treated him like a celebrity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And what was, I'm sure, a chilling statement to the officer, Martin told him that the kidnapping had partially inspired Martin to commit his crimes because the case had given him the idea to kidnap someone after the shooting to use as a hostage.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But the incident that inspired Martin far more than the kidnapping case was a mass shooting that occurred in March of 1996 at a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane. There, a disgruntled 43-year-old former scoutmaster named Thomas Watt Hamilton murdered 16 children and a teacher with two 9mm pistols and two .357 revolvers, while 12 other kids and three other teachers were wounded.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The first to go had been his older female companion, the eccentric gambling heir Helen Harvey. She'd been killed in a car accident after Martin, as a prank, had allegedly jerked the steering wheel of the car Helen had been driving into oncoming traffic. As a prank.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Like Martin Bryant, Thomas Hamilton was a local misfit who was nicknamed Spock by the adults in Dunblane because of his otherworldly demeanor. But to the kids, Thomas Hamilton was simply known as Mr. Creepy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Dookie University, please. Thank you. Yeah, the caca college.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Do you think that you're saying the little scarves cut off the air supply and it causes some sort of hypoxia?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, Hamilton had been obsessed with running youth clubs for boys throughout his life, ever since he'd been fired from the Scouts for extreme incompetence as a young man. He just kind of showed up and was like, so, where are the tents? I don't know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. What's a river? But Hamilton also displayed other extremely inappropriate behaviors, like his penchant for taking photos of little boys in swim trunks and plastering the walls of his home with the prints.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So after Hamilton was denied the privilege of running yet another boys club in 1995, which he blamed on rumors spread by the local police and the Boy Scouts, he was a pedo. Those are who should be spreading those rumors, by the way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
After that, Hamilton snapped and killed 16 children just a month and a half before Martin Bryant carried out the Port Arthur massacre.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The second death was Martin's father, Maurice, who died by suicide at the age of 64 shortly after Martin had received millions of dollars in inheritance because he was the sole beneficiary in Helen Harvey's will. But because of this inheritance, Martin could pretty much do and buy whatever he wanted with no one to watch over him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
unstable yeah it sounds like an unstable man it's mr creepy to you But like Australia, Great Britain passed legislation after the Dunblane Massacre. They banned the private ownership of most handguns.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And while there has been one mass shooting on what we'd call an American level in the UK since Dunblane, that would be the Cumbria Massacre of 2010, Dunblane remains the worst mass shooting on record in the UK. They don't get new records year after year like we do. Get those numbers up, guys.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, Thomas Hamilton perpetrated his massacre on March 13th, and it seems like the attention Hamilton received directly inspired Martin Bryant to finally carry out the massacre he'd been planning over the previous two years, pretty much ever since his father died. See, just a week before Port Arthur, Martin ran into an old neighbor of his grandmother at the local supermarket.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, it's hard to say how the conversation got to this point, but this neighbor said that Martin told her that nobody ever wanted to listen to him or go with him, and he was getting fed up with it. So he was going to do something that would make everybody remember him. Or at least that's what the neighbor claimed he said.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now one can make the argument that we're giving Martin exactly what he wants by doing this series. But that misses the whole point of why we cover these people. We don't talk about Martin Bryant solely because he killed 35 people. We talk about him because he's a fantastically weird loser.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And hiding him in the shadows and treating him like a mythical monster only makes us more afraid of people like him. And meanwhile, Martin gets to be remembered only. as a gun-toting mass murderer instead of the pathetic fucking dud that he actually was. Now, as far as why Martin Bryant chose Port Arthur as his target, the reasons seem to be twofold.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Firstly, Port Arthur was a popular tourist destination because it still had a massive British penal colony. It was one of just 11 left in Australia. The penitentiary was called the Port Arthur Historic Site, and Martin knew that if he went there on a Sunday, there would be more than enough people around both the parking lot and inside the site's cafe to maximize the body count.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The second reason why Martin chose Port Arthur was because this had been the site of what he considered to be his father's greatest humiliation. If you'll remember, Maurice Bryant had planned to buy a bed and breakfast called Seascape in Port Arthur, and had even sold Martin Bryant's childhood home to make the sale.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But two people named Sally and David Martin had scooped the property up from under Maurice, and Martin Bryant had convinced himself in the intervening years that Sally and David had bought Seascape for the sole reason of spiting his father. Bryant then extrapolated that imagined spite and used it as the reason behind the depression that led to his father's suicide.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
In other words, Martin Bryant blamed Sally and David for his father's death, so he therefore decided that their deaths would be the perfect starting point for the massacre.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's important that we make that distinction. And so on the morning of April 28th, 1996, Martin left the farm for Port Arthur, telling his live-in girlfriend Petra that he had something to do and wouldn't be back till the next day. Now, even though Martin didn't have a driver's license, he had bought a yellow Volvo and he knew how to drive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Thank you. Thank you. Well, I owe it to you, really. Like, I learned it from watching you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So Martin loaded his Volvo first with handcuffs and rope for the eventual hostage or hostages, along with a hunting knife and several cans of gasoline for the eventual burning of the seascape bed and breakfast. Then Martin loaded in a duffel bag filled with his incredibly powerful collection of guns, including his AR-15, a .308 semi-automatic rifle, and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He would have brought more. But Martin was so excited about what he was about to do that he actually left his AR-10 behind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Sung Cho, like, just brooding. Brooding. Yeah, yeah. Elliot Rodger, but making his videos, you know, like, it's very, yeah, it's always like a very brooding.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He was... It's extreme enthusiasm. So much that he was so excited he forgot part of his stuff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It was, yeah. But once Martin had all his tools of death and destruction loaded up, he took a few swigs of Sambuca and headed towards Port Arthur, located less than 50 kilometers south, with the full intent of killing as many people as possible. Now, Martin was full of contradictions on the day of the massacre.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
While he later said that he fully intended to die either by suicide or by cop that day, he still went to great lengths to establish a sort of bizarre alibi on his way to the historic site. Once he arrived in the town of Port Arthur, Martin began a small tour of the gas stations that were on the road to the site. He arrived at the first station at 10.30 a.m.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
and wandered around the grounds for about an hour before going inside to buy a lighter and commenting loudly about the big plans he had for surfing that afternoon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Ten minutes later, Martin stopped at another gas station where he talked about the same thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He did actually buy a can of tomato sauce. And that was it. That's the only thing he bought.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Then he finally stopped at a third station to buy coffee and $15 worth of gas, again going on and on about the surfing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He always had that yellow Volvo. He always had a surfboard on the rack up top, but didn't know how to surf at all. Yeah. And he always dressed it like one of his like costumes was like a very like, I guess you would call it like a version of the surfer dude, but it would be very exaggerated. And he would like talk and like the surfer dude, like voice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Billabong. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's speculated that, as you said, Martin was trying to create an alibi to get away with the shooting, even though he wasn't planning on covering his face that day, which is again a contradiction towards his previous alleged statements that he was committing this heinous act so people would remember him. Why would you create an alibi if you want to be remembered?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's a movie about him. I know, yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But, as we know, Martin wasn't too bright, so I suppose he believed that stopping at three gas stations instead of one would only strengthen his alibi that he was actually surfing that day instead of killing 35 people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's also speculated that Martin Bryant may have been delaying the massacre, hoping that someone would give him a reason to not go through with it, but I don't think that was the case at all. Instead, I think that Bryant really was thinking that when he was captured, he was going to say that he was surfing all day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And if you didn't believe him, all you had to do was go ask the three gas station attendants that he loudly and aggressively talked to that morning.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Magical thinking is part of it, and that's a narcissistic term.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I don't know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Now, as I said, Martin's main reason for choosing Port Arthur was so he could begin the massacre by killing David and Sally Martin, the owners of the Seascape Bed and Breakfast. So, after Martin made his gas station tour, he drove his yellow Volvo to the inn, parked behind the building, and knocked on the back door.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Sally Martin answered and actually recognized Martin from all those years before because, as I said, Martin Bryant was not a character you were likely to forget, even over a decade later. Sally listened to Martin ramble on and on about how he and his girlfriend needed a room for the night, so she said, ''Fine, yes, you can have the room, whatever.''
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
She led him up the stairs, while Martin followed carrying his duffel bag full of guns. Once in the room, Martin asked how David was, referring to Sally's husband. Sally replied that he was downstairs making breakfast, which was the beginning of the celebration of his 72nd birthday. Sally then left, so Martin pulled his AR-15 from his duffel and followed her downstairs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Sally and David Martin were naturally stunned when they were faced with the sight of a large assault rifle, but Bryant told them that this was just a robbery and immediately put gags in Sally and David's mouths before taking them to their bedroom, where he ordered them to lie down on their bed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Once he had them where he wanted them, Martin put a pillow over David's head first and fired, killing him instantly. Then he did the same with Sally. She, however, survived the initial shot, so Martin rolled her over and fatally put a bullet in her chest. And with that, the Port Arthur Massacre had begun.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Oh, yeah, that guy. He was in Twin Peaks The Return. Yes, he's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's amazing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Oh, absolutely. At every point. Yeah, yeah. No, he planned. He knew he was nowhere near as incapacitated or disabled as some people try to make him out to be.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, yeah, he's great.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, exactly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Head's not on a swivel. No, dude. Like it is in most of America.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, Martin had gotten quite bloody from the double murder, so he took a shower at the B&B and changed clothes. And for me, I don't know why that's a chilling scene. It is. But it is. These two people are lying dead, and he's taking a shower.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, at this point, Martin said he remembered the years he spent in Port Arthur as a kid where they all called him silly Martin. In his mind, it was their fault that he was alone, even though he had a fucking live in girlfriend. So all the talk about him being alone or whatever, that's just fucking horse. Yeah. I mean, it's the same for all of these fucking pieces of shit. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I mean, Martin, like most mass shooters, was just mad that he wasn't able to act however he wanted, whenever he wanted. Angry that the world didn't bend to his will at every turn. And furious at the fact that living in the world and being accepted by people takes actual fucking effort. It's a two-way street, which is what shitheads like Elliot Rodger never fucking understood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
They all think the world fucking owes them something, and they're so mad when they don't get the fucking payout.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. All right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Where are you going with this?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But no matter Martin Bryant's real motivations, he left David and Sally's bodies where they had been killed and drove out to the Port Arthur historic site. Immediately, Bryant got into a confrontation with the toll booth attendant because Bryant didn't want to pay the $25 entry fee. But after causing a small scene, Martin forked over the cash and entered.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. It's about taking away the hours. Yeah. These people. Well, as far as Martin went, the car accident with Helen had resulted in a head injury that had turned Martin's personality from sullen and slightly withdrawn to overly chatty. And that was in addition to the fact that he had become even more aggressive than he already was. As a result, Martin's mother had all but given up on him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Besides, also a hypocrite. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, while it may seem like the massacre would be perpetrated by Martin stalking the grounds of the penitentiary, the majority of the mass shooting would take place at the historic site's restaurant, the Broad Arrow Cafe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Coincidentally, Martin's parents, Maurice and Carlene, had actually taken lunch at the Broad Arrow with Martin and Helen Harvey way back when, so Martin was quite familiar with the establishment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So at 1.30 p.m., Martin Bryant carried his duffel bag full of guns into the cafe, bought a juice and a can of fruit, and then sat down at a table outside, where he ate and ruminated on what he was about to do. But Martin couldn't help but be an irritating person one last time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
he began making strange comments to the people around him, saying to no one in particular how bad the parking situation was at the site, remarking on the fact that there were, boy, there sure are a lot of wasps around today. He meant white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, not like the actual wasps, but no one around him knew that that's what he meant.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
They thought he meant actual wasps, and they're like, I don't see any wasps around. Okay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But once Martin finished his juice and fruit cup, he walked back into the small, busy cafe and dropped his duffel bag on a... I'm about to start talking about the mass shooting.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
There's nothing in either one of your fucking cups and you're just sitting there... Slurping on it!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Can I continue? Yes. Well, once Martin finished his juice and fruit cup, he walked back into the small, busy cafe and dropped his duffel bag on a table. Without a word, he pulled out his AR-15 and began firing, punctuating the shots with his own laughter.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The cafe patrons scattered, hiding behind tables and counters, because while Martin had imagined that someone would have tried to stop him immediately, the people were too terrified and bewildered at the situation to do anything. Apart from one member of the cafe staff, he threw a serving tray at Martin to try to distract him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But in moments like this, most people freeze, contrary to what we might tell ourselves when we think of what we would do if we were in the same situation. As such, Martin killed his first cluster of victims at close range, pressing the barrel against the heads and necks of each person before pulling the trigger, killing 12 in just the first 15 seconds of the massacre.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But to show you how incredibly deadly these weapons are, while Martin fired 17 times in those first 15 seconds, the bullet fragments managed to wound a further 10 people, meaning those 17 shots had injured 22 people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
She'd abandoned Martin to the farm where he'd lived with Helen prior to her death. At the farm, Martin became more isolated and resentful towards the world at large, mostly because the world had rejected the extremely antagonistic way that he approached the rest of humanity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Well, it's 22 people were hit. Okay. And 12 people are dead.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
No, no, it's fine. At this point, 12 are dead, 10 are wounded with 17 bullets.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. So after his initial assault on the cafe, Bryant moved on to the gift shop, where more people were hiding under tables and behind shop displays. After killing the two women who worked there, as well as a tourist, Bryant shot a woman as she tried running outside. He then returned to the cafe. And there, Martin callously shot a man in the butt, probably because he thought it was funny.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Then opened fire on a group of five crowded near a locked door, killing three of them. The body count was now at 20, with 22 injured, but Martin wasn't yet done. After reloading and exiting the cafe, Bryant moved on to the tourist buses that were parked in front of the Broad Arrow, where he shot a bus driver in the back.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Bryant then began taking potshots at people from a distance, killing another tourist and wounding two more, including the cafe's kitchen manager, who'd been trying to direct people away from the gunfire. Tragically, most people who were there that day said that they thought that because of the site's history as a penal colony, the gunfire must have been a part of some historical reenactment.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So many people were unfortunately slow to move.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, it's just pop, pop, pop.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
No, you expect a huge bang, a pow, like you expect what you hear in like Die Hard.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. But because people were confused about what was happening, Martin had plenty of time to walk over to his yellow Volvo to change guns. After switching to his 308 semi-automatic rifle, he returned to the tourist buses and visited each of them one by one, killing people both on board and outside as he entered and exited each bus.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Finally, Bryant made his way back to his Volvo and pulled out of the parking lot. And while some say he was firing his gun as he drove off, others, who I'm more inclined to believe, said that Martin honked and waved as he almost casually pulled away.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
No, that's, that's extraordinary. That is extraordinary. I mean, it's again, it's like you're saying, like it is a cart. It's, it's this incongruous image because it is very cartoonish. Yeah. Cause I want a joke, but it's also extraordinarily tragic and insane and disturbing at the same time. Cause he'd be going bye. Yeah.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, but again, Martin was nowhere near done. As he drove towards the exit toll booth, he pulled alongside another car as that car stopped. Switching back to the AR-15, Brian ordered the people inside the other car to get out and lay on the ground. This car was being driven by a mother and her two children, ages six and three. After Bryant killed the mother, the kids tried running.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Bryant, however, pitiless as ever, chased them into a grove of trees nearby and killed both kids by firing into their heads, point blank. Continuing again towards the toll booth, Bryant pulled up behind a gold BMW driven by a local who was taking three visiting friends to see the sights. Bryant murdered all of them one by one, then transferred most of his guns and ammo from the Volvo to the BMW.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But Martin had such an arsenal that he still had plenty of firepower left even after leaving behind the unused shotgun and 400 rounds of ammo.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Incredibly, though, he didn't stop to murder the toll booth attendant that he got into a fight with earlier.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Mm-hmm. Now, Martin made his way towards the Seascape bed and breakfast to make his final stand. But inspired by the kidnapping story we spoke of earlier, Martin still wanted to take a hostage. So before reaching Seascape, Bryant swerved into a gas station and jumped out of the stolen BMW with his AR-15 in hand.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
After approaching a Toyota Corolla, he ordered the passengers, a man named Glenn Pears and a woman named Zoe Hall, outside. Glenpairs got out voluntarily, perhaps hoping to save his companion, but after Martin pushed Glen into the trunk of the stolen BMW, he still shot and killed Zoe Hall.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And so, with the hostage in his trunk, Martin drove to Seascape, firing at other cars on the road along the way. Now, what happened next tells you a lot about the friendliness of Australians.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Because when Martin pulled up at Seascape with Glen Pears in the trunk, a car full of hopeful hunters pulled in behind him because they'd seen Martin with his gun and they were hoping to join him for some rabbit hunting. Jesus, he almost made friends. Martin, of course, opened fire on the car, but thankfully only injured the driver. But thankfully only injured the driver.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And when another car filled with people stopped to see what the fuck was going on, Martin sprayed them with bullets as well. The second car drove off and stopped down the road where they tried warning other drivers that there was a madman with a gun back that away. One stubborn couple, however, who seemed to have reservations at the Seascape B&B, ignored the warnings and drove past.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
A tad. A tad. The fuck you's are always aggressive, Martin. Fuck you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Maybe if they were Americans, they might have been like, a guy with a gun, fine.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But when that couple pulled into the driveway, Martin shot at them as well and hit the driver. That driver finally heeded the warnings and sped away. Now, after dragging his hostage inside the bed and breakfast, Martin handcuffed Glenn Pears to a stairwell that was in full view of the bedroom where Martin's first victims of the day, David and Sally Martin, were lying dead.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Later, Martin told his lawyer that he thought that he'd be in less trouble if he had a hostage, I suppose because he thought he could use him as a bargaining chip.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But Martin also said in true Martin form that he mostly wanted a hostage so he'd have someone to talk to while he waited for the police to come and get him, thereby forcing one more person into being his companion in the most aggressive way possible.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, Bryant set the stolen BMW on fire just for fun right before the cops showed up. But as soon as the authorities arrived, an extended 18 hour shootout began. Glenn Pears, however, only lasted a few hours before Martin was done with him. For reasons unknown, Martin shot Pears in the head, making him the last victim of the Port Arthur massacre.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
there now how many of these guys like spree shooters serial killers like head injuries pretty common probably very common yeah it's mostly injuries to the frontal lobe um like uh ted bondi john wayne gacy a lot of times it's in childhood sometimes it's in adulthood uh but yeah frontal lobe injuries uh are it kind of turns off the connection that you feel to the rest of humanity
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The cops, however, didn't know that Martin's hostage was dead, nor did they know how many hostages he had or even how many shooters there were at this point. Bryant moved from room to room, firing at the cops from different windows, Made it look like there was maybe three or four guys in there. So the police chose to hold their fire for fear they might accidentally kill an innocent person inside.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But just after 7.30 a.m., after an all-night standoff, Martin fired 10 shots from an upstairs window just after smoke started pouring out. Perhaps finally growing bored with the situation, Martin had intentionally set the room on fire, which was the same room where he was storing all his ammunition.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
His bullets, therefore, began exploding, and within 20 minutes, the fire had spread throughout the upstairs region of the B&B. An hour later, Martin rushed out of the house unarmed and naked, having stripped his clothes off after they'd caught fire.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
This is actually the third or fourth time he set himself on fire. So he knew what to do. Yeah.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, after falling to his knees, the police rushed Martin Bryant and handcuffed him, thus ending the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history. And when police searched Martin's home, they found ammunition and guns hidden in every nook and cranny, stashed in cupboards, inside bags, above the stove, inside two pianos. He had two pianos filled with bullets.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He had thousands of rounds for each of his guns, in addition to scopes, cases, straps, and various bandoliers. To me, this shows that his girlfriend and his mother were either willfully ignorant of what was going on, or they were scared to death of Martin.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Tellingly, Carlene later said that when she was watching the news of the Port Arthur massacre unfold, but before Martin was captured, she had a distinct feeling that her son was responsible. Carlene even called Martin's girlfriend Petra, who also said, yeah, sounds like Martin. Oh, there's a mass shooting?
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But concerning Martin in custody, he refused to talk to anyone for a full two months after the massacre. In the meantime, though, police put together no less than 200 witnesses who were all ready to condemn Martin should he choose to plead not guilty.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
When Martin did finally talk, he was evasive and disrespectful, laughing his way through the interviews while sometimes talking in a sing-songy voice.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, before his lawyer even came, the cops were asking him questions, and he would say, it's like, I'll answer that, but I don't have my lawyer. I don't have me lawyer, me needs. Yeah, it just doesn't make, it's like not, it's a cartoon character.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Just the problem is that you just can't trust the state to make the right decision.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, Martin's first lawyer quit pretty quickly on moral grounds, but it also seems like Martin Bryant was predictably an absolutely infuriating client on many levels. Despite a bevy of witnesses and hard evidence, Martin steadfastly denied that he was the perpetrator here, claiming that he hadn't even been to Port Arthur in years.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Initially, when the inspector interrogating Martin described the people who were murdered, Martin faked shock. Like, I can't believe that happened. Me? But he then asked how many people died altogether, obviously wanting more details about his crimes. Martin and the inspector went around in circles for hours, with Martin admitting to some crimes, but not others.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And sometimes the crimes that he would admit to were in the middle of the other crimes that he would say that he had nothing to do with. For example, he would cop to stealing the BMW and kidnapping Glenn Pears. But then he would deny that he held Glenn hostage or that he burned down the Seascape B&B. He was just having fun with these people. Possibly, yeah.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Absolutely. That is absolutely correct.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. The inspector repeated to Martin over and over again that he was going to be charged with 35 murders and 23 attempted murders. But Martin, either facetiously or ignorantly, kept asking the inspector how many months, not how many years, these crimes would get him.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But once Martin believed that the interviews were over, I suppose thinking it was safe to say whatever he wanted, Martin finally stated, quote, I'm sure you'll find the person who caused all of this.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
That's exactly what he said.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He then said that it was a pleasure talking with the inspector, and he hoped that he would have many more people to talk to.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Thank you. Now, Martin's second lawyer, John Avery, said that he had some sympathy for Bryant upon meeting him because Martin was still bandaged from his burns and manacled to a wheelchair. That sympathy, however, soon evaporated because Martin was just as evasive and infuriating with his lawyer as he was with the inspector.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
See, Martin, even after making his earlier admission, you'll find who did it, me, he was still maintaining his innocence, floating one easily disproved alibi after another just to see if anything would stick.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
At one point, Bryant even tried claiming that he was out of the country altogether on the day of the massacre, all while his lawyer patiently explained that there were hundreds of witnesses ready to testify to the contrary. But finally, lawyer John Avery told Martin that he wouldn't represent him if Martin continued to plead innocence. And eventually, Martin agreed.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It still, however, took three extremely long and tedious meetings with Bryant, totaling 20 hours before he finally admitted the truth to his lawyer, his extraordinarily patient lawyer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, you can't even say, like, well, it tastes like the shit that it's made from, but at least the presentation is nice. You can't say that anymore.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. And he wanted to have the entire thing recounted to him. Yes. Over and over again. Over and over again. Yeah. Now, he knew what he was doing at every point.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But even when John Avery thought he'd made a breakthrough with Martin, Bryant began asking if he could plead guilty to the 35 murders, but not guilty to the 23 attempted murders, because it seemed like he believed that he was in more trouble for injuring people than murdering them. But I think this is also another possibility.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
ploy it's just him trying to meet the witnesses being a piece of shit annoying as fuck yeah he wanted to meet the witnesses yes yeah he wanted to meet the people that he shot he wanted someone if you want people to come and say that's the guy who shot me because that's the thing he's he was mostly focused on how much evidence was against him and avery soon came to the conclusion that bryant was angling for a trial just so he could relive the massacre in gory detail in public
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, because of Martin's off-putting demeanor, he became extremely lonely, especially after Helen died. And while he did go on dates here and there with women both older and younger than himself, the initial attraction that women felt because of Martin's good looks would dry up as soon as they spent any significant amount of time with him.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
In the end, though, Bryant finally pled guilty, but only after he giggled in open court while all the charges against him were read. As far as where Martin Bryant is now, he was sentenced to 35 life sentences at Risdon Prison Complex, nicknamed the Pink Palace, due to its unconventional pink cement walls and open plan cage designs. Oh, open plan. I love an open plan. Very feng shui.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Just like that. Well, most of Martin's life is kept a secret, but we do know that he's made at least six suicide attempts in the last 29 years, including hanging himself, overdosing on tranquilizers, slashing his wrists, and swallowing a whole tube of toothpaste. I don't tell you. He can make you sick. It'll make you really, like, my tummy. Like, my tummy's going to hurt. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But I don't think it'll kill you. Why not let him do it?
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Martin also no longer has his natural athletic physique, as he apparently has a ravenous appetite for ice cream, he refuses to exercise, and regularly barters sex with other inmates for cans of Coca-Cola.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, according to other inmates, Bryant is obsessed with reliving his crimes, and he desperately hoped that no one would break his quote-unquote world record for most people killed in a mass shooting spree. As I said last episode, that wish was unfortunately unfulfilled, as his record has been broken ten times over since 1996.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, it's not all America. I think Bataclan's in there. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, Fuckface, yeah. Now, again, the Tasmanian government has tried to keep very little, if any, information about Martin Bryant from getting out. But all this has done is fuel conspiracy theories. Because, as we all know, nothing fuels conspiracy theorists like a lack of information.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So Martin found a way to basically hold companions hostage when he began using his inheritance money to buy business class seats on international flights.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
She was never great.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, I mean, multiple conspiracy theories have popped up over the years about Martin Bryant allegedly being innocent. Mostly, these theories say that Bryant was just a patsy used to pass gun regulation because Bryant wasn't bright enough to pull off the murder of 35 people. But that is exactly the fucking point.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
You don't need to be Hans Gruber when you've got a weapon that can fire 60 rounds a minute with the simple tug of a trigger.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, a gun like an AR-15 is specifically made for its ease of use. That's exactly how shooters in Buffalo, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Parkland, and Uvalde were able to kill a combined 57 people using the same type of gun as Martin Bryant. And according to a congressional report, when you include all mass shootings in America that involved any sort of assault rifle, that death toll raises to 298.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, I'll admit... Big guns are fun. Yes. There's pictures of me out there shooting an AR-15. No need to dig up to show hypocrisy here. I fully admit I've shot these guns.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yes. But I also don't believe that the jolt you get from firing a high-powered rifle is worth even the small bruise you get from the kickback, much less worth almost 300 deaths.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
He never stayed in his destinations long, but the destination wasn't the point. Instead, Martin took the flights so he would have a captive audience for up to 12 hours at a time. So that's what's going on.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And you get it out. And anyways, and for me, when I play video games, I usually don't play shooters. I like to beat people to death with maces. You like swords. I love swords.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
That's nice. I like the war hammers in BG3.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Because of the war hammer. Because you got hammer on the brain. You got hammer brain.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Now, guns in America are, of course, on a massively different scale than what they were in Australia in 1996. So don't think that I'm pretending like all this is simple. Oh, yeah. When Australia did their buyback program after Port Arthur, they confiscated 643,000 automatic and semi-automatic weapons at a cost of $350 million.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
By contrast, 70 million of those same types of weapons exist in America today. Gosh.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
than that 643,000 70 million that we know about that we know about isn't it like bigger than like New York and California like Los Angeles population put together actually it's uh you put New York and Los Angeles population together multiply it by three and then I think you overtake the number of uh automatic and semi-automatic weapons and that's the thing that is only automatic and semi-automatic weapons that doesn't include handguns rifles doesn't include shotguns that's
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
only semi-automatic and automatic weapons.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
They need to harness the gun vote. The gun vote, yeah. Again, guns aren't sentient, nor are they people.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, it's not Beauty and the Beast with guns.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I think today actually guns outnumber people in the United States. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Yeah, I think I heard that recently. I may be wrong on that, but the fact that it wouldn't surprise us and that it's believable.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And if my math is correct, if we were to do the same buyback program in America that Australia did back in 1996, conversion rate, inflation, it would cost somewhere around $50 billion to get rid of all of them. And that's even if people are willing to do it, which they aren't. So I don't know what the solution is here, if there even is one.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But one thing I do know is that when we go to Australia, that feeling that I carry around as an American every time I go out in public, that I can be shot at any second by a stranger, that feeling goes away. And that's all because the people of Australia had the courage to do what needed to be done almost 30 years ago.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I think they melted them down.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Of course. I mean, it all comes back to fear. It's really not talked about enough how skittish the American people are and how very fearful the American public is.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, it's not just that. It's also an extreme paranoia. It's the idea that they're stuck in some sort of action movie where, you know, there's it's all going to come to them. It's all going to come to them. And they're going to be they're going to.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
defend their home you know from some sort of you know invader or attacker or they think it's gonna be like fucking red dawn one day you know where an army of trans people are gonna come to take their kids away and force them to go to drag shows and they can use a fucking ar-15 to fight them all off when in reality most of these people just end up shooting their wives in the fucking head by accident
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, the Midwest businessman will sit, and he'll talk, and he'll talk, and he'll always refer... What brings you to town?
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
That argument, actually, I can fight against because America couldn't take down Vietnam. Yeah, what are we going to do? But that's what I mean, is that like guerrilla warfare and asymmetrical warfare is extraordinarily difficult to defend against. So if there was some sort of like second civil war in America and we had guerrilla fighting, it would be extraordinarily ugly.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It would go on forever and it would be incredibly deadly.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, and also the cops don't want to give up their guns either.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And he always refers to some cryptic shit that sounds illegal, impossible, and very strange.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
So you believe that gun rights means rights for the gun.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I see. That's what the soul theory is about. You believe that everything has a soul. Every object has a soul. Yeah. How's my metal water bottle soul?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah. Actually, if they're both people. Yeah. Well, we can think about it. Thanks so much, everybody, for being here for our Martin Bryant series. If you want to see video editions of our podcast, go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. And while you're there, stick around every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. ESD for last stream on the left. We air it live.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And when you watch it on Patreon, you get to see shit that does not make it. to YouTube, and you get to talk with us on the chat. Follow us on all the socials, TikTok and Instagram, at LPOnTheLeft, and come see us on tour. Go to LastPodcastOnTheLeft.com, click on shows, and you're going to see all of the dates, such as... Atlanta, June 28th.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
I forgot we were going to Milwaukee. We are. I love Milwaukee. That would be fun. We can get some spotted cow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
yeah and actually I was on an episode of Foreign Report a few weeks ago and had a ton of fun that was like during Signalgate you know a million things have happened since then but I'm going to be a guest on Foreign Report here in about two weeks a week or two so keep an eye on the Foreign Report YouTube page for when I reappear I'm going to be talking I'm going to be on that show as a fair regular in the future I just did an episode of Page 7 had a fucking great time with MJ and Jackie yeah it's great to do yeah I was over on Page 7 as well
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, I was also on page seven.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
And then the ones that are there to watch. There's not like a warehouse in Australia somewhere with 675,000 guns.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Congratulations. We're getting there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Like that movie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
That's what it was. It was a flash action figure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, following the Port Arthur massacre, countless people who have been trapped in a seat next to Martin Bryant came forward. That's who that guy was. Yeah. No, I mean, that's the things that Martin Bryant was such an irritating person that people would remember him from like decades previous. Like, oh, yeah, I remember that fucking guy. Yeah. I'll never forget. Like, he's a story.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
People said that he would invade their personal space, he would talk directly into their faces, and he just simply would not shut up for the entirety of the flight. These so-called conversations would be rambling stream-of-consciousness diatribes, and if one person stopped listening, Martin would continually make the rounds, bothering every person in his vicinity until the flight was over.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
This is why you can't give Holden a raise. No!
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, Holden doesn't talk to young ladies. He's only going to talk to older men.
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Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, traveling at a pace of a new flight once every two days or so, Martin used his inheritance to take more than a dozen trips between late 1993 and the end of 1995. Basically, Martin traveled to any location that took forever to get to from Australia. Went to London, Bangkok, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Later, Martin would say that the goal of these trips was to meet quote-unquote normal people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
But no part of his adventure would ever work out the way he wanted it to. For example, after exhausting the passengers on his flight, Martin would go to restaurants and cafes at his destination and talk to random people. Those random people would mostly just get up and move away. These trips, however, were always top of the line.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Martin would go to his travel agent's office, dump $10,000 on their desk, and say, send me somewhere.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
The agent would therefore set Martin up with business class seats, expensive hotels, and reservations at the finest restaurants.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yeah, they all die.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
There's always... They're reserved for the extraordinarily rich. Like, you know, the first season of White Lotus is like, I'm going to call my travel agent. It's for people like that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
You know where all the travel agents are? Queens. Queens is full of travel agents.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Exactly. Yeah, people got to get back home. Oh, yeah. But at the same time that Martin Bryant was taking these trips and forcing people into being his temporary companions, he was also building the arsenal that would enable him to enact the Port Arthur massacre a couple years later.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's a banana. Oh, you're just getting me to talk to you, I see.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Yes, they do. Thank you. Because you drew nipples on them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Martin's first gun was an AR-10. This model had just been imported to Australia for the first time in the 90s, where it was sold through gun shops and newspaper ads. These sellers hardly ever asked for gun licenses when selling these extremely deadly weapons, which is a good thing for Martin because he certainly did not have a gun license at any point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's like 90-10. Yeah. It's honestly 90-10. Knowing many people with these types of weapons, it's for fun.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Oh, yeah, the feral hogs, they've organized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they don't. No, it's 90-10 fun to, like, yeah, I might actually need this for something.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Marcus Parks. I'm here with the birthday boy, Henry Zebrowski. Don't you just want a gun to have its purpose?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
It's also a fun way to get your mail quicker. Yeah. By 1995, Martin finally discovered that if he wanted some sort of romantic companionship, his best course of action was to go for teenage girls who didn't know any better. Girls who might be dazzled by his looks. And he therefore began a short relationship with a girl named Janetta. The Dane Cook method.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Well, that relationship ended when Martin forced Janetta to stay out at sea during choppy conditions after dark on a boat Martin owned. The motor on the boat died, and after they were rescued by a fishing boat a few hours later, Janetta broke up with Martin.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
There's one thing a woman loves. It's being trapped in a boat. They love it. Devastated, Martin sold his boat and used the money to buy an AR-15, the same gun that he would use to devastating effect at Port Arthur. This gun and all the others to come were bought from a gun dealer named Terry Hill at a store called Guns and Ammo, where licenses were, again, optional.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 619: Martin Bryant Part II - The Port Arthur Massacre
Now, by early 1996, the year of the massacre, Martin's mother, Carlene, had finally recognized that her son needed help. His moods were getting worse, and his penchant for outlandish clothes, like the electric blue Austin power suits we mentioned last episode, those were only isolating him further because the public found his fashion sense to be highly amusing.
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Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
There's no place to escape to. This is the Last Podcast on the Left.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
Yeah, boom, done.
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Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
Exactly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
We love this guy.
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Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
On top of the pops, this week. This week on top of the pops, we've got Cuthbert, Maine, and the 39 Companion Martyrs.
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Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
So come on out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
All right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 599: The Horrible Lives and Deaths of the Saints - The Middle Ages
This Crystal Light tastes like piss! Oh, it's piss. It's piss.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, who knows? Well, yeah, yeah, for a bear. A lawyer for a bear. Please! In Forrest Court.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
There has there has been quite a bit of people talk about ADHD and that word gets thrown around a lot. I think the same thing with all of these various diagnoses. They're thrown around on social media. And nobody, we're kind of losing some of the sense of the heaviness of some of these diagnoses. Very much so. The ADHD is not just paying attention. I'm sorry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You just don't have a fucking attention span. There's some of you that just don't have an attention span. That's fine. It's been destroyed by media. But the rest of it, ADHD can lead to full dissociative, like, episodes. Yes. Like all of the same bad stuff that bipolar does. If you're not taking care of it correctly and you're actually diagnosed with it, you can turn into a bit of a firebug.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm actually just a part of the otter law constituency, and we're live and covered in hands.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Is that why you chew apples with your hands tied behind your back? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I can see it.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
We are going to need to talk with you about this. I can't afford it myself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I also listened to Brendan Sokolak talk and he was, he even says it wrong. He goes like, like he does this like weird thing. He seemed to be under pressure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I had no idea how bad wildfires were in Australia. My God. That whole continent's made for burning.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Jesus fucking Christ. You know, it's crazy, too, the way they talk about it. It really is like they have a budget. I had no idea it would be like this outside of the United States of America.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Let's just say, I'm an East Coaster New Yorker. I've never dealt with anything like this before, and it wasn't until those LA fires hit that you start to, when you were watching the footage of it, I guess I never really took it to heart. This shit just jumps. It just explodes. Things just explode, and then they go fast.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
You would not be, you would be incredibly surprised how fast that wall of flame will overwhelm you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, cute. And that's where you get the first ever kangaroo man wedding. Which is nice. But it's illegal. Their love was considered illegal. She was just plowing the hell out of that kangaroo.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And they got crazy. They got like a bigger pussy than a fucking lady.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah. All right. You've already done it yourself, haven't you? But I'm going to just say right here at the very top of this Pyromaniac episode, I think that it's super important for me to say I think picnics are bullshit. Whoa! Wow. Yeah. Who wants to bring a bunch of cold ass food in the middle of some feces filled, like, patch of ass?
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Dude, every single time when we went to Hawaii and they do, you know, you just learn that everything that you like there is invasive and destroying everything there. And then it seems like it's really rough to kind of just mess with the planet.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
It seems to just... react in wild ways that you really can't predict.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, that's why I travel faster when my pants are down.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
What about the before? Yeah, what were the first cows?
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Marcus, stop it. You're driving people crazy. People are having orgasms. People are, they can't focus on the road. They are literally pissing and shitting and cumming so much with this information that it's just, we have to really be careful what we do here. It's an info hazard. It's very hard. I am not looking at, because now I'm looking at aurochs. Just thinking about, I'd like to eat one.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Like you're going out to, there's no place in LA that I want to have a picnic.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Arson is another one of those crimes that's extremely difficult to investigate. Yes.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, yeah, because fire destroys everything. And there's so many reasons to burn something. You know, like, is he fine? And there's so many ways something can burn down. It's very difficult.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, it's not like he was David Lee Roth. This is what's set up. It wasn't rehearsed. It was hot for teacher. Ooh, I don't know if he fucked his teacher. Oh, it's more of the hot fire thing. Oh, sure, sure, sure. I think about fucking teachers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I skulk up to 25 minutes a day. Just to keep me going. Life skulk. Life skulking.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, Bob, you're full of shit here. I ain't going to pass any sort of inspection. Bob, you know, builder, I think you're a cartoon. Yeah, you think you're going to climb that train, Thomas, you fucking idiot?
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Episode 614: Pyromania
natalie and i relax every night by watching our true crime shows right you know and then one we're watching right now it's called evil lives here and it's about like bad evil family members that you grew up with yeah but what i love about this show was it a home movie
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Because let's just say he wasn't an expert mechanic.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You fucking piece of fucking shit. You know, too, it's just if you have to work with him. I can see that. If he's just a funny guy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
So can a lot of people, though. It's not just ASD. I think a lot of people sometimes just like being jerks. It's pretty much all of Iceland.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You live on a rock that has ice on the top of it and lava directly underneath it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
And it's great. You are fatter now. It's just a fact.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Is it maybe fair to say that his acting like a prick... Brendan Sokolak, you mean. Brendan Sokolak was his inability to emotionally connect with others and that you find that the connection is... All humans must connect to others in some way. We are a social beast. And so on some level, when we are kind of dealing with others, I wonder if sometimes it's just any reaction then becomes a connection.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, exactly. But also the key to pyromania, on the whole, is the attention that you get from the action. I feel like that is still, like... I think for some, not for all. But... All the ones you talk to, you start to find out, like, there's quite a bit of similarities of the way they talk. When Brendan saw Galacka and I was listening to Paul Keller, they actually do have very similar attitudes.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
It definitely doesn't heighten all of those issues. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, yeah. And they're all on a track of trying to do shit. And never mind if you're just some fat idiot who's arrived to be the catcher of the team. And you think it's because Goldberg was the fucking like the funny guy in the team and that your function. And then all these kids are now starting to take the sport super seriously. And now they're turning on you when you were the fucking mascot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yes, it flipped like over a summer. It was like one summer I was the most popular kid on the team, and then the next summer they were like, oh, you're bad at baseball.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Well, Brendan. Speaking of someone who's definitely not, who is a pyromaniac, unlike Marcus.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I read a thing about, I guess Shaq used to do a hazing thing to rookies. Shaquille O'Neal? Yeah, where he used to shit in a bucket for like months, and then on some level he used to dunk the shit. Shaq's dupes. That's a trough. I was just like thinking about that, and the old laugh and stuff, and I was like watching this thing, and I was like...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
First of all, so you kept a bucket of your shit in your house just to pour on some new. Probably in the locker room. I guess. But you kept this shit just because you're a superstar. You're a multimillionaire leader of the team. Exactly. This could have been in college. No, it was while he was on the Lakers. Oh, really? Yeah.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I guess you can have a shit guy that can take the shit to his house and make his house the shit house.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Shaq's a great person. I love Shaq. I just find it weird hanging out with your own shit all day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Men are weird. Boys are weird. Shaq doesn't live in a two bedroom apartment. We don't know what he does. He definitely doesn't live in a two bedroom apartment. No, he is a multi-man. He is a very large man. I'm just saying men are gross and a horse play amongst boys is horrible. Locker rooms are very scary places. I very much liked being with the girls. Now eventually.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
You shouldn't be in the girls' locker room though. Oh, they invited me in.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
This is also a type of crime that has some of my, like, the funniest old-timey looks at your crime. Like, I watched an old documentary called Portrait of an Arsonist that was, like, it was actually a very expensive rental for some reason. And they kind of talk about the term, they always throw around the term firebug. Yeah.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And pyromaniac episodes very often happen after a giant emotional change and shift.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
You sure that's not just your crippling addiction to nicotine?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Like, the term firebug, which, like, because I guess that's, like, fairly common within the fire, like, fighter community. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
It's about like, I know my brother's bigger, stronger, more handsome than me. He's more loved than me. I'm going to set this fire because then you're all going to come look at Marcus because Marcus needs some attention.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
That is very frightening. I didn't do any of this. Rob has been sitting there being like, I can't believe these men.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah. The wannabes. They call them firebugs. They're guys that show up around the firehouse that are obsessed with the train. They're obsessed with the ladders and the hoses and all the mechanics and stuff. I don't know why. And they then go and they essentially then start becoming like fire fans and hanging out. But they very sillily sort of like refer to them as firebugs. Interesting.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Yes. And the way they talked about it, too, is that he really it's just because he does not he truly did not grasp the. that there was consequences. And that's what they kind of tried to get him on legally, all these guys. They all just kind of be like, I never thought the fire would consume half the city.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
And it's like, because you weren't doing that, you were following an extreme lack of impulse control that's caused you to set a bunch of fires.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
He actively tried to negotiate with the police officer to say, hey, can you just tell people that I found the fire and that I'm a hero?
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Episode 614: Pyromania
It's a great move. It is. I just want to say to all you husbands out there, they know now. Every single time you try to do something that I've tried to do that just act comatose.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Our wife, she's there. Yeah. And she knows that you know how to do better, especially if you run like a business. Because then she's just like, well, then your business should be taken from you and your life should end. And you should not, in terms of your career should end, you should just become a simpleton that lives as a drifter if you are incapable of doing this.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
The key on a bus, if you want to sit by yourself, you go... And then as soon as the bus takes off, you're normal.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
But they are worse than that. You ever set fire to an anthill?
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Never use a piece of paper to pick up a cherry from a cigarette.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I'll always be haunted by one time. We were shooting late for A to Z back in the day, A to M. A to M, man, please. And we were coming through Topanga Canyon, and they have these signs everywhere that say, don't smoke, don't throw cigarettes out, because it's tri-land. And I was half asleep. It was 2 o'clock in the morning. This was when I was smoking cigarettes. I was driving.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And I was smoking, didn't even think about it. And I threw the cigarette out the window. And I went, oh, fuck! And I pull the car all the way around. And I go, and I'm walking through the brush. It's like 2.30 in the morning, looking for the cigarette, trying to make sure it didn't set anything on fire. I'm like walking around. I was like, oh, God, oh, fuck, oh, fuck!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
And then I remember having to go to a hotel room because that's where we're staying. We were staying on this side of town. And I went into the hotel room just like watching the news all night. Please don't let me have burnt down the entire Pacific Palisades.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Wow, a lot of near misses today. It really is amazing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
It kind of just makes my skin both crawl and tingle thinking about it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Wow, this is more anti-ant. Really against ants here. But Eddie brings up a very good point accidentally, because they show something like 10% of young men specifically experiment with fire setting. There's a difference between, apparently that was one of those
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Episode 614: Pyromania
He also lived right next to the, I think it's called the, I forget what it's called, the term of where the fire starts. There's a good term where he lived close to one of the starting points of the fire. And then he also was the first person to report the fire.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
So, I don't know. I'm not going to say that he did it, but he did it. Isn't that nice?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Which is great. I remember when you were researching 9-11, that must have been your whole fucking computer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah. Now he's going to take a highway. He'll never do that. He'll never set a fire again.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You now live in SeaWorld. No, he's an interesting character because I will see how it rolls out because it seems like Pyromania is a fairly impulse-driven crime. So we'll see what happens.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Paul Keller is one of those guys that when he's one of those like early 90s, 27 going on 49. Oh, yeah. He looks like a full on adult. And let's just say I'm just going to clear up a couple of things. He got the job in advertising because his dad, that was his dad's company. And he gave him something to do. Yeah. Because Paul Keller was an absolute, utter baby maniac. He showed up at the house.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
He tortured the entire family throughout his entire childhood. He was violent, uncontrollable. They couldn't know what he would beat everyone. He beat his mother. He beat his father. I had a feeling. And Paul Keller, though, but he'd always be like, you know, people don't understand me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm not a criminal. I just set fires. He was doing is he says that he was checking the firefighters abilities to do their jobs. And he was also checking to see if their new equipment was up to par.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
If that house didn't want me to set fire to it, why was it dressed that way? You know, he was a unrepentant... Like, he was very impulsive, but his thing really... was his fascination with firefighter technology and firefighters in general. What he would say all the time was that he's like, yeah, I just kind of like I said, I said that on fire.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
But they do a thing on the show where they always ask a question to like these devastated people. Like this show, I kind of like it because it's really intense. But they show these devastated people and they always go like, huh? Take a look at this picture of this other dead person. What do you think of that? And then they go like, they get upset and stuff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
So a piece of fiberglass there and I said on fire because I wanted to see if the new C-19 flow system really can come around and really zip zap zap this whole thing. I'm not a pyromaniac. I am a stress tester for the Seattle Fire Department. That's what his whole shtick was.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah. Yeah. I view it like a drip. It's like a moist, like a drip. It's like a condensation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You could just see it with their babushkas just refusing to move when the fires come. Just being like, no, I wait for puddings. I will not. I die here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
If you look at the honestly, there was a there's two documentaries. One was in that Evil Lives Here show that covered this guy. Another one was it was called Portrait of an Arsonist. His father is the most sad man you've ever met. He's crying. He's crying. He's so upset that it was his son. And also, you very rarely see it, too, with the father giving up the son.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Because largely they would come and try to cover up their crimes, as we've seen with every other criminal family that we've seen. But Paul Keller was just such a—he was filled with rage. And he set fires. He also did really believe he was correct.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
He believed he was correct. And he still does not understand why he was in jail.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
And they tried to diagnose him with ASD, and he wouldn't do the testing because, again, his whole thing is, I'm not autistic. I am just a devoted fan of cataloging...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
firefighting equipment firefighting techniques firefighter locations and he knew each station I only have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything firefighting and so he's like that where it was all about this like fantasy but I believe that Paul Keller needs to stay in jail I think that Paul Keller is one of those where he's not a Brendan Sackalock where he's I think Brendan Sackalock was quite disabled
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
He knew he had a foot outside, but he kind of he still was jacked up. Yeah. Where it's like this dude is he knows way more. Yes. Than what he's showing. Because, you know, it'd be like I blacked out. I was getting drunk. You know, I blame all this in the pot and the booze. But then he'd show up at one of the scene of the fires and he'd tell them every single moment of the night.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
The hand's not bad. It's just... It's not like the other hand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Definitely not. I can't imagine a child from Yorkshire having anything but cruel thoughts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, I'm not hard for it. So when the orphanage was burning, did you masturbate? Nah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You know why? Ed Gein also was a babysitter. From what I've heard from people with kids is that like you get so desperate to leave the house. Yeah. At some point you couldn't even care less who's there. Yeah. Just leave him with anyone. I mean, you know what? The regular fucking Nancy canceled. I'm sorry. This is a guy that I met. His name is Cyclone. That's all I know him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
It's just that real different genes come to the top.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
If you ever say those terms to me, Marcus, I know for a fact it's that you're setting fires. Have you ever been like, you would never guess what I've been up to? Yeah. That's never going to be good. No, it's never going to be good.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
And again, fire starting and fire bug activity was kind of seen as harmless boy stuff. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
only I don't know understand like that's the closest I'd say to that you'd be on the spectrum is the fact that you see everything in just four circles fours and lines and yeah I don't know why I'm so good at it you're so good at connect four I once beat this guy 45 times in a row and it made him insane yeah it was like
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
You used to bring it out at the creek. And you used to just play people all night, Connect Four. And people would just go like, I don't understand. And you just sat there like a silent prodigy, just like, click, click, click, click.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And if you win, you get the money and then you put it back in the company.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
But it's interesting because they all... Every one of them have said vaguely the same thing, that the impulse, they swear that the impulse to start the fire has nothing to do with the outcome of the fire. They're all just like, I just set fires.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
That's just because it's fun to hear everybody screaming. I understand that. I get that. The idea of watching a whole neighborhood burn, I get it. If you know everyone's home, though, that is murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I do that with Natalie. She gets really concerned. I've been doing this kind of funny thing where sometimes if I say something really upsetting, she gets upset in the car if I say like an angry thing. So what I've been doing is I say it through my hand. Instead of saying it out loud, and then it kind of cuts some of the heat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Natalie says she's super scared. I literally do it because I think it's funny. It just makes it more real. But it's this bit that we've been doing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, no, not while. Don't kill me while I'm taking a shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
What would you prefer? On my knees with a gun in my mouth because I've led the revolution to this point. Yeah, that sounds nice. That's not going to happen, though. No. No, it's going to be diabetes. No.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Pigeons gotta be, I mean, like, I guess they're easy to kill, but it's gotta be a rough afternoon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
He's a bad guy. They should have sick Mike Tyson on this motherfucker. Oh, wow. If Mike Tyson punched a little British boy, he'd explode.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
But also, I find it interesting that they don't, obviously they can't...
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, but she's smoking now, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. Sorry.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
always investigate it because then they'd be looking into themselves yeah it's very difficult for them but i thought it's very similar to what the postal service did when all those guys were popping off in the 90s they kept saying like no no no no it's not about how we handle the mail no no no no no they're just mad about traffic it's all the goddamn paper cuts those are the worst but i'm glad you brought that up marcus because these firefighters have had a two good since 9 11. you
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah. Yeah, he's sent multiple... He's done many fires. Many, many fires. And he's traveled on his bike before. There's no way that that's the one that he just couldn't do. Also, you see someone riding around a bike with a big gallon of oil...
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Hey, what are you doing? Hey, stop covering my grandmother in oil. Unless you're going to fuck the hell out of her. And honestly, I hope that you do because she deserves it. Grandma hasn't been lubed up. She hasn't had one of those big booty like lube days in a long time. So please have your way with her. Keep going with this.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm just saying, sometimes you gotta get, especially the wider the butt, the more oil you slap on there, and you're slapping it back and forth, like little puddles of oil on there. It's fun to do. Is paraffin oil a good lubricant? Only if you're looking to set her on fire afterwards, and I'm not. I'm looking to move on.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
All I want is for some man to dig up my grandmother and have sex with her bones so that maybe that cunt could smile. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
They can't figure it out. It's hard to figure out of arson. And also, I think it just comes to truly once you if you look too hard and found that you missed this throughout all of these crimes, then you are even more fucked as a police officer. So they legitimately just decided to kind of be like, maybe this will end.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Yeah, I feel like there's a little bit of like, you know, these firebugs, they go in and out. They kill 20, 30 people and then they stop. This kid's like one of the most prolific serial killers we've ever covered. This man's like a terrorist.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Crazy. Crazy. And did it by. And I honestly can see why pyromania works for people that have these issues and where the way it works for like people that have this style of personality disorders where they are legitimately like a small little action leads to a lot of attention. Yeah.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Blank check time is done, firefighters. You need to do something else. They did, though.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
By this point, however, Peter Dinsdale was no longer going by his given name. His mother had married a man with the surname of Lee. And since Peter was a big fan of Bruce Lee, he legally changed his name to Bruce George Peter Lee and was now asking people to call him by his legal name, which was...
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Episode 614: Pyromania
That's different. Turns out, she's been texting them. Yeah. You always think it's a break-in because they've told you it's a break-in and they use an axe.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm British. That's the difference. Don't confuse me with the real Bruce Lee, because he's a movie actor. Me, I'm just a British boy. That's why my full name is Bruce John George Ringo Peter Lee Smythe.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I don't know. I've met a lot of dumbass people with, like, you know, vanity plates and stuff. Like, it's super easy to get. Sometimes it's what you put your energy towards.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
But then eventually they always ask the question. So if you could go back, would you do it all different? And it's like at some point it's like, yeah. Yeah. Like no one's going to be like, no, I'm glad I married the serial murderer.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
That's why, man, you always fucking get that money before they come.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
That was his job. That's just what he does for a living as a child. He's a lover of women. And fire.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm going to get rid of her cell phone. Honestly, why is she hanging out by the fire station? I mean, it's so much fun. It's so beautiful.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Cover it in oil. That's what I imagined when you were covering the grandma's butt with oil.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
You know what I mean about British pornography? Is that I'm actually very, you know, I'm fine with it, whatever.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I'm all empty now. Now, bugger off. I've got to have more gravy. You're nothing but fruit and cake.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And I find it really interesting, again, because they all say they black out, they don't remember, and it's so impulsive. It's this truly impulsive thing, but it's each one's, I mean, pardon the pun, but it's seared into their memory. Yeah.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
It doesn't take quite a lot. Honestly, it doesn't take that much planning. It's mostly just... Well, these days it's far. I mean, in the 70s, it was pretty easy.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Oh, yeah, it's entirely different. It's just that it's still just not that difficult to set fire to something.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
They really couldn't figure out how the fires get started. To make sure that they don't pay people, they really get to the bottom.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Scared of them. Terrified. You know what's even scarier was when we were in Dublin. And I remember when Marcus and I walked down the street and all these young boys started going, Yankee. Yankee. Yankee. Like following us down the street. So right.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Paul Keller, they already don't know exactly how many lives were attached to him, like how many people he accidentally killed. And so, you know, we never really know. And then, who knows? The really most prolific arsonist might be out there. he might not have even gotten arrested. Is this a call to action? I'm just saying he might be out there.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And then if he isn't out there, that means that slot isn't taken yet. We're looking at you, teenagers, because you need to make the world the world you want to be in. No, you don't. You really don't. You really don't. There doesn't need to be.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Absolutely. All you have to do is $60.99 a gallon for paraffin oil, thanks to Jeff Bezos.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Yes. Reach for the stars. Because sometimes if you miss, you set fire to a bunch of old people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
Dude, and you haven't been there yet. I believe it's one of my favorite venues in the country. Me too. I'm so excited to see it. The Masonic is insane.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And I know that we're there jiggling in front of you. Just remember that when you're on acid, it's not just you.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Sina, actually, I'll always remember that lesson. Sina taught me that where it's like, that's how you avoid all freak outs is just remember I have chosen this. I'm on a drug. It will end.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
And there's always drinking yourself to sleep. So remember that. That's a little tip from Henry Zabrowski.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
So fucking get in a car. All right? You lazy piece of shit. Fucking get on a plane.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
From the boogie-down streets of Queens to a pile of beans, a new cup of piping hot Polish-Italian java, last podcast on the left, and Spring Hill Jack coffee rising from the rubble with a new brew on. Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend. Nothing to do with any moth-based entity. Don't even think about it. This is a Butterfly Dude. Don't mind the blue eyes. He's just Caucasian.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Our new proprietary roast might seem eerily similar, but don't let your tongue deceive you. It's a Butterfly Dude Roast. This is the Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend. Entirely delicious, and not just the same beans. Butterfly Dude's Blue Eye Blend. From the cocoon to your room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
getting people for murder and arson is actually extremely difficult. Really? It's interesting because most of them beg off. They all go like, well, it's an impulse problem. It was an accident. It went out of my control and that's what happened. So what is it, manslaughter then? I mean, not even less than because this is all like 18 years in prison is less than manslaughter.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
It's not like a drunk driver means to kill a family no i mean sometimes it's a happy accident but yeah it's mostly what you're shooting to do because you hate families but this is a it's interesting that the attention like factor yeah it's the most important of all yeah that she was doing it for attention yeah do you think they were let her become like one of those prison firefighters
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Episode 614: Pyromania
I actually doubt that she's ever allowed to do it ever again. I doubt she's ever allowed anywhere near a hose except to suck it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
I heard my mama cry. The night she prayed, the night Chicago died. So many great fire songs. Right? Yeah.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
But the problem is that sometimes little Darlene turns into angry Darlene. It's going to burn down the mall.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 614: Pyromania
No, I'll be the one of the new brave men here in 2025 to blame the Irish. Fuck you, Irish. I'm destroying the beloved first city of Chicago and putting the blame on a cow.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Get out of here. Do you think it's crazy that the last thing that Chicago heard that night was this guy going, fucking God damn it.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Again, she couldn't be with her. Like, she obviously didn't choose him, but Frankenstein's monster was also, he couldn't make the choice to be with her.
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Episode 614: Pyromania
Everyone dresses up like her. Like, who gives a shit? She's not in the fucking movie. But Natalie and I then do have an inside joke from that movie because she always goes, Henry. Because that's what the lady says to Dr. Frankenstein because his name's Henry. Oh, Henry.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No, they don't want you to die, but they don't mind if you die.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, and as you may have already guessed, the man who was about to stir up Captain Yakub's resentment real fucking nicely was Euronymous Cornelius. Together, Yakub's and Cornelius would create the conditions that turned the maiden voyage of the Batavia into a blood-soaked, murderous nightmare for almost all who survived the ship's eventual destruction.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, as I said earlier, we're going to back up the story a bit from where we left it last episode. Beep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So let's begin today's tale right before the crew put in at the Cape of Good Hope, prior to the conversation that would lead Euronymous and Captain Yakovs into mutiny. Now, by April of 1628, the Batavia was still in a flotilla of six other VOC ships and had been at sea for six months.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And we're here for the Batavia.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
In truth, things were going about average for a VOC ship of this size, which is to say that it was a horror show by modern standards.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, by this point in the Batavia's journey, almost a dozen men had died from that most particular, horrific, and stereotypical of all sea deaths, scurvy. Now when a sailor has an extreme deficiency of vitamin C and scurvy sets in, a sailor's legs would swell and his breath would become rancid.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Soon after, his gums would begin to bleed and his mouth would become so swollen and rotten with gangrene that his teeth would fall out one by one before he mercifully died.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Oh, yeah. I didn't say anything about his butt getting big.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
You know, I'm not sure. I think you can get better from scurvy. I'd imagine there's a point of no return, but I think you can. Yeah. If I remember from a medical drama that I watched where a homeless man showed up to the hospital with scurvy, I think they said, he's got scurvy. Just give him some vitamin C and he'll be fine. People still get scurvy. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But to really make sure we're all on the same page here, we're going to back up the story just a little to really examine the mood on the Batavia and the relationships between the crew that resulted in a mutiny planned by two VOC employees, Captain Ariana Jacobs and undermerchant Euronymous Cornelis.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It's actually a very bad problem with homeless people.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But while nearly a dozen men dead of scurvy in six months sounds like things were going exceptionally badly, this actually put the Batavia ahead of the curve. You're like, that's pretty good. A dozen? Wow. We needed some good news. On an average eight-month journey, the VOC expected to lose 30 men to scurvy. Damn.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And in extreme cases, half the crew might die, resulting in triple-digit body counts.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I mean, yeah, buddy, I think that might be a little bit of part of it. Yeah. I mean, but that's also I think what it is. I mean, it's kind of a checks and balances type thing. I mean, they're looking at the balance sheet where, you know, we're paying a lot of guys less than living wage. Yeah. So I think in the end, it just kind of all balances out for them.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But for some reason, the Dutch didn't. Sometimes, like, every once in a while, they might have, like, lemons. Like, they might be able to, like, squeeze a lemon or something like that. Like, they didn't know that vitamin C was what, you know, cured it. They didn't know that fruit was what you kind of needed, what you could do to get, like, a big, like, boost of it.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But they did kind of happen upon it by accident. Every once in a while, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember the last time I had scurvy. I squeezed a lemon in it and I drank some, you know, wine and it was fine.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
cool yeah you just got to hopefully you're on the right boat i mean this is very much the era of trial and error oh yeah yeah and not really all of humankind yeah and not really knowing why things work just knowing that they work yeah and like the surgeons were like poor yeah the surgeons know a surgeon was like a tradesman he's like a carpenter you know like they're so bizarre to me and they were at this point they were called barbers oh you know you can get your hair cut set a bone to pull out a couple of teeth good to go all the same guy
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, it is. All one place. One stop shop.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And so now we get to the point where the Batavia is six months into its journey and they're putting in at the Cape of Good Hope. But when I say that the Batavia put in at the Cape of Good Hope, I don't mean that they stopped off at a rough and tumble port town for two weeks of booze and women.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Instead, VOC policy called for camping in tents on the beach so the sick could be given a chance to recover and so the upper merchant could trade with the local South African tribes to beef up their food supplies. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Not South Africa, Southern Africa.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And you also don't want to have to spend a lot of time gathering up all your guys from all the bars and taverns around the port town. You don't want to give them a whole lot to do. Because they disappear, I imagine.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, so just don't imagine Ariana Grande as the captain of this ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I'll give you that one. That was good. I really liked that one. That I really enjoyed. Now, even though upper merchant Pelsart was talented with languages, he had a difficult time communicating with the local tribe when they put in at the Cape of Good Hope. And since it took him a while to negotiate, mischief began to brew back on the water in the Batavia seven ship flotilla.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
See, Captain Yakups and Euronymous Cornelas had become friendly during their six months at sea. And while upper merchant Pelsart was on land bartering for sheep.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
White sheep.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
You know what I'm saying? That is actually how they ended up having to communicate with miming and yelling.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Well, Captain Jacobs and Euronymous had commandeered one of the Batavia's rowboats, and they started hopping from ship to ship to enjoy the hospitality of every ship in the flotilla.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But much like a man who hits half a dozen holiday parties in one night and goes hard at each and every one, Captain Yakup soon became drunk and belligerent, starting fights, talking shit, and acting in a manner, quote, most beastly, as upper merchant Pelsart put it in his journals.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The soldiers and the sailors get nothing.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. That's actually really good. That's a very good rule.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yes. Yeah. Well, as such, by the time Upper Merchant Pelsart was back on the Batavia with supplies after securing a deal with the locals, the other six ships had already lodged several complaints about the behavior of Captain Jacobs and his little pleasure crews. Now, the actions of Captain Yakups were bad for Upper Merchant Pelsart on a couple of levels.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yes, having a drunk and violent captain in charge of the flagship was not a good look. But the more serious offense here was taking a boat without Pelsart's permission. Stealing the boat broke the chain of command set up by the VOC that ensured nothing happened on a ship without the say-so of a representative. So Captain Yakups had to be punished.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Borrowing, sure.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But the more I get into this story, the more I'm realizing that Pelsart was kind of running the Batavia in a candy-ass fashion by VOC standards.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Well, mutinies.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Oh, yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Well, for the crime of stealing a boat and physically fighting crews on other ships, Jacobs got away with just getting chewed out thoroughly in Upper Merchant Pelsart's cabins, where Jacobs was basically told that he was getting too big for his britches.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Mutinies were actually quite rare on VOC ships. And in fact, it was entirely unheard of for a mutiny to be led by a VOC officer like Euronymous Cornelius, as most under merchants in his position were vetted to ensure they had no mutinous qualities.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Focus! I mean, he basically gave him a listen here, mister. He just, I mean, chewed him out very thoroughly. But in these sorts of situations, a verbal reprimand was actually far less than what VOC policy called for. While swearing, blasphemy, and drunkenness earned an employee a fine, insubordination, violent threats, or violent acts were met with more violence or on-ship imprisonment.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
For a simple fight, a sailor on a VOC ship could be shackled by the hands and feet, then thrown into a cell too small to stand or lie down. This cell was on the bow of the gun deck, and the constant sound of the wind whistling through the cell slats for weeks on end was known to drive men to the brink of insanity.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I was just, I was so relaxed. But if a sailor took his fight to the next level and pulled out a knife, the VOC policy escalated as well. Their written guidelines said that a knife-happy sailor should be nailed to the mast with his knife stabbed through his hand, and the sailor could only leave once he pulled his own hand off without removing the knife first. See, it's stern, but fair.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So he can't, like, wiggle the knife off? Well, yeah, that's actually what he's expected to do.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
With his other hand tied behind his back, the sailor had the choice to either wiggle the knife. I mean, that's the thing. The knife is in so deep that you can't wiggle the knife off. You have to wiggle your hand to make the wound bigger so you can fit the knife through the wound. Yeah! Handle and all? Handle and all.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, it's a very, very large hole. Or you could also just rip your hand down in one swift motion and basically cut it in half. Oh, I see. Either way, you're never working as a sailor ever again.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, I mean, he could be a pirate, but that's the thing. To be a pirate, you still got to be a pretty good seaman. Yeah, but they're missing limbs.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It's kind of in the name.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The British.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But that's all to say that when you consider what Pelsart was given permission to do, Captain Yakub should have been thankful for getting off with just a verbal warning. Because from what it seems like to me, Pelsart probably didn't want to deal with the logistical pain in the ass of punishing the captain. Because punishing him would naturally slow down the journey.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And Pelsart's trying to get his fucking nut in. He's trying to fucking make it.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But word soon spread amongst the crew that Upper Merchant Pelsart had ripped Captain Yakups a new asshole in the Upper Merchant's quarters, which may have been more humiliating for Captain Yakups than if he'd just taken his lumps physically.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Did that usually happen on ships you've been on?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, because Jacobs was humiliated, he naturally started talking shit about his supervisor. And who else would be there with a sympathetic ear but the captain's new buddy, under-merchant Euronymous Cornelis.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, without the influence of Euronymous, Captain Yakups would have probably just grumbled a bit before putting on his big boy pants to finish out his last voyage at sea.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But when Jakobs told Euronymous during a conversation on the upper deck that he had half a mind to kill upper merchant Pelsart and make himself master of Batavia, Euronymous paused for a long while and asked how one would go about doing such a thing.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. And so, Geronimus and Captain Jakobs began selling each other a fantasy where they would take the Batavia and its riches for themselves.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, the plan is just to get britches that are a lot larger so then you can grow into them.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, before long, Euronymous and Captain Yakups had sketched out a plan where they'd use the might and riches of the Batavia to become pirates operating out of Madagascar.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It's like a couple of kids, you know? But the plan was about after a year or two of plundering and such, they, along with their mutinous crew, would all retire as wealthy men somewhere out of the VOC's reach.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
As far as everyone else on the ship went, Euronymous and Captain Jakobs figured, fuck them, we'll figure it out. Now, it's hard to tell if Euronymous was plotting a mutiny all along or if it was an idle thought that was given opportunity. But it's clear that once a mutiny became a real possibility, Euronymous was going to do everything in his power to stoke the fires of Jakobs' resentment.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Oh, you just say that because he likes boats.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Drug dealer. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, basically he's going to the Indies so he can make some deals with somebody to, you know, get, set up some trade to bring money back, set up profit lines for the VOC. But as far as this mutiny went, getting a high-ranking sailor on your side was the hard part.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, if you'll remember, the conditions for being an under merchant required that they not be bankrupt. Because while the VOC did need an air of desperation in an employee in order for them to risk their life for a trip to the Indies, a reek of desperation could lead to them getting ideas about the 500 pound chest full of treasure down in the hole.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The lower-ranking sailors and the soldiers on a VOC ship, they were always primed for mutiny, especially near the end of the journey, because as bad as conditions were at the outset, they only got worse the longer the ship was at sea. See, even though the Batavia was one of the largest and most advanced ships of its age, it still only had four latrines for its 341 passengers and crew.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But as it usually goes, two of those latrines were reserved for the relatively small number of upper class passengers and higher ranking officials, maybe a few dozen people. The rest of the ship, numbering in the hundreds, had to share the other two latrines, which latrines in this case were pretty much holes in the deck that had to be used in full view of everyone.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Yeah, they were kept underneath in the orlop until they were brought up twice a day for, you know, a long line of men shitting and pissing in the same hole.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Okay. So now that you've shit, let's get back to the shit. Thank you. Each latrine had one long rope supposedly sanitized by the ocean dangling from the hole.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, the salt rope.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, hundreds of people would use this salt rope to floss their butts before handing it to the next guy. Ooh, thanks. Well, I guess you dip it down and kind of swish it a little bit.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But when it was too dangerous to use the latrines during bad weather, the soldiers and seamen relieved themselves in corners, or even worse, crouched over ladders that led down to the holds where they lived. That I didn't get.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I read that passage over and over again in Batavia's graveyard, trying to figure out what the function of perching on a ladder so the duke could splat down harder, what the logic was in that.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
and just like taking the taking the little pleasures where you can get them yeah you gotta see a plop yeah also if you're a sailor i imagine you're shitting on the soldiers no the soldiers are in their own hold yeah the the soldiers are down in the orlop the sailors are up in the gun deck that's what i'm saying they probably made a hole from the gun deck to the orlop fucking i wouldn't be shitting on the guys with the guns no well this was particularly a problem you know
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Yeah. Very much does. Because at this point, Henry was telling me the other day, a tenth of the VOC's entire earnings were on board the Batavia.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
shitting off of the ladders and going in corners. This became a big problem when the Batavia's pumps got going during the same bad weather. The pumps would bring all the urine, liquid shits, and rainwater that had leaked down into the bilges.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But instead of pushing all that directly out to sea, the men who designed the Batavia had the disgusting mixture sloshed through the sailors' sleeping quarters first until it found an open port or sluice. Now, I could only... Sluice. Sluice.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, I can only imagine what sort of horrible shits these sailors and soldiers would take because their diet was not what you'd call balanced.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
While the highest rank ate only the best food, sailors and soldiers ate cask meat, legumes, and hardtack.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And then it's just whatever fish you can catch. But the fish never made it to the men. The fish never made it to the men down at the bottom. The fish were all reserved for the people up top. The used fish made it down to the men.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Used fish. Well, as far as what the sailors and soldiers ate, cask meat was heavily cured and dried meat pickled by boiling it in brine or vinegar. While hardtack, a cracker-like food used by armies and sailors throughout history, that had to be soaked in seawater before eating. Otherwise, it could crack a sailor's already fragile teeth. Wouldn't that just make them crazy?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Well, the heart attack on the Batavia was also teeming with insects, and while some sailors would tap the rations on the side of the ship to dislodge bugs before eating, some came to like the added ingredient and could even tell which bug was which by taste and texture.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I didn't realize that lube is such a pirate word.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, concerning the tastes and textures of bugs, weevils were bitter, while maggots were spongy and cold. But big, juicy cockroaches were considered a treat because they were described as vaguely resembling sausage.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, the most I mean, not compared to what, you know, businesses today do. They're not even close, but they were the first successful corporation and definitely the most successful corporation of their day. OK, now, I wouldn't say that Euronymous Cornelis necessarily had the desperation reek.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But while this sounds awful, the Batavia was actually considered pretty high class by 17th century standards, but only because the crew always ate something three times a day. Now, besides meals at 8, noon, and 6, the only thing that broke up the mind-numbing boredom for the sailors on board was the entertainment they created themselves.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
While they did engage in stereotypically manly pursuits like fistfights for sport, they were also vicious gossips and even put on theatrical performances if they were so inclined.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The sailors also played games, the most interesting of which being the execution game. Now, from what we can tell, this was a sailored-up version of an innocent 17th century parlor game called Forfeits. In Forfeits, all participants began the game by putting a personal object in a box, and once the objects are collected, one person is selected as a judge.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Once the judge sits down, an object is taken out of the box and held above the judge's head, so the judge can't see what it is. The person who owns the object is then told to come forward where they would basically be engaged in a game of truth or dare with the judge so they could get their object back.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Like the judge would say like, yeah, or if you want your thing back, you're going to need to do dance me a jig. Come on, loose stool, Tim, dance the jig. This is our new Twitch show.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Let's run him through. And so after the player has done or not done what the judge has asked, the judge decides whether the person deserves to reobtain what they'd put in the box in the first place. But to make it more interesting, sailors gave the judge the option to also tar the player if he wasn't satisfied.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Rather, Euronymous was simply greedy and amoral with nothing to lose as the only things waiting for him back in the Netherlands were a failed apothecary business, a sick wife and his dead baby's grave.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, as such, forfeits became so dangerous in the hands of sailors that it could only be played with the express permission of the captain. I suppose if the voyage was going so well that he felt the men all deserved a little treat.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Truth or dare between sailors on this horrible ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, obviously, the sailors on the Batavia played fast and loose with their own lives, but that was partly because they all knew they could die any day in dozens of equally horrible ways. Most, however, died by disease brought on board by rats and insects.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Author Mike Dash described the hold of the Batavia as an empire of rats, hundreds if not thousands of them that only multiplied as the voyage went on. Knowing that food could sometimes be found on the other side of the wall, rats would chew through the hull not knowing there was only water waiting. And the leaks the rats caused had to constantly be filled by the ship's caulkers.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Dude, rats can chew through anything.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, dude. Now, rats are incredible because it's just like if one rat breaks all his teeth, the next rat comes up and takes the job.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But with rats come lice. And with lice, especially in the 17th century, one had to contend with the Black Plague, which could kill dozens on one of these ships, if not hundreds. To make matters just that much worse, the sleeping quarters were also infested with bedbugs. And that was just the vermin that the Batavia had left the Netherlands with. That was baseline.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Ships could also pick up native insects anytime they stopped in a port. Within days, those insects would rapidly multiply and spread typhus. Sometimes captains would offer brandy as a reward to the best bug killers, so an endless army of several tens of thousands of insects would be crushed every few days.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But that's all to say that this was the life a sailor or soldier had to look forward to for less than a living wage. So the men of the Batavia had little to lose by participating in a mutiny. All they needed was someone to give them permission. it's important to remember that there's more of you than them. You can win.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The biggest moral quandary of a mutiny, however, was presented by the other people on board the ship, the passengers. The Batavia had plenty of civilians aboard who were just trying to make their way to the Indies, including numerous children and 22 women. These women and children were either the families of men aboard or they were traveling to meet their husbands in the Indies.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, for a while, wife delivery was a pretty good side business for the VOC, who usually capped the number of women at 20 because they only sprung for one single company chaperone per ship to look after them.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, because that's what happens. But after the repeated rape of many women by hundreds of sailors during these types of voyages, the company ended the service with few exceptions like the Batavia.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, you're fucking laughing until next year you're going to see Lady Pirates on HBO Max.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yes, she is. Now, prevent rape on the Batavia. The women were kept segregated. I don't know. There's no way to fucking come out of that.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I know. It's really hard.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like there's just no way. That's why I put it in the middle of a paragraph instead of in the beginning. But now you've got to start over with it. Yeah. No, no, no. Well, to prevent.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No. Well, the women were kept segregated from the majority of the sailors and soldiers, but that segregation did not extend to VOC officers. As such, one woman in particular on this voyage, a woman who would play an involuntary role in the mutiny to come, she caught the eye of the famously horny upper merchant, Francisco Pelsart. Because you remember, his Achilles heel was in his balls.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
That woman was the unusually beautiful Cressia Jansdoktor, 27 years old when the Batavia set sail.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
You know, I had a lot of, I actually debated a lot about that, about whether or not I should say just baby's grave or dead baby's grave. And I thought like, well, you know, sometimes people buy graves in advance, but you don't normally buy graves in advance for children. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, it's thought that Krasia had stayed behind in the Netherlands to raise her three children when her husband joined the VOC. But after all her kids died before the age of six, she decided to roll the dice and join her husband in the Indies.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, Captain Jacobs had repeatedly tried to seduce Kraycia, even though he was a married man.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Oh, even better than Nick Nolte.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Yeah. But when Krasia rebuffed Captain Jakob's advances, the captain turned his attentions to Krasia's servant. As it turned out, the servant was fully game to be the captain's on-ship girlfriend. And in private, they gossiped about how much they both hated the highborn Krasia Jansdokter. And it got even worse after Krasia started gravitating towards upper merchant Francisco Pelsart.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Once there wasn't a nursemaid because he didn't have any kids.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Servant.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Oh, the servant. Let's not get the names mixed up.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, the relationship between the servant and Captain Jacobs only fueled the fires when it came to the captain getting more comfortable with the idea of a mutiny. But if he and Euronymous were to fail, the punishments were the most severe the VOC had to offer. See, despite the VOC's harsh treatment of their employees, full mutinies were incredibly rare in company history.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Between 1602 and 1628, there had been just six serious mutinies, none of which were successful. Usually, general unrest amongst the crew resulted in small protests met with brief compromise. But once the VOC regained control, they would execute the leaders or punish them in a variety of increasingly brutal ways that would discourage further complaint.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Or any thought of organization in any way whatsoever. Like if anyone, if they started complaining and they started getting together, it's like, you know, like unions weren't even, were hundreds of years away. But this is like the beginning of that. And also a time when, you know, the companies, these corporations, like when you tried to organize, you'd be murdered.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Aha! The most common punishment for a mutineer was 200 lashes, punctuated by splashes of seawater that would both disinfect the wound and burn like hell. For many sailors, having their backs turned into a bleeding gummy mush was eventually fatal.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
If the VOC wanted to get more dramatic, though, mutineers, while still at sea, were sometimes dropped from the yardarm, which is the crossbar on the mast that holds up the ship's sails. After lead weights were tied to the mutineer's feet, he was taken up the yardarm, where his arms would be tied with the rope, and the other end of the rope would be tied to the post.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He would then be dropped 40 feet, and when the rope reached its end, the weights would dislocate the mutineer's shoulders and usually break his arms and wrists in the process.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, but then you just become useless. Why not kill him? Well, because you want to show everyone else what sort of horrible death you're going to die if you do this. And that's the thing. Or not even what sort of horrible death, because that guy would be left there to scream and scream and scream for a very long time. For months. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But that's what it was really about showing everyone else, making an example of you.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
They probably just do the old thing where, you know, they put the hand over the mouth and they pinch the nose and just slowly suffocate them to death. Kill them in the night. Yeah. But being thrown off the yard on was not the worst punishment. Above them all was keel hauling.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Which, not surprisingly, was a Dutch invention. When a man was keel-hulled, his arms were first tied together above his head and his legs were bound. One end of a very long rope was passed under the keel, while the other end of the rope was tied to the mutineer's arms.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The mutineer was then tossed overboard, and by using the rope tied to his arms, he was pulled from one side of the ship to the other over and over again as the ship continued its forward momentum.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
under the boat under the boat yes now in theory keel hauling was supposed to just be a terrifying and deeply unpleasant experience because at this point in history only one man in seven on a voc ship actually knew how to swim think about that for a second you're on the ship all these sailors one in seven knows how to swim six out of seven of them have if they fall in the water they're fucking dead it's because the waters work right
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But concerning the morality of fomenting a mutiny on a ship with women and children aboard, Euronymous had no qualms with the consequences of his actions, for he was a so-called heretic.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But in practice, once the mutineer was dragged from side to side underneath the ship, he would either be cut to pieces by barnacles on the ship's hull, or his head would actually fall off after being smashed into the side of the ship over and over again.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, man. No, the fucking, it'll kill you. Oh, yeah. Now, the VOC didn't necessarily want their employees dead, so to prevent death by keelhauling, VOC ships were equipped with special leather harnesses, actual company torture devices that were designed to keep the mutineer alive for three full rounds of keelhauling before the punishment was deemed complete. Now, this time, don't die. Yes.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Actually, they would do that. They'd give him a little sponge that he could bite down on for the pain.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Okay?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
All right?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, these punishments would have been well known to Captain Jakobs and the entire crew. So Jakobs and Euronymous had to be very careful about who they brought into this plot. But one by one, they began collecting all the right men to pull it off. And their plan was put into motion the moment they set sail for the final leg of their journey to the Indies. Now, before they did anything...
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
They first had to separate the Batavia from the rest of the VOC flotilla, because if shit went down on the Batavia, the other six ships would quickly come to its aid. So, as soon as the Batavia left the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, Captain Jacobs very simply allowed the ship to drift away from the rest of the convoy.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, nobody really paid any attention to this because ships got separated all the time due to differences in quality and sailing speed. So once the Batavia was out of the rest of the fleet's range, Euronymous and Captain Jacobs began gathering men for the mutiny to come. So at this point, the Batavia has started with 14 ships, like it and 13 others.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
His personal philosophy, influenced by the famous Dutch Gnostic Johannes Torrentius, held that he was incapable of sin, that no thought or deed, not even murder, could be described as evil or even wrong.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Then it gets taken down to the Batavia and six other ships. And now after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, the Batavia is all alone.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Well, amongst the first mutineers recruited was the ship's boatswain, who was in charge of the ship's sails, rigging, and anchors. The boatswain was more or less the second highest-ranking sailor on the ship, a master seaman who'd worked his way from the bottom and had, in the progress, become one of the toughest customers on board.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
In his normal day-to-day, the boatswain would lash at his men with a tarred rope called a starter, so the men were conditioned to follow his orders— Once the boatswain was recruited, Euronymous now had the two most senior seamen on the Batavia on his side, and the numbers grew exponentially from there.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But while the boatswain and the captain were good at recruiting the sailors, Euronymous was able to expand their numbers to include the other classes on the ship. Most important, however, were the soldiers, easily the most dangerous men aboard the ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But starting with a couple of easily influenced cadets, Euronymous worked his way to the corporal who was in charge of disciplining the soldiers, a man who played much the same role as the boatswain. Later, Euronymous would be called a seducer of men, who used his uncanny powers of persuasion to draw men to his cause.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And indeed, his silver tongue would eventually convince the men of the Batavia to commit all manner of evil." Now, once the recruitment reached the soldiers, the mutineers had a team of somewhere between eight and 18 men on their side. We're not really sure exactly how many people were on board with this, but that's the estimate.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But that's the thing, 8 to 18, that was more than enough to put them in a position where they could overthrow Upper Merchant Pelsart once and for all. Because they just needed choke points. But unexpectedly, Upper Merchant Pelsart got seriously ill, quite possibly from malaria contracted in Africa. Was it bitch disease? Yes.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And because he was so sick, he was confined to his bunk for weeks on end. Captain Jacobs was therefore put in total control of the ship, but instead of taking advantage immediately, he wasted the opportunity on piddling things, like when he proudly announced to everyone that he had officially taken Gracia's servant as his girlfriend.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, of course.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, the plan, for some reason, was to wait until Upper Merchant Pelsart died before taking over the ship. Sure. And Euronymous was so confident in Pelsart's impending death that he'd stop recruiting people for a violent mutiny.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He was dying.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, the reason why there wasn't much hope for Pelsart, the reason why Euronymous thought, like, sure, we can just wait around for him to die, you get sick on a ship, you're fucked, that was because he was in the hands of the ship's surgeon and the surgeon's assistant, the Underbarber.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
See, the VOC had a hard time getting surgeons for their voyages because of the surgeons' extremely high at-sea mortality rate, which had been earned by being constantly stuck in small cabins with sick men. Most likely, if you were treating a guy with a plague, you were going to get the plague. If you were treating a guy with malaria, you were going to get malaria.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, and there would only be one surgeon? One surgeon. Well, and the undersurgeon. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Yeah, because you could barely get, like, one guy to say yes. And even then, you were scraping the bottom of the barrel. You were getting the guy who had fucked up enough over in his town where he was looking to leave real fast.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, he makes Yahoo Sirius with Goofy, and that's the ship's surgeon.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, mostly, surgeons were there to set bones and treat burns, dislocations, concussions, gunshot wounds, gangrene, or any other physical malady that might befall a man on a 17th century ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Really, though, the primary requirement for being a ship surgeon was not knowledge, but stamina, because they had to be strong enough to hold down a conscious, screaming man while amputating a limb without anesthetic. And the waves! Yes!
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Nah, you gotta do it yourself. Well, concerning the treatment of disease, though, the ship's surgeon was also equipped with an apothecary's chest. And after the surgeon used every treatment he could think of to treat the ailing upper merchant, Pelsart miraculously recovered.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, once upper merchant Pelsart was back on his feet, Euronymous and Captain Jacobs resumed planning a violent mutiny, but decided that the small crew they'd gathered wasn't enough. So they put together a convoluted plan to turn all the ship's crew members against Pelsart by using the object of his affection, Krasia Jan's doctor.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, Pelsart and Krasia weren't together like Captain Jakobs and Krasia's servant were, but Pelsart did have enough affection towards his high-born crush where an attack on her might provoke an overreaction in Pelsart. So an assault was planned where the attackers would be disguised. It was hoped that Pelsart would punish every member of the crew.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I don't know who did it, so you're all getting a bit of this. Because it seems to be a common way amongst captains in the upper emergency. Yeah, that would sow discord, and it would make it far easier when Captain Yakub stood up and said, this is a bunch of bullshit, let's kill Pelsart and become pirates.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And so, in the middle of the night, a team of eight men, led by the boatswain, invaded Craceous' cabin, and bizarrely, in a move that almost sounds like a prank if it wasn't so fucking aggressive, they smeared Craceous' face and genitals with tar and feces in an attack that lasted seconds.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Our weapon of choice, of course. Word of the attack spread quickly, but it seems like Upper Merchant Pelsart was either again reluctant to mete out punishment, or he was one step ahead of the mutineers. See, even after Krasius said she recognized the boatswain as one of her attackers, I know who did it. Pelsart took no action. It's because he knew. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, Gurney's a big fan of sea shanties. Doesn't want to hear us butcher him.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, one of them. He's the guy that's in charge of disciplining everybody else. If the boat swain's involved, you're fucked. Shrewdly, it seems like Pelsart saw through the mutineer's plot and was simply waiting until the Batavia reached Java before he made his move. Or at least, that's what Euronymous and Captain Yakups believed.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So, they decided, since they're already fucked, to take a more direct mute to mutiny before they reach Java, because if they reach Java, they would likely both be tried and executed. The next plan was far more straightforward than the first. Basically, it's fucking grab Pelsart while he's asleep and toss him over the boat. Yeah,
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, grab him, throw him off the boat. That's it. Meanwhile, the rest of the mutineers would grab weapons and nail the hatches of the Orlop deck shut so the soldiers not involved in the mutiny couldn't interfere.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But just as the plan was about to go into effect, the ship entered a wind current called the Roaring Forties, and no one aboard the Batavia had any idea just how incredibly dangerous this part of the sea could be.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Mm-hmm. Now, the Roaring Forties were part of a relatively new route to the Indies discovered by the Dutch. Partly, the Roaring Forties were a boon because it avoided lanes patrolled by the Portuguese and any subsequent sea battle that might spring from such an encounter.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The Roaring Forties also cut 2,000 miles off the journey to Java, but only if you turned north before you hit the western coast of Australia.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
West. Yeah. I mean, if you really the ship from like the trail from the Netherlands to Indonesia to Java, the island of Java where they're going, it was like three lefts. Yeah. You know, it's like you leave. Left at Great Britain. Yeah. Left at Great Britain. Left at Cape Town. Yeah. Left at Africa.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. They're just like a dink, dink, dink, and that's it. Well, if the ship missed the turn, a low-lying chain of 122 coral reefs and barren islands lay directly in their path. This chain, called Houtman's Abrolhos. Sure. Yeah. Was discovered by a Dutch upper merchant named Houtman, who'd sketched them from afar. I always want to call it, like, Hittman's Abrolhos.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He'd sketched them from afar and noted their location on the navigational chart, because there really wasn't much in the sea that could rip a ship apart like a coral reef. But Hauptmann had only discovered the chain a few years before the Batavia set sail. Remember, information travels fast. Very slowly.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So this very important information about what was in your path if you missed the turn to the Indies, this had not yet made it into the VOC's latest navigational charts. As a result, the Batavia had no idea that these incredibly dangerous reefs existed. Now, the Roaring Forties were the home stretch for VOC ships headed to Java.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
By the time the Batavia reached this point, the turn left up north, they'd been at sea for seven months and had only 2,000 more miles to go in their 15,000-mile journey. But perhaps because Captain Yakups was wrapped up in a mutiny plot and the possibility of execution if it failed, not to mention a new girlfriend.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, Captain Jacobs missed the turn north.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He does. No, he really does. And he soon found himself arriving at the reefs of Hauptmann's Abrolhos in the dead of night. A little after 3 a.m. on June 4th, the ship's lookout saw white water and a mass of spray, surefire signs of a reef. He called out his sightings to Captain Jacobs, but Jacobs brushed him off, saying that the white spray was just moonbeams dancing on the waves.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, that's all to say that Euronymous felt no guilt over what he was about to do, and his only thought concerned the life of luxury and freedom that all the treasure on the Batavia would give him once it was in his grubby little hands.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Immediately, the ship became impaled on an outcropping 15 feet below the surface, which tore the rudder away. Seconds later, the ship's bow hit the body of the massive reef itself, which threw everyone on the deck against the railings of the ship. Being the middle of the night, most people were in bed and were jolted out of sleep when they were thrown forward by the force of the impact."
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Upon waking, the first thing they heard was the coral gouging its way into the ship's first hull, which cracked with the sound of a forest falling. Now, Upper Merchant Pelsart awoke with everyone else and found his ship in total chaos. It was a pitch-black night, and passengers and crew alike were panicking on the deck.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Immediately, Pelsart ran to Captain Jacobs and shouted, What have you done that through your reckless carelessness you have run this noose around our necks? Undeterred by Pelsart's reproach, Captain Jacobs shouted orders to pull down the Batavia's 8,900 square foot sails because the continued wind was pinning the ship further into the reef like a man pulling a knife deeper into his own stomach.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
For the time being, however, there were no serious leaks because ships like the Batavia were built with double hulls to keep something like a reef from being immediately fatal. So at this point, there's still a chance. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Euronymous, however, was in essence an apothecary who'd never been on a ship like the Batavia before this journey, so he didn't really have the cred necessary to organize a mutiny without someone who could speak the language of the sailors. But Euronymous found a way around his lack of cred when he became friends with the Batavious captain, Ariana Jacobs. Yes. We can be friends.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yes, they have no idea where they are. Because hitting a reef meant they were reasonably close to a shore. But the Batavia was not supposed to be close to any shore prior to reaching the island of Java. So they have no fucking clue where in the ocean they actually are.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No, they didn't, man. And at that point, like, Australia wasn't even really on maps. Like, it was just called, like, no man's land of Australis. Like, basically, don't go past this point. There's nothing there. And then when they do go there, sometimes they get killed by the people that live there. Yes.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, once the sun came up a few hours later, Upper Merchant Pelsark called for a sounding lead to test the depths of the water around them and to see how badly they were fucked. If they'd crashed at low tide, the rising waters, once the tide came in, would lift the ship off the reef enough to make repairs and limp to Java. If they'd crashed in high tide, though, they were fucked.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And sure enough, at 6 a.m., the tide slowly began to fall. As the water around the ship lowered, the passengers and crew saw the jagged tips of the reef emerging from the waves. Before long, the Batavia was surrounded on three sides by coral, and the ocean's waves violently bumped the ship against its tool of demise, making walking or standing on the deck all but impossible.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, it was clear when the tide fell that the ship wouldn't be able to support its 15-ton mainmast once the water dropped to a certain level. Sure enough, when the water receded, the mainmast began grinding itself through the bottom of the ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So, in a last-ditch attempt at saving the Batavia, Captain Jacobs ordered his men to cut down the mainmast, but he did not give them instructions on how to do it safely.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But they couldn't. No. When the main mast fell, it crushed gear and railings before becoming completely entangled on the deck.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And with that, the Batavia was dead in the water. And the only course the passengers and crew had was to flee on the ship's two lifeboats and hope there was land nearby. But before loading people onto the boats, Upper Merchant Pelsart got as high as he could, and he used his spyglass to spot some islands about six miles away.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He sent a crew out through the dangerous maze of reefs, a maze that could sink a rowboat as easily as the ship. And two hours later, they returned with news that all passengers and crew could reach the island safely. Now, Upper Merchant Pelsart's first duty as a VOC representative was to his company and the property on board the Batavia, especially the 500-pound chest full of treasure.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Imagine them glowing and beating like giant evil hearts.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But in a rare moment of humanity for a VOC company man.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Pelsart put the people ahead of the loot in order that they be taken to land first. This is, of course, a temporary change.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But while this is admirable, Pelsart probably should have assigned a few of his men to rescue supplies at the same time. Because at 10 a.m., the hull burst. The cargo holds were flooded and the majority of the supplies they could have used to survive were lost.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Good.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Once shit got real, the sailors and soldiers pushed their way past the more vulnerable passengers and made the women and children wait for the second shuttle to the islands. Now, incredibly, no one had died when the ship crashed or in the chaos that followed. But when the hull burst, about a dozen men panicked and jumped into the sea, where they quickly drowned.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It happens sometimes. In a moment of panic, everything that you've done in your life up until that point means jack shit.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Because you just panic and make the wrong decision. Well, these dozen men were the first of well over a hundred people set to die on the islands of Hautman's Abrolhos. And you might even say that considering the fresh hell Geronimus Cornelius was about to create, the men who drowned were the lucky ones.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, the nearest landmass was a mushroom-shaped island that was only 525 feet across from one end to the other. By that afternoon, 180 survivors were dumped there on land that was hard, flat, and sterile with no food or water and nothing to use as shelter. And I truly do mean it's just flat. It is a piece of dirt.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And we checked the pronunciation. We actually did. That is the proper 17th century Dutch way to say Jacobs. Jakobs.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Is it because she got finger blasted in Beetlejuice? Yeah. The musical?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, for reference as to how small this island was and how many people were on it, take a football field where a mid-sized marching band is in the middle of a routine. Then, suddenly, for whatever reason, transport that field with the band still on it to the middle of the ocean.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Add a couple of end zones, remove all the grass, shape the field into a mushroom, and you get some idea of the situation. Was that too far to go?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No, I'm there. Yeah, you got some idea of the situation in which the survivors of the Batavia found themselves immediately after the shipwreck.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
That is a circle, so it kind of works. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, well, I don't really know the dimensions of that, but that's cool. Yeah, now I'm fucked.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Thank you.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, the only supplies they've been able to save were 150 pints of drinking water and a dozen barrels of hardtack. But that had been against the orders of Upper Merchant Pelsart, who quickly seemed to be settling back into his role as a VOC company man. He had insisted... that his men save a chest of valuable trading goods, that silver that was worth $7.8 million. Yes.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Pelsart made sure they got that off the ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And he had ordered Captain Jacobs to immediately start shuttling 12 chests to the islands. Jacobs, however, took the food and water instead, with a plan to institute rationing immediately.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Not this time. Not in a VOC ship.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, exactly. Now, at this point, there were still 120 men on the Batavia, and some of the sailors had decided to break into storage... For the alcohol. Oh, yeah. See, most of the seamen hadn't had a proper drink for the entire ship. And on empty stomachs, they became very drunk very quickly.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Fueled with alcohol, the men on the Batavia began looting for all the good it would do them on the open sea.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. One group smashed open the VOC chest, which caused thousands of guilders to burst onto the deck. So many guilders that the men began playfully throwing handfuls of the treasure at one another. I mean, that is fun. It's really fun. No, it's a fun, you know, it's a very fun image.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
One man, however, went for the knives and built a small arsenal hidden about his person, perhaps knowing that if things went south on the islands as they were likely to do, weapons would be far more valuable than gold.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, by the next evening, day two, a priority had become the movement of the majority of the survivors to a bigger island, but not for the good of the survivors at large. See, the crew had discovered a womb-shaped island about 1,000 feet across, just a mile from the Batavia. What's a womb shape? Vagina? No, no, no. Like a pussy hole? No, like a womb. Like a womb is shaped.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Like a woman's womb is shaped. Womb? I thought a womb was just like a circle.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It's pear-shaped. Why didn't you say pear-shaped? Because that was the descriptor that the people on the Batavia used.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Some of my favorite days. Well, this womb-shaped island was a barren strip of... Pear-shaped, for those of you that don't know what that is. Yeah. Womb with a few. It was a barren strip of coral rubble with no shelter or fresh water. Soon, the survivors would come to know this island as Batavia's Graveyard.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But to save himself and those of his class, Pelsart sent 180 survivors to Batavia's graveyard by boat, while he and 40 of the better seamen and favored passengers stayed on the mushroom-shaped island with most of the food and water.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The Batavia, meanwhile, still hadn't gone under, and 70 men remained hanging out on the top deck, still drinking and tacitly following Pelsart's orders to salvage as much company property as possible. Now, Pelsart ordered the men on the shipwreck to construct rafts and save themselves the day after the shipwrecked.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But perhaps because the Batavia promised the only shelter around as long as it stayed together, they refused to leave. Which makes total sense.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Zero coverage in the island.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
You get lazy when you're drunk. That's true. It's easier to sleep on a boat when you're drunk. Yeah. Yeah. Amongst the men who stayed behind on the Batavia, perhaps directing the rescue of company property, was Euronymous Cornelis, who was no doubt trying to figure out how he could turn this disaster to his advantage. His day, however, would not come just yet, although it would very soon.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, it was almost as rare for a captain to mutiny on a VOC ship as it was for an under merchant to do the same. But Jacobs had a few reasons of his own for getting a mutiny together. Firstly, Jacobs was a man in his mid 40s and therefore one of the ship's elders. He was the very definition of I'm getting too old for this shit.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No, he's a pharmacist. Yeah. Now, after four days on the islands trying to find fresh water and coming up empty, upper merchant Pelsart decided that it would probably be best if he left on one of the boats to go get help in Java.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But perhaps going off the principle of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, Pelsart ordered Captain Jacobs to come with him.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, most likely, Jacobs knew at this point that he was utterly fucked because Pelsart had, of course, pegged him as a mutineer. But with Jacobs' compatriots scattered across islands, shipwrecks, and what have you, he had no choice but to go along.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So on June 8th, Pelsart, Captain Jacobs, and 46 other survivors from the Batavia's crew and passenger list loaded up on one of their two boats for an extended ocean voyage to Java. It was their long boat. They had a big one and a small one. They took the big one.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
As for the survivors, they were told that if all went well and the rescue party didn't die on the open sea, Upper Merchant Pelsart would return within a month or two with the full support of the VOC behind them. Don't worry. Company's coming to save you.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. And it is in their best interest to not kill passengers either. It's the passengers they care about. They don't care about the sailors.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, in all, Pelsart was leaving behind 270 survivors, including his supposed sweetheart, Krasia Jan's doctor. He did take two women and some children, but he still left several of both behind to an almost certain death by starvation or dehydration, because the freshwater salvage from the Batavia was nearly gone by the time he left. No one had any idea when it was going to rain again.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No. It's all algae and fucking... At this point, I think it said that the water was full of worms.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But you could eat.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
How have I never kissed a boy before today? How have I let such unknown pleasures go unknown?
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
These conditions, however, would not be how the majority of the people on Batavia's graveyard met their doom. Rather, many would die at the hands of, quote, several dozen of the worst cutthroats and drunkards who had sailed for Amsterdam. That was how author Mike Dash put it. And one man would set it all into motion.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
See, most of the senior VOC officers had lit out on the longboat with Pelsart and Jacobs, but someone from the VOC had to be left in charge while they were all gone.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
At this point, Palsart didn't know every person who was involved in planning the mutiny, because in a grave mistake, he chose Euronymous Cornelis as leader in his stead, effectively giving the amoral undermerchant permission to turn the islands into his own dictatorial syphilitic nightmare. Cool!
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And that's where we'll pick back up for part three of the Batavia, where the murders and mayhem will officially begin, disguised as murderous mayhem often is, as law and order.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Henry, here's a secret. You can have one anytime.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, you gotta get syphilis first.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I actually don't know, but I do believe it might just be a really big rowboat.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, like a Viking longboat. Yes, I'm pretty certain, and the rest of the journal... There's definitely no, like, cabins or anything like that. Yeah.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I think it's in Australia. I think it's in a Maritime Museum in Australia.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I watched a YouTube video of it, so I basically went.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No. Good.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, I think it's somewhere, like, really obscure and weird.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, on the western side.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
No, it's on the shit-fuck barrier reef. Yeah, it's on the barren side of Australia. Yeah, where there's nothing there but Perth. And Perthlings.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I've actually been kind of wondering when you guys were going to jump on that.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I didn't really set you up for anything. There weren't any obvious ends.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
I hurt my back writing this script.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And you can also follow us on all the socials at TikTok and Instagram. TikTok's still around, right? Yeah. Yeah. At LP on the left. And don't forget to go watch all of our wonderful streams over at twitch.tv slash LPN TV and everything VOD on our YouTube channel afterwards. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Have a safe day. All in hell game.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Our researchers are really killing it and really helping out on this one.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Turn left. Now. Now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now, now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Now. Nah, it's just moonlight.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So what were you doing? I was crouching for nine hours straight. Why were you crouching? He hunched over his computer. I hunch when I write. I hunch.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah, I try to stand up straight. I even tried using one of those back straps. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. You know what Natalie does sometimes? Tries to touch my butthole.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Sometimes you come up. Six straight up. I'll see if Carolina can add that to her schedule.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Well, to give you an idea of who Captain Jacobs was, he'd been working at sea for two decades and had taken several trips back and forth to the Indies on behalf of the VOC.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He should not be alive. No, no. To survive that many trips, you got to be a hardy motherfucker. But by the time the Batavia reached the Cape of Good Hope six months into their journey, Jacobs was absolutely exhausted with the lifestyle.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the self-editing Henry Zebrowski. Well, sure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
In fact, Captain Jacobson, talking about his lot, was known to repeat one phrase over and over.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. He would say that to Euronymous over and over and over again.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
You suddenly turned to Tom Waits.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But the thing that really spurred Captain Yakups into mutiny was good old-fashioned hatred, which was directed at upper merchant Francisco Pelsart.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He's Mel Gibson. He's very much a Mel Gibson type in this story. So let's get a little recap on Upper Merchant Pelsart, who, if you'll remember, was the man in charge of the entire journey and basically the only guy above Captain Jacobs. He was the captain's supervisor. Yeah. See, upper merchant Pelsart had done some good turns for the VOC during his career.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
He'd established the route for the Dutch indigo trade, and he was a skilled diplomat who'd opened up a lot of profit lines in India. But in the time leading up to the launch of the Batavia, Pelsart was going through a rough patch professionally. His last diplomatic mission to India had been an utter failure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
So he had convinced the VOC's big bosses, the Gentlemen 17, to let him take $7.8 million in silver on the Batavia so he could transport it to India, where he would bribe a second Indian court to make up for his losses at the first. Got it?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Way more annoying. And here with the sick of it all, Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yes. Partly. The Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, and also to protect against mutinies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. Like when the Batavia left, like the Batavia was supposed to be in a fleet of 14 ships, but it had a lot of problems getting off. It left late. And so it was now at this point in the story, it's in a flotilla of seven ships. But the maiden voyage of the Batavia that had to go well for upper merchant Pelsart if he was going to get taken seriously in the VOC ever again.
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Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
But unbeknownst to the Gentlemen 17, they had introduced an X-Factor into the Batavia's journey when they assigned Ariana Jacobs as the captain. See, just after Upper Merchant Pelsart had fucked up his last deal in India, he'd clashed badly with the captain of the boat that had taken him home, to the point where that captain and Pelsart had gotten into a physical altercation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The captain that Upper Merchant Pelsart had fought with was none other than Ariana Jacobs, the very same man who was now in charge of the crew and navigation on the Batavia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
The Captain Yakups had nursed a grudge against Upper Merchant Pelsart after their tussle on the boat out of India. But while he had resolved to put that aside for Batavia's maiden voyage, the resentment was still bubbling under the surface, just waiting for someone to come along and stir it up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
We're going to be talking about a lot of serious stuff today. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the grieving Henry Zabrowski.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And I can't wait to talk about the guy who killed John Wilkes Booth because he is a true American character. Yeah. We also have My Thoughts Be Bloody by Nora Tatone. And all of these books, great for filling the gaps in Booth's story. But our main source, the one we'd recommend above all, is American Brutus by Michael Kaufman. Just fucking fascinating stuff. Great context.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Back to history. And so... Let's get into the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassin. It's more of a boom. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Civil War songs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Hell, yeah. Now, you got to come over sometime. I have this great record. It's all like songs of the Civil War. Got a book. It's a Folkways recording. You'll love it.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Let's start with the fascinating history of the Booth family itself. Now, John Wilkes Booth's parents were by no means what we'd call progressive or enlightened. But it must be said that Booth did not inherit his hateful philosophy from his family.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Rather, Booth's parents were, at their core, romantics, star-crossed lovers who had escaped to America from their home country of England, where scandal had marked the beginning of their relationship. This is truly a celebrity family story. But John Wilkes Booth's parents were not aristocrats, nor were they part of the nobility.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Instead, John Wilkes Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, was incredibly famous on both sides of the Atlantic for being an actor. Considered the Daniel Day Lewis of his time, Junius had been acting professionally since the age of 17. Junius was also quite the Lothario, and the same year he performed for the first time on stage,
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It was the same year he also impregnated a woman out of wedlock, his first of many.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, I'll eat two. Junius somewhat settled down with a wife and child after shiring a second child out of wedlock. But not too long after his first legitimate child was born, Junius met a poor 18-year-old English girl named Marianne while she was selling flowers outside of a theater where Junius was performing. Junius won her love by reading her the poetry of Lord Byron. Very sexy for the time.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And the man with a mind for a thousand dirty songs, it's Ed Larson. Ah, yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I wouldn't say pornographic, but highly erotic.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Were you an English major in college too? Yes.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Before long, Junius Booth abandoned his first family to run off to Maryland to start a new life with flower girl Marianne in America in 1821. Marianne Booth, well, eventually Marianne Booth, she would give birth to 10 children in America, including John Wilkes, before she and Junius were allowed to get married. Because Junius had run off without getting a divorce.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Actually, I don't even know if divorce was allowed at that time. Church of England stuff, I don't think the Church of England allows divorce. I don't know. Either way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That's true. Yes. Yeah, but they still don't like it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. But anyway, Junius did not get divorced. And so most of the Booth children, all the Booth children actually, were technically born out of wedlock. Best! And Marianne's reputation in Maryland was destroyed when Junius's first wife appeared in Baltimore years later where she told everyone the sordid tale. Yeah, like she's the first loose woman in Baltimore.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, all this may just sound like gossip, and it is, but these are actually formative events when it came to forming the personality of John Wilkes Booth. See, the providence of John Wilkes' birth and the scandal concerning his father's first marriage, these things instilled a sort of inferiority complex in our assassin, born from the idea that he may or may not be a real Booth.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
In fact, John Wilkes Booth was so insecure about all this that as a teenager, he had the letters JWB tattooed on his hand. And it's speculated that Booth did so to give himself a constant reminder that he was not just the bastard son of Junius Booth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But perhaps even more than the name, I would say that what John Wilkes Booth learned and inherited from his father more than anything was the concept that all the world is a stage and that life itself is nothing more than a very long performance.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And yes, today we are going to be beginning a three-part series. I'm so fucking excited for this on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The Junius Booth scandal with his first wife did not reach American shores for many years. So Junius was free to build a life as a pure entertainment phenomenon. Junius simply loved acting and would accept any engagement no matter how small or remote the venue was. By the end of his career, Junius had given over 2,800 performances in 68 cities.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
In the process, he'd gained the praise of the poet Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman considered Junius Booth the greatest actor he'd ever seen. The papers all agreed, they stated over and over again, that the compact and muscular Junius Booth was the most magnificent actor in the world. To me, or not!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I mean, joke, but that's what he would do. He was said to be an electrifying performer, but he would also sometimes snap at a character in the middle of a performance and do crowd work.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But like many great artists, Junius Booth was no stranger to eccentric behavior. Most notably, Junius was a staunch vegetarian in a time when such a choice was considered freakish and deranged. And he was so passionate about his cause that even if one were to eat so much as an oyster in his presence, Junius would call you a murderer under his breath. What an asshole.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
When I met him in college, he was absolutely wonderful. He came by. We were having a staff meeting for the college radio station, and he came by, and he said the seven words that you can't. He said the shit, piss, fuck, cunt. Did it to cheers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
yeah well this is 2002. yeah it was probably more fun then teller was great he talked to me i heard his voice it was awesome yeah it was cool now when an actor is quote unquote eccentric that usually means they're also highly unreliable and junius was no exception in addition to being an alcoholic junius would sometimes blow off performances completely but not just so he could dive into a bottle
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Instead, Junius would be found wandering the woods in full costume hours after he was supposed to be on stage with no explanation as to why he didn't make curtains.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It was almost as if he'd lost himself in the character so completely that he forgot that acting was his actual job. These eccentricities, however, were often written off as signs of Booth's so-called genius.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Junius Booth had such a reputation that when he did blow off a show without notice, members of the audience would justify his absence as a commentary on the play or as a piece of performance art. They'd sit in the audience and cry out, Booth is a genius! Like, just to justify not getting pissed off that he just didn't feel like coming. That's the dream, man. Yeah, it is.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It must be said, however, that Junius Booth lived a life of tragedy when it came to his children, and not just because one of his kids ended up killing the president. Three of his kids died of cholera, but Junius, in true actor form, took the opportunity to make the deaths all about himself. As so-called penance for letting his children die,
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
No, I'm very happy about this one. There is zero ambiguity in this story. We know everything that happened. It's so well documented. There's so much context. Oh, there's so much context.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
On another occasion, he punished himself by affixing lead soles to his shoes before walking from Baltimore to Washington. It's all foot-based punishment. It is.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The tragedy that pushed Junius over the edge, however, was when a fourth child died bizarrely and horribly from a bee attack when the Booth family was on a ship crossing the Atlantic to London.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
What made the tragedy even worse for Junius was that when he arrived in London, he spent most of his time in the city dodging the wife and son that he'd abandoned years earlier. As a result of the pain and anxiety that came from all this drama, Junius attempted suicide in 1838 by jumping off the side of a steamer ship.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
He was saved by a crew of quick-thinking sailors.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Interestingly, Junius made this attempt while his wife was pregnant with Lincoln's assassin. And just two months after Junius tried drowning himself, John Wilkes Booth was born. Now, contrary to what you might think, John Wilkes Booth was not a southerner, not by birth, nor heritage, nor environment.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Instead, Booth and his siblings were born and raised on the Booth family farm in Bel Air, Maryland, hidden away from society, lest Booth's career be ruined by the second family scandal. Interestingly, Booth's upbringing in Maryland, specifically in the years leading up to the Civil War, greatly informed his future worldview.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
See, it's not like there was some magical latitudinal barrier running across America in which everyone in a future Union state were abolitionists while every future Confederate was in love with slavery. Rather, border states like Maryland were more or less evenly split between Union supporters and Confederate sympathizers.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And even though Maryland was not in the Confederacy, slavery was indeed legal in the state until after the Civil War began, until the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
He identifies as Southern, please.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, I mean, with John Wilkes Booth, I would say, I wouldn't even go as far as to say that he had an antisocial personality. I would say he had a contrarian personality. Oh, yeah. That's, I think, more what he was about. Now, many people in Maryland had to choose when it came to supporting or decrying slavery.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And John Wilkes Booth certainly landed on the pro-slavery side when it came time for him to make his own decision on the matter. There were, of course, various reasons for Booth's choice, but it seems like his opinion on slavery and abolition were most greatly informed by an incident known as the Christiana Riot that occurred when Booth was around 13 years old.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, the Christiana riot was a pivotal event in the lead up to the Civil War, an incredible story. But the reason why the incident affected Booth so heavily is because it directly involved a man named Edward Gorsuch, who was father to one of Booth's closest so-called bosom friends from childhood. Titty friends, please. Thank you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
No. No, no, it's not. All right, well, that's it. You just wanted to know that you remembered that name.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Neil Gorsuch.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's not him.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as far as the Christiana riot story goes, Edward Gorsuch was a slave owner who ran a wheat and corn plantation north of Baltimore. But in 1849, four of his enslaved men escaped across the Maryland border into the free state of Pennsylvania. Two years passed with no word. But then out of nowhere, Edward Gorsuch received a letter from a freelance slave catcher informing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's the worst fucking job. And it is the most despicable job in the history of humanity.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I mean, these are the guys who's like, you know what? There's really nobody going out there and just finding slaves.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. That's what these guys would do is they would go around, they would try to find, and then they would find the former owners of these people and send them letters and be like, hey, I know where your guys are. Give me some money. I'll tell you where they are.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
No.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, my friend. Oh, man. Yeah, which we'll get into here in a second. But Edward Gorsuch, out of nowhere, received a letter from a freelance slave catcher saying that he knew where Gorsuch's four enslaved men had escaped to. And for a fee, the hunter offered to aid Gorsuch in their capture and return.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, when it comes to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
So Gorsuch paid for the information and thereafter set off with a team of men to attempt to bring the four guys back to his farm. As it turned out, these guys had fled to the town of Christiana, which had become both a refuge for fugitive slaves and a settlement for free black people. It was all led by a man named William Parker.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
William Parker was himself an escaped slave who'd organized the town of Christiana into an effective resistance group who rightfully met violence with violence. That's awesome. And by this point, the people of Christiana had been fighting back slave catchers for 20 years. That's awesome. And not only that, they even formed fucking missions to go rescue enslaved people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I think most of us know the broad strokes. No, we're not. Stop being so excited about Lincoln getting killed. Let's get him again!
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And like, fuck yeah, we're going to fucking go in, rescue these guys, bring them back, they're going to live with us.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Seriously. No, I mean, these were not people who fucked around. And by the time Edward Gorsuch crossed the border into Pennsylvania, the people of Christiana had received word that his raiding party was on their way. They had people all over that were just listening for slave catchers, slave hunters. whatever was going to come.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And as such, when Gorsuch and his small party arrived at William Parker's home just before dawn, between 75 and 150 free black people from Christiana, as well as some white allies, were ready, armed, and waiting.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now within minutes of Gorsuch's arrival, a member of the makeshift defense force struck him with a club and brought him to his knees. This prompted a response from one of Gorsuch's sons, the unfortunately named... Dickinson Gorsuk.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, Dickinson raised his revolver to shoot his father's assailant, but another defender struck Dickinson's arm, which caused Dickinson to drop the gun.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And from what it seems like, the crowd of defenders decided that the time for talking was over. Dickinson Gorsuch was shot in the stomach with a shotgun blast, but he ended up surviving.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Edward Gorsuch, however, was not so lucky. By the time the melee died down, Edward Gorsuch was found kneeling in a pool of his own blood with a rusty corn cutter blade sticking out of the side of his neck, and he soon bled to death as a consequence of his perverse quest to deny freedom to his fellow man.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, it was fun.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
We know what get him means.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, let's just go to the house of a Supreme Court justice, climb on his back and tickle him.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, the press jumped on the Christiana riot almost immediately. Naturally, Southerners saw Edward Gorsuch as a hero who had died in the defense of slavery, and they therefore demanded federal action. Now, technically, Gorsuch did have the right to pursue the escaped slaves due to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It had just been passed the year before.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
So the federal government ended up arresting several black people involved in the killing of Edward Gorsuch, in addition to three white people who had been present.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The trial was followed nationwide and became a sort of test of North versus South, slavery versus freedom. In the end, the people of Pennsylvania chose freedom because it took the jury just 15 minutes to return a verdict of not guilty.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, to the people of the South, this was a gross miscarriage of justice. In today's world, you might compare this to, say, like the Derek Chauvin case, where many on the right believe that the murder of George Floyd was justified and Chauvin's conviction was therefore a travesty. Many people in the North, however, believe that Gorsuch died for an evil cause and got what was coming to him.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The broad strokes that on April 14th, 1865, just as the American Civil War was wrapping up, a well-known actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth walked into Ford's Theater during a performance of a play and fired a fatal shot into Abraham Lincoln's head. And yes, John Wilkes Booth is, of course, the main character in this story.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That's all to say that the Christiana riot, which occurred about a decade before the Civil War began, it quickly became a microcosm of the rapidly growing divide in America over slavery. But perhaps more consequentially, the Christiana riot was also fundamental in shaping the worldview of John Wilkes Booth. As I said earlier, John Wilkes Booth knew Edward Gorsuch.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Gorsuch was the father of Booth's so-called bosom friend. And Booth would use Gorsuch's death as an example of what happened when people fought back against slavery. And he should have learned from that. Yeah. Well, Booth saw Gorsuch as the clear victim here.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And in later writings, Booth would state that abolition was nothing more than, quote, the unwarranted constant agitation of the slavery question. And there was, of course, no man in this world who would come to represent abolition more clearly than Abraham Lincoln.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, it was a slow roll as far as like when – and it was like state by state. It wasn't – there was definitely no, okay, we all decide at once that it's bad or we all decide at once that it's good. It was just sort of a slow roll of like – You know, first England went and then the state sort of like took England's cue like, OK, maybe we shouldn't be doing this anymore.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, it wasn't like a hip thing. I mean, it's like saying today that people believe in stuff just because it's woke. Like it is. It is definitely like people just came around to it like, oh, maybe this is a fucking horrible thing. I know John Adams was vocal about it. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Right.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Let's say I think let's say fashionable. I think it's probably a better way of putting it. Yes. Yes. Abolition did become as you know, the years went on as the 19th century with abolition did become much more fashionable up north. And it was also very fashionable up north to call the southerners a bunch of fucking hicks.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. And anything that was southern was. It's not sugar. No.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
They had a standing staff of six people. But anytime anyone pointed out to Mary M. Booth that there wasn't really any difference between owning a slave and renting one, she would just fucking stonewall them and say like, no, it's actually very, very different. And they would ask why. And they'd say, it's very, very different. But she would never say why it was very, very different.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That's not justification. No, I'm just saying. That's just a horrible fucking opinion. Yeah, I'm just saying.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
We're not really right in a Ken Burns style. But what's lesser known about the conspiracy to kill the president was that Lincoln was not the only target that night. While Booth was killing Lincoln, a co-conspirator was also making an attempt on the life of Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward. And that attempt came incredibly close to success. I can't do Peter Coyote.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
No, that's not why she's saying it's different. Because she was guilty. Highly guilty of directly participating in the very institution that she said that she was against.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Around. Yeah, yeah. He was around. He grew up with slaves on his property and, you know, around the institution. But his parents saying, like talking out of both sides of their mouth, saying like, yeah, we don't believe in slavery. But yes, there are slaves working for us right now.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, Junius Booth, he knew that acting was a difficult life. So he intentionally tried leading his kids away from the theater into any other profession. And of course, he would only do this three months out of the year because the other nine months Junius Booth was on the road being an actor.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Despite Junius's best efforts, three of his sons would pursue careers as thespians.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And by the time John Wilkes was 14, his two older brothers were already on the road making names for themselves as the sons of the great Junius Booth. But before John Wilkes was to become an actor himself, he would be thrust into a leadership role in his family after Junius died a very 1852 death by succumbing to dysentery aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes. Now, even though John Wilkes Booth was only 14 years old when his father died, he became the de facto man of the house because, as I said, his two older brothers had already left to pursue fame and fortune.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Quite stupidly, Booth's mother, Marianne, let the teenage John Wilkes manage their farm for two years, which would be a disastrous decision for both the Booths financially and when it came to further shaping John Wilkes' worldview.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, John Wilkes hired enslaved people, free black people and Irish immigrants to work his family's farm all at the same time, which wasn't all that strange in this era. But since John Wilkes was just a kid, he was not prepared to handle the conflicts that erupted. And he, in fact, usually just made them worse with his natural haughtiness.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
See, John Wilkes was a stickler for hierarchy and tradition, and he believed wholeheartedly from a young age that there was a natural pecking order when it came to races, classes, and nationalities.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Peter Coyote is an incredibly difficult voice to do.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Ransom's been set. I'm glad you're finally saying it, because you've been saying that in private for years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, John Wilkes Booth, he held the fairly common opinion, it was very common at this time, that black people were actually happier as slaves, that they were better off in bondage than they were even free in Africa, and that giving black people freedom would only make them miserable, and it would destroy America in the bargain. That's how a lot of people justified slavery.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Oh, yeah.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
They would say, you know, the abolitionists would say, like, slavery is obviously evil, and the pro-slavery people would come back and say, like, no, no, no, look at him. He's got a smile on his face. Everything's fine.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, but Booth's prejudices did not stop there. See, even though it was local tradition for landowners to invite the white men who worked with them to join the family dinner table during the harvest, John Wilkes was uneasy letting his British mother and sister eat meals with the Irish. That's how angry he was.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, it was very common at the time.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Additionally, later investigations revealed that the conspiracy had plans to go wide with a full-on murder spree, as it was discovered that Booth and his co-conspirators had included the Vice President, the Secretary of War, and General Ulysses S. Grant as probable targets.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's mostly a Catholic thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
So the Irish came to hate the Booths for their arrogance, while the Booths came to hate the Irish and immigration at large because the Irish didn't respect the hierarchy that John Wilkes was so devoted to.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It became one of those things where the Irish hate them because they're assholes, and then they hate the Irish for hating them. Now, it became obvious by the time that John Wilkes was 16 years old that he was not cut out to be an overseer. Instead of forcing the issue further and taking the family completely into ruin, his mother ended up renting out the family's land to a local farmer.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Therefore, John Wilkes was given the opportunity to live a life of leisure, very much typifying himself as the layabout progeny of a celebrity. Actually, now that I think about it, another analog to the Booth family might be the Hanks family. With Junius being Tom, Edwin being Colin, and John Wilkes being the unfortunate Jet.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I will say for John Wilkes Booth, every summer was indeed white boy summer. Now after being given free reign to do whatever, Booth chose to spend most of his time in the local tavern, a place called the Traveler's Home. But rather than becoming a total deadbeat party boy, Booth latched on to politics whilst conversing with his fellow patron.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's a double entendre. It's like, it's aggrammatic. Don't get angry. It's wordplay. Don't get angry, get even. Well, during Booth's gap year, he became enamored with one of America's early conspiracist political parties.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's about to sound extraordinarily familiar. This party was the highly successful Know-Nothing Party, who were so named because members were required to say, I know nothing, in respects to the party's inner workings. And they would do that because the Know-Nothing Party actually started as a secret society, like the Freemasons.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Extraordinarily so. Like, if you remember Gangs of New York, remember Bill the Butcher? Yeah. No nothing, Bill the Butcher, Butcher, No Nothing Party. Yeah, that was him. Now, the No Nothings were actually pretty ideologically similar to the modern Republican Party, which is ironic considering how John Wilkes Booth ended up killing the first Republican president.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The Know-Nothings were nationalist, populist, and staunchly against immigration. But also, like today's Republicans, what informed the Know-Nothings' beliefs more than anything were conspiracy theories.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The Know-Nothings believed that Irish and German immigrants were being sent to America as a Catholic plot to take over the country so every American could be made subservient to the Pope, which is more or less the same bullshit people peddle today in the form of the Great Replacement Theory.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
John Wilkes Booth lapped up this hateful shit and became a full member of the Know Nothing Party and was especially jazzed about how much the Know Nothings hated the Irish.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. Yeah. It might be. But it's just a, you know, it's xenophobia all over again. You know, it's the same shit. Just replace one with the other. Replace Catholics with Jews and it's the exact same thing as the great replacement theory today.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But after John Wilkes Booth spent a year absorbing the philosophy of the know-nothings, it seems like the call of the theater finally became too strong to ignore.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And at 17 years old, Booth began his career as an actor.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, by this point, Booth's oldest brother had made his way to California, and he'd staked that territory as his claim. But June Booth's out in California. No one's fucking with California. Edwin Booth, the second Booth son to become an actor. The tragedian. He's often considered the best actor amongst the three. He was the leading tragedian of his day. He's the Billy Skarsgård.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The scope of this conspiracy might lead you to assume that this whole operation was hatched by the Confederacy as a last-ditch effort to take out the leadership of the Union, either for the purposes of revenge or as a desperate attempt at a comeback.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
He's the Billy Skarsgård. Yeah, he took all the eastern states. But Edwin wasn't too keen on competing with another booth for his father's legacy. So when John Wilkes Booth said, hey, Edwin, I want to be an actor too.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Edwin divided the map of the United States into two territories, pretty much along the Mason-Dixon line, taking the North for himself and banishing John Wilkes to the South. See, Edwin Booth preferred the richer, more urbane cities of the North, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But this seemingly small decision, based mostly on taste, would actually have huge consequences for American history. As the old entertainment adage goes, you play for the crowd that shows up. And once John Wilkes Booth began playing for Southern audiences, his ideology naturally grew to match that of the people who are giving him the most attention.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. Now that there was a Booth boy covering most of the American territories, the Booth name was more famous than ever. To give you an idea of just how famous the Booths were, it was massive news when Junius Booth's first wife died because it gave the papers an excuse to gossip about the Booth family and bring up the scandal of Junius's abandoned family all over again.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And indeed, people were flabbergasted at the time that the main assassin was John Wilkes Booth, because Booth was a fairly well-known actor from a famous acting family.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But the revival of the scandal did little to prevent John Wilkes Booth from ascending into fame in the South. In 1859, two years before the Civil War broke out, John Wilkes Booth began a run of performances at the Marshall Theater in Richmond, Virginia, where he got rave reviews that also bizarrely mentioned his, quote, Beautiful hands and small feet.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Interestingly, though, there were cultural distinctions between the North and the South that brought John Wilkes Booth closer to his audiences, and therefore closer to their opinions about slavery. See, in the North, and I find this fascinating, actors were placed on the outskirts of society, as I would assume, because it had been traditional in England that actors were... Garbage.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Actors weren't prostitutes.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But in the South, in the American South, an actor had real social status. See, Booth had been burdened throughout his life by the shame of his birth and the periodic reappearance of his father's scandals in the papers. So he was amazed at how the people of Richmond, Virginia had brought him into their society and accepted him.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Actually, then that's a funny thing to think about is it's the American South that began the tradition of like... But you're famous. You can do anything. Yeah, we like it. It doesn't matter. You're famous.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But he knew that he was being relegated to the southern states.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
shitheads choosing shitheads because shitheads like shitheads very good yeah that's exactly right because the that because the richmond's acceptance of john wilkes booth made john wilkes accept richmond and how richmond worked and how richmond worked was entirely on slavery
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
John Wilkes Booth was also a ladies' man in Richmond, whose exploits were so well-known around town that one critic claimed that Booth's popularity with women showed that he had a, quote, worthless moral nature that corrupted his acting. And if there's one thing we know an actor needs, it's a— Deep moral nature. Each actor. Moral fiber. Powerful recognition. The greatest actors of our time.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Nothing but morality amongst them. Sean Penn. Jack Nicholson.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Unfortunately, we actually don't know a lot about John Wilkes' love affairs because he was discreet in his correspondence. He was also probably a little shy because of his father's scandals. Edwin Booth was not discreet at all. They talked about Edwin Booth in the tabloids all the time. His romantic exploits were fodder for the gossip brags.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Even though I sort of hate this term, it could be said that John Wilkes Booth was, in modern parlance, a nepo baby. Because Booth's father, Junius Booth, was one of the most celebrated and well-respected actors of his time. Additionally, John Wilkes Booth's older brothers were also well-regarded actors.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Much cooler, yeah. But one thing that John Wilkes Booth was not afraid to write about in Richmond was how much he approved of slavery. Right. Booth found that the strict racial hierarchy in Richmond was a relief, and he wrote that it was proof that slavery created only, quote, the happiness of master and man.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, John Brown's super fascinating.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, no. I said that he was definitely pro-slavery, but I think it was more an anti-abolitionist thing.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. He hated abolitionists because that's the thing is that you can't really have the world that he loves and the world that he enjoys without black people because you need black people to be slaves in his world.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes, they have to be slaves. They have to be. But in John Wilkes. But abolitionists are the ones that are trying to remove that world from John Wilkes. They're trying to take it away from him. And that's when I say, no!
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as far as the assault on Harper's Ferry goes, on October 16th, 1859, John Brown led 22 men into a federal arsenal in Virginia to seize control of the facility and the weapons contained therein. Brown's hope was that the local slave population would rise up and join the raid. And using the arsenal's weapons, they would start a slave rebellion that would spread across the South.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Admittedly, this was not a great plan. Yeah. Even Frederick Douglass, like John Brown got a hold of Frederick Douglass. He's like, hey man, you want in on this? And Frederick Douglass is like, no. He actually says, this is suicide. It's not going to work. Well, as it turned out, Frederick Douglass was right.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Because even though Brown and his men easily captured the arsenal, no one came to Brown's aid. The governor of Virginia soon sent in troops led by Robert E. Lee, future general of the Confederacy. And Lee squashed the rebellion and captured John Brown so he could be publicly tried and hung in short order.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
They'd gained a certain amount of fame before John Wilkes had even decided on acting as a career. And consequently, the name recognition did help Booth reach fame faster. Because when John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln when Booth was just 26 years old, he was indeed one of the most well-known actors in the country. It's kind of wild.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Even after, even during the Civil War, he's still considered to be one of the greatest military minds in history.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, there's no moral. Yeah, it's like he was good at being a general. So was, you know, Ernst Rommel, you know, the Desert Fox.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But in the weeks between Brown's capture and his hanging, conspiracy theories began to swirl that the raid had been funded and planned by abolitionist politicians. Politicians like Lincoln's eventual Secretary of State, William Seward. If you'll remember, Seward was also the other man that John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators tried to murder on the night of Lincoln's killing.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
As a result of these conspiracy theories, talk of Southern secession from the Union increased dramatically after the assault on Harper's Ferry. And John Brown's raid has, in fact, often been referred to since as the dress rehearsal for the upcoming Civil War.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But as far as how John Wilkes Booth reacted to John Brown's raid, Booth had been preparing for a role in a play, a play with the scintillating title of The Filibuster. And that's when the governor of Virginia announced that a group of abolitionists were planning to break John Brown out of prison. For some reason, John Wilkes Booth decided that this was his moment.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Answering the governor's call to keep John Brown in prison, Booth immediately abandoned his commitment to the theater and boarded a train that was transporting the Virginia militia to where John Brown was being held. Further encouragement for John Wilkes Booth came when he found that his fellow militiamen were starstruck that THE John Wilkes Booth was going to fight beside them.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And one soldier even lent Booth a uniform so Booth could join the battle. What, that guy fight naked? He had an extra.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
In my opinion, the closest modern comparison to the Booths would be the Sheen family. Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, and Emilio Estevez. Rock and roll. Well, in terms of shock, John Wilkes Booth killing Abraham Lincoln at that point in his career would have been similar to Charlie Sheen shooting George H.W. Bush in the head while Hot Shots was still in the theaters.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as it turned out, there was no abolitionist plan to break John Brown out of prison. It was just another conspiracy theory that was dreamed up by the increasingly twitchy Southerners. So John Wilkes Booth and the rest of the soldiers ended up just standing outside the courthouse to quote-unquote provide security until John Brown was to be hung.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That's what happens. They get riled up because they hear this. Rumors start to swirl. They start to hear these conspiracy theories. They think it's real. They go, and then they spend two weeks riling themselves up even more, convincing themselves that they have to be there, that they're serving some sort of purpose. They're cosplaying.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes, well, John Wilkes Booth was cosplaying. The rest of the guys, many of them died in the Civil War very quickly. Good!
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But yeah, Booth cosplayed. He stood sentinel, serving Virginia's so-called state's cause. This barrel is safe.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And it gave Booth, it gave him the illusion of glory without any of the associated dangers. But he could convince himself that he was in danger the entire time. And when John Brown was finally hung, when he went out there with his head held high, John Wilkes Booth was in the crowd watching.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, one of John Wilkes Booth's defining characteristics was the idea, as I said earlier, that life was a performance. And as a consequence, Booth was an inveterate liar who had a habit of inserting himself into history, after the fact, of course.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
This actually began around the time of John Brown, because Booth started telling people that he'd been involved in Brown's actual capture, when in reality, Booth was in a theater running lines for the filibuster hundreds of miles away.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I can't rehearse. Like many liars, Booth was also a born contrarian. Booth, for example, only became more pro-slavery as the abolitionist movement became more popular nationwide. In my mind, I would imagine Booth called the abolitionist movement the 19th century equivalent of gay. Oh, yeah. Or woke. Yeah. You know, one of those things. That's how Booth's mind operated. He was very much a bro.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
A Booth's run towards the pro-slavery movement at this point in time could have been Booth supporting Southern causes because the people who loved him as an actor were themselves Southern. But Booth also said that he was inspired by John Brown's courage in the face of death. He was also inspired by Brown's willingness to take action instead of just talking about it.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
As such, Booth claimed that he wanted to be his own version of John Brown. He said this out loud to people. It's crazy. But where John Brown was so opposed to the idea of slavery that he was willing to die for even the hope of putting an end to it, John Wilkes Booth wanted to have that same passion for supporting the institution of slavery.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Four men at work. No, I checked it out. When Charlie Sheen was 26 years old, Hot Shots was in the theaters. It was like two years after men at work.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Like many Southerners, Booth became convinced that John Brown was a part of a vast conspiracy whose only goal was to ruin the South and the lives of all Southerners through the abolition of slavery. But don't they understand that if you ruin the economy of half the country...
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, it seems like it fucks everybody's lives.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Maybe. Booth, however, had two problems when it came to putting his money where his mouth was and defending slavery with the same bravery that Brown had in defeating it. Most importantly, like a lot of actors who pretend to be tough guys, Booth was a fucking coward.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And dressing up like a militiaman and pretending to guard a courthouse against non-existent abolitionists was the closest he ever got to actual fighting at any point before or during the Civil War. Booth's excuse for not fighting, however, was that his mother had already lost too many children, and she supposedly made Wilkes promise that he would never go to war.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Oh, yeah. No, everything about him is extraordinarily cowardly. If he would have fought Lincoln, Lincoln would have kicked the fucking shit out of him. Oh, my God. I would never in a million years fight Abraham Lincoln.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes. Now, John Wilkes Booth is, of course, the main character in this series, but there is another half to this story. After all, who would John Wilkes Booth be without Abraham Lincoln?
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
See, at this point in American history, this is around 1859, 1860, Lincoln was on his way towards earning the Republican nomination for president. And for those of you fuzzy on history, this was a time when the Republicans were the party against slavery while the Democrats were trying to keep it legal. It's all flip-flop.
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Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Abraham Lincoln, however, still took the moderate opinion on John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry by saying that a violent approach to abolition would always fail. His moderation ended up unifying the Republicans and it earned Lincoln the nomination for president in May of 1860. Nice! Hell yeah, Lincoln. Wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But the point here with Booth's acting credentials is that most people were not at all inclined to believe that a mere actor could have pulled off a double assassination attempt on his own. Common sense, the public thought, dictated that the Confederacy must have formulated the plan before hiring Booth to kill the president.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Booth, meanwhile, spent the year 1860 morphing into what would have been the 19th century equivalent of an action star. Like his father, Booth was naturally athletic, and he soon became a skilled fencer and fighter who was able to nail the sword fight choreography required for certain Shakespearean performances at the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as a result of his action star prowess, Wilkes earned his big break when he was given the title role in Romeo and Juliet in a production that toured across the South. But as you may have already guessed, John Wilkes Booth, he was kind of what we'd now call a bro. Sure. And he got himself in trouble for doing bro-y shit on the regular.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
For example, right in the middle of Booth's highly successful run on Romeo and Juliet. This is his big break. This is when he's at the top of it. Not necessarily at the top of his game, but he's getting there. Booth was running his lines one evening when he noticed that his stage manager was carrying a pistol in his back pocket. Okay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Thinking that it would just be fucking hilarious if he grabbed the gun and fired it in the air just to like scare the shit out of the stage manager. Like scare the fucking shit out of him. Like it'd be so fucking funny. Yeah. Booth grabbed the weapon, and the stage manager did not appreciate Booth's sense of humor.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And so the two of them got into a tussle while the stage manager tried to wrest control of the gun back from Booth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
John Wilkes Booth shoots himself in the thigh. Ow!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Oh, my God. What's the guy doing with a gun in his pocket anyway? Get a holster. It's 1859. Yeah. Or it's 1860. Come on. Yeah, he's having fun with it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
In another mishap, Booth accidentally cut his co-star's forehead with a dagger in the middle of a performance, then almost immediately after, fell on that same dagger, which slashed away three inches of flesh from Booth's armpit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Others believe that the conspiracy went even deeper, speculating that Lincoln's assassination was a cabinet coup, or a plot from the Jesuits, or the Knights Templar, or the ever-present Jewish banking cabal.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, Booth finished the performance, and when the news broke, he was lauded for his dedication to his craft.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, to be fair, Booth was considered to be a phenomenal actor across the South. He was a crowd favorite. He was a critic's darling. But partly, the reason why Booth was loved was because he appeared to be a tough guy who also had the right politics to be popular in the South. I would kind of compare him to like a Mel Gibson or like Clint Eastwood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I prefer him as an actor to a director.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
John Wilkes Booth's world, however, would come crashing down along with all the other Southerners in November of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln won the entire North, but not a single state in the South, partly because the South, like a bunch of whiny little bitches, had refused to even put Lincoln on the ballot. No one can vote for Lincoln. I don't like him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. And the Democrat. Well, the Democrats were also split. Like they were very fractured at this point because not every single Democrat was pro slavery, but most of them were. So, you know, the party was split and, you know, the Democrats kind of split the vote in the South. No one really got the majority, you know, and they didn't get enough votes in the Electoral College.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Any one of them, people thought, could have killed Lincoln for their own nefarious purposes, because it does seem like people were willing to believe anything to prevent themselves from accepting the fact that an actor had simply walked up to the president at the end of the war, and blew his brains out with a fair amount of ease.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But yeah, Lincoln fucking wiped the floor with him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I can honestly say I don't know. Yeah. I really don't know what the prevailing opinion was at the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as a consequence of Lincoln's election, Southern cries of secession were immediate. Southerners projected it's the same shit. They just started projecting immediately, saying that the North, they were the real disunionists. They were the ones who were actually tearing the country apart because they're trying to abolish slavery.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, naturally, John Wilkes Booth agreed with this opinion, writing during his tour of the South that Northern abolitionists were the true traitors to the nation whose treason must be, quote, stamped to death. And as it went, after Lincoln's election, states began seceding en masse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And after the Confederacy was officially formed, the Civil War began on April 12th, 1861, with the South's attack on Fort Sumter. Now, John Wilkes, as I said earlier, John Wilkes Booth would never enlist in the Confederate Army, despite identifying as, quote, strongly Southern to his fellow actors.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Y'all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, instead of joining the Confederate Army, Booth would just talk a big game about participating in so-called acts of resistance throughout the war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Burning bridges. He said, I burned bridges. I burned a bridge last night. I tore up railroad tracks last night. Oh, that riot that was a few towns over. I was there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Booth, of course, did none of this. He did nothing because he was far too busy building his career as an actor to take part in any resistance throughout the bulk of the war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, as one of his colleagues later put it, John Wilkes Booth would never have been able to handle the indignities of a soldier's life. Because Booth had no desire to give up his identity as Junius Booth's son to become an anonymous Confederate soldier shitting himself to death in a field somewhere in the ass end of Pennsylvania.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But ironically, it was during the war that John Wilkes Booth would become famous in the North as well as the South. Booth's brother Edwin, most likely sick of just dealing with America's fucking bullshit, left to tour Europe in 1862. This left an opening in the northern cities for John Wilkes Booth to finally make a name for himself on both sides of the Mason-Dixon. Oh, yeah, they have.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But eventually, Booth's mouth began to get the better of him. After a performance in Chicago, Booth was drinking in a saloon with his fellow actors when he remarked, seemingly out of nowhere, I'll tell you something, what a glorious opportunity there is for a man to immortalize himself by killing Lincoln. Booth's fellow actors asked him, hey, what the fuck are you talking about?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But because of that bizarre statement, made three years before Lincoln's assassination, Booth was never welcomed back in Chicago, which, I would assume, only fueled Booth's persecution complex. You can't fucking say anything these days.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's the same shit that happens over and over again. People isolate themselves by saying awful shit and then blame everybody else when they don't want to be around them because they say awful shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, this yearning for a larger conspiracy is understandable, extraordinarily human, and still very present in today's America. As we've said many times, it's highly unsettling to accept that a few guys plotting in the shadows can shake the country's foundations to its very core. And at the point in its history where Lincoln was killed, America was already in its shakiest position ever.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I'm forced to engage with them. That's what freedom is, is I'm forced to engage with their bullshit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Oh, yeah. Now, while hundreds of thousands of men were dying on battlefields across America, Booth continued playing the tough guy on stage.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
He pretended that his so-called sacrifices for his art were akin to being wounded in war. For example, during the 1863 season, Booth developed a tumor on his neck that needed to be removed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
So he went to a surgeon, plopped himself down in the chair, and dramatically told the man, quote, But when the surgeon began slicing Booth's neck and dark blood gushed out, Booth went pale and lost consciousness. Against doctor's orders, Booth went on stage that very night where he tore open his stitches. His foolhardy behavior resulted in a nasty scar.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But Booth used even that to further aggrandize himself with one of two lies about how he got that scar.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
No, it couldn't just be that, oh, I got a tumor removed and I was an idiot because I didn't take the night off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, it does sound cool. It does sound cool, yeah. But he would much rather it be, I got shot in the neck. Or he would say that when he got shot in the thigh when he was playing with his friend's gun, that the bullet had traveled up through his entire body and had lodged itself in his neck. But Booth had worked the bullet out himself using his incredible throat muscles.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
While Booth was fucking around on stage throughout the year 1863, the number of actual casualties in the Civil War were adding up to staggering numbers. And even when you convert those losses into modern proportions, it's almost impossible to imagine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
By the end of the war, 2% of America's population had died either in battle or because of disease. Taking that from today's population, this would be just about the equivalent of wiping the populations of Chicago, Houston, and half of Los Angeles off the map. Just fucking gone. Why'd you choose those cities? Because they are in the top five of a population in America.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
They're amongst the top five.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I didn't realize Phoenix had such a large population. There should not be that many people living in that desert. I mean, it's just hard out there, buddy. It's the before picture for Mad Max. It is. It's going to get real hard out there in about 30 years. But while the overall numbers of the dead are unfathomable... Even the number of dead soldiers in the individual battles were horrifying.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
In just the Battle of Gettysburg alone, the North lost at least a quarter of their active soldiers, and those numbers could not be replaced with regular enlistment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It was the mechanization of war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, it's the old saying that the strategies of the last war are always used against the weapons of this war. Yeah. So they're trying to do musket battle in an age where there are machine guns.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The Civil War was by far the most harrowing ordeal our country has been through thus far. What about Linsanity? In New York, it was pretty rough, actually.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Tens of thousands of men killed in a single day. And not only that, but people are dying of disease left and right. There's just so much disease.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It's much longer than you think. Yeah, people, it's long. And these battlefields are fucking huge.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, even though Gettysburg was considered the turning point in the war for the Union... Is that a thing you say all the time? It smells like cheese, you gotta cut it off. It smells like cheese, you gotta cut it off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I don't know why that's how my mind's been working lately. It's just turning phrases into songs. I do it too. I'm just doing it constantly now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Like I said, Gettysburg was considered the turning point in the war for the unions, like summer of 1863. But the numbers of volunteers had dropped dramatically because people were all too aware of how many men were dying in battle. But the union couldn't win without more soldiers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
So Lincoln instituted the draft, the first of its kind in American history, in which any man between the ages of 20 and 24 who could not afford to pay the government $300 or hire a substitute, any of those dudes were eligible for conscription. The announcement of the draft, however, set off a five-day-long riot in the streets of New York City.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And incredibly, both Edwin and John Wilkes Booth happened to be in New York when the riot kicked off. It's the end of Gangs of New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wild fucking week. Incredible, yeah. With an earshot of the booth's front steps, men were lynched and their bodies were burned. And only blocks away, 5,000 people armed with stones and clubs entered a full battle royale with the cops.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
The double down.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, the riots in New York, the draft day riots, they were pretty much the closest that John Wilkes Booth came to ever being involved in combat. And to be fair, it was said that Wilkes did step in during the riot to defend a wounded Union soldier and the soldier's black servant. It was a friend of his. But Wilkes did so only to make people believe that he was not aligned with the South.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That really was bad.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now the draft made Booth hate Abraham Lincoln even more.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And not just because it had put Booth's life into danger indirectly. Lincoln, in Booth's view, wasn't playing fair because Lincoln was relying on the high rates of Irish immigration to grow the union's ranks. And this, of course, also made Booth hate the Irish more as well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But the riots did mark a change in Booth's behavior. Whereas before, he'd been more or less like a harmless bro with shitty opinions, Booth was now getting physically violent and was known to end conversations about the war by pulling out his gun or physically choking the other person. But in an amazing intersection in history,
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Abraham Lincoln, ever the huge theater fan, he did actually attend a John Wilkes Booth performance just a few months after the draft riots in New York. Lincoln was not impressed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Interestingly, I actually remember the Double Down extraordinarily well. Of course. We were all obsessed. It was a big part of our lives, unfortunately. I lived across the street from a KFC. It was in Bushwick.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Lincoln's private secretary later commented that Booth's appeal was in his, quote, romantic beauty, but that Booth possessed no real talent.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, what's telling here? This is very telling for me. Lincoln never went to see another John Wilkes Booth performance. He had ample opportunity, but Lincoln did see Edwin Booth six times. Jelly. He had a preference. And John Wilkes Booth knew that. Yep. Now, there's been a lot of speculation over the years that John Wilkes Booth turned towards conspiracy because his career was on the wane.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But that could not be further from the truth. I don't think it helped. Well, that's the thing. His career was never on the wane. Usually, an article citing Booth's voice as hoarse is put forth as evidence for this theory. But that was one bad review in a sea of positive notices. Really, the only complaint people had about John Wilkes Booth is that he went off book too much.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But other people, that's exactly why they loved him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, he doesn't like the North. That is true. He does not like the North.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes, big guy. Well, really, back to John Wilkes Booth. Great actor. Really, what was on the wane in the mid 1860s was the Confederacy. By 1864, the South was running dangerously low on manpower due to a series of battles that had resulted in large numbers of captured Confederate soldiers. The POW situation was, of course, the moment of illumination for John Wilkes Booth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Perhaps thinking back to John Brown, Booth began to believe that he might know how to single-handedly bring about victory for the South. Although, again, it must be said that it was far too late for Booth to really do anything meaningful for the cause at this point. But before Booth could join the fight in his own way at long last, even if it was too late, he had to free up his schedule.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, back to the Civil War.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Booth, therefore, began to wind down his acting career on his own accord. Booth's last big run was a highly successful 30-night engagement at the Boston Museum, performing the only play his father ever wrote, Ugolino. which is a dark little number heavy on murder and betrayal. It doesn't really sound that good. I read the synopsis. It doesn't sound great.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
For the most part, people were relieved that it was over, as even the South was beginning to accept the inevitability of its defeat. But the assassination of Abraham Lincoln changed everything. The repercussions of Lincoln's murder are still felt in America today. Repercussions we'll surely discuss.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Sure. Yeah, let's go ahead and say that's the plot. It's a really ugly eight-year-old Italian boy who wants to marry a 50-year-old woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, soon after that run, Booth wrote a letter to his sister in which Booth seems to try very hard to justify why he still hasn't contributed to the fight for his beloved Confederacy, even though the war has been going on for three years at this point. But he also, while he's justifying it, he's also simultaneously talking about how awesome he is. This is what he wrote.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And so by the time the next presidential election rolled around in 1864, John Wilkes Booth was actively discussing plans with his Confederate friends to snatch Abraham Lincoln for leverage in a massive prisoner exchange that just might turn the tide of the war back to the South. Before long, though, that plan would fall to the wayside to be replaced with something far simpler.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Let's just kill the motherfucker. And it's with the plotting, failing, and plotting again that we'll return to our series on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln next week.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah, maybe the episode after when we talk about the manhunt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yeah. Yeah. Which one?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But in the end, it really was just a small group of shitheads led by the modern equivalent of an action star that made all of it happen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
It was difficult to not put it. I had to pull back on the, I had to pull my context pants up quite a bit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
I actually had a very hard, I had a very hard time pulling back on both that and the Christiana riots. Like, they're both fascinating stories.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That was the hardest one of all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
You, sir, are going to fucking adore Cleveland. I love Cleveland. Cleveland's one of my favorite cities in America. I'm already buying spray paint.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Father. And he was saved by some quick thinking sailors.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
That's also his father. That's also his father. That's also his father. So yes, please don't shit. Neither one of you are allowed to shit yourself to death on a fucking cruise ship. No, I'm saving.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
He's very similar to a Mark Wahlberg type.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Was Blue Bloods the same show that the pie shop that me and Jackie worked for used to make all the pies for?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Wow. Which is weird, but not as weird as crawling on your back and tickling you and saying... I actually thought that tickling made more sense than the kick in the mannequins in the pussy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Now, one of the most fascinating aspects of assassination is that killing Abraham Lincoln was not the original plan. Initially, Booth's idea, conceived eight months earlier, was to kidnap Lincoln for use as a bargaining chip to gain the release of Confederate prisoners of war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Are you talking about something that might make a sound like a whoopee? I would say like a whoopee, like a flatulence.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Well, Booth believed that if the South's manpower was restored, then victory would be inevitable. But when it became obvious that the war was unwinnable because Booth dragged his fucking feet because he was a coward, Booth and his co-conspirators instead focused solely on taking revenge against the man that they believed was responsible for the death of America as they believed it should exist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Their America was, of course, one where the institution of slavery was intact, because as we'll see, there is no doubt that the defense of slavery was, more than anything, Booth's main motivation. See, Booth was radicalized by his belief in the institution of slavery and his hatred of the abolitionist movement.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
And these twin passions served as continued inspiration for both John Wilkes Booth's love of the Confederacy and his burning hatred for Abraham Lincoln.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. It's a serious history show.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
You're born on third base. Well, he doesn't even need to actually own any slaves. That was the thing about John Wilkes Booth. He never owned anything. He never actually owned another person. He just liked it. He just liked the idea of it. And that's the thing is that there were a ton of people in the South who just liked it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
Yes, very much so. They do enjoy having the hierarchy. That is very comforting to them, and that was one of John Wilkes Booth's defining characteristics, is just the comfort of having that hierarchy in place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage
But before we get into the history of John Wilkes Booth and the events that led him to become America's first presidential assassin, let's acknowledge the stack of sources that we use for this series. It's going to be thick. Yeah. We've got Blood on the Moon by Edward Steers Jr. The Madman and the Assassin by Scott Martell. That one is incredible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast. On the left.
Last Podcast On The Left
Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
I would hate the world.
Last Podcast On The Left
Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
We're putting this the fuck out. Maybe twice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
Wow. Wow, what an incredible interview. Yes. I mean, I feel like a smarter person.
Last Podcast On The Left
Life After Death: An Interview with Damien Echols & Lorri Davis
They must. And, of course, the bearish Ed Larson. How you doing? Sorry, I just thought you were a pot of honey. Very funny.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Failed. Yeah. And so what I'm going to do now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
That's what I hope. That better be my review on my murder Yelp. So let's go and look at this is a story from one of our listeners. Oh, my God. The actor Ryan Reynolds.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Whoa, yeah, I guess it is for you whites. Unlike me. What, the pinks? Oh, yeah. I'm European.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Listen, listen, okay? I think I'd know if I was white or not.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
That's yellow. This story is 100% true. A little background information. Growing up, we never really had a close relationship with our grandparents on my mother's side. My grandfather was an alcoholic World War II veteran, and my grandmother a housewife who married my grandfather out of wedlock sometime in the 1940s, hopefully after the war.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You can't handle my balls! That's Jack Nicholson, unfortunately, from A Few Good Men. That's kind of like, but it's the same genre. I'm trying to figure out what the Crimson Tide, not Crimson Tide, right? Is it Crimson Tide? Crimson Tide, yes. Because Hunt from Red October was Sean Connery. He says it's okay to slap a woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
From what I was told, they never loved each other and they just stayed together out of convenience in the old adage, misery loves company. In the early 1990s, I would have been a toddler and my two brothers a few years older than me. This time period is when we were at my grandparents' home the most.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I believe this was an attempt for my parents to try and garner a somewhat normal relationship with our grandparents. It always works like that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Always toss them an extra... With toxic people, more time the better. It always works out. It never backs fires and they never manipulate your children from the inside out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Provide no commentary. Because I'll always remember my grandmother just pinching my sister underneath the table every time she tried to eat. And I always remember my grandmother grabbing me by my side meat and going, you eat chocolate and it's going to give you a heart attack.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
A whole bunch of them. I still view him as just big. Yeah. Now, my grandparents' home was a ranch-style built house in a neighborhood constructed around the late 1950s. Ranch the dressing or the structure? I think it's the dressing. Because we actually grew up in a Thousand Island-style home. My grandfather took care of the property. My grandmother had an immaculate home.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
This is the type of home where plastic was on the furniture and the carpet was a seafoam green with mirrored squares glued to the living room wall. Exactly. I know this home.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
My grandparents had a living room we could not enter. I don't remember much of the time spent at this home, too much as they were just fleeting memories of my childhood that me nor my brothers put much value into later life. Later life. But one thing that we all remember was the stairs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
That's because that's just old grandpa peepers. I love my grandpa peepers always making sure I'm clean. Get your feet. Now get you to the back of your legs. Get the back of your legs. Yeah, good, good, good. Now it's wet. Now it's wet. Now get your front. Get your front. Get your front folds. Paint the tits.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
That's when I'm looking inside your porthole. That's molestation, everybody. It seems worse than that. It is. You know what? It's so much worse just to have you bend me over and look me in my butthole and not fuck me. There was a set of stairs. I ran down to the dark basement where my grandfather's workshop was. This descended about 12 stairs down and sat between the kitchen and the garage.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
At the top, a landing no bigger than three feet by three feet sat nestled at the top of the staircase.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
As children, me and my brothers would get really, really dark vibes and feelings when standing at this spot on the stairs. This even became like a child's horror game to stand on the landing for as long as you could as some type of play on the Bloody Mary game. I remember around the time I was three, I began having night terrors about the stairs. I do not remember the exact details.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
It was more in a sense of a fever dream that just rifled me with terror at night. These images would involve the stairs and a dim red light. This was something I couldn't explain or articulate to anyone as I was so young. Which I understand, I had reoccurring creepy dreams that I could not explain when I was a kid. Like I had to dream always that I was in a crib in a castle on fire.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You think this is a play on some kind of inner anti-Semitic thought or something? Because Greedo... Was the evil, obviously he was the Jewish stereotype in a way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Eddie right now is doing his first ever remote recording as a member of Last Podcast on the left. Tell me, Eddie, how's that Ramada treating you?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Why don't we just let the boy go? This reminds me of the murder sketch. Why didn't we let the boy live? As I grew up, we grew away in a relationship with my grandparents. They didn't seem interested in fostering a relationship with us as grandchildren specifically. Without going into too much detail, it was shed to light that they were extremely cruel and toxic people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
When I was in my early 20s, I was having a talk with my dad, like one of those talks when you sit down with a cigar and talk about the crazy stuff you did when you were young, about the repercussions since you are an adult now. The discussion of my grandparents came up as they recently had sold their home and all of their possessions and were placed in retirement and hospice living.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
After a few back and forth jabs about the plastic covers on the furniture and the porcelain cat statues, the stairs came up. I said, hey, remember those stairs to that house? Those were severely creepy, especially for the ambiance of that house. My father became seemingly uncomfortable. He went quiet for a while and proceeded to tell me a personally haunting story for him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
My father stated in the 1980s he was a motorcycle mechanic working at a shop that was privately owned. The owner we will call Jack became one of his best friends and they regularly hung out, fixed stuff, drank beer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
cool guy stuff did you say thick stuff drank beer thick stuff thick stuff thick stuff like guys do yeah yeah it was fixing stuff and they're all fixing each other and they're all wet what do you think thick stuff would be like someone said like hey come on over we're gonna do some thick stuff yeah thick stuff i know what that means what does it mean it means jamming things inside of me in my mouth in my butthole
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Except if it's Eddie. If I'm talking to Eddie, then it means barbecue.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I mean, that would also hurt the whole brand. They can't be fixing things. Now, he said that his buddy Jack had a wife and three young children. My father stated that one day Jack had gone home after work and opened the garage door to go inside. And he said that Jack's wife's car was in the garage running. Jack's wife was in the car dead.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Jack went to the door that leads inside from the garage to call 911 from the kitchen. The door was blocked. Jack went through the front door to find his three children dead on the landing above the stairs. His wife had committed suicide by running the car in a closed garage and locked the car going into the garage from the kitchen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
There's actually a couple of read. I did read a couple of rewrites of the scene between Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman and unforgiven where he really gets pretty involved, but it's so hard to do that. It's, it's hard to do both because Gene Hackman's such a good actor. And I think that's the problem is it's hard to kind of capture his gravitas and In a lemon slash fix.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
The children waited on the landing for their mother to come back inside and died as well from the carbon monoxide. This broke Jack as obviously his whole family was dead in a tragic manner. The house went up for sale as soon as he couldn't bear to live there anymore. And a few months later, my grandparents bought that exact house.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Let me specify, this wasn't because they were financially broke and it was their only option or anything like that. I turned flush after hearing this. One, that my grandparents were so terrible. They bought a house their son-in-law's best friend family had died in, but also the torture my dad had to endure every time we visited them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I've had a few paranormal experiences, but when someone asks me if I believe in the paranormal or afterlife energy type stuff, I tell them this story. I was a kid. I didn't know any of the backstory. Yet the same exact spot where his kids died, me and my brothers, three children, just as Jack's family, could feel the despair and horror.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I've driven by the house once in a while over the past decade to see a new family living there and wonder if they feel the presence of the dead kids on stairs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
But this is like, what a great opportunity. Nothing would be better being like, do you know who died in this house? Regis Philbin. You know, you can make up a bunch of shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You would not go to knock on, like when you're Aunt Patty, God rest her soul if she ever passes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
She's alive. If she ever passes, I don't think she'll die. Is that if we go to sell that house, which is extremely haunted, it's the same. Then you can hang out outside of that house and tell people that it's extremely haunted.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Can you please do it? Can you please go and be like, is there wailing coming from your room? Like write it in Sharpie. I hear a ghostly moaning coming from your room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Like, it's hard to get that into, like, hearing him sucking Morgan Freeman, like, sucking his dick dry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, I can't do it. I can't imagine him being like, Morgan, open up. That's as far as I could. That's Gene Hackman foreplay. Okay. Morgan, open up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Some of our best shows were in front of nobody. Really? Honestly, no one ever saw our best work. That's called rehearsal. No. No, no, no. It was in a theater. Oh, no.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I was... This is such a... Oh, my God. This really makes me sad. This really fucking makes me sad. We used to say stuff like this. It's all about just building a place. They'll come to the show. They'll have to come. They'll hear the circus. Everyone loves a circus.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, you know what it feels like? You know what it honestly feels like? This whole thing. It's like the Merle Haggard thing. You're playing to the audience that shows up. That's right. Like, all of this stuff is about, like, no, you have to curate your audience.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You can't just play to whoever's around there telling you what to do. You can't listen to just the audience telling you what to do. What subway station do you imagine here?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I literally... Wow. That's weird. Yeah. That is really weird. I also thought G-Train.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You know what there needs to be? A pill. A pill. That makes comedians feel like this. We will cut some of the pack down. If we just give people the idea that they're being watched by an audience, maybe that will actually help some of us stop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Oh, Very good. Still remember it after all these years. It's not hard.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Honestly, if I could just feel beloved, I wouldn't have to do this ever again. If I could fill that hole inside of me, I could be a happy person. But I don't think I can.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Whoa! Schiz-o-phrenia! Yeah, with the skits!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
We bring skits at you. Yeah. You want skits? Too fucking bad. That's the tag.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I'm letting you know that I'm going to bring skits by asking you. But I don't care what the answer is. And if you say yes, we probably won't do skits. Sketch-a-frania. Ugh. Now it's getting serious.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, I just did that character. They're not nice. This is a stupider version of Terry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I always remember that. That big old idiot who's now a father somehow is upstairs and we continue to pay him. I want to say welcome to Creepypasta number 21. Jesus fucking Christ. We are old enough to drink. Yeah. Which means we're old enough to die internationally. And I hope that that's what this is really what it's about because Creepypasta 21 is all about you're going to get drafted.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I think this whole thing's an allegory about healthcare.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
It doesn't matter what age you are. That's creepy just thinking about it, right? You know what I mean? Because the 40-year-olds are going to come for us. They're going to put us in the metal mucil brigade. I think partly what we're going to be doing is delivering adult diapers to people all through Eastern Europe, what used to be the Ukraine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Got me on four edibles on a plane. Yeah, it's like a happy pasta. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. A relax-a-pasta. Yeah. Yeah, because that's kind of nice. Now, I just took this story from, this is from a random Redditor. This isn't a true scary story. I just read this, and it was just, I thought it was interesting. Okay. It was a subtle ghost story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Odyssey Pop? That's the name of the person who wrote it. Okay. What's the name of the story? It's called I Heard My Friend's Deceased Husband. Oh, okay. That's fun. Did he fart after death? Yes. Yes, Eddie. He was big into farting and drinking piss. So all he heard, she heard the... Because he always had a big Stanley brim into the rim with fucking hot piss.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Whatever was hot. Piping hot. Sometimes it's nice you pop in the microwave. If this has been sitting out. I was house pet sitting for my next door neighbor, friend, Angel, while she was in Hawaii. She's a widow, and I was just taking care of her two cats, an elderly Yorkie. All I had to do was feed them, play with them, clean their litter box. It's cute. Fun times. It's cute.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Then while she was still gone, her dog passed away. I called her, did what she needed to be done, and put him in the freezer like she asked. Great. That night after everything settled, I went out to the- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Literally just said, hey, pop it in there. If you could move the nugs to the queen's fridge in the garage, then I could get some time because it's a Yorkie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I mean, it's better in the freezer than getting out in the elements, exploding. If you wrap it in a bunch of plastic and stick it in a couple of paper bags, it's not going to do too much.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
And now I think that it's important that we party while we can. Sure. Okay, because that's what's hard. And creepypasta is all about getting spooky and feeling ooky with it. So I think the main thing is that obviously if you're in your office right now, the scariest thing you can do is work. So I would say is to just quit that. First of all, quit that. Quit your fucking job, man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, I'm not going to scoop it up. It needs to have done, to be honest, in a moment of pure rashness, hung itself with a rope or choked itself in the stove. But I think that, yeah, it has to be one piece.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
No, no, no. This is a dog that had checked its way out old-fashioned style. Yeah. Went into the house, didn't come back. Now it's in the freezer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You're right. That's the hardest part. That's one of the hardest deaths to deal with as a pet owner. Because we all go through it at least once.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I'm sick of these automatic hammers. Everywhere you go, you got to watch your dog around these automatic hammers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, I should have sent some dogs there. Thanks. Yeah, I figured he likes hanging out in the automatic hammer machine. All right, that night. It's a common mistake. It happens. This is the third time I've had a Yorkie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I need a great date. So my baby could just get his head in there, I guess. That night after everything settled, I went out to the back patio for a smoke. Around midnight, I started packing up my stuff, turning up the lights, and getting ready to go home. And then I heard it. A bark, but not from a dog. It was a man's voice. Bark. Yep. Like someone imitating a bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Bark. I stopped, turned around, and looked. My house to the left of Angel's. There's a vacant house to the right. Behind her place is another house with motion sensor lights, and there's no one there. Then I heard it again. Once. Bark. Then twice. Bark, bark. Sounded like someone was just standing just on the other side of the fence messing with me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Oh, yes. Yes, very much. Now, can you please do a cat?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Perfect. Oh, Jesus. Wow. Hey, I'm allergic. Get it out of here. The barking got louder. Bark, bark. More frequent. Bark, bark, bark, bark. Like whoever was doing it was having way too much fun scaring me. Bark, bark, bark, bark. And the weirdest part, it didn't feel like a person. Oh. I don't know how to explain it, but something about it was just wrong. Okay. Off. Bark.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Bark. Bark. That was all I needed to nope the hell out of there, so I ran. The barking got louder as I booked it, but the second I reached the front yard, silence. I didn't stop until I was inside my house. My husband called me down, listened to the whole thing, and said it was probably just some idiot playing a prank. Definitely not him. I wanted to believe him, but I was still freaked out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Fast forward to a few days. I was outside smoking with my mother-in-law and I randomly brought it up. Told her the whole story. She barely reacted. Just nodded and said, Oh, yeah, that's Rex. No, she was more like, Oh, yeah, that's Rex.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Oh, yeah, that's Rex. I was like, I'm sorry, what? She explained that Angel's late husband, Rex... used to bark at her from over the fence as a joke. And the next day I told Angel and she confirmed, yep, that was something old Rex used to do. I still won't go back there at night. Afraid of the bark. Okay. Afraid of the bark. Afraid of the bark. Bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Quit your fucking job. Fuck your boss. Fuck this shit. Close the laptop. They're watching you do your keyboard. How creepy is that? Your boss is watching your keyboard from his fucking cubicle, and he's jerking off thinking about your productivity levels.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Whoa. Whoa. That blind, the one where she was blind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Oh, Dancer in the Dark. Yep. Dancer in the Bark. That's just a vocal tick. Now it's just a vocal tick.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
But yeah, she's just afraid of the guy going bark. Why? Because you don't like it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yes. A man named Rex who barks at people with his voice, but is not a dog, is in fact a man. He's actually a ghost. And now it barks as a ghost, as a man, pretending to be a dog.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Bark, bark. Bark, bark. Because who else would? She's the only one there with a Yorkie. Yorkie's not going to do it herself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
What does one have to do with the other?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
To be honest, it's just one of those weird things. When you read these creepypastas, people just throw kind of random factoids in there. They do. And that's one of those where you're like, that's actually the creepiest part of this whole thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You went in there and you went like, oh, no. I could just see the Yorkie with the terrified, frozen look on its face of death. And then part of me wonders, did she end its life?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
She just went, she was like, it was just like, it really was pretty much like an afterthought. Yeah. Maybe the freezer killed the dog. Well, that is Moda. Or finish the job. That's called Moda. Then while she was gone, I was taking care of her elderly Yorkie. Then while she was gone, her dog passed away. I called her, did what needed to be done, and put him in the freezer like she asked.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Now, I feel like the term... Wow, that could be murder. I called and then the term I did what needed to be done is doing a lot of work here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Or is it because maybe it got caught in the automatic hammer machine? Yeah. It's actually just lost its legs and organs have been shattered. It didn't get the head. The head's still alive going, yep, yep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, bark, bark, bark, bark. And then she had to beat it to death with her Birkenstocks? No, or she put it in a bag and suffocated it. It's a good way to end the show.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
No, Georgie, we'd never put you out of your misery. We're going to elongate your life way past its natural. Did you see the stuff where they got the pills that can extend a dog's life? By how long? Do not tell Julie about these pills. It's
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
pills it can extend a dog's life but apparently though it does sort of the dog does live but its brain is in the event horizon hell world yeah but it's still alive okay so you so you just have a lump of hairy flesh where we are going we do not need eyes to see Daddy. Carmy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, they're going to make it come to life. But no, it's true. It's going to elongate their lives. But I don't know what that means. I feel like a lot of people talk about this elongating your life process. But it's at what point is getting elongated, right? So do I just get to be 100 years old longer? Yeah. Because that seems like that sucks dick. Or do I get to be 50 years old longer?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
And then you make your 100s last into the fucking 200s, and then we can finally eat bugs. Yeah, you can eat bugs now. They're pretty gross. One day we won't even know that they're bugs. And here's hoping. Go to patreon.com slash last podcast and left to look at us. Now, we've ended the show.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
and live and you get to interact with us. And we also have a lot of big, we have special programming coming up for this, the stream, which I'm really excited for. And just like next week, we're coming back, back to series. We're going to do a bunch of, we got a bunch of thick ass shit. Yeah. Now we're going to push out of the hole.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Eddie, give him a sample joke for tonight.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Give him a sample joke, Eddie. Don't do this to him. I did the same with the other show where we did it in Huntsville. And now for your closing joke, Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
This is what he did at the Huntsville show. Same reaction. No, Marcus left. Same reaction.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
But you're going to see more of that, but he's going to do a lot more specific material. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
We're going to put a big old mark on your fucking ass. You'll see the show. Hail Satan, pieces of shit. Yeah, fuck all of you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Now, he's concerned about the udders, not about us. But guys... I think now you want to go to your weed. You've quit your job. You're on your way home. Your wife or husband's like, what are you doing here? I'm here with our four kids. And you go, shut the living fuck up and let me do what I need to do today. You're going to go into your office. You're going to pack a bowl.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Fuck all you dirty fucking dogs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Whatever, dude. Whatever. Fucking whatever, dude.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
You're going to pack that bong. And you don't care what everybody says. Everyone's crying. Oh, you're just trying to detach. From all your responsibilities. But guess what, man? As soon as you fucking put that rim to your fucking hole, it doesn't matter anymore because you have just become irresponsible. Right? They can't hold you to shit. Forbes mean nothing. It's just ink. What's ink?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
It's from squids. What's that? Doesn't fucking matter, dog. That's how we shut them down. All right. Oh, auto sign doesn't count. No, we don't know. Auto sign doesn't count. All right. So fucking you just team that shit and honestly switch the Indica in the afternoons. For yourself. So you get yourself good and high. You're without a job. You're without a future.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Yeah, I feel like it's a good way to kind of flip this whole thing. What whole thing? Like, everybody being kind of upset with that song. What song? I have no clue what you're talking about. Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid, oh. Yeah, for some reason the idea of, like, it's a bunch of fish begging you to kiss that weird, older, silent man. Yeah. And I think that that's very refreshing. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
But you're ready to get really spooky for our episode.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
That's like one of those libertarian journals.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I'm just saying. It seems similar in theme.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Eddie, you have to fill an hour tonight. You need to save this stuff. You're right. I'll go back to sleep.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
How are we not coming up with a name here?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
So that's why you smash your metascapo.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Is this written by a disgruntled nurse? This is like this person who handles my father's IVs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
yeah that the fish are encouraging that sort of thing well it's not a silent woman and i think that kiss the girl is so much worse because you're you know it's all these people like kiss that little girl kiss that little girl kiss that little kiss the mute yeah but there's something about like people being like kiss that weird man kiss the man that's also bad why i don't know it seems awful you're making people kiss each other
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
And I do not care if you trot upon my dead body to do so. But I shall keep Brie Larson from entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No matter what you try to do, ghasting devils, our work is letting blood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Maybe it's because I was desperate to find some Gene Hackman erotic fan fiction, and it is sorely lacking.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
Very intense. Is that the other chapter of the libertarian poetry book?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I like it because I like a performance aspect. Yeah, of course. But he's mostly just yelling about veins. And blood. And blood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
And this is not an Apple TV tie-in. It is not. To the show severance. It is not. Which I think is a different severance than this, but I refuse to watch it because I don't watch shows while they're on television.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
It would be good. Honestly, that needs some good chugging metal underneath it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 613: Creepypasta XXI - The Severance
I went the opposite way. Okay. So I got just creepy stuff. And I think that this is, it's interesting because I went through some of our old listener pastas and I went through some other forums I went through because I always struggle with trying to find something that maybe is genuinely creepy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yes, the humans. Not discounting the possible Black Knight satellite that might have been there for the last 13,000 years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. And I think they sent up, what, 70-some-odd dogs in all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It's not happy. It's frightened. It doesn't know what to do. There's this bulldog that skateboards. He loves it. That's different. That's cute as hell, and that's ground-based. But it's still extreme sports. But you don't put... But you can't put... I can't put Georgie...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
I didn't think about it. They never did give that dog a helmet. No, no, no, no, no.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
God, the years of Air Bud and Lawrence Taylor together. My God. Give me some of that cortisone shit. Yeah, come on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
And, of course, we have the skeptical Ed Larson here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Long distance, like long delay. It's called long delayed radio echoes. Long delayed radio echoes, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
comes in yeah we're still kind of unsure exactly what it is some people think it's like a like a geodesic or like it might be something we are bouncing off something on the earth there might be something about the magnetic field we don't understand super thick part of the atmosphere you know how that is yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Well, it's sort of the idea of, is it the idea that like nuts and bolts UFOs would take far too long to get here because the scientific principles that nothing can travel faster than light and traveling at light speed, it would still take years upon years upon years for anything to actually exist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
get here, so it kind of stands to reason that if UFOs do exist, if it's nuts and bolts UFOs coming from other alien civilizations, then they would have access to technology that we don't have access to. They would have access to scientific knowledge that we haven't discovered just yet. And maybe don't understand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, so they probably wouldn't... Radio waves are probably far beyond... If they are nuts and bolts UFOs, they are far beyond radio waves.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, that goes around the prime meridian? Yeah, it goes over and over instead of around and around. I'm so fucking bad at the science.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
I didn't even go to college and he's better at this than you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
He's sour tasting. It's like a pickle you left on the floor.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Well, if you're talking about greys, yeah. If you're talking about tall whites, that's a different story altogether. Still no butts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Oh, yeah. This is ancient aliens territory without a doubt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Do you know that one? I'm not a big TOS guy, original series guy. Yeah. Well, I'm Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. You ever watch the original series? Yeah, I've watched it here and there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
But he kissed those ladies. He did kiss those ladies. But, you know, you can see ladies getting kissed anywhere. Yeah. You can do it in your house. You can put up a mirror and kiss your wife. Yeah, I can kiss my wife anytime. Banner Green. That's also a possibility. I can also look up ladies getting painted green and getting kissed on the internet very easily. And then it goes further than that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
I just looked up green-skinned women kissing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
I'm a next-generation Deep Space Nine guy, and I love Strange New Worlds.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It's the idea that radio waves travel at the speed of light, but thought has no upper limit. So thought can travel instantaneously, or so the theory goes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Maybe that's the only ability I have. Defending Casey Anthony in jail. So you mean that Casey- Appeals.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
See, the way my brain put it was that Casey Anthony, after going to prison, smuggled Warwick Davis in to act as her personal bodyguard.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. But no, I just mean paid off a guard. Oh, I thought you meant she booved him. No, him with a large sword acted as her personal bodyguard in a women's prison. That's the power of imagination. Isn't it? Back to the Black Knight satellite.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
This is the last podcast. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
He was kind of goth. He was too beautiful for this world.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, if we're talking like a night out, yeah, I'm going Edison. Dinner, maybe Tesla. Yes. Like Tesla might be better for a nice dinner. Tesla's breakfast.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. And everyone's also super paranoid because of the Cold War, because the Russians got the Sputnik into space first. And we don't know what Sputnik can do. We don't know what anything is, what the Russians are capable of. So people are staring up at the sky looking for shit. And they're very paranoid about what's up there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Hubble's looking out at the rest of the space trying to find shit out there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. Hubble's in space. Yeah. Okay. You can't turn the Hubble around and have it look at Earth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Until it reenters the atmosphere and burns up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It's 1966. So, you know, he's not going to bring like a camera technology isn't quite there yet.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Well, there's been plenty of astronauts over. Astronauts kind of go one of two ways. They're either like, yeah, I saw weird shit out there and I can't explain it. Or they say there's nothing out there that we can't explain. If I can't identify it, that just means I didn't know what it was. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily an alien or anything like that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It makes sense to me. Beep, bloop, beep, bloop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
I think, yeah, beep, bloop. If we could get a better, more scientific word than beep and bloop. Well, we do. Just call it binary. That's what you'd say. Yeah, binary audio cues. Thank you. Yeah. Beep bloops. Beep bloops. No, we call them BACs, B-A-C's.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
For me, if it's finger banging, you're definitely listening to Nu Metal. You're listening to You're Disturbed, you're Papa Roach.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
So in his world, the aliens are Scottish as well. Yes. Shockingly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
This seems to be a bit of a contradiction, though. What? Fuck you. How fucking dare you? Well, just come with me on this. I'm asking a question.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
How do the ancient alien theorists, I guess, how do they balance that idea of aliens have been visiting us for millennia and giving us all this technology and so on and so forth with we have to wait until we're culturally advanced enough to accept the possibility of alien life? It's a very good question, Adam.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think we've been visited for, you know, decades and centuries and millennia. Just what it even means. But I also believe the humans are perfectly capable of building anything that is on this earth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It dragged them. Dragged them. Not dragon. Not a dragon. No, not a dragon. No.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It had to have taken like a hundred years. Well, that's the one thing that I think modern humans can't wrap their heads around is that like when you don't have like... anything to do, you've got a lot of time to kill.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
You have to look at it from a hill. You can't walk around or anything like that. You have to look at it from a distance.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
PK Day, by the way, that's Philip K. Dick. Yes. PK Day. Just so everyone knows. Not everyone knows your shorthand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. Kenneth Arnold kind of kicked off the whole flying saucer phenomenon right before Roswell. He was a pilot that saw a bunch of shit in the sky, a lot of flying saucers in the sky. And that was back when things were still sort of taken seriously. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. We don't know what the hell this is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. They just got nothing. Yeah, no internal monologue.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Read what androids dream of electricity. You already know the story. It's very short. You would like it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Like he could jump dimensions and he actually traveled to another dimension in which he saw the Nazis won and then came back and wrote the book.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
You can snag that thing. Oh, yeah. Cool 100 grand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Void just said shooting pee. Did they shoot the feces as well? Yeah, of course.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Because they think it's just gross. You can now recycle it. They now recycle the urine into drinkable water. Pee-pee water.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Let's shoot in the space. This is crystals out there. Twinkly stars. Twinkle, twinkle little star.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
OK. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things about where we are today. And like just as far as information disclosure goes and as far as belief goes, is that there was so much shit in the cold during the Cold War, so much secret shit going on. Oh, yeah. We didn't want the Russians to know about and the Russians doing so much secret shit that they didn't want us to know about that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
All of us were lying all the time about what everything was. So it really did just erode the trust of the public.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah. And they're not telling the truth either.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
But I guess the point is that, you know, this stuff is where conspiracy breeds because people do notice it. They do see it. Of course. And the government can't come out and say, oh, yeah, that's a spy satellite because we need to check out Rostov-on-Don, you know, every six weeks. Right. So they lie about it, and conspiracy breeds, and that's where we are in the 21st century now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
They're doing the same thing to us.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yes. And think about that. I mean, the drone flap was what, five months ago? Yeah. No one's fucking talking about it anymore.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, could be. But that's the thing. No one told us what it was. No one told us that. And it was just there, and it's gone, and now it's in the ether. That was five fucking months ago. That feels like a lifetime ago.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
That probe, Ed, in the terms that we're about to head into, we call it antediluvian. Thank you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Well, that's impossible now. Yeah, it's actually, it is impossible now. That poor, poor, like, it's just... Poor sad man. Poor sad, just still his reputation and his name is just...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Women should go to Contact in the Desert. No, there was plenty of women at Contact in the Desert. They're all selling crystals, though. Staff. Yeah, staff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yep. And you can watch us live on Patreon if you want the unedited version of last stream on the left. What goes over to YouTube is not the entire show. So if you want to watch that thing live and get the entire thing and interact with us on the chat, go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Are you sure that's how it's pronounced?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
And if you want to interact with all the other clips and shit that we post, follow us on Instagram and TikTok at LP on the left. Yeah. And if you want to interact with us using your eyeballs, go to LastPodcastOnTheLeft.com to see which cities we're coming to.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
We've got Oakland and we've got Portland coming up in December. So go to LastPodcastOnTheLeft.com to see which city near you that we're coming to.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It's more of an aspirational shirt. It's to inspire others.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
No, no, no, no. It's a blanket in the most broad of terms.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
And in 1998, America was very much into X-Files. You saw the gray alien head.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Aliens are everywhere. People are primed to believe in the late 90s, back when we still had, what do you call it, hope.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
He turned reggaeton into fucking Polish music. Yeah, you turn into polka.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Yeah, you turned into shitty polka.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
No, sleigh bells. Oh, jingling. They said it sounded somewhat like a version of jingle bells.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
Well, I read both. I read that it was sleigh bells, but I also read, it may have been erroneously reported, that it was a version of jingle bells.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
That he is. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks, and today I'm handing the reins over. Once again, I've handed him over to Ed Larson in the past, and he's knocked it out of the fucking park. But today I'm handing the reins over to Mr. Henry Zebrowski.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
It's a fascinating story behind that. It actually is a very fascinating. But the whole story behind this, the barking dogs, it's like early sampling. It's incredible stuff. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 617: The Black Knight Satellite
What is it? The CIA Office of Science Investigation? Yes, scientific investigation. I'd never heard of that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
You know what song I got stuck in my head? What?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. Well, 1999, 2000, the turn of the millennium was a strange time for us all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
So when we covered the Columbine series, I know with Dave Cullen's book, some people have a huge problem with it. I don't think it's that big of a deal. They have a huge problem with it because I think... They want Dylan Klebold to have much more responsibility than Dave Cullen paints him out to be.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Because in the time when we recorded the episode, if I remember correctly, we sympathized with Dylan Klebold a little bit. I think I myself said, but for the grace of God, go I. You know, with Dylan Klebold, like being a very depressed kid, being a very depressed high school kid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And, you know, just someone like Eric Harris, if there was like a character like that, you know, scooping up a depressed kid and turning him into a killing machine. And, you know, the refutations I totally get. I totally get. I totally get because people have come out and like sit like Dylan Klebold's mother and be like, no, my son was a dangerous individual.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
You don't think so?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, there wasn't a ton of push as far as like the bully narrative goes, like there is some pushback on that. That's not a huge thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Everybody wants a reason. Because they said, like, Sue talked about Dylan asking, like, his father, like, what to do about younger kids that are picking on him. And during sophomore year, Dylan said something to Tom about, like, hating the jocks. They don't bother me. I'm 6'4", but they sure give Eric hell.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
He was an absolute fucking dickhead.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
They received far less bullying than the goth kids because that was the horrible thing about it is that they were the ones who... Bully the goth kids. I mean, F word thrown around quite a bit at the goth kids, the actual trench coat mafia, because it all came from like, it was, it's such a dumb high school thing. One goth kid bought a black duster for Halloween costume for fucking Dracula costume.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Thought it was super cool. Started wearing it to school. The other goth kids started wearing their trench coats too. And they're like, fuck yeah. Trench coat mafia, bro. The reason why Dylan and Eric wore trench coats so they could hide their guns. Yeah. So they could carry weapons. And also because they thought it looked super cool. They didn't have anything like they did at one point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Like, I think Eric floated like the idea to one of those kids were like, no, wouldn't it be like awesome if we just took guns and like shot up the entire fucking school? Yeah. But the kid didn't bite at all. He's like, I'm not going to do that. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Goes completely against what you said in the update episode.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, he did. And but he groomed he did groom Dylan Klebold for it. But that's the thing. The point that is made that I think is it's a great point. And I don't think that we brought it up in the show is that, you know, he could have told somebody at any time Dylan could have told someone at any time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Not kids. Not kids shooting other kids in high school. Except for the I Hate Mondays girl. But yeah, but that was an anomaly and it was quite a long time before that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. And that was in the 60s. Yeah. But like high school kids killing other high school kids like that was because leading up to the shooting, like there was a lot of people that had reported Eric Harris to the police. Specifically, this kid, I think his name was Brooks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Like Eric Harris had like directly threatened this kid on his fucking website, which is probably like geocities.com slash South Beach slash 4748. Yeah. You know, like fucking it was a GeoCity site, definitely, or AngelFire or some shit like that, the type of websites you used to code yourself. But the cops, they reported that. He had been reported for making pipe bombs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, I guess to explain a little bit about the update episodes, what we're doing with that. Of course, we did last update on the left as a SiriusXM exclusive all last year. But now we're able to release those episodes for free to the entire audience on our main feed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
He'd been reported for a lot of shit, and the cops just sat on it. They just didn't do anything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And I think it was because we may have identified with him too much.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
yeah exactly 40 versus them yeah i mean because like at 31 you know i was a lot closer to adolescence than i am now uh still romanticized it yeah a little bit yeah a little bit and still like looked at that time like in yeah a little bit more like rose-colored glasses uh and now i understand a lot more about psychopathology i understand a lot more about the brains of these people and their
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
So what we're doing is we're basically when we have a week where we don't have like a last podcast classic, you know, the big thing. Thick, meaty episodes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And what they do. And I have a lot less sympathy. It's just that, you know, but there was one day when, you know, just the moment it crosses over into homicidal nature, then, you know, no fucking sympathy whatsoever. Yeah. None at all. Like you just lose all of it. The moment you do. The moment you hurt someone else.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Like any form of violence, in my opinion.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. And there was also, you know, other shit in Cullen's book, like, you know, things that, like, because he... Cullen made sure to say that Eric Harris was a ladies' man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, he was pushing it to the other side. That Eric Harris, like, was actually very popular. And he just pushed it too far. He pushed it over, like, saying that, like, he got days all the time. But based on his journal entries, like, Eric likely died a virgin. But on the other hand, like... That doesn't just because you got a virgin doesn't mean that you weren't going on a lot of dates.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I was going on a ton of dates before I lost my virginity. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, and the massive one that we've got started. We've got a big history series coming up next week that I am so fucking pumped for. We've got to start working on it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Like it was way like. Like you all look like you were in the Beastie Boys.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Then they probably were far more. Yeah. It's like it's small, factual inaccuracies. Like you would say that, you know, Klebold's mother was Jewish when Klebold's mother was, in fact, half Jewish. You know, he would say that they were wealthy when really their house was large, but it was a fixer upper with a lot of rats.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
This one's such a big one. It's got so much history. It's so fucking thick, you're not going to be able to swallow it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I had a guy that everyone called Bo Diddley. Oh, really? He was weird. And when I used to ride by his house on my bike, he'd stick his dogs on me and laugh and laugh and laugh.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
He's mostly bones. No, I told this story before. Yeah, his son was arrested for raping his grandmother. Wow. Jesus fucking Christ. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
No, I grew up in it. And that's the crazy thing about it is that, like, I think I grew up in, like, such a dark, weird place that, like, Columbine was a blip. Oh, yeah. Like, people barely, like, it barely registered. No one, like, everyone just kind of went like, huh. Yep. And then no one, like, there was no, like, the school didn't address it. Nobody talked to us about it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It was not in any way whatsoever. We had a team of grief counselors.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
we're in the fucking class you know we're like we look out into the fucking I could look out the window and see a gun in like my friend's car like on the back on the fucking on the rack in his truck like you could see guns see guns very different yeah very very different but yeah just barely registered yeah there's just a guy with a piece of wheat in his mouth just going like yep I guess they just cuddling themselves alright children now sit down let me tell you about why we should have won the civil war
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
That's a really good teaser. And it works in a lot of different levels, really, on this story. So on the weeks that we don't have like a big, thick media episode, we're going to give you guys an update episode to kind of fill in the gap. So thank you very much, everybody, for understanding this week. We appreciate the outpouring of support that you guys have given Henry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, no one really paid much attention to it at all. I just remember I'd read about it in the paper, but nobody really talked about it. It was very bizarre. It was very strange.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I think it's the difference between, like, going to a really small school and going to, like, gigantic, like, you guys went to gigantic schools.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, and that's 400 more people than were in my town. Yeah. 300 more.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I don't know. Actually, if our football game would probably be something like 80. Shit. Like 80 people. If that. If that many. Maybe 100. Dude, I had like 45, 50 kids in every class I had.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
That like 50 or 60 kids in like the entire high school. Damn. Yeah. And the whole high school. Yeah. It was fucking nuts, man. It was weird. And I guess maybe because everybody knew everybody else. Like, and that's the thing. Even I was like the weird kid, like for the pep rallies, like I don't like every class got to draw their own poster. And I always drew these like.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
crazy violent posters like just like super fucking violent and like it would be like all the rest would be like you know beat the bobcats and mine would be like decapitate the bobcats and it would be like a guy like holding a head like above him nowadays you'd have to you'd get pulled in with like there'd be like a psychiatrist yeah there there would be like the local congressman but even then like like i guess as everybody knew everybody so well like everyone's like that's just marcus
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, Marcus is creative. He's creative. Like, you know, he likes his things. He likes his, you know, he likes his horror movies. And, you know, I like a horror movie every once in a while. But, you know, that's just Marcus. He's fine. He's all right. You don't got to worry about Marcus. He's just got his nose in the book all the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Actually, dude. I did have one teacher that was a Vietnam vet. That dude was fucked up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, he wasn't tough at all. He was shell-shocked. He had kind of a stutter. Yeah, okay, everyone needs to just quiet down. Now get real quiet. You're just being a little bit too loud.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Henry very much appreciates it as well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
That's so much worse than aggressive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It was so much worse because I'd just sit there and watch him and just be like,
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And Jackie, absolutely appreciate it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It's him doing the karate in front of the mirror at home. No, he's that guy that was in the scene where they show up in the fucking trench warfare and they're like, who's in charge here? And the guy goes, hey. Yeah, that was that guy's Vietnam. He did not come back tough at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
We're in it. So one of the things that has kind of, I guess, gotten bigger since we did our episode, as far as an update on the cultural significance of Columbine, is that we saw a large increase in Columbine fandom. Oh, yes. Really? This was a big deal. I mean, really, I would say it started around the time that most weird things started on the internet. It was about 2012.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
God damn, that's just the year that everything changed. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, it really did. And like you get to see like all these. We used to at our old live shows when we just played exclusively videos, like we'd find like three or four like Eric Harris tribute videos. Oh, yeah. There would be like a girl talking about how cute she thought he was and how much she loved him and how she would worship him and all this shit. Like just really insane shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I think he'd have more gravitas than that. I think he'd have a little, I think he'd go out and talk about it openly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I mean, it's good. It's just the only thing that keeps it from being the best comic book movie ever is Christian Bale's Batman voice in that movie because it's fucking stupid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I'm so worried about him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
But you know, it is crazy how they all ended up being right about Marilyn Manson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yes, the man himself is a fucking horrible human being.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
No, of course. Yeah. I mean, that was the shitty thing about Columbine, too, is that before we get back to the group. One of the only shitty thing. Yeah. Well, it's just how much people blamed like video games, violent movies, you know, all the music, all that bullshit. Like it was fucking it was actually Eric Harris's favorite band wasn't Marilyn Manson. He loved KMFDM. Who are they again?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Industrial. KMFDM's fucking sick. You like KMFDM?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yes. I like Nine Inch Nails. You would love KMFDM. Do you like Ministry? Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you some KMFDM.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Oh, you'll love it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I'm sold. You're sold. You'd love it. You would absolutely fucking love it. So let's get back to these groupies for just a second. I want to talk about one called Sol Pais.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
This is very recent. In mid-April 2019, a woman named Sol Pais, who was infatuated with Columbine, traveled from Miami to Denver with a one-way ticket and purchased a pump-action shotgun and ammunition. She purchased the shotgun legally at the Colorado gun broker, according to a post on the company's Facebook page.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
really yeah i had cops on campus uh the whole time but also like you went to a tiny school i went to a school of like 700 kids in my graduating class jesus twice the size of my town yeah yeah so that's you know we're huge no no rochester isd in texas did not have any cops we had one cop in town actually you know what i take that back we did have a cop on campus because our town's cop was also the school maintenance man yeah you know you gotta have lots of jobs yeah you really do
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
The gun shop is less than two miles away from Columbine High School, and she passed all background checks to legally purchase a firearm in Colorado.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
If it's anything but Snuffleupagus, then you get a gun?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Because he would be so sad. He'd be next. Oh, I thought you meant that his sadness would catch on. No, it's because he's next in line. He's Fredo. No, Oscar the Grouch is next in line. Snuffleupagus is Fredo.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
He's on the show. No, if anything, Snuffleupagus I don't even think is in the top five.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Claims another victim. Pais had previously made comments about Columbine to friends and family members and had posted her thoughts about the massacre to online forums. According to officials, Pais had made credible but not specific threats before and after traveling from Miami to Denver. She also raised suspicions by purchasing a one-way plane ticket for April 15th, 16th, and 17th.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Police in Florida contacted the Miami FBI office, which alerted the Denver office. Pais allegedly had a website in which she scanned handwritten journal entries talking about the massacre, the Columbine massacre.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
She scanned her own handwritten journals and...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
point of writing it by hand you know i kind of like how fucked up this is because that's such a that's a tell that's a look into her mental space yeah well it also it's also a look into how lazy she is very much so because you should just tie you that's what i do quite often with writing is that i hand write it first and then i type it up and that helps you edit that's an edit round yeah she never learned home row no no what's home row
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Oh. You think she was a tap, tap, tap, one finger at a time? That's how I tap.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, it's fingering fingers. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I had a dream last night that your wife left you. For who? Just because you didn't want to be with him anymore. And you were living in this fucking horrible hotel, this really weird hotel. It was like on the beach.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It shouldn't be. And me and Carolina had to like, you were so sad that me and Carolina were like bringing you groceries. And, you know, we were driving this weird Volkswagen bug. You better do this and understand that that's what you're going to be doing. But it was also 1978. That was the fun thing about it. Yeah. And yeah, you were living on the beach.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. No, no, no. We had to come bring it to you in our Volkswagen Beetle. That's incredible. Yeah. Which is Ted Bundy's car. Yeah. Interesting. Same time period. Interesting. How interesting.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Not enough to be correct. But, yeah, and then suddenly, oh, man, do you guys ever have that thing in your dream? Do you get, like, really, really, really loud knocks in the dream, and it jolts you awake and scares the shit out of you?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
No, just the dream was going on, like, regularly, and then I just heard, like... And then I just fucking got up out and I thought that there was someone like outside my window, but there was nothing in there. There was just really loud knocks in my mind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
So back to Pais. According to a CNN article, some of the journals are barely legible, sometimes because of the handwriting, other times because of the scanning. There are a number of crude drawings of weapons, from long rifles to handguns and knives. One drawing has a trench coat figure holding an apparent weapon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
That's why she scanned him, because if you don't scan him, you don't get the illustrations.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, no, I don't...
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, enjoy this update episode, everybody. And we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Some thick history stuff. Can't fucking wait for it. But thank you very much. And we'll see you all soon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
would never i mean we're gonna do a revisit on kurt cobain in the future but i'm i would never i don't get why they publish like the personal journals oh pure just uh it feels so fucking gross did you not like montage of heck uh i didn't i didn't want to watch it because it just felt too gross yes you did yeah and i don't even care for nirvana there was a better care for nirvana too loud
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I like the Unplugged album. It's the end of the day. Ed's a music buddy. I greatly respect Ed's taste. I respect his opinions about music. I'm never going to argue with him and tell him he's wrong. It's just a little surprising.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
You know, I would say, but what you probably like then is that you, I would say that Nirvana's too intense for you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Oh, okay. Well, I'm also more Soundgarden than Mudhoney. Good for you. Thank you. Well, in most of the entries, the individual rambles about feeling like they did not belong in this world or lived in a different dimension. Ooh, yeah, yeah, sure. Oftentimes, they would quote song lyrics. One message on the website offered a dark insight into its potential purpose.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
The purpose of this site is for me to give insight into the thoughts I rarely, if ever, share with others while remaining somewhat anonymous. One of the messages on its homepage read, everything from journal entries to my personal entries. I want to leave a record of myself before I, well, dot, dot, dot. I hate. Before I, well. I hate that so much.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. Now, I wonder what the song lyrics were. I've got to look this up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Cole Chamber. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. You know, Cole Chamber broke up in Lubbock.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
On stage. Whoa. You would have loved this lady. Yeah, I didn't. I fucking couldn't make the show. I was a big Call Chamber fan back then, you know, really loved nu metal. Yeah. And I couldn't make it to the show that night. And my buddy Nixon, like, fucking talked to me the next day. He's like, bro, you should have gone to the fucking show. They fucking broke up on stage.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It's really fun, and that cover was really fun, too. It's like the guy in the ice cream truck.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
No, man. There were some fucking great mosh pits. Like Slipknot was an incredible mosh pit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
They're all dead. I would say they died right as Slipknot's first album was coming out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I think it was 99 with Slipknot, maybe 2000. They would have loved Iowa. They would have loved it. Well, 19 school districts, including Jefferson County, where Columbine is located, closed while police searched for the woman. She was found dead near the base of Mount Evans on April 17th, 2019. That was three days before the anniversary of Columbine of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Her body was found at the Rest House Trail near the Echo Lake Lodge in Idaho Springs, Colorado, approximately an hour away from Middleton, where Columbine is located.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It's incredible that Crocodile Rock doesn't make you think of crocodiles, considering how much you love the gators.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
That's how you want to start? We had a fine bit already worked out, and you made us restart so you could turkey gobble.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
She looks like Casey Anthony.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
She looks a lot like Casey Anthony.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Take another look.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, me too. Actually, it was like three days ago that I was like, God, I wish I wasn't like this. I'm like talking to my wife on the couch. I'm just like, I wish I wasn't like this. I wish this wasn't my brain. I wish I wasn't like this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, the first one that I got, we'll talk about it after the show.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I'll tell you all my HVAC adventures and why I like this new guy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I mean, it's going to be serious-ish, yeah. I mean, it's Columbine. Welcome to Last Update on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Marcus Parks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
But Dave Cullen's work on like the cover up of the police, you know, them covering up all the things they missed. That was great. Like how old the myths of Columbine were created. All of that was like that solid fucking information.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Like the girl who said yes, like how that myth was created and how like the pieces of shit perpetrated that myth, you know, like made the girl who actually said yes, made her feel like shit and told her she was a liar and all that. Like Cullen did a lot of really great work in that book.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
book, it's just that he had a story that he wanted to tell, and he skewed the narrative of, like, Dylan Klebold, who he was as a person, he skewed it towards that narrative. And that's his prerogative. You know, that's fucking non-fiction writers do that all the time. And, you know, I guess decide for yourself whether that negates everything that he wrote. I don't believe it does.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I believe that he made a bad narrative decision as a writer, but that's it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
The internet. The internet is fucking with us in ways that we will not understand for another 50 years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Baseline Columbine was bad.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
But, you know, Adam Lonza, he wasn't on the fucking internet a whole bunch. Some of these guys are definitely outliers, of course, but I think it's... I don't know if we're going to understand the mass shooter phenomenon for a long time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Well, it's the—I've been reading this fucking incredible book by David Mitchell. He was the dude—he was Mark Corrigan in Peep Show. Okay. He recently wrote a history book about, like, the history of British rulers that's fucking incredible. It's so good. But he talked about like the, you know, Dan Carlin talks about the great men theory of history.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
The other side of that that kind of refutes the great man theory of history is the trend theory of history is that these things happen no matter what. That's just, you know, if it wasn't William the Conqueror in 1066, it would have been somebody else.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
who united england it might happen a couple years before or a couple years after uh but eventually like just the trends come and that's a view of how that's just how history works like it's just waves that we can't we can't things just fucking happen yeah like things just happen and we can't do anything about it and that's just the way history is and we just it's like more of a chaos theory type of way of looking at it than it is like a prime mover way of looking at it
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I mean, they're absolutely scarred, but they're fine. The flower is also fine. You know, the Columbine is the state flower of Colorado.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It's probably a mixture of both, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It might be fun. All right. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you for listening to the last update on the left. We'll see y'all next week.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Bye, y'all. Bye, have a nice day. Okay, bye.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Sure. I don't care for them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah, I think maybe more than a decade ago. Getting real damn close.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
It really is. Now, I remember we recorded, I was recording the Cowmen album that we released many, many years ago, almost a decade ago.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I mean, really, I read back through the script that we had. This was actually before we started doing super detailed episodes where we went through like... Point by point, blow by blow, everything that happened, like we just did with the Anders Breivik series, where we went through the entire thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
With Columbine, we just, and this is how we sort of used to do the shows back in the day, is it's like we worked off of assumed knowledge a lot, where we just, you know, assumed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
to everyone listening like you know what Columbine is if you don't these guys can let you know it's like a paragraph and then going into like sort of like analysis of the situation talking about what you know people believed at the time and what was the actual truth and that was sort of the tack that we took with it we based a lot of the episode not just on one book we also used a few articles but a lot of it was based on a book called Columbine by this guy named Dave Cullen which is an incredible book it's fantastically written and
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And what his supposition was with the book was that, you know, Dylan Klebold was kind of a puppet of Eric Harris. Yes. Eric Harris... Was the aggressor. Eric Harris was a psychopath. Like, he was the one that was a little more handsome. Dylan Klebold was the one with the big moon face. Yeah. And that... They were both ugly. They were both ugly men, yes. But... One has to be ugly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
One has to be uglier. And Dylan Klebold was the uglier one. Yeah, definitely. But Eric Harris was a psychopath, according to Dave Collin, and that Dylan Klebold was extraordinarily depressed and that Eric Harris kind of used Dylan Klebold as kind of a little assistant, someone to kind of cheer him on while he was doing it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
And Dylan Klebold was sort of a passive character, a passive character in this that just sort of went along with the whole thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Isn't that crazy? My God. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My mind is blown. They're only eating three rats a week. My name's Marcus Parks. I'm here with the man that has all the croc facts, all the gator facts, Ed Larson. Yes. You got to watch out for those crocodiles.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
asking about the implications of this interview by a local news station tampa bay times are you serious yes no i want i want to know like i i'd see you've got it pulled up in front of you how are you going are you going to read this in ninth grade henry zabrowski voice are you going to read this in such a way as to make you sound better i'm going to read it exactly as i was delivered
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. And I'm going to what I'm going to do is I'm going to read it how I'd imagine it actually sounded.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Yeah. Wow. Mrs. Webster. How was Mrs. Webster?
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
Unfortunately, today, though, we are missing our boy Henry Zebrowski. In case you didn't know, Henry's father passed this week. So we're giving him the week off. And instead of a new episode, what we're going to be giving you guys this week is two update episodes. We released one on Monday. That would be the infield poltergeist. And today we're going to be.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
I've never heard this before. How strange.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
You're dodging the question, though.
Last Podcast On The Left
Last Update on the Left - Episode 4 - Columbine Revisited
But that's not answering the question of what kind of strange relationship you had with Mrs. Watson? Mrs. Webster.
Last Podcast On The Left
Florida Files: Eaten Alive
I think it had nothing to do with me. You look like a side of mutton. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Relaxed Fit: The 4th Annual* Last Podcast On the Left March Madness of Murder
We do need lawyers for this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Relaxed Fit: The 4th Annual* Last Podcast On the Left March Madness of Murder
I can't argue with that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Relaxed Fit: The 4th Annual* Last Podcast On the Left March Madness of Murder
I think since we did talk about how much he studies and prepares, I feel like he knows about the dip. I feel like he knows about the dip.
Last Podcast On The Left
Relaxed Fit: The 4th Annual* Last Podcast On the Left March Madness of Murder
That's right. This is the fourth annual last podcast on the left, March madness of murder and mayhem this year. We've got a damn good surprise for everybody this year. It's going to be an old wild card edition.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It's in the Constitution. But the problem here is the neo-fundamentalist part. Yeah, it always is. These people were heavily influenced by the old Mormon concept of blood atonement, in which a Mormon is not only allowed to kill an enemy of the church, but is justified in that action because killing the victim gives them a chance at redemption because they can no longer sin on earth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Put differently, Daybell's concept of killing so-called zombies to save the souls of the people whose bodies have been overtaken by dark spirits, that's just the fundamentalist Mormon belief of blood atonement wrapped up in modern terms.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, I know all this might lead you to assume that Chad Daybell is a charismatic Svengali who brainwashed his followers into committing four murders in his name. But I'll tell you right now that this could not be further from the truth. He makes Marshall Applewhite looks like Elvis. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Right through. No, he's the thumb. He is a thumb in human form. He's pathetic. He's cowardly. He's a marshmallow of a man. And after watching his halting awkward speeches, the only thing I can possibly attribute his rise to is the obviously low standards of the Mormon survivalist community.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Well, people who fell under Chad's influence were not really following Chad himself. Really, they were following his ideas and his philosophy, which thrust each one of his followers into a world of demons and monsters that was far more exciting and interesting than being, say, a thrice-divorced hairdresser, which was Lori Vallow's life before she met Chad.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But speaking of Lori, while Chad Dayball played a significant role in all four murders, I think the real incendiary figure here when it comes to homicide was Lori Vallow. Because when you listen to her speak on her podcast, you get the feeling that she's so detached from reality that murder would not only be okay in her world, but inevitable.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Adding to Lori's responsibility is the fact that some of Chad's most ardent and violent followers were Lori's own family members. Lori's brother in particular would play a key, if not leading role, in the murder of both of Lori's children, murders that would ultimately lead the media to dub Lori Vallow the Doomsday Mom.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you need to go and get your butt massaged a little bit, and then you'd be able to get over your stone disease.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Both of them were prepped heavily. But before we get into the story, let's acknowledge our two sources for this series. First up, we've got When the Moon Turns to Blood. Yes. by Leah Sotile, which is more of a context-based take that explores the whys of this case, informed by years of investigation of right-wing extremist groups.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The other is The Doomsday Mother by John Glatt, which is more of an account of the day-by-day lives of Chad and Lori. It's very much a he-said, she-said book. But together, these two sources have given us a pretty damn good picture of what really went down behind the scenes during one of the most fascinating true crime stories of the modern age.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, and we're going to do a fair amount of unpacking on this episode and on the next episode, but we're really going to try our hardest to not get lost in the sauce here because, I mean, that is sort of a feature, not a bug in the Mormon religion. There's just layer after layer after layer after layer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
No, it's like, it's, there's a reason why we compare Mormonism and Scientology quite a bit. Like, Mormonism is sort of the antecedent to Scientology, and they are both very American religions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
In the fact that, you know, both, they're based a lot on magical thinking, and they're also both, like, heavily entrenched with capitalism and making money.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. It's fun. Absolutely. No, no, it's all the golden plates and all that shit. Spoiler, guess what he loved? Big gulps. They just didn't have them in Jerusalem.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
go north that it seems like i'm asking to be sexed no that's the thing is that you can't actually ask for it you just have to find a massage therapist who does it anyway and then you stick with that person remember in new zealand the massage i mean i don't know about you but my lady was like it was like 20 rubbing my ass yeah that was different that was something that was somebody special well that's more european because i'm a bit of a massage connoisseur i love massages yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now to really understand how Chad and Lori got to the point where they could commit the murders of four family members without feeling an ounce of guilt, we've got to understand Chad Daybell and the decades-long slow burn that led to the creation of his worldview. So Chad Daybell was born in 1968 in the small town of Springville, Utah. Technically, Chad's Gen X. Not Boomer.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, founded by followers of Brigham Young, Springville's population of 35,000 people is 80% Mormon and boasts not only 18 Mormon churches, but a drive-thru soda shop that sells dozens of sugary beverages, all, of course, without caffeine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I'll have a Diet Coke, please. I mean, 18 churches in a town of 35,000 people. That's incredible. It's overkill. But I don't know. I grew up in a town of like 350 people, and we had, I think, seven churches. Yeah, because I guess it's covering all of the bases. Yeah, you had the Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Church of Christ, Four Square, so on and so forth. But these are just Mormon churches.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
These are all Mormon churches.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Most likely. Yeah, they might have one or two because it's, you know, 80% Mormon. I wouldn't imagine the other 20% are Satanists.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. No, there's this record store that I go to every time I go to Salt Lake City and like their logo is like lamb chop, like as Baphomet.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, according to his memoirs, Chad Daybell is simply the next in a long line of Mormons who began their association with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. the LDS, way back in the 1840s. According to the story, Chad's ancestor, Finity Daybell, it's the worst fucking name I've ever heard in my life.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, Finity Daybell saved a nephew of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith from a crowd who had begun throwing eggs at Smith's nephew while he was publicly preaching. Happens a lot to Mormons. Not anymore. Too expensive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And when you get outside of the United States, they get a little less afraid. Regulated. To get near the private parts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You like to save money, right? Also, Mormons have been fine for like a hundred years now. After saving Smith's nephew, the Daybells became a fairly established Utah Mormon family. But when it came to shaping Chad's worldview, his lineage, like many fundamentalist Mormons, was full of stories of the supernatural.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That's because Mormons are amongst the top when it comes to religions that claim personal encounters with gods and ghosts. Maybe it's because their founder was a grave robber and a wizard. Yeah, he was. That's actually Joseph Smith before he was a spiritual leader. That's kind of how he got his start is that he would rob indigenous grave mounds in upstate New York and sell the treasure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, well, he said he was. He also said he was a wizard at the same time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the seeing stones that Joseph Smith used and, you know, the golden plates and all the accoutrements, that's partly why Mormons and New Agers touch tips quite a bit. We're going to get to that as the series goes on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But, you know, the idea of the supernatural, personal encounters with gods and ghosts, this is actually baked into the religion because Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, built the entire faith based on the concept of revelation in which God spoke to him personally and gave him directives on how to construct and run the church. Polygamy, for example, was a revelation God gave Joseph Smith.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Who's got the time? Well, that's the thing that you're missing, Eddie, is that with polygamy, the secret is ignoring most of them.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But the power of Revelation did not die with Joseph Smith. And every church leader from Brigham Young to the current president of the Mormon Church has claimed the power of Revelation in order to shape the LDS church to move with the times. For instance, Revelation took polygamy out of the Mormon equation so Utah could join the United States.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And Revelation allowed black people to join the Mormon Church after the Civil Rights Movement. Although God certainly dragged his feet on that one by waiting until 1978 to make it so.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But that's all to say that Mormons are primed to believe that God can speak to them at any moment, just like he spoke to Joseph Smith and the dozens of prophets who came after. This is why so many cults spring from Mormonism, because people like Chad Daybell can suddenly say God is telling him to go his own way, just like God told Joseph Smith to go his own way.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
What Revelation means is that Mormon cults can basically ignore anything the church has said after Joseph Smith died in 1844. They can go back to the beginning by saying that all the subsequent revelations that came after Smith's death are false, and only the new cult's leader has the true line to God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I mean, mostly these Mormon cults cut it off after Brigham Young, because Brigham Young brought them to Salt Lake City and, you know, expanded the cosmology considerably. But yeah, usually after Brigham Young, that's when they're like, well, everything went to shit after that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But when you believe that God can speak to you and give you direction, and I mean speak to you directly inside your head, tell you to turn left, turn right, it tends to warp your worldview. And Chad Daybell claimed from a young age a supernatural power that he called The Voice would give him direct guidance. So Michael Buble's in his head? Yeah. Michael Buble, Lionel Richie. Oh my God, crazy.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, when it came to Chad's first experiences with the voice, he wrote in one of his memoirs that when he was 13, he saw a honeybee fluttering around and he decided to smash it with his shoe. Mad with power, Chad began killing all the bees he could see until he had killed 120 bees. Have you ever tried to kill a bee?
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
She didn't know that. Well, suddenly though, once Chad reached 120 bees. 120 bees. He heard a voice telling him to stop. A voice that Chad was sure was either an angel or God himself speaking directly to him. No matter which one it was, though, Chad stopped killing the bees. And he claimed that the voice became a constant presence throughout his life from that point on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And it's presumably still speaking to him in his prison cell today. Yeah, it's saying stuff like...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It definitely wasn't his own thoughts. No, it's definitely not just thoughts. It's internal monologue telling him to do things. What was the last thing your internal monologue told you to do that you said no? Succeed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad Daybell. Despite him being a quiet individual, he was a reasonably popular student once he reached high school. He'd also become a committed member of the LDS church, having had his spiritual awakening in ninth grade while reading the Book of Mormon in his bedroom.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The only thing that set Chad apart was his summer job working for the Springville City Parks Department as a grave digger. This was a profession he'd continue for many years and eventually used to his advantage when his beliefs led him to situations in which digging illegal graves became a part of his spiritual journey.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
When Chad was a senior, he had an experience that changed him, an experience that many Mormons revere and crave. Especially now. That year, Chad Daybell had his first near-death experience, or NDE, while cliff jumping into a reservoir. So from now on, if you hear us say the acronym NDE, we're talking about near-death experiences.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad said that when he jumped off the cliff and hit the water, he had a sharp shock throughout his whole body, and he believed he'd broken his neck. He then realized that his spirit was leaving his body through the top of his head, but had gotten stuck in his skull. Once his spirit got stymied, Chad drifted beyond the veil.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He crossed over from life into death, where he heard a deep, rich synthesizer melody and felt a soothing warmth all over him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. What? Really? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Quite suddenly, though, he was yanked back into his body. Oof! But he claimed, as many Mormons do, that his near-death experience ripped open his so-called personal veil and it never closed again. And the opening of this veil gave Chad magical powers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, it's Marcus Parks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, for some Mormons, near-death experiences are massive deals, because if you go beyond the veil of death and come into contact with God himself, you can come away with special powers other Mormons don't have, like the ability to actually see into the future and witness the second coming of Christ.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Most important amongst the powers an NDE can give you, though, and especially when it comes to our story, is the gift of discernment. Certain Mormons who go beyond the veil are believed to come back with the ability to tell if a person is good or evil just by looking at them. And they also get the ability to tell the difference between a lie and the truth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And you get superpowers when you get a second anointment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. And what happens a lot with Mormons as well is that they find a way around it because the establishment will say like, no, no, no, we're the only ones that are allowed to do this. But eventually the rank and file find a way around that. And near death experiences were how the rank and file found their way around the gift of discernment. Like you don't have to wait for a second anointing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You don't have to be a person up top. You can have a near death experience and that's how you can get the gift of discernment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Chad claimed that when he went beyond the veil during his near-death experience, the gift of discernment was bestowed upon him. This is the gift Chad would later use to deem who is and who isn't a zombie, which would be central to the belief system Chad sold to Lori Vallow and his other followers. But the thing about Chad Daybell is that he is an entirely unoriginal creation.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He's a patchwork man. Every bit of Chad's philosophy is either a rehash of fundamentalist Mormon beliefs or a straight theft from other neo-fundamentalist Mormon writers and thinkers. And that brings us to Tom Harrison.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, in 2012, Tom Harrison was the subject of a book called Visions of Glory, a book that is key to the modern near-death experience world. Working with an author, Harrison outlined no less than four near-death experiences that occurred over the course of his life. And through these NDEs, Harrison had apocalyptic revelations in addition to gaining magical powers and secret knowledge.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Tom Harrison is primarily a Mormon therapist and spiritual leader who used the name Spencer when giving his testimony to the author of Visions of Glory. And Harrison used a pseudonym for good reason. See, in the Mormon religion, anyone can have a personal revelation. In fact, personal revelations are encouraged because each LDS member is supposed to have an intimate relationship with God.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And personal revelations are central to that. But only the highest patriarchal leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are allowed to discuss and distribute revelations that address or adjust church doctrine, and the rank and file are supposed to keep their revelations to the personal growth category.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
In other words, the LDS maintains a rigid separation between personal and authoritative revelation, because the whole LDS system falls apart if everyone has equal authority to say God told them this or that about polygamy or fucking whatever.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But that rigid separation means that Tom Harrison, in publishing his revelations and in publishing that he's got these secret powers and that he shortcutted the gift of discernment, that could very well have gotten him excommunicated for doing so. Or, at the very least, it could have gotten him heavily chastised by the establishment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The only reasons why Tom Harrison is still in good standing in the LDS church is because, one, he comes from a very powerful Salt Lake City family, and two, his book got the blessing of a high-ranking LDS apostle, a member of the Quorum of Twelve.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
So this isn't a nine-hour series.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It will not stop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Mm hmm. Now, to understand why an apostle endorsing Tom Harrison's claims is a big deal, you've got to know a little bit about the modern Mormon hierarchy. Three men sit at the top, the president and his two counselors. The LDS president is believed to be a prophet who speaks directly to God, just like the pope. And it's through the president that God bestows revelations upon the Mormon people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Who do you think he likes better? Oh, do you think the Mormon president or the pope? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He drinks wine. He drinks wine. He's a better conversationalist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot more fun than Utah. Yeah, he's from Argentina. Where would you rather hang out?
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, under those three men at the top is the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, who do double duty as spiritual guides and business executives who manage the billion-dollar industries owned by the LDS Church. Basically, the Quorum are CEOs who give sermons and establish policy for the Mormon community.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
They love sugar. And we also have the inquisitive Ed Larson.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, from what Tom Harrison claimed, his family and friends ridiculed him for his vision, so he stopped talking about them. But when an apostle from the Quorum of Twelve validated everything Harrison experienced, it legitimized Harrison's beliefs and therefore legitimized them for Mormons at large.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
We're going to get into it later, but a lot of it is doomsday prepping. It's doomsday prepping. Real estate? Real estate. It's like the Catholic Church.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Big dirt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I hurt my hands last weekend by digging in the dirt too much. Think about that, man. I use my hands. I use my shovel sometimes, but mostly I use my hands, and man, they hurt.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Well, no, it was the wrists. Oh. Too much digging, like actual digging. You got to jerk off more. That's not possible. Well, the other thing about this is that, you know, I know it might be a little bit confusing because, you know, you hear, you know, on one hand, you've got, you know, the quorum, a quorum member saying that it's legitimized.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
No, I know what it is. It's stupid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
On the other hand, you've got the Mormon establishment telling him to, you know, disavow the book. and all that. But the way it works in Mormonism, the way these things kind of make it through is when the Mormon church doesn't like something, they come out and they disavow it publicly.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
If it's something that they kind of don't want to fuck with, if it's something that's popular that people are enjoying, they just don't say anything about it. They don't disavow it at all. And that's how Visions of Glory ended up being. The Mormon church did not come out specifically and disavow it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Loved it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Chad Daybell stole quite a bit from Visions of Glory, details that we'll be peppering in throughout our series. And we know that Chad's partner in crime, Lori Vallow, was a fan as well, because when she was arrested, she had a copy of Visions of Glory in her bag.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
In fact, when Chad and Lori went to jail, they both had burner phones with Tom Harrison's number saved in the contacts under the name Spencer, Spencer's Harrison's alias. So it's almost certain that all three of these people were in regular contact with each other. Are you sure it wasn't Spencer's gifts saved on their phone?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Oh yeah, I'm always calling up Spencer's Gives like, hey, do you have birthday cards with 500 pound women on them? I need them. I got a lot of birthdays coming up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yes, he very much was. Now, all of these people knew each other. And everybody who knew Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow after they were arrested, everyone was like, I don't know them. And despite there being mountains of evidence, like podcast appearances together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. But one of the big ideas that both Chad and Lori remixed from Tom Harrison's book were Tom's visions of the apocalypse that he had after his fourth and final near-death experience.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
In Harrison's vision, after the plagues and earthquakes and marauders have all settled down, a tribe of 144,000 Mormons would come together to build a new Jerusalem to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ. This, of course, is taken from the Book of Revelation, which is incredibly important to the Mormons. It's right there in the fucking name.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Latter-day meaning the end times. As such, the Book of Revelation has influenced many Mormon cults, including Chad and Lori's.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He also cheated one. He said that his first near-death experience was because he was a premature baby.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, it's not like Mormonism started off as a paragon of fucking virtue.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
If you go to the Mormonism series, like there was a lot of really horrible shit with Joseph Smith, with Brigham Young, the shit obsessed Brigham Young, if you remember. Oh, I do. I don't know if you know this, but Brigham Young, you know, the guy who succeeded Joseph Smith, obsessed with shit. Oh, really? Yeah. Talked about it all the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I'm going to have to deal with this fucking guy eventually. Not this year. Put it off for another decade. Put it off for another decade and then we'll be ready by then.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I won't die. Here's how the Book of Revelation ties into all this. In the Book of Revelation, it's said that the pure and special people who survived the opening salvo of the apocalypse would number 144,000. And those people would found a church called the Church of the Firstborn. He's not insulting you. No. It's all the horse shit. Feels like he's insulting me.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
As I said earlier, Lori Vallow would come to think of herself as a literal goddess who is gathering the 144,000 to prepare for Christ's return. That's a lot of contacts on a burner phone. It really is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad Daybell, meanwhile, having glimpsed the apocalypse as a result of his near-death experience powers, he claimed that when he saw the future, he did not see Jesus Christ leading the Church of the Firstborn. Rather, Chad Daybell saw himself as more or less the mayor of New Jerusalem. Oh, my God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Tom Harrison has made public statements saying that Visions of Glory is supposed to be taken as metaphor.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But behind closed doors, it said that he tells people that everything in his book is 100% true. And it's almost certain that he told this to Chad and Lori personally. Well, this is called the power of the secret school.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You have to believe that this is real, because... The Xenu reveal in Scientology, when you get to OT8, you find out that Xenu is behind everything, and it's the whole crazy fucking story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, now I'm going to do it later. Yeah, we're like 40 minutes into this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But for now, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. And let's rejoin Chad Daybell as a young man at Brigham Young University, where he studied journalism and somehow became a massive fan of everyone's favorite mopey Manchester New Wave group, the Smiths. Wait, the Smiths are amazing. I love the Smiths. I'm going to fucking stand up for the Smiths right now. You're allowed to. I love this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I mean, I'm not going to stand up for Morrissey. He's a fucking asshole. But the Smiths are incredible. Johnny Marr. Johnny, anyone? Johnny Marr?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
There's not really much. Well, I mean, there's a deep undercurrent of anger in the Smiths music.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, after a year at BYU, Chad took a break to go on his Mormon mission, and he spent two years trying to convert souls in New Jersey.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I think it was Newark. It sounds like Newark. He describes it like a torrent of sirens and insults, burning cars, and getting held up by gunpoint. Sounds like Newark. Could have been Elizabeth. Could have been Camden, you know. Could have been Union or Linden. They don't
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Actually, I don't think Joseph Smith made it to Salt Lake City.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
the airport but chad's experience like the experiences many mormon missionaries have when they leave the sheltered worlds they're raised in this only confirmed his biases about the outside world that we're all a bunch of fucking animals living in the absence of god nevertheless chad reportedly set baptism records in new jersey not because he was charismatic but because it was said that his calm quiet demeanor comforted people and put them at ease yeah
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And that's what that's a very important part of Chad Daybell's personality, like how he was able to bring people in. It's the he is the polar opposite of like a Charles Manson or Jim Jones. Like it's this bringing people in with calmness, you know, more like a Marshall Applewhite. I fucking hate him. I know you do. I fucking hate the style.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The slow, the bring in, the come on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't even make eye contact with the audience.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, but it was also in New Jersey that Chad said, but get it all out now. I know, it's hard. You can't do this for six hours. I will. But it was also in New Jersey that Chad supposedly realized that his near-death experience while cliff diving a couple years earlier had given him the power to discern between good and evil ghosts.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And that ended up being the first of many superpowers he would claim.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, when Chad returned to Springvale, Utah after his two years in Jersey, he decided it was his mission to find a wife. And he basically treated his younger brother's high school yearbook as the catalog. After flipping through the pages, Chad picked out a girl named Tammy. She seems gettable. And they began dating after meeting at a local LDS singles night. It's that easy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Tammy actually worked at the Springvale Cemetery as a secretary. So after she and Chad started going steady, she got him a full-time job as a gravedigger. And the two of them would hang out listening to the Smiths together. Cemetery Gates being their natural favorite song. Tammy and Chad were soon after married, following a directive from Heavenly Father in 1990.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Heavenly Father, that's the Mormon name for God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Do they? Well, they say Our Heavenly Father. The Mormons refer to Heavenly Father, that's their name for God. It's like Jehovah. For them, it's Heavenly Father.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Imagine if you were him listening right now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, please. Love your work. Well, two years later, Tammy and Chad had their first child, Garth, destined to be the oldest of five Daybell children. And that's important to also remember at this point, is that going forward, like Chad is a family man with a wife. and five kids. Normal guy. By, I think, like, 97, 98, he's got five fucking kids.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, since Chad had studied journalism at BYU, he soon got a job in Ogden, Utah, at the Ogden Standard Examiner as a reporter, where he was given the ironic nickname of Chatterbox, because he was too quiet and withdrawn. But it's Chatter with two Ds. Oh! Very Mormon-type humor.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But soon after getting that job, Chad Daybell had his second near-death experience while vacationing on the beach in La Jolla, California. As he and his brother were exploring rocks during low tide, the waves came crashing in, and they almost swept Chad away. Just him sitting there, waves.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The way he talks about it, he's like, yes, it was low tide when we went out, but then the tide began to come in.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, why are we talking about Mormonism? It's because today we're going to be talking about the two biggest Mormons in true crime today, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were two self-styled Mormon end times prophets who created and lived in a fantasy world in which they did personal battle with the forces of darkness on a daily basis.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But what saved Chad was the return of the voice, which told him, quote, Get down and cling to that rock.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad did so, but he still smashed his head and started to drown. At that moment, he saw a tunnel of light and felt another warm embrace.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And suddenly two male figures appeared above him. The figures were his Utah pioneer ancestors. And they asked Chad if he would agree to a series of tasks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Once Chad said, sure, I'll do your tasks, he suddenly found himself back in his body. Later, Chad would say that his near-death experience was more like an urgent business meeting where he was given information and assignments from beyond the veil. Do you know what this...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, Chad's brother actually did come out later and say, like, this whole story is fucking bullshit. He said, he's like, I remember that day, and it didn't happen, like, that way at all. Like, Chad got swept out from the rocks. He actually swam away from the rocks, and there was no near-death experience mentioned.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Chad claimed that the veil was truly ripped open after his second NDE, and the voice continued to guide him in his day-to-day life. Chad became obsessed with near-death experiences and became convinced that they could only be divine visions from God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
As far as what he was doing with his life at this point, Chad was splitting time between the Ogden Standard Examiner and the Springville Graveyard throughout the early 90s. But when the cemetery sexton retired, Chad took the job. leading a team of three, Chad dug graves, cleaned gravestones, and weeded the lawn, but was the whole time beset by visions of the future.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
For example, when it came to his visions of the future, Chad once envisioned a Polynesian man running over his son in a Kmart parking lot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But in the pursuit of this personal war, Chad and Lori involved themselves in at least four murders. These murders were all committed in the year 2019. And you may very well remember the months-long search for Lori Vallow's two children that ended when her kids' bodies were found buried on Chad Daybell's Idaho property.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Some kind of Pauly Asian. Some kind of Pauly Asian. Pauly Asian. And in the vision, his son was wearing blue overalls. But don't worry. The next time Tammy Daybell dressed her son in blue overalls and said, I'm going to Kmart, be right back, Chad went with them. And by going with them, he altered the timeline and saved his son.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, after having visions for a while, Chad was given a new direction by his disembodied voice, a direction that ostensibly revealed why Chad was having visions in the first place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And with that, Chad Daybell began his career as an absolutely god-awful novelist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It's awful. It's God fucking awful. Yeah, he is awful. Chad began with a trilogy, Errand for Emma, Escape to Zion, and Doug's Dilemma. Doug's Dilemma sounds like he can't decide which dick to sit on. This trilogy imagined Chad's three-year-old daughter as a teenager traveling back in time to 1868 to solve the mystery of her LDS family history.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad's publishing house, by the way, was the same that would later publish Tom Harrison's Visions of Glory. But as bad as Chad's books were, they were an incredibly important step in his spiritual evolution. See, Chad claimed that these books were inspired by his visions, and he had a scene in his book Escape to Zion in which the World Trade Center was burning.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Escape to Zion, however, was published in September of 2000. Whoa! Yeah, of course, there's already been one attack on the World Trade Center by that point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, but when 9-11 occurred, almost exactly a year after his book was published, Chad came to believe that his visions were truths sent by God. And if that vision came true, along with the Kmart vision and all the other things, all the other coincidences that were coming true in his life, then that must mean that Chad's visions of the apocalypse were going to come true as well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I thought he was in on it, bro.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You know what? He could be in on it. Was he in Tampa? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Ogden.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But as it would be with Tom Harrison, it was only a matter of time before Chad Daybell ran afoul of the Mormon establishment, and he hit a significant roadblock with his novel Chasing Paradise. See, one of the biggest LDS bookstores, Deseret Books, was refusing to promote Chasing Paradise because it had an extremely goofy scene in which a warrior angel dropkicks someone through a wall.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, but they're supposed to be in, like, you know, Sylvester Stallone movies. Yes. Yeah. Well, Deseret claimed the segment was too irreverent, so Chad got irate, took it personally, and came to believe he was being silenced. And I took that personally.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
As you can see, my fupa goes over my dick and balls between my main thighs, leaving my legs at a permanent V. Now, really, Deseret Books was just looking for a reason to stop carrying Chad's novels because they were badly written and didn't sell. By Chad's own admission, his writing is terrible, rife with cliches, plot holes, and extraneous punctuation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But he insists that his failings are something the reader just has to, quote, glide past to reach the ideas and messages contained within his stories. That's not how books work.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, that is true.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. But spurned by his so-called banning from Deseret Books, Chad decided to start his own publishing company called Spring Creek with his wife Tammy. And in addition to Chad's novels, they began publishing authors whose specialty was near-death experiences.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad Daybell, he's going to get charged with Tammy Daybell's death.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Chad believed that his experience beyond the veil gave him the power to tell whose near-death experiences were real and whose were fake. And he decided that a woman named Suzanne Freeman had the goods. What?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Over the course of three books called Led by the Hand of Christ, Through the Window of Life, and The Spirit of Liberty, author Suzanne Freeman claimed that during a hospitalization, she had a near-death experience where she met Jesus, who gave her a tour of the afterlife, and introduced her to the Virgin Mary.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Suzanne's like, wow, I can't wait to get back. Jesus then showed Suzanne the apocalypse. This is where it gets sad. Or Suzanne claimed to see rivers flowing with the bodies of aborted fetuses. Fuck yeah, dude.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That is true. It would. But you get too many abortions, that's when the switch gets flipped. Because that's the thing. There's so many abortions happening, they're just tossing them in the river.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
A cauldron, even. Yeah. A cauldron's actually quite nice. Then you make a stew. Yep. Oh, my God.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Oh, wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, finally, after all that, Suzanne met the founding fathers of America, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Suzanne Freeman's books were part of a trend in early 20th century Mormon publishing, where near-death experiences and apocalyptic visions rife with Mormon persecution were going hand in hand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Currently, she is representing herself in her murder trial.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
See, the visions that Mormon near-death experience authors like Suzanne Freeman were bringing back from the veil, they not only prophesied plagues and nuclear war, but they also talked about prayer bands and concentration camps full of Mormons.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Mormons are already primed for persecution stories because of the trials and tribulations of their religion's founding, where they were chased from town to town before finally settling in Utah. But these modern predictions began to freak out a lot of Mormons, and they began doomsday prepping en masse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Interestingly, though, most Mormons were already doomsday preppers because of a passage in the Book of Mormon that says, If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. In fact, doomsday prepping is a part of the LDS business model, as the church makes billions selling dehydrated food and other survivalist supplies to their flock. I knew their food sucked, but I didn't know it was on purpose.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
W-A-R-D. Yeah, like in New Orleans. Yeah, Robin was a ward of Batman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Now, Chad Daybell was certainly one of the people who were influenced by the near-death experience slash apocalypse literature. And since he was having apocalyptic visions himself, he also became a heavy doomsday prepper.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
As such, Chad Daybell refocused his writing career in the early 2000s from drop-kicking angels and time-traveling Mormons to near-death experiences and end-times predictions. This was also, perhaps not so coincidentally, around the time that the Left Behind series of apocalyptic Christian novels were selling millions of copies. But if you'll remember, Chad fucking sucked as a writer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And his and Tammy's publishing company netted a profit of $2,000 a year in its best year. A couple more and you have yourself a cocktail. So in 2008, Chad and Tammy's publishing company went bust and Chad filed for bankruptcy. Although Chad conveniently blamed his failure on the Great Recession.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He just suffers from not being good at a single thing. Yeah. So after his company folded, Chad returned to grave digging, while Tammy fell into a depression and tried escaping the pain by becoming addicted to a Facebook game called Frontierville. In other words, life was becoming real fucking mundane, and Chad was not one to live in the mundane for long.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, Chad and Lori were also involved with the murder of each other's spouses. Murders committed so they could be free to marry each other. This, however, is no simple tawdry tale of two middle-aged losers who erase their families so they can run off together unfettered. Although that is certainly an element at play here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, by 2012, Chad was being a bit of a pain in the ass to his family and friends, pressuring them to prepare for the end times. He also was continuing to write novels inspired by beliefs that were only becoming more extreme and dangerous. This is also probably around the time that Chad discovered Tom Harrison's visions of glory.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad's beliefs were only made more extreme when he became obsessed with an online Mormon prepper forum called Another Voice of Warning, or Avow, which was filled with conspiracy theories, fake news, and neo-fundamentalist Mormon propaganda. Avow was the other side of Mormonism, the stuff apart from like the cutesy world of sister wives.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
More so, it was the logical continuation of the aggression held by the Mormons who committed, say, the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, where a group of Mormons slaughtered over 120 settlers from Arkansas.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, it's a big story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Actually, I think that show, American Primeval, I think the new one on Netflix. It covers the whole thing. Really? I think it's what it's about.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It's great.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, as I said, Chad was not a successful author when it came to sales or skill. But when he showed up on the eval forums, he was treated like a celebrity, not because his novels were any good, but because Chad was beginning to hit the end times and indie angles hard in his writing. See, the people who love Chad Daybell's books, they didn't give a fuck about quality.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
All they wanted was lurid descriptions of the apocalypse that would justify their prepper lifestyle and beliefs. Imagery like rivers flowing with aborted fetuses. That was perfect for them. That was the type of shit they wanted. They wanted to get scared. And they want their beliefs, all this crazy shit that all their families tell them, like, you're fucking out of your mind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
They want that confirmed by somebody else. In other words, Chad had finally found his audience. These are my people.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Mostly, the story of Chad and Lori is what happens when people let their fantasies take over their entire lives, encompassing their beliefs and worldview to such a point where they were able to snuff out the lives of their children and spouses with all the emotion we'd use in making a decision that might affect a karma score in a video game.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, it really is. And I think there's also an element where they don't want to feel stupid because if they've spent all of their money and all of their time and all their entire lives preparing for something that never comes, they're going to feel like a fucking moron. And Americans especially do not like admitting they're wrong.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, and that's also partly where this accelerationist bullshit comes from. You know, these people that are trying to contribute to the collapse of society. You know, partly that's made up of survivalist people who just want this shit to be real.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Chad decided to restart his book publishing company around the time he discovered Avow. And in addition to four apocalyptic novels of his own called the Days of Turmoil series. Days of Turmoil sounds like he's got diarrhea.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yes. Well, yeah, because he doesn't spend any time editing or putting any fucking thought. I could be prolific. I could fucking write.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, yeah, but I could be prolific in fiction. I could write three fucking shitty books by the end of the year if I didn't do second drafts or if I didn't fucking go and actually read back what I wrote and there was any fucking thought behind it. Yeah, prolific is usually equal to shitty.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You know what? It's going pretty badly. It was going good.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I mean, that's the thing. You can't change lives unless you take big swings. I know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
So in the end, now that I am thinking about it... Well, in addition to his own Days of Turmoil books, Chad also published another near-death experience author that he met on the Avow forums, a woman named Julie Rowe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now this tale is a very 21st century flavor of true crime story, because Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were both Mormon media figures, albeit very niche ones, and neither one of them would have gained much traction if not for the internet.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, Julie Rowe is a character, to say the least, who you may remember as the only neo-fundamentalist Mormon to speak on the Netflix documentary series Sins of My Mother, the one who bragged about being rejected by the LDS church for telling the truth.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Roe very much fits into the nerdy Mormon world, however, because when she would speak in public about her indie e-books, she would twirl these long colored ribbons behind her that would usually become tangled up. But the audience, full of polite Mormons, would never laugh and would only watch politely while she untangled herself. Should we get up? Should we help?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, author Julie Rowe was also one of the many members of the Avow Forum to have their own podcast. Rowe's was called Eyes Open, where she would talk obsessively about her so-called haters, flipping and reversing criticism by saying that the more haters she had, the closer the second coming was to come. Fuck yeah, dude. Of course, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
But even though Roe had her critics, her books far outsold Chad Daybell's. And they became so popular that the LDS sent out an official memo against her, saying that her books should not be recommended to students or used as a resource to teach them. You know, Chad, of course, wants his books to sell, but now he's making money.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And this repudiation by the mainstream church caused both Julie Rowe and Chad Daybell to retreat even further from mainstream Mormonism. Now, the repudiation from the Mormon establishment only made Chad more popular with the neo-fundamentalists. And around this time, Chad began collecting actual followers, all of whom were members of the avow forums. And all doing it with the...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
For Chad's part, he was an author and public speaker who wrote absolutely awful novels based on end times beliefs and memoirs about near-death experiences that gave him superpowers. These writings only took off, though, however slightly, because of online Mormon doomsday prepper forums. And I cannot stress enough how bad these books are.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, quite quickly, the eval forum turned into an echo chamber of alarmist conspiracies, paranoid catastrophizing, and survivalist chatter. Their talk got so alarming that the aforementioned NDE author, Suzanne Freeman, she asked Chad for the rights of her books back. because she was so afraid of being connected to a vow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Chad, however, was only accelerating, writing newsletters, collecting NDE evidence of Mormon prophecies, in addition to hosting podcasts talking about how to best stockpile goods and where the safest places in the United States would be to ride out the apocalypse. Rexburg.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
No. No, it's a town of 35,000 people. Now, as far as the best location when the seals began to open went, Chad... That's seal number four. Yeah, the tight one.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, that's pestilence. Chad believed that he found the perfect place while on vacation with his family in 2014. While at a gas station in a small town near Yellowstone National Park, Chad had a vision that ordered him to move to Idaho.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
No. No. Absolutely not. No, the super volcano's going to fucking destroy Idaho first.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Which is hilarious. Well, Chad's vision told him that there was a town called Rexburg, which would become a sacred place where the righteous 144,000 could survive the apocalypse because Rexburg, Idaho, was destined to be the so-called New Jerusalem. Now, Chad didn't really discuss the move to Idaho with his wife, Tammy, or his five children. Instead, he just kind of blurted it out at dinner.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The gas station told me we should move to Idaho.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Tammy was furious at first, but after Chad told her to pray on it, which is Christian speak for this is happening whether you like it or not, Tammy reluctantly agreed. And so Chad moved his family to the mostly Mormon town of Rexburg in June of 2015, and Chad was almost immediately rewarded for his decision.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
His extremist Mormon views were quite popular in rural Idaho, and he began doing local book talks and signings attended by like-minded Mormons who also believed the end times were coming soon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Basically, by moving from Utah to rural Idaho, Chad had broken away from the mainstream LDS and was now able to target fringe LDS church members to join what would soon become a very small but highly dangerous cult.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, but they're saying it very nicely. They're saying it in a very Mormon tone. Mormon-y. Now, since Chad was connected to the successful near-death experience author Julie Rowe, he had enough credibility to attend near-death experience conferences, as well as New Age gatherings that were more focused on psychic healing and crystals.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, concerning those New Age gatherings, in the last 20 years, the New Age movement has shifted to share far more beliefs with right-wing extremists than they do with San Francisco hippies. RFK Jr. is a prime example of this bullshit, and the near-death experience movement was one of the connections that brought these two groups together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yes. That's wild.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Hopefully. Well, I mean, yeah, it was near-death experiences, but the thing that really fused New Agers and the right-wing together was COVID. Lockdowns, vaccines, you know, all that shit. Yeah, now, like, seeing, like, the New Agers, like, are basically eugenicists at this point. Like, you know, if they die, they die. Like, some people should die.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
This is the hole.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, even though Chad Daybell was a doughy-looking, mumble-mouthed, dad-jeans-wearing sap with a bad haircut... Hey, he's also a bad author. He used self-depreciating humor and a goofy charm to win over crowds at these conferences. I won't allow it. And within just a few months, he'd collected even more followers from the fringes of the Mormon church.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, incredibly, most of Chad's followers were women, but I think the reasons behind this are twofold. First, Chad Daybell is a fucking coward, and men scared the hell out of him. Yeah. Second, I think his affable, goofy, dad joke demeanor was disarming and kind of comforting. It's like having bad news delivered by a big, fat, dumb dog.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
He might not have a single creative ability. Lori Vallow, meanwhile, was one of our new media brethren. She was a podcaster.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Oh, that sounds cute. Fuck you, Chad. But in the end, I think Daybell's biggest strength that had nothing to do with gender was that he knew exactly what these crowds wanted to hear. And he knew how to regurgitate the ideas of other writers in a friendlier way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
I also think there's something to be said about him being a somewhat boring presence because the way he would deliver things made it sound like he was trying to sell you printer toner, which I think made what he was saying seem a little more real.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. If you look at, say, Warren Jeffs, he's, of course, creepy because we know everything about him. But really, like Warren Jeffs, when he just was out in the world before we knew everything about Warren Jeffs, Non-threatening. No, I fucking, I always, he's creepy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, he's creepy, but ultimately, but you're saying, like, but what I'm saying is that he is not someone that you would see as dangerous. He doesn't seem like a threat. Yeah, that's what non-threatening means.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, it is. And she regularly discussed being in contact with the Mormon angel Moroni on her podcast and claimed on her show to have been chosen by God as the future leader of the 144,000 Mormons who would survive the apocalypse after the events of the Book of Revelation came to pass. And also, who books Moroni?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. But it's all, you know, it's the, a lot of these things lie on the two original sins of Mormonism, which is polygamy and, um, blood atonement.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, now that Chad was based out of Rexburg, Idaho, and he was gaining followers, other extremist Mormons began to listen to his claim that Rexburg was going to be the new Jerusalem. And nobody listened to Chad more than a group of Mormon survivalists called Preparing a People, or a.k.a. PAP. PAP!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
See, PAP had started off as a group that organized conferences for Mormon survivalists, but they soon moved into web design, marketing services, and videography before finding their true niche in podcasting. PAP had a series of three podcasts. The title podcast, Preparing a People. For PAP, it stands for... There was Time to Warrior Up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Never heard anything worse.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That's a little bit better.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That could be camping. But more than anything, more than the books, conferences, or forums, these pap podcasts were what launched Chad Daybell as a leader. The host would constantly herald Chad Daybell as a true prophet. And as such, preparing a people, not going to fucking let you do it again, they moved their operations to Rexburg, Idaho in 2017 to join Chad in the new Jerusalem.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
After building up Chad for a while on their podcasts, Preparing a People began hosting conferences at Chad's home, where anywhere between 15 and 50 people, mostly women, would show up to hear about Chad's apocalyptic prophecies. Hey, mostly old women. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The New Agers amongst the crowd particularly enjoyed Chad's new interest, reincarnation, because Chad was now claiming that he'd lived 31 previous lives on all sorts of different planets across the universe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Well, at these gatherings at Chad's house, Chad would divine the past lives of church leaders, friends, and celebrities. He would claim that Kim Kardashian, Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra, and Kim Jong-un had all lived past lives as characters from the Book of Mormon. So he likes Kim Jong-un? Well, I think Kim Jong-un was an evil character in the Book of Mormon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Asian. He was an Asian character in the Book of Mormon. I am starting to see a bit of a trend with Chad Daybell.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yes, he does.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
They both are. All of them. Oh, all of them are, yeah. And we're definitely going to get more into that on the next episode when we get into the other person in this story. Our queen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, during a speaking engagement in the fall of 2017, Chad met a fellow prepper named Melanie Gibb at a survivalist camp in Ogden, Utah, where people discussed their spiritual experiences and visions in addition to learning survivalist skills. Chad and Melanie hit it off, and a few months later, Chad introduced Melanie to the Preparing a People group out of Rexburg.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Melanie was so impressed that she opened her own PAP chapter in her home state of Arizona. Thank you for not interrupting. I understand it. And she even began appearing on PAP podcasts. Before long, Chad and Melanie were meeting up again at another PAP conference in Utah. But this time, Melanie brought along a friend. Ooh. That friend was Lori Vallow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
And it's there that we'll pick back up for part two of our series.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. I think so. And also next episode, we're going to be telling the full story of Lori Vallow. And Henry doesn't get as angry about Lori Vallow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Lori Vallow's family is a den of fucking vipers. And when we talk about her family, you know, we're going to be getting, you know, don't worry if any of you out there are experts on this stuff. We're going to be talking about the white horse prophecy, of course, the next episode. And we're, of course, going to be talking about Lori Vallow's father, the sovereign citizen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
It's very doomsday. Yeah, yeah. You can see that on our YouTube page. If you go to, you know, just go to YouTube, type in Last Podcast on the left, or The Last Podcast Network, and you can find all of our shows after the fact. But if you want to watch Hoopa Goo Goo live and can participate in the show, when does Hoopa Goo Goo air? Yesterday. Yesterday.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
You guys really need to go to Wernher von Braun's grave. Oh, we are going to. Is he there? Yes. I'm almost positive he's buried there. I looked it up. He isn't. He is there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, we get we we we seriously we are not charging three hundred and fifty dollars for a fucking ticket. We are like that. Those are resellers. We just can't fucking we can't do anything about that unless we created our entire ecosystem of ticket selling apparatuses.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That's a good idea. Double dipping. That's really I can't fault that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That's not even to mention how awful the producing is on the podcast. I mean, the sound quality is dog shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
The guy with the lasers? Yes. That sang the song? Yes. And so we hurt him by going there and by talking about how insane he is. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Okay, that's fine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Pips can't be Mormon. I love the Pips. Pips are way, that's too exciting.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, I know we're hitting the M word a lot here, but from what I've seen in the media coverage, particularly the Netflix series Sins of My Mother, the central role Mormonism plays in the story is glossed over all too often.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
As one man who fell into Chad and Lori's sphere of influence put it, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow basically turned Mormonism into a tabletop RPG, complete with weapons, magical powers, stats, and clear enemies to battle and defeat.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, no, it is LARPing, but it's LARPing combined with RPGs. I mean, stats, you can't argue with stats and you can't argue with magical powers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah, you mentioned the words natural roll to add. Where do you go? Kaiser.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Unbelievable. Well, in a way, the world where Chad and Lori lived reminds me of how the ancient Greeks and Romans looked at existence, where gods and evil spirits were believed to influence and interact with daily life. Magic was considered real, and displeasing the gods was met with swift and harsh judgment.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
For example, Chad and Lori's most infamous belief was that the world was populated with 20,000 so-called zombies, people whose bodies had been overtaken and their souls bounced to limbo by dark spirits. And the only way to save these innocent souls was to literally kill the zombie.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, the zombies were usually just a convenient way to otherize people who disagreed with Chad and Lori or people who stood in their way. But when the fantasy took over completely, Chad and Lori used the zombie belief as justification for killing Lori's children and both of their spouses. Because that's what you don't understand, Marcus. They're not dead.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Now, the zombie thing sounds, in a word, stupid. Yes. Something created by a two-person echo chamber trying to find justification for murder. But Lori Vallow and Chad Dayball were not a two-person operation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Because of Chad's writings and the talks he gave at conferences, Chad actually had a fair amount of followers, and both he and Lori were well-respected names in the Mormon neo-fundamentalist movement.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Technically, Chad was the leader of an almost-but-not-quite cult, and the people who listened to what he had to say were not fucking around when it came to what they believed and how they lived their life.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
That's how they survived.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yeah. Well, Chad had a whole crew of neo-fundamentalist Mormons who lived lives primarily informed by survivalist doctrine, New Age gibberish, millenarianism, and most dangerously, the belief that anyone not on their side had fallen under the influence of Satan. That, of course, is their right as Americans to believe whatever they want.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Right from your grave.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
They're not protecting me from you. They're protecting you from me. Got any milk?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Are you going to get me? You're going to shut me down, doctor?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Normally, when you're looking at a sniveling little fuck like that, I want to beat it to death. You know what I mean? I want to strangle it up, and I want to also play volleyball with his balls. I want to carve him up. But this is kind of weak. I'm not saying it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm crying. I'm crying because I'm too dark. God, I'm so dark. I'm dark and mysterious.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yeah, guess what?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Give me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Alright, alright, alright.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yeah, that's crazy, right? That's fucking blow your mind, right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Don't touch my goddamn snorkels! I got you, Daddy. You're my favorite daddy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Marksmanship is not his hobby. You don't want to be golf club. Put a golf club in his hands.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yeah, all right. Yeah, Daddy, all right. I think we're about to get along a little bit better.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yeah, all right. Okay, we're getting along.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Don't worry. Don't worry about it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
They're a group.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Or I won't leave. I'm not saying bye, squash.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Try to get it in the ass tray. Try to get it in the ass tray. Come on now. Try to get it. All right. Try to get it where we keep the change.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
Yay.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 618: Martin Bryant Part I - The Most Irritating Man in History
You like these? Hey, the boiter is a boiter.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, according to Ed, the America of 2749 was a society of floating cities built with anti-gravity technology. I guess because all the water everywhere. Yeah. And civilization was run by computers called wing makers.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I'll tell you. Now you're just doing limericks.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, it is a great fake name. From my scant understanding, based off what Henry told me during a Zoom call with our researchers yesterday, it seems like it was these computers that sent Ed home?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
There once was a man from Montauk who said he had a very large moncock. There we go. He went to the base. To get some ace. And now he's all over. Living in space. Yeah, the cock.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No, no, no. No, would you put the men that were in that kitchen with you in charge of the universe?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Supposedly, Ed Cameron was able to stop off in 2137 to pick up Duncan right at the moment that he disappeared.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But the brothers were not able to travel all the way back to 1943. Instead, Ed and Duncan landed at the base at Montauk Point in 1983, at a time when the Montauk Project had already been up and going for decades. See, according to Preston Nichols, the Earth has natural 20-year time rhythms that act as anchor years for time travel. The anchor years for Duncan Cameron were 1943, 1963, and 1983.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So it was only logical that Duncan and Ed would land in the nearest anchor year when they attempted to travel back to their origin point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That is seriously the answer, because that one was different.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, once Duncan and Ed arrived at Montauk Point in the year 1983, they were met by Dr. John von Neumann, who had apparently faked his death from radiation exposure due to his work on the Manhattan Project in 1957, and was still working on the Montauk Project at the ripe old age of 80. Now, we're going to get into how all the time travel stuff unfolded at the Montauk Project later.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But for the purposes of telling the story of Ed and Duncan Cameron first, let's just accept that time travel had already been going on at the Montauk Project for a while by the time Ed and Duncan landed there in 1983. Okay. Dr. Von Neumann, of course, was very much involved in the time travel stuff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And as such, the good doctor told the Cameron brothers that he'd been waiting for them to return from their travels in time. But they still needed to go back to 1943 to turn off the generators so they could finally end the experiment on the USS Eldridge, which had been occurring this entire time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That's it. We're here. We're here for the conclusion. The Montauk Project. So when we last left the grand epic that is the Montauk Project, electrical engineer Preston Nichols, ostensibly the most interesting person in history if you believe his stories, Preston had just helped with the construction of a psychic amplification device called the Montauk Chair.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Cool. Well, after getting some proper... Yeah, your humoring button is like really high. You got your humoring dial all the way up. I'm here to learn. I'm really proud of you. So after getting some proper time travel training from Dr. John von Neumann.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The Cameron brothers traveled back to 1943 and turned off the generators on the USS Eldridge by smashing the transmitters and cutting any cables they could find.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. And then they did it. They destroyed everything and everything was just back to normal. Now, I suppose Ed Cameron had his fill of time travel because he stayed in 1943 after the mission was completed. But Duncan Cameron returned to the Montauk Project in 1983, although it was suggested by author Peter Moon that Duncan had been programmed to return by evil Montauk Project scientists.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And how you knew? His accent changed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I'll miss you, brother. But here, of course, is where things start to get weird. Oh! See, when Duncan returned at the year 1983, he found that he had been severed from the time stream and had therefore begun aging an entire year with every hour that passed. As a result, he soon found himself dying from the effects of extreme aging.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, it's like Beetlejuice. This reminds me a lot of Beetlejuice. Yeah. So to save Duncan's life, the scientists at Montauk supposedly used a time portal to contact Duncan Cameron's father in the year 1951. They then convinced Duncan's father to have another son that very year, as it was extremely important that he impregnate a woman before the year was out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Quick, assault the woman and save this boy.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
plan you see was to have duncan's father birth a son in 1951 because that way the boy would be 12 years old in 1963 which if you'll remember was one of duncan's 20 year cycle time travel anchor years exactly and so duncan's father followed the directive and got his wife pregnant in 1951 some people come normally but not this guy he's
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Built using reverse-engineered alien technology, the Montauk chair was used in its infancy to manipulate the emotions of various kids kidnapped from around Long Island by the regalian gray aliens for use and experience. Those are the Montauk boys. Yes. And they would be experimented upon by being bombarded with radio waves, UHF waves, and microwaves.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And when the new Duncan turned 12 years old in 1963, the consciousness of the old Duncan, the one dying from time sickness, was transferred into the body of the new 12-year-old Duncan.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But no, they can't kill the boy because they need the body of the boy, and the boys, they just push the consciousness out into the ether.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But that's all to say that this body swap is how Duncan Cameron was able to make the claim that he was one of the scientists involved with the Philadelphia experiment, which, of course, occurred eight years before Duncan Cameron was actually born in the year 1951.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, I actually never did think about that. They probably did just switch the minds and they just doomed a 12-year-old to die a horrible death in an old man's body.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Duncan, however, was not the only member of the Cameron family to go through the body swap process, and he was not the only one who was also directly involved in the Montauk Project. Now remember that Duncan's brother, Ed Cameron, he supposedly stayed behind in 1943.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
At some point, Ed was made to forget everything that happened with the Philadelphia Experiment and his time travel adventures to the year 2749, and he was soon after supposedly transferred to work on the Manhattan Project. Ed Cameron, however, bumped heads with one of the other scientists and was removed from the project that built the world's first atomic bomb.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Ed then started his own business building the first ion propulsion engine, but that project ran afoul of the interests of the United States government for one reason or another. So a black ops team disappeared, Ed, and the government sent Ed through a space portal to Alpha Centauri 1 by calling in a favor with one of the various alien races with whom they'd signed interstellar treaties.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It's always important to reheat your boy before getting around messing with him.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
You know how that goes. Oh, yeah. You could tack one of the things on there.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But they could give a shit. Yeah, of course.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. They can pull out at any time. We don't know what they're really up to. We're just trusting them because we get Wi-Fi.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Where would we be? Well, that's what they get in the deal. Once on Alpha Centauri, Ed Cameron was experimented upon by aliens. But the final indignation came when Ed Cameron was brought back to Montauk and put through a series of age regression procedures that reduced him back to a small infant.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Infant Ed was then sent back in time to the year 1927, where he was placed with a new family and renamed Al Bielek. I could just see them looking at this infant and being like, call him out!
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
If there's a guy named Julio in this story somewhere, I'm going to shit.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, you conspiracy heads out there probably know the name Al Bielek, because along with Preston Nichols and Duncan Cameron, Al Bielek is the third public voice in the Montauk Project. Arguably, Al Bielek is the most well-known of the conspiracy theorists here.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But as it went with many experiments in the Montauk project, the scientists working on the Montauk chair continually failed upward. And they began to realize that the Montauk chair could be used for far more incredible purpose than just torturing kidnapped boys.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, supposedly, this is Al Bielek's story. After being sent back to 1927 to grow up a second time, Bielek was recruited by the Navy out of high school towards the end of World War II, and he eventually began working in the corners of the military that dealt with psyops and extraterrestrials.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But because of his work with aliens, Bielek was also close friends with conspiracy theorist Phil Schneider, who we talked about extensively in our Aliens Attack episode.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Interestingly, though, Phil Schneider claimed that his father was a former Nazi scientist who brought his work on Nazi time travel to America, where he applied that Nazi time travel knowledge to what else but the Philadelphia Experiment. God damn it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Just so we're clear on the body swaps, let's review. Thank you. Duncan Cameron and Ed Cameron both traveled through time, but the side effects of time travel caused Duncan to age rapidly, and his consciousness was therefore transferred to the body of his own 12-year-old brother in 1963, who had been conceived by Duncan and Ed's father at the request of the United States government. Got it?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, comb out the butt, shit out the dick. Kill the boy. Kill the boy, yes. Ed Cameron, meanwhile, was purposefully de-aged into an infant by that same government after going through the time travel and coming back to 1943. Then he was taken back in time to the year 1927, where he was raised under the name of Al Bielek.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So Al Bielek and Ed Cameron are the same person, just de-aged and grown up in a different time. Where all this comes together is that Al Bielek, who, if you'll remember, formerly Ed Cameron, he was eventually recruited into the Montauk Project along with the rest of them, where he worked as a scientist primarily concerned with the operations of the Montauk Chair.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Like Preston Nichols, Bielek also claimed to have met Mark Hamill in Hawaii in the 1950s, although I'm still entirely unclear on just what role Mark Hamill is supposed to play here other than being a guy who just shows up every once in a while. I don't know. He just keeps bringing up Mark Hamill, Mark Hamill, but they never say what he did.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Absolutely. With the force. Yes.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He's a great actor.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. Now, Al Bielek, a.k.a. Ed Cameron, he claimed that when he began working on the Montauk Project, he actually lived in California. But he commuted to Long Island every day via a magnetic levitation subway train that traversed the country in just two hours. Eventually, though, the train was replaced with an underground time tunnel machine.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The technology that made the time tunnel possible was what else but the Montauk chair, which, by this point, was being operated by none other than Al Bielek's supposed brother, Duncan Cameron.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No, it was first a magnetic levitation subway train that traveled through magnets.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It was levitating underground. It levitated over the tracks. Yeah, because of the magnets, which made the magnets also make it go real fast. Make the train real light. But then it's just a time tunnel, and they just walk through the time tunnel. They just farted it out.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
They're using time to travel.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Time is space. Yeah, they're using time to travel through space.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Using the aforementioned Sage Radar Array, which is attuned to broadcast on the frequency that accesses human consciousness, the Montauk Project scientists figured out that if they could use the Montauk chair to break into the mind, they could also use it to broadcast the thoughts and feelings of the chair's user out into the world.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Of course it's not.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It does. Now, I have no idea how Duncan Cameron made his way back into the Montauk Project, whether his younger self was recruited or kidnapped or what, because Duncan Cameron was extremely vague on many extremely important plot points such as this. What we do know is that at some point in the early 70s, Duncan Cameron had somehow become an extremely powerful psychic.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He was therefore one of the Montauk Project's most important assets. Although it does seem like he was being forced to use the Montauk chair against his will.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Power of positive thinking.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, I'm also unsure if Al Bielek and Duncan Cameron knew that they were supposedly brothers while they were in Montauk. They didn't know. They didn't know. But the important thing to know here is that Al Bielek claims that he was the program director in charge of the psychics who manned the Montauk chair. He's sort of like the Matthew Modine character in Stranger Things.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So to recap one more time, we're now back in the late 70s where Al Bielek, a.k.a. Ed Cameron, was controlling the mechanisms behind the Montauk chair while his supposed brother, Duncan Cameron, was sitting in the chair itself operating as the psychic battery.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And yes, they did say over and over again, you said that Preston Cameron said that it wasn't that he was psychic, but in the books they refer to him as a powerful psychic like thousands of times.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Problem was, though, couldn't just use any old Montauk boy for such an incredible task. To truly unlock the potential of the Montauk chair, the Montauk Project needed a powerful psychic. Someone whose abilities went far beyond that of your average Long Island boy.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, once the Montauk chair moved beyond influencing the thoughts of the person sitting in it, it was discovered that the chair could be used to read the mind of the user, although that person did need to be a powerful psychic for the chair to properly work. The psychic would think specific thoughts, which the Montauk chair computers would quote-unquote catch and translate to a display monitor.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But as the scientists learned more about the Montauk chair and the alien technology contained therein, they found they could use the chair to amplify thoughts and minds to achieve incredible things. So by 1977, the transmitter system for the Montauk chair could be used to receive and transmit any and all psychoactive functions.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And it seemed like the sky was the limit as long as Duncan Cameron was the psychic in the seat.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It's got to be like 10 feet tall at least.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It is literally a chair. It's Long Island after all.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Oh, okay. That's just a recliner.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I imagined something that was sort of like the Game of Thrones chair, like the Game of Thrones throne, except made out of electronics, and there's all sorts of monitors and shit attached to it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Bob's Discount Furniture? Yeah. Great. Well, the...
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The psychic they found, who eventually became one of the other Montauk Project whistleblowers right alongside scientist Preston Nichols, he was also the man who supposedly helped unlock the time travel possibilities of the Montauk chair. This incredibly unique creature was named Duncan Cameron.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, the first seemingly impossible thing that Duncan Cameron claimed to have achieved was the ability to concentrate on just the thought of an object and using nothing but the power of his mind. He claimed that he could produce said object out of thin air. I would imagine that's what it sounds like when something comes from another dimension.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, the results of this thought-matter transformation, however, were mixed. Sometimes it was said that Duncan could conjure up just the image of an object, which would disappear as soon as the Montauk chair was turned off. But once Duncan got really good at creating matter out of pure thought, the objects would be solid, and they would remain long after the experiment ended.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And it was even said that he could make new buildings appear on the grounds of the Montauk base. What? Would have been helpful after 9-11. They really are straight up.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
On the more Stranger Things side of the Montauk Project, Duncan claimed that in an experiment called the Seeing Eye, he could use an object that belonged to a person, like a lock of hair, and use that object as a conduit that would allow him to see, hear, and feel everything that his target experienced.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No, I think it died with our, I think it died actually with the generation before us. Cause no one ever gave me a lock of hair.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Back to the thirties, forties, fifties. Like these people have been doing locks. Like it's just us. You know, it's another thing millennials killed. We killed the lock of hair industry.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
One after another after another. Well, Duncan claimed that he could use the seeing eye experiment to find anyone on the planet 99 times out of 100 if his powers were amplified by the Montauk chair. And he even claimed that he could control people if he took his powers to the limits.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Duncan, however, said that he could only reach the height of his powers by tapping into his secret CIA NSA psychosexual training. Yes, my brother taught me. He said that he could put himself into a state of orgasmic trance by presumably tapping into Wilhelm Reich's organ energies. And when he was in this state, he claimed that he was far more pliable for experiments.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. Oh, sure. No, that's Preston Nichols. Preston's the big boy, Duncan Cameron.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, the experiments with Duncan Cameron and the Montauk chair continued in a sort of scattershot way to see what stuck. Although most of the time, it seemed like Duncan was focusing his psychic energies on the poor local people of Montauk.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It was said that Duncan could make TVs malfunction and he could use telekinesis to destroy random rooms around town like a poltergeist and could even make windows shatter at will.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No. So you think he was reaching into Queens?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I guess it's not. No.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. And my wife was born in Long Island. Nice.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Fucking ground to a goddamn halt.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, Duncan also claimed that he could influence conscious creatures. He said he could cause animals from the surrounding wooded areas to invade Montauk, or he could influence citizens to embark on spontaneous crime waves that would stop just as suddenly.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Unfortunately for Duncan Cameron, using the Montauk chair came at a price. Supposedly, since he was bombarded with intense radio and microwaves every time he used it, his brains and chest were being slowly cooked over time. Duncan claimed that this so-called cooking was so intense that he had become effectively brain-dead by the year 1986.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He said he consulted with a neurologist and a group of psychics, who all confirmed that while, yes, his brain was dead, his body and consciousness were still functioning at a relatively normal rate. I need this dumb. I need to go talk to these guys. Yes, sir, the brain is dead, but your legs did carry you here.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Supposedly, Duncan's doctor told him that the only way it was possible for Duncan to be brain dead, yet still apparently alive, was because of his strong psychic powers. I knew it. I knew I would be. According to the doctor, the experiments had killed his living body, but his psychic self took over and held him together.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So while his brain stem and spinal cord were alive, his actual brain was dead as a doornail. That, I believe.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
You know, I don't get all the hate for French Stewart. I thought he was delightful. This is wonderful.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Why would you want a flippy switch?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And frown. Yes.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He's talking. He's hanging out. No, it's because it's his psychic self that's doing all of it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. It's just that, you know, my brain was cooked by all these experiments I was involved in in 1986.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Duncan supposedly spent two years doing all sorts of psychic experiments at the Montauk Project. But in 1979, his psychic thoughts suddenly stopped. Or so they thought. Eventually, the scientists figured out that Duncan Cameron's thoughts, like the sailors involved in the Philadelphia experiment, had just entered a different time stream.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yes. Really?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So Duncan refocused his energies and concentrated on using this accidental bridge to create an opening in time. Supposedly, Duncan opened up his first portal in 1980, which created a 10-year bridge to the next decade. This tunnel was said to look more or less like what you'd see in the TV show Sliders.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And a person could apparently just stroll through the tunnel just so long as Duncan kept concentrating on it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, within a year, the Montauk Project had all but refocused the whole operation to time travel. Briefly, they rebranded themselves as Phoenix 3. Whoa! Complete with a brand new secret crew who'd been tapped to explore Duncan's time portals.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. For some reason, though, some of the Montauk scientists decided that along with the highly trained military crew, they'd send a few Montauk boys into the time vortex.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The boys, ages 9 to 16, of course, got lost in the time vortex.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So the scientists, they sent in a local boy completely outside of the project to go round up all the other boys and bring them home. Once they got back, one boy claimed that he traveled as far as the year 2000.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But some Montauk boys were unfortunately lost forever in the time stream.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But what if the voice is like really fucking stupid?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That future's stupid.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Civilization, at the very least, could be gone.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Where the Earth should have been? Well, that's the thing.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That's also one of the questions of time travel is if you travel through time, if the Earth is constantly moving towards space, so there's the idea that if you travel forward in time and you don't time it just correctly, then you will end up floating in space because you're traveling from the specific point that you're at, but the Earth is not there.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
anymore so you would have to you would have to go to the exact time and space yeah you'd have to do a lot of calculations to make sure like you can't travel to like any time you have to travel to one that would correspond with the earth being in that specific like why do you think duncan cameron was so tired yes this is extremely hard for him he's never had a job so it would always have to be on april 10th like if i tried time travel today i don't know i don't know
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Okay. Depends on the Earth's rotation.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, exactly.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Before long, the Montauk Project figured out how to use the time vortex tunnels to travel not only through time, but space as well. Although, again, it seems like this ability was discovered entirely by accident. Technically, time travel is the same as traveling through space. Technically, sure. While Duncan was... I get it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
While Duncan was opening time portals sometime in the early 80s, he suddenly found himself opening direct portals to the planet Mars. And it was discovered that Mars was filled to the brim with pyramids.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The pyramids on Mars are supposedly pretty much the same pyramids that we have here on Earth. But cold. Super cold. Yeah, super cold. But they're both filled with ancient alien technology. But while the pyramids on Earth have all been plundered by other alien races, the pyramids on Mars were sealed with extra security. So all that ancient alien technology shits up for grabs. Yeah, dude.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So to try and access the technology, Duncan Cameron used the Montauk chair to travel first to the year 1943, for reasons unexplained.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Then he used the chair to open a vortex directly inside the Mars pyramids, where he found a sort of defense system that was keeping aliens out of our solar system.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Duncan turned the system off, again, for reasons unexplained. And that, Duncan claims, is why UFOs began turning up on Earth en masse starting in the 1940s, because he went back in time and turned off the security system on Mars in 1943. Did he say, I'm sorry?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, Duncan Cameron's story is one of the most convoluted that I've heard in all my years of doing this show. And that's saying something. Before Duncan even took a seat in the Montauk chair, his journey involved body swapping, parallel lives, government experiments, and an unhealthy amount of time travel. What is a healthy amount? Once. Once.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
For this one, I don't think he did.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
After many years of using the Montauk chair, it seems like Duncan had finally had his fill of the Montauk experience by 1983. I'm just kind of burnt out. It's unclear whether what happened next was planned or spontaneous, but Duncan claims that through the power of his mind, he was able to shut down the whole project in just one day. Yeah, dude, he was fucking sick of that shit, dude.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Fucking take this job and shove it. On August 12th, 1983, Duncan was supposedly strapped down in the chair for an experiment, but for some reason, he began imagining a fearsome monster. Arr!
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Arr! Is it Conan O'Brien? The fearsome monster was a massive humanoid creature standing nine feet tall with a long snout, small eyes, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. People describe it as looking like the most aggressive Sasquatch imaginable.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. But just as Duncan was imagining it, the creature supposedly conjured itself into existence right in the middle of the lab, where it wrecked everything in its path and actually began eating any Montauk scientist it could get its hands on. Finally, someone's killing these Nazis.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, actually, that does happen quite a bit. You know, I know it's probably grooming in a way. Strange old men. No, no, no. I hung out with plenty of strange old men when I was a kid.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. Nothing happened. Okay.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd know if it happened.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I think if you do it once and you stay in that time, then it's done. Then it's just a trip. Seems never is the best way. It's kind of like heroin. You can't just do it once. But like the Montauk Project itself.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, there was really only one of them that I think came close. All the rest, he was definitely grooming me with basketball cards.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
We know that story.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But yeah, most of them were just weird, lonely old men who like speaking with boys.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It's much harder, yeah. I think that 90s are the last time that... You could really just hang out with a boy all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have no one saying that. That a weird single old man could hang out with a boy all day long and it was fine. In fact, people paid him to do so.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. My mom did that. It's called an unlicensed daycare. Yes. A lot of Montauk boys. No, that was actually, yeah, when I was five, I went to one of those. And in order to keep me quiet while the other kids were taking naps, the person, the woman who ran the place just let me watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom over and over and over and over again. That's a cool babysitter.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, back to the creature. Accounts vary as to how large this creature supposedly was.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, they did. Some people said it was 9 feet. Some people said it was 3 stories tall. But what we do know, supposedly, is that when the creature appeared in McGandit's rampage, our hero from episode one, Preston Nichols, was in the room.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, by Preston's account, the creature, which he later named Junior, was probably 10 feet tall. But even though Preston was terrified, he said that he was ordered to shut down the transmitters in an attempt to send the monster back to the netherworld. Yeah, he knew he was 10 feet tall because he could dunk a basketball at him.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, what are we going to do about it? There was, however, a hitch here. See, in order for Preston's powerful psychic energies to work at maximum power, he had to connect with a past version of himself. And apparently, this whole time, Duncan's 1943 version had just been hanging around on the USS Eldridge next to a transmitter, and the two versions were working together.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But since Duncan was too busy conjuring the monster, there was no one available to open a time vortex to 1943 to tell the other Duncan to turn off the transmitter on his side. Mistake. That's why you have redundancies. That's why you got a plan.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So when Preston Nichols was given the order to shut it all down, he took the same approach Duncan and Ed had taken when they had to shut down the Philadelphia experiment, which was to basically run around and wreck shit until the power turned off.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
As such, after cutting numerous wires and turning off every transmitter and electrical transformer he could find, Preston Nichols was finally successful in making the beast disappear. But not once. Before the beast wrecked the lab and killed many of the scientists.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Imagine being a Montauk, like Montauk boy, like showing up like, hey guys, I'm back from 2394.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But it smoked it, but it wasn't like, I didn't know it was heroin. I thought it was a different type of weed. So you shouldn't do heroin or opium once. You're right. Yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Just throw the Montauk boys at him again and again and again. The military allegedly decided that the Montauk Project was getting out of hand, so the entire operation was shut down.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
All evidence of the project was either sealed away in the six underground levels allegedly below what is now Camp Hero State Park, or it was all carried away, while the Montauk Project technology was used to wipe the memories of everyone who worked on it, including Al Bielek, Duncan Cameron, and Preston Nichols. And these people were just sort of sent out into the world with wiped minds.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Oh, yeah. No, they just wiped. They were able to very specifically target only the parts in the Montauk Project. Everything else was still there. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Good for them. Yeah, it's incredible. I could lose a couple things. Honestly, I could lose a couple things as well.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The Montauk Project was supposed to stay buried, but Preston Nichols claimed to have found his way back to the Montauk site almost entirely by accident, despite having no memories of it. See, Preston said that while he was working for the Montauk Project, he was also working for a defense contractor named BJM as an electrical engineer. It was Brookhaven. I forget what else it was.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He did technically, he did do that. He was definitely an electrical engineer. We do know that. So when the Montauk Project ended, Preston said he continued his life working for BJM, elsewhere on Long Island, I believe. But seemingly just a few months after his mind was wiped, Preston obtained a grant from someone to study telepathic communication.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Please save all reality-based questions for the end. Yes. See, according to Preston, the way that telepathy and radio waves work are similar. And since he was already an expert in frequencies, he had decided to branch out into studying paranormal phenomena by collaborating with psychics to see just how related these two things were.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But like the Montauk Project itself, Duncan Cameron's involvement in this story begins with the invisible battleship slash interdimensional time-traveling snafu that we talked about in the first episode, the Philadelphia Experiment. Now to place you in the correct time frame, because time frames are extremely important in Duncan Cameron's story.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Preston claimed that he soon discovered that there was a certain frequency that could jam psychic abilities just as one can jam radar. That's the 410 to 420 megahertz radio frequency. And some of Preston's local Long Island psychics were complaining about getting jammed up. I'm fucking jammed up as fuck, dude. I've been trying to figure out. I ain't checking.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, in 1984, the year after the Montauk Project was supposedly shut down, Preston took a VHF receiver and drove around Long Island tracking this jamming frequency until he finally found the source. Preston claimed that the psychic jamming frequency was broadcasting from a radar antenna at Fort Hero Air Force Base on Montauk Point. which is, of course, the location of the Montauk Project.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But remember, Preston had all of his memories of the Montauk Project wiped, so as far as he was concerned, when he showed up on Ford Hero, he'd never been there before in his life, even though he had, or so he claimed. So, when he began... So when he began exploring the now abandoned base and found high-voltage radio equipment, his interest was piqued. Yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Through the Surplus Disposal Agency, Preston tried buying this equipment, but the SDA couldn't find any record of the equipment existing. Eventually, Preston was contacted by a man with the suspiciously simple name of John Smith. Whoa. John Smith told Preston that no one officially owned the equipment, so as far as the SDA was concerned, Preston could just take it.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Additionally, the mysterious John Smith also gave Preston a piece of paper and told him to show it to anyone who might question why this corpulent Long Islander was plundering a military base. You might want to look at my permission slip.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, once Preston got his free pass, he began bringing a psychic friend around Fort Hero. Eventually, they spoke with a caretaker, a man named Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson. Who very helpfully showed Preston and his psychic around the grounds while encouraging them to take anything they wanted. Take this, of course. Take this trash can. As you can see, I find garbage to be a virus.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
This courtesy, however, was extended to just one single day. Mr. Anderson told Preston and his psychic friend that they could explore and take stuff, but if they came back a second time, Mr. Anderson was going to have to, quote, take Preston out. Because I like you.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The Philadelphia Experiment occurred in the year 1943, which placed Duncan's birth date somewhere in the 1910s, although that, like many things in Duncan's story, is vague.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
We could go get gelato. And so Preston and his psychic friend began exploring the base, where they soon ran into another man wandering the grounds, a man who appeared to be homeless.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
This man, however, did have an incredible amount of information as to what had occurred on Camp Hero in the recent past. I'll tell you everything about this whole stupid place. It's sort of like, you know, like Chris Farley in Wayne's World. It's like, wow, he had a lot of information for a limo driver.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. This mysterious, quite rough-looking man told Preston that the base had been used for all manner of experiments. Then he began rattling off a bevy of technical details about the machinery used in these experiments and how everything worked. The man then said that all of it had just come crashing down one day when, quote, a big beast appeared and frightened everyone away.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The kicker, however, came when this obviously disturbed man told Preston Nichols that Preston had not only worked on projects in the very base in which they were standing, but that Preston had in fact been this man's boss.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, Preston claims that he was skeptical about all the shit this mysterious man had told him.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But when Preston asked his psychic to probe the man's mind, the psychic supposedly confirmed that everything Preston's alleged former employee said was true. Yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So, going off what his psychic friend found when delving into the mind of a ranting vagrant making claims of monsters and mind control on an abandoned military base, Preston was 100% on board with the idea and began investigating further. Okay.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It's a fucking slurry.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He is, like I said, a very unique character.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, it does look real. It does look like something sinister went down there.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, and the fence, again, is about four feet tall.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But all this, of course, his investigation of the tour, this came much later. Where we're at right now in the story, Preston Nichols is still just trying to figure out what went on. So he started with the town of Montauk itself, went down, started talking to locals, and he soon discovered during his initial investigation that many locals actually recognized him.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Furthermore, those locals had quite a few tales to tell about the strange things that supposedly happened in Montauk because of the base at Fort Hero. Allegedly, several people said that experiments at the base had caused snow to fall in the middle of the summer, and hurricane-force winds could be summoned in an instant along with random lightning and hailstorms.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
More disturbing, though, was what the base was supposedly able to do with animals. At times, locals said that herds of animals would come marching into town in large groups and would sometimes come crashing through windows for no reason whatsoever.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, I remember that, yeah. Yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yes. Well, Preston then supposedly spoke to the Montauk police chief, who told him that the town was plagued with sudden crime sprees that would end just as quickly. Teenagers, he said, would also act strangely, sometimes gathering in groups for up to two hours at a time before suddenly dispersing.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
For up to two hours.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Same thing. Yeah, a little bit.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Because workers get paid. You're right. Yeah. Now, we don't know how or why, but in 1985, after Preston Nichols had been investigating the base at Fort Hero for about a year, Duncan Cameron showed up on Preston's doorstep. Hello! Duncan informed Preston that every suspicion he had about the Montauk Project was correct.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
and that they had, in fact, actually worked together numerous times on time travel experiments. Duncan, however, said that he was still a little fuzzy on the whole thing because his memories about the Montauk Project would phase in and out, but Preston claimed to have the ability to use hypnosis to recover repressed memories.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
So, with Preston's help, Duncan claimed that he was able to eventually remember the whole story of what really went down in Montauk. Now, from what it seems like to me, there is a sequence of actual real-life events that led to the creation of the Montauk Project story. Sure. All this is, of course, just my own speculation.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, Duncan was not the only member of his family involved in the Philadelphia Experiment or the Montauk Project. But Duncan did not begin his career in the world of high strangeness as a psychic. Psychic, of course, is the role that he played in the Montauk Project. Duncan Cameron actually began in the world of science with his brother, Ed Cameron.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
See, as far as how Preston came to discover Fort Hero, there very well could have been some weird frequency coming from the grounds in 1984 because the base hadn't been shut down all that long and it was possible that some equipment was still running somewhere.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Preston Nichols was also probably researching the link between psychic abilities and radio frequencies, because going off footage of Preston's home, he really does have a thing for frequencies and sound.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He is on a different level than me. I'll tell you that.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
because he's living in this at all times.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, no idea. I mean, certain sound frequencies definitely can have an effect on your brain.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Is that bad for you? No, you're not supposed to. Not directly underneath them.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, if Preston did track the frequency to the abandoned base, it is quite possible that he and his psychic friend were simply approached by a mentally ill homeless man wandering the grounds who told them an insane story about monsters and secret government time travel experiments.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But as you can probably tell from Preston's stories about his life prior to the Montauk Project, all the stuff about being friends with Jim Morrison and creating the Wall of Sound, all that shit, Preston definitely leans towards flights of fancy. And when his psychic friend quote-unquote confirmed the mentally ill man's story with so-called psychic powers, it was off to the races for Preston.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Ed was also supposedly born in the early 20th century. Ed was also apparently the brains of the family, having supposedly earned his undergrad degree at Princeton and a PhD from Harvard.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Preston soon started wandering around Montauk, kicking up dust, talking to everyone he could find about any weird shit that might have happened. Duncan Cameron, meanwhile, who certainly has his own fanciful ways of thinking, he may have caught wind of Preston's investigation. Duncan then goes to Preston's house with half a story.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But through the process of so-called hypnotic regression, which is notorious for creating false memories, Duncan and Preston were able to yes and each other into creating the entire Montauk Project narrative. And you're right, Ed. It is that one guy's fault.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I think so. It's possible.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But while he was at Princeton in the early 1930s, Duncan Cameron's brother, Ed Cameron, he met Dr. John von Neumann, who you may remember from the last episode as the mathematician who headed up the antecedents to the Montauk Project, Projects Rainbow and Phoenix.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No matter how the story was created, I do think that Preston Nichols believed that it was real and therefore took the whole thing extremely seriously. By July of 1986, he'd assembled a group of investigators who were all on board with discovering the truth behind the Montauk Project.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Once they felt they had a good narrative going, they traveled to Chicago, where Preston gave a lecture to hundreds of people at the U.S. Psychotronics Association, which is a nonprofit dedicated to studying esoteric, spiritual, and psychic arts because mainstream science refuses to do so.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
U.S. Psychotronics Association, by the way, still going strong to this day. And it's currently chaired by a channeler named John Clemo, who I'm sure has quite a few opinions on the efficacy of Oregon accumulators.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I'm still doing turtlenecks. I know. I know. But after giving that speech, Preston Nichols had before long formed a bit of a Montauk crew. He, of course, had Duncan Cameron on board, but Al Bielek soon showed up as well. And once Duncan and Al got going, they eventually cooked up the time traveling brothers living in their second body slash live storylines.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
When the three of them together, it's like, what was that super group with Willie Nelson? Oh, the Highwaymen.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I would say they're more like very talented jazz improv players. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But with conspiracy theory.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
From there, the crew hooked up with author Peter Moon, who began doing investigations of his own. Now, these men were making some pretty wild claims. So Peter figured it would be good to contact the head of the Montauk Historical Society, a man named Dick White, to see if this man could confirm or deny any of these events. This poor, poor man.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
You won't mistake it. Now, to Peter Moon's credit, he did publish Dick White's incredibly patient responses to his questions. Dick said that he didn't recall any out-of-season hurricanes or snowstorms, nor did he ever hear anything about large groups of wild animals running rampant through town. Although he did remember one time when a couple of deer crashed into a phone booth.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Dick White, however, did refer Peter to some other Montauk locals, including the former gardener at Ford Hero. The gardener said that sometimes when he was mowing, he would run over pieces of metal. And those pieces of metal would give him electric shocks. We kept doing it because it's his job and it's fun.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
As a fun pop culture side note, I did forget to mention last episode that the wheelchair-bound Dr. John von Neumann was partly the inspiration for the character of Dr. Strangelove.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Peter claims that the gardener's electric shocks were evidence of a highly charged electrical field in the vicinity of the base. From what it seems... Oh, did he say... For a second, I thought he said electric sharks. It's like, oh, fuck. I don't want to get into electric sharks. You think at this point in the fucking game, I'm going to introduce electric sharks?
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I mean, I just... I'm more... I'm much more likely to introduce electric sharks.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Because of the Italians.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It's electric. And they shart a lot.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
From what it seems like, Peter put far more stock into the Gardner's claims than what the head of the Montauk Historical Society had to say. That was more the direction Peter Moon went in when they started writing the books.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, despite very brief moments of clarity, Peter Moon still went along with all the absolutely insane shit that Preston Nichols and Duncan Cameron claimed. And eventually, they wrote five books on the subject of the Montauk Project. And my God, there is so much we did not talk about.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
that is serious there's so much more montauk project dlc that we have not been we can't include there's like the acid cabin oh yeah yeah the acid cabin there's this whole thing with this guy that says that he was a montauk boy who was sent back in time to assassinate jesus christ so he could get jesus's blood so they could fucking mix the blood with duncan cameron's
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah. Because he was one of those weird shady characters that was doing a bunch of weird government science. But he was Hungarian. He wasn't German. He wasn't a former Nazi. But his entire vibe was very Dr. Strangelove. It's like he wanted to be one.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
blood and put it on the Shroud of Turin so they could prove that Duncan Cameron was the fucking savior. But Duncan Cameron was also the Antichrist because Duncan Cameron was also friends with Aleister Crowley in a previous life.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That's a whole thing here that we could touch. This universe is five books. It's a massive, massive universe. And the more they wrote, the less sense it makes.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The beast, yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, the Upside Down.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The sink? The sinking place? Yes, the sunken place. The sunken place. Yeah, yeah.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, man, it's all Montauk Project type shit. Well, as far as Preston Nichols went, he claimed that all of his memories about the Montauk Project returned in 1990 when he accidentally electrocuted himself while constructing a Delta T antenna on the roof of his science laboratory.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Excuse me. Delta T antenna.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
No, it put him on a different time track. It helped his brain be that way. Yeah. But once the whole story was out there, Preston claimed that he spent the latter years of his life finding and deprogramming all the Montauk boys who were scattered to the winds when Duncan Cameron's mind monster destroyed the lab and shut the whole thing down.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Preston also claimed that because he insisted on telling the truth, he was spied on for years by invisible men hanging out in his yard. You see that guy over there? You see that guy over there? Nah. Exactly. Well, he knew that these were Montauk people because Montauk boys were sometimes given invisibility suits that were capable of shifting into alternate realities.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, just constantly. He wouldn't move.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Don't prank, guys. Don't prank. It's funny. Now, the entire Montauk crew, including Preston Nichols, Peter Moon, Al Bielek, and Duncan Cameron, they all took a trip out to Camp Hero in 1995 and claimed that they still observed the same mind control frequency emanating from the base, despite its official closing in the mid-80s. This, along with the... Invisible Boys in Preston Nichols' front yard.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I'm retired. Oh. It's all coming together. It always comes together at the end.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He was a Ralph Lauren fan? Yes, if he could have gotten the jackets and the cool hat.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Very possible. It's a really good squatting location.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, perfect squat. Of course you smell fucking urine. I smell urine. I smell defecation. I feel sadness.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Horrible. Ultimately, I personally think that the Montauk Project conspiracy exists and persists for the same reason that similar conspiracies like QAnon gain so much traction, and it all comes down to participation.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
See, the Montauk Project narrative allowed Preston Nichols and Duncan Cameron and Al Bielek to be heroes, main characters in a science fiction epic that was able to fuse itself into real-world events quite easily due to its open-ended nature.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, after Ed Cameron earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1939, he was supposedly recruited by the Navy along with his brother, Duncan. Although the reasons behind Duncan Cameron's recruitment are, again, very vague.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Once Preston and Duncan started telling their story in public, though, saying that their minds had been wiped and that they'd recovered their memories, they opened the door for anyone to claim that they were also a part of the Montauk Project. And more often than not, the people claiming participation weren't exactly living exciting lives.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
These people all began feeding each other stories and building the narrative out into every corner they could find if they felt it could explain something that didn't make sense or wasn't fair. And as such, whether it was intentional or not, I think that the Montauk Project served as the blueprint for the participational collage conspiracies of the internet age.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
The Montauk Project is the original collage conspiracy. See, when it comes to conspiracies like this, while the creators certainly get the ball rolling, it's the public that picks these conspiracies up and turns them into a far larger narrative. Ultimately, though, while these things start off as nothing more than fantasies, they eventually get built into something entirely different.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And sometimes those conspiracies, with no grounding in the truth, can have dire consequences in the real world. Due to just how incredibly connected our world is these days, though, there's nary a corner on Earth that doesn't have to deal with the consequences of these modern conspiracies.
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Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And I think a lot of this can be traced back to two idiots in Long Island who just wanted their lives to be a lot more exciting than they really were.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That's what I'm saying. The Montauk Project is like, it is the blueprint for the world that we're living in now. And it feels good.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
You could maybe find something like this at a gun show.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, it's like I was saying in the first episode about all of his claims about being in the music business. It's like in 1992, it's like I can't see. I can't. I couldn't. In 1992, you know how long it would take me to see who played the drums on Big Girls Don't Cry? Yeah. If I ever find a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
My name's Marcus Barks. I'm here with the croon in Henry Zebrowski channeling the spirit of old Dino, the old Rat Pack. When I'm done with one, I throw them away.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, and here it's tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, tech. I'm fucking done.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But before long, Dr. Von Neumann recruited both Ed and Duncan Cameron into Project Rainbow, which meant that the Cameron brothers were soon on assignment working in the bowels of the USS Eldridge as a part of the Philadelphia Experiment. So we're in 1943 right now. Okay. Working deep inside the ship, the Cameron brothers were assigned to the control room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, cool. And some people, of course, connect that to the Montauk monster, the thing that washed up on shore in what, like 2012? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was awesome. Yeah, it was really fun. It was a raccoon. Yeah, it was a raccoon.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, I wish boys could time travel too. And this is actually pretty incredible. only like a skosh of anti-Semitism and racism in this one. A little bit. It just proves that they just can't help it. He didn't need to bring it in. He didn't need to tell us that the Draconians were actually Jewish people. The Jewish people. Yeah, and that Asian people are insects. He didn't need to say any of that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
It wasn't important to the narrative at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, and don't forget to come out and watch the stream every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. ESD, last stream on the left. You can watch it live on Patreon or after the fact on YouTube, but I would recommend watching it live on Patreon because we play a lot of shit on the live stream that we cannot put on YouTube. So if you want to watch it unedited and live, Come check it out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, come back to the Pacific Northwest. We're going to Portland. We're going to Salt Lake City. Going to all kinds of fucking places.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Hail Satan. Hail Gein. Hail Preston Nichols.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
This is where the Tesla coils that created the electromagnetic fields that were supposed to make the USS Alger's radar invisible were kept. But, as we know, the experiment went terribly awry. Because Nikola Tesla purposely changed the shape of the coil so that they'd go the wrong way.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Except for the Jewish thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Well, and that's the other thing, too, is that Nikola Tesla was also dead for about eight months when the Philadelphia experiment occurred.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
He was doubled.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yeah, that's it. That's all you need. All right. I don't know why there's a, like, I think it has to be like 16 years. I guess you could technically travel, time travel two weeks. October. It is cold in October.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now because the Camerons were down in the bowels behind all those layers of steel and iron, they were supposedly protected from the horrible side effects that occurred when the USS Eldridge jumped through time and space. Side effects like finding your body fused to the ship's hull, or going insane from being exposed to the energies of another universe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But as we said on the first episode, the Philadelphia experiment didn't end even after the disasters of the initial test, because after all, they hadn't reached their actual goal of radar invisibility. So when the second test was conducted to give it another shot, Duncan and Ed Cameron were once again on board.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Yes, I feel agrees that if there's friction back and forth, then it is gay, but if it is just in there, then it's fine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Supposedly, on this second test, everything was going just fine for the first five minutes. But when the ship vanished from sight once again, the Cameron brothers could tell that something wasn't right going off how the other crew members were being affected by the electromagnetic energies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
In an attempt to reverse the damage, the Cameron brothers tried shutting down the generators and the transmitters, but the effects weren't slowing down. Faced with seemingly no other choice, the Cameron brothers finally decided to abandon ship to save themselves. Come, brother. Jump out of my lap.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
I told you, don't call me cum brother in public.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
And Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
This Montauk chair is lumpy. Let's just move on.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Let's move on. No reason.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But when the Cameron brothers jumped over the side of the ship in the middle of the whole experiment, they fell not into the icy waters of the Atlantic, but through a hyperspace tunnel in time that had been opened up. They blacked out and awoke to find themselves in hospital beds recovering from radiation burns.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Now, at first, they believed they were still in 1943, but they very quickly noticed that their rooms had relatively large color televisions, which were not commercially available in 1943. Pretty soon after the standard, what year is it freak out? Duncan and Ed were told that they had accidentally traveled to the far flung year of 2137. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
That's when the cannibalism started. Who's that?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
According to what Ed and Duncan Cameron learned, the United States had been utterly changed by rising sea levels by the year 2137, and California in particular had been almost entirely swallowed by the sea. The Cameron brothers also had no idea of how they could return to the year 1943.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
But after four weeks of recovery, Ed and Duncan were wandering the hospital grounds when Ed suddenly disappeared. He had no idea how or why, but he soon found himself even further in the future when he landed in the year 2749!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 616: The Montauk Project Part II - Livin' in the Future
Huh? Well, Ed decided he might as well make the most of it. So he made a life in the year 2749 as a tour guide in, I assume, a museum of some sort, where he likely told his personal experiences of mid-20th century America throughout his two years living in the 28th century. Oh my God, you're so fucking cute. Can you explain to me how refrigerators work?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
I'm marrying you! Let's go! Oh, no Elvis? Bring in Donovan! We're doing it the old way!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
No! What? Wait a second.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Don't tell me your favorite color is one, two, three. Orange. Well, that doesn't matter. What? That doesn't matter. We can still be together.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
One! One whole airplane! Not just the back, not just the wheels!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
What an amazing tale of copper and sun.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Always with this wonderful man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
You see people sit down. You're like, let's sit at the dining room table.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
I'm doing it the old-fashioned way, the way our ancestors did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
No one's looking for this here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
I'm coming, Canada! I'm coming!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
three of the guys come back saying that they had gone for a ride in the woods somewhere and cody got out of the car went for a little hike and they were positive he fell and he's dead jordan what i don't know who the guys were you don't say but they took off to call off the missing persons report cody's gone for sure this is from tony Wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Yeah, a lot of people say that about me. A lot of people say I got crazy personality, dude. So, you like... Lunch? Yeah? That's crazy, man. I just had lunch. Yeah, man. Man, that's like a symbolism. Where'd you go to college? I went to college? Yeah. I mean, no, mostly I just fucking... Cheap up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Well, I figured, honestly, Megan, was that underwear is like the guard of your pants, right? In many ways, why would I need more than one pair of pants if I have underwear between my shit and piss?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Yay, salads, huh? Yeah, I'll eat a salad before an entree. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 604: Newlywed Murders - Newlywed and Newly-Dead
Women are naturally offended by me. Obviously, I like it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
There's a long list, buddy. Very long list. Could have been the CIA, could have been the mafia. Those are the two most likely candidates. If you wanted to get deep into the conspiracy, if you have to put somebody behind that fence, I would say you'd put the CIA behind the fence.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the skeptical Henry Zebrowski, skeptical as to why these sliders aren't all over the place at all times. Who benefits? Quibono.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It was the the I remember going into it the February of COVID. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Fail safe. You know, it's like if one person doesn't get him, then another person will.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Herman Walker, H.W. Yeah, H.W.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I mean, the Bush family has been involved in conspiracies for decades. Like George Prescott Bush. Yes. It goes way back to... The Nazis and all that shit. Vanderbilt Bush, the other guy. Yeah. Or Vandervort.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
the fucking country yeah um so i would say i don't think vannevar vannevar bush vannevar yeah yeah not vandervoort i think that's that was a that was a street in brooklyn but i yeah i don't think george hw bush i think he was more on the outskirts at that point i don't think he had anything directly to do with it if there was something uh to be done
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah. LBJ very reluctantly got into Vietnam. That was the last thing LBJ wanted to do. He wanted to focus on the great society. Kennedy started Vietnam. Well, Kennedy was the one who promised the first people, yeah, the first troops. But there was even stuff involving Eisenhower when it came to Vietnam.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But yeah, Kennedy was the one who committed the first people, and LBJ escalated it, and then Nixon escalated it even more. But yeah, LBJ did not want to get into Vietnam at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And that's also my problem with sending all four of these guys as fail-safes. Because with these sorts of operations, the less people know about it, the better. You don't want a bunch of guys that are all involved in this massive, gigantic conspiracy. That's part of the reason why 9-11 conspiracies don't really wash out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Because in order for 9-11 as an inside job, in order for that to happen, it would take thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who have all kept quiet. Yeah. Like, to this day. And guess what people don't do?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But who's doing the disappearing? Like, that's the thing. You've got to get people to do the disappearing. Yeah. And if you're disappearing thousands of people, then that means that there are thousands more people. Like, it mushrooms out into how many people, like, the sort of staff that you would need and the sort of people. Of blind loyalties. Blind loyalty.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Well, I think when you talk about loyalty in the military, I think if you look at Vietnam to bring up Vietnam one more time, it's how many guys went into Vietnam fully believing in what they were doing and came out the other end giving Senate testimony. You know, it's like talking about a village.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, if you're asked to just kill a bunch of people, then your opinion might change. And I think it's the same thing. People do have an upper limit for how much they can handle and how much they can do.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And I think that there's just too many people involved, or there would have to be too many people involved, for the sorts of conspiracies that sort of like JFK, get four people in there, this massive government thing. Like within the government, too many people involved for it to stay a secret this long.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I think he definitely shot. He's one of the guys that shot. He's the one who he definitely took the shot. And I think he definitely hit the president.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
No. I think that Lee Harvey Oswald was working entirely on his own as an agent of chaos.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah. But then, of course, like Jack Ruby, that's a fascinating side story in itself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Well, there's also some really there's some interesting stuff. I know we're going to get to this subject later, but I definitely I don't want to lose this. I learned this recently. There is some weird connections between Jack Ruby and MKUltra.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Were you going to bring that up? MKUltra is next on my list. So let's go for it. Well, the the weird connection between Jack Ruby and MKUltra is that, you know, Jack Ruby was supposedly going to at one point, like kind of spill the beans and say, like, OK, here's what I had, like, here was my connection to it. Here's what I was going to like when he was going to go testify.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It's called a lasagna, ladies and gentlemen. And with me, of course, with both of us is Ed Larson. Ed, do you think the slider conspiracy is related to the Federal Reserve?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But right before he was about to testify, he was visited in prison. And I learned this through that book Operation Chaos about the Manson family and the possible CIA connections, which is fucking fantastic. It's both fantastic and frustrating all at the same time. But the guy...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Just before Jack Ruby was about to testify, he was visited by a man named Jolion West, who was a massive part of MKUltra. He was the guy that fed all the acid to the elephants. He basically pumped a bunch of acid in elephants until they shit themselves to death. But he visited Jack Ruby just before Jack Ruby was about to testify, and then all of a sudden, Jack Ruby's lost his mind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Like, Jack Ruby, he does not, like, he was not fit to testify after that, after this visit from Jolyon West, who was a central figure in MKUltra and also had connections to Charles Manson and the clinic that Charles Manson went to in San Francisco before Charles Manson went to Los Angeles, where he did everything that he did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Jack Ruby? I have no fucking clue. I have no idea.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Kind of, sort of, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Big Pharma. All right. That's good. I would think Big Pharma would be down with the sliders because that would increase diabetes and heart disease and such.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Or if you want to get if you do want to get a little bit deeper into conspiracy theory as far as like covering their tracks. It is also possible that Jack Ruby was hired by intelligence services to take out Lee Harvey Oswald.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
That Jack Ruby was the real he was the real Patsy because it might have been possible that they wanted to keep Lee Harvey Oswald from becoming any sort of like communist figurehead. Oh.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
definitely you know like that they wanted to keep him from like you know talking and you know and and having a voice because people are going to want to hear from him yeah he's the guy who killed the fucking president everyone's going to want to hear what he has to say and they might want they might have wanted to just fucking knit that in the bud and close the loop wash their hands of the whole thing and say hey everybody let's move on
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
So we can believe that or we can say that was made up as well. Well, I mean, that's the thing. Just because he has brain cancer doesn't necessarily mean that everything that he's saying is crazy. But he did have chances to talk, and he was silenced. And he didn't get the chance. We never really heard the full story from Jack Ruby himself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
We live in one of the biggest cities in America. You're going to be able to find sliders. No, this is Australian.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Something like that, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
He never said anything about that, though. We just didn't hear much from him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It's possible. It could be. I mean, I think that there were definitely people. I mean, there were many, many people in the CIA that were very unhappy with the direction that Kennedy was taking things and with the power that Kennedy was trying to take away from them. And God, if you would have, the world would be an entirely different place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And for me, but I think to that point, there was mountains of compromise on JFK.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
All the women know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
You think so? That was very true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because JFK was very much an adulterer, as was MLK. He's a horny guy. Very horny guy. They're stressed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
They're stressed, Eddie. They're stressed. It definitely shouldn't be used against them, but that's the thing is that they did use that shit against MLK. Of course. And they could have used that stuff against JFK easily. They could have easily used that to control them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Today. We're here talking about conspiracies. Of course, on our update show, we started a little segment, or actually it was more of a theme, of Ed Larson Asked Questions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Did you say Elizabeth Roosevelt?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Eleanor Roosevelt was a massive, massive political figure.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
She did definitely show that. Jackie was beloved with the whole television special where she brought people into the White House. It was a big deal.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, she was. She was gorgeous. Yeah, but she did make JFK far more popular by just her very presence. Whereas Eleanor Roosevelt could sometimes make FDR less popular because of her more progressive views.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Man. Because she was an actual politician.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
That's what they wanted to. Ostensibly, yeah. That was one of many, many, many, many, many goals for MKUltra.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Well, at the end of the day, MKUltra just didn't work.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Okay, so there's no proof that it worked. No, it didn't. Actually, all the proof is that it didn't work. That's why they tried to cover up. Yeah, that they just destroyed the lives of thousands upon thousands of people for no good reason based off of a rumor that came from the Soviet Union that the Soviets were doing the same thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But MKUltra, it's the interesting thing about MKUltra as far as the sort of people that may have gained access to it is that Henry mentioned Charles Manson. And it's not necessarily that Charles Manson was an MKUltra experiment so much as Charles Manson may have taken lessons from
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
the MK ultra experiment that he was a part of and used those same techniques to get people to, you know, do his bidding, not necessarily to kill for him, because I am still somewhat on the fence as far as whether or not Charles Manson truly did say like, okay, like go out and kill everyone at the Tate house, go out and kill everyone.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Cause the Manson thing, like that's still a knot that we're never going to untie completely. No. As far as like what really happened with Charles Manson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
No, no, no, no, absolutely not. That's propaganda from Vince Bugliosi. He wanted something that was a nice, tight story that he could sell in order to get Manson to the gas chamber. That's what he wanted. He wanted to get to tell a story, a crazy story, to be sure, but a clean story where he could tell a narrative.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But Manson did talk about the race war stuff with his followers, but it wasn't necessarily about starting the race war. There's a bunch of different theories as to exactly why, you know, you had the pig stuff and all that. One of the theories is that it really is like a criminal, you know, it's just a criminal making bad decisions over and over and over again.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
A couple of weeks before the tape murders, that's when Gary Hinman was murdered. Gary Hinman was a, um, a drug dealer, uh, that, um, what's his name? Uh, Bobby Bousselet had kind of had gotten into an argument with, it got into like kind of a disagreement about payment for, I think speed to some bikers. Anyway, uh, Bobby Bousselet ended up killing Gary Hinman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Uh, and a couple of weeks before that, uh, Manson had shot a, um, a drug dealer named, I can't remember. It was like Papa, like Papa, Papa Mooch.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
or something like that dude yeah yeah but like he he shot this black guy that he assumed was a part of the Black Panthers wasn't he was just a pimp like he was just he was just a black guy but Manson was deathly afraid of the Black Panthers uh and he was also trying at the same time to get Bobby Boussoleil out of prison that's one of the theories uh is um
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Because they had written pig at Gary Hinman's house to try to blame that murder on the Black Panthers because Manson had the Black Panther. Like he thought he had the Black Panthers on his ass, but they weren't. No, they didn't know who he was at all. And then when Bobby Bousselet was arrested, I believe like the day before the tape murders, either the day before a couple of days before that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
The theory is that Manson told Tex Watson, go get Bobby out of prison. Go do something to get Bobby out of prison. And Tex Watson in his, you know, fucked up, like, drug-addled brain.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Nightshade.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
The show? No. I missed that show, too. That was great.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
He didn't take anything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, and nightshade, it was like a bad form of acid. I actually found out, we're researching, yeah, I found out the New York Dolls took it for a little while, too.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Angel trumpets, yeah. But Tex Watson went out and they just went way, way, way too far. And it's possible that, you know, Manson, the next night, God, I can't remember exactly what the narrative was on the criminal stuff, but it's basically, like making these people complicit as well, making everyone complicit in the murder so they don't snitch on each other. It's like kind of a jail tactic.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
There was a really good documentary series, I think on like Peacock recently about Manson that because when we did it, we did when we did Manson and I really want to redo Manson because I've learned so much about it since then. Please. We got you, man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Give me another shot. But we kind of looked at it as, you know, from the perspective of like a failed musician, you know, a failed, you know, a guy who really just wanted like the whole reason why he talked about the race war was because he wanted to convince a bunch of 18 year old girls to move to Death Valley and ride dune buggies all day because that's what he wanted.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, but he loves it out there. He loved the desert. But he may have used these MKUltra techniques to kind of control these people, but things got way out of control. Way, way, way out of control. And there's also a government conspiracy involving Charles Manson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
that he may have been pushed into it because it said that the acid that the Manson family had was orange sunshine, which was a government-made acid. Yeah, it was that real, the real shit. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And when he was going when he was in San Francisco before they came to Los Angeles, because, you know, the whole Manson thing, it's like a year and a half between him getting out of prison and them killing the Tates. It's like a year and a half. OK, fucking insane. But yeah, he shows up on the streets of San Francisco out of prison.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And he basically starts gathering followers, starts gathering girls, and he starts becoming a pimp as well. And he starts turning out these girls. All the girls ended up with venereal disease. So they show up at this free clinic in San Francisco that treats venereal disease. But this free clinic is known to be, it is definitely connected with MKUltra. Like Jolly on West was there. Oh, yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Like they were doing, like Jolly on West was like doing tests in San Francisco. So Charles Manson and Jolly on West were probably, you know, there together. Kissing! Yeah, kissing! And one of the conspiracy theories is that they...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
use Charles Manson to effectively kill the 60s to kill the hippie movement to make to make it look that's the whole thing about Operation Chaos is like let's let's make this thing eat itself from the inside and make it and make it implode basically because they don't like it when we come together nope they didn't like electric guitar Nope. They hated electric guitar.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And then after Charles Manson was basically given these techniques or he was maybe pushed in the right direction, that's when he went down to Los Angeles and hooked up with Brian Wilson and things just worked out the way they worked out. I mean, it is definitely a long road to walk. From that San Francisco clinic to, you know, them murdering, you know, five people at the Tate House or five or six.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I can't remember. But to murdering all those people at the Tate House. But there are other really interesting things about it when it comes to the conspiracy, you know, world and Charles Manson, where, you know, Manson was on parole. He didn't he wasn't supposed to leave San Francisco. He left San Francisco. He went to Los Angeles. And his parole officer was like, yeah. Go ahead. Let him go.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Let him go. He got arrested multiple times, every time. Let him go. Get him out. Let him go. He must have been so annoying.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
fuck out of here but yeah but no he was he was let go again his people were arrested and let go it was there is a you know it does seem like there was a directive from somewhere from someone to say this group of people Leave him be. Let's see what he does. But yeah, let's see it like for no and no one can like and that's the thing about Operation Chaos.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
What makes it such a fascinating book and such a frustrating book and the author very much cops to this is that he just kept running into these dead ends where he would think that he would get.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
on you know the right track uh and then he just hit a dead end but there were there's just like so many questions of like somebody on high like and he proved this with paperwork somebody from on high did say leave the manson family alone leave charles manson alone if you arrest him let him go anytime his name came up in the system was like get him out of here uh so there was somebody that had a vested in in the government that had a vested interest in what charles manson was doing
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Was there anyone that didn't go to prison? Well, there was Sandra Good, I believe. Also, people come in and out. There was one that turned state. The one who told the whole Helter Skelter story, I think she may have gone free. I think there was one of them. But that's the whole thing. It's like the Helter Skelter story.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
There's a whole part in the book where it kind of talks about how the Helter Skelter story was created, where when she was first arrested, she wasn't talking about it at all. No.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And then as time went on, the Helter Skelter story sort of became something that was it got put at the forefront of everything when in fact it was just something it was just another crazy thing that Charles Manson was talking about to try to get people to do what he wanted them to do. It was a control thing. It wasn't necessarily it wasn't about starting a race war at all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Oh, no, they I mean, they use the stuff that's been coming up about Facebook, like especially like recently with the release of that whistleblowers book, you know, the stuff that comes about how closely the Trump administration worked with Facebook to micro target people to micro target like certain demographics.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
The people who are now at the right hand of power, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, those are the true conspiracies. That's the true stuff that is being used by the people in power to control us. That is how they finally figured it out. And the thing is...
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
The thing is that they are so incredibly good at that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And as far as governments go, like when you look at the United States government and when you also look at the Soviet government, or not Soviet, the Russian government and the Soviets back in the day, is that what, as far as conspiracies go, these people are masters at manipulating humans and masters at manipulating, like they understand human nature and they understand how to manipulate us.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
to get what they want. But when it comes to getting humans to actually do things, and when it comes to putting them together in these massive operations, that I don't think they're anywhere near as good at. I really don't. But they are very good at whipping us up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Because if you look again and again, throughout history, when you look at people that are able to whip up big segments of the population, they get into power. They get into control. But it always... To a fucking letter ends in absolute and utter complete chaos. Every single time it ends in chaos and it ends in death and it ends in massive disasters and massive destruction for the like.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
We saw it happen again and again throughout the 20th century. It happens that they know how to whip us up. They know how to manipulate us. But when it comes to actual plans, no, they do not have that under control.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
human consciousness was a mistake. It was.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
All the time. Well, it's like people are predictable. A person is unpredictable.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
They were nuts. Actually, I learned a term today that I'd never heard before. It's called the cool zone, where you're living through a period of history that's very cool to read about in the future, but at the time, it really sucks. Yes, yes. And then we are at this moment, like we're edging closer and closer towards the cool zone. Yeah. Yeah.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah. Oh. And, of course, he gained the injuries that possibly caused him to snap back and not be able to duck when he was shot. Wow.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, we don't know. I mean, James Earl Ray, I would say probably.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah. All I know is that if RFK wouldn't have been killed, I don't know if we would be arguing over whether or not autistic people are persons right now. Things might have been different. Yes.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Well, that's just that's just that's the fascist playbook. And it's been like that for forever. It's like it goes all the way back, you know, to blaming Jewish people for conspiracies is that they're at the same time the most cunning, evil, you know, brilliant people in existence. And they're also, you know, subhuman dogs that, you know, can't get anything right or ruining the entire planet.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Like, yeah, that's how that's always the fascist playbook, the double thing. And it's it's the exact same shit that we're seeing right now.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, we got to pay them.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I never agree. We shouldn't infantilize Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe was a brilliant woman. She's a genius.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Powerful.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, I don't think so. I think most, at the end of the day, most conspiracies are there because we don't like... the reality. We don't like the reality of what happened. We don't like the reality that this woman who supposedly had it all could still be... Sad enough to kill themselves. Yeah, sad enough to die by suicide. Those are the realities we don't like to think about.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
We don't like to think that one crazy fucker, one asshole with a vendetta, one asshole who wants to be famous... can change the course of American history. And we definitely don't like to think that it can be changed even further by complete and total happenstance. We don't like to think that there was a group of people in a cave in Afghanistan that could bring America to its knees.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
You know, like it's so incredibly easily like we don't like to think about these things because it makes the world such a scarier place. It makes it scary to live in. It makes it scary to live in our own heads. You know, like if you think that, you know, Marilyn Monroe, like if you think like, well, if that woman can't if she can't survive this life, how the fuck can I?
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
You know, like if you think like that, you know, these people and, you know, in Afghanistan can bring the entire government. And honestly, they won. I mean, they yeah, they did it. They did exactly what they wanted to do. Every single fucking goal that they had.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Deliveroo is, like, that's more. That's an app. I know it's an Australian app, but it's more international. It's also British, European.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
You know, we're getting there. Yeah, we're about there. We're really getting there. I'm ready to talk about it. You got our personal experiences.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
No, they use Deliveroo.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It's so much more interesting, yeah. And it's the one that has actually the most evidence behind it. There's a ton of evidence behind it. I mean, I know there's some people who say that there's some contradictory evidence, but... Yeah, there's contradictory evidence for everything. And this is the one for me that makes the most sense. It makes more sense than Lee Harvey Oswald.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Like that's the thing. Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone makes more sense than the CIA killing him. But the Secret Service agent accidentally shooting JFK in the back of the head makes more sense than Lee Harvey Oswald getting both shots off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, Assgrass fuck shit. Yeah, that's the British delivery app.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah, I agree with Henry here. That's a little sandwich. Wow.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I think you both are fucking fools.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And I know I definitely said some shit that was wrong. I know I definitely said some shit that was wrong here and there. But it's conspiracy. But yeah, we're having fun here.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And thanks to everyone out in Detroit who came out to our show. It was such a fun fucking time. I love Detroit so much. Best record stores in the country. The Motown Museum was a fucking blast. Oh, my God. We love Detroit so much. Just unbelievable. We know you're pulling yourself up from the bootstraps, and we're here to fucking support you, Detroit. We love you.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And if you want to see video episodes of this show or watch last stream on the left live, go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left to become a member.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
uh check out all of our socials uh at lp on the left on tick tock and instagram and don't forget to come out to all the other shows we got going on this year go to last podcast on the left.com for all the dates but ed's going to tell you about a couple of them that's right well currently this is friday i'm in key west
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Definitely.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
I'll amend that is that he wasn't hung over. It's that everyone else in the Secret Service, all of the more experienced Secret Service agents, they were all hung over. The guy who was actually holding the gun was brand new and extremely inexperienced and should not have been holding the gun. He should not have been holding the AR-15 that day. That's the whole thing is that they were hung over.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
He was not. He was just new and scared.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It very much could have been.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But to catch everybody up, if you haven't listened to our JFK series, it is personally what I think happened is that JFK was killed in the world's most infamous workplace accident, is that they were, when they got to Dallas the night before, all of the Secret Service agents, the more experienced Secret Service agents, went out to a strip club and stayed there until, like, 5 a.m., something like that.
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Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Yeah. Stayed out very, very late. And so the next day when it was time for the motorcade, they gave the most inexperienced agent a top spot, prime spot right up next to JFK. And when they came around Dealey Plaza and Lee Harvey Oswald took the shot, took the first shot, the Secret Service agent behind him. I know I'm skipping over a lot of stuff here. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Uh, but basically the secret service agent behind him, uh, got scared. He fucked up, uh, pulled the trigger and shot JFK in the back of the head. And it was actually the secret service agent, uh, who accidentally killed JFK. The JFK would have survived the assassination with just a wound. Yeah. Had it not been for the secret service agent and that off the top of his fucking head. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
And that's why... Two different bullets. Yeah. And that's why there was so much intrigue around his autopsy, why we didn't really ever get a full report on that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Straight up Virginia ham. The shitty ham, too. It's the processed ham.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Well, one of the things that we like to say again and again is never confuse incompetence for malice. And that, I believe, is one of the central questions or one of the central things to keep in mind when it comes to the JFK assassination.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
They hated him. The wanted poster that was circulated. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
You know, it's because, you know, we're in the Cold War. You know, the Russians are looking for any reason to say, look at how incompetent America is. Look at how awful America is. Come on over to our side like they can't even keep their president alive. It would have looked absolutely fucking terrible for us to say, like, well, yeah, we actually sorry we killed the president.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
But if you've got a guy like Lee Harvey Oswald that's connected to the Soviets, then that keeps the Cold War going.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
It's conflicting results. Actually, it's very conflicting results again and again. Yeah. Like where some people say that he was, some people say that he wasn't. It's hard to tell. And it's also the idea of like the gun that he used was not a very, it wasn't a solid gun. It was a cheap mail order gun. There's no way that he could have hit it. It was a hard shot. It was a very hard shot. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 620: The Miseducation of Ed Larson - JFK & Government Conspiracies
Me and Henry did actually give a guy 20 bucks once just to hear what he had to say. Yeah. And it was all nonsense. Yeah. Yeah, it was all total nonsense, but it was entertaining nonsense. Oh, very much so. I was thankful. It was worth the money. Yeah, yeah. He had a visual aid and everything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
Yes, of course.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
Oh, no, we better go check on that Salt Lake again. It's still plenty seasoned. Oh, have you ever been to Pepper Mountain? Yeah, we better go.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
It's closed off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
If I don't hit the first one, I won't be able to get to the second one.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
Yeah, no. It's crazy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
Oh, yeah. She did the fucking hellish review cover.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
You're going to have to break out.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
Don't touch me! You can't, no, you can't. That's totally good. No, no, you don't want to! Leave that corn alone if you want!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
To the morgue!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
And we're free of the nipple. Yeah. That's what we're fucking doing, boys.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 612: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part IV - Pet Semetary
You gotta do that. You gotta flip. You got to take that flip.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Exactly half. Well, that exclamation drew dozens of people from cops to reporters to simple bystanders, all of whom got a good long look at the sort of gore that a lot of these men had hoped they'd left behind in Europe and the South Pacific just a few years prior. Now we'll get into more details as our story progresses, but what those people saw that morning is as follows.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And we've got the tightly packed Ed Larson with us today.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
A smorgasbord of such horror that it's hard to decide where to start. But for the sake of the story, let's start with the first thing the police noticed. The bisection of the body. The naked corpse belonging to a young white woman with reddish light brown hair had been neatly cut in half about midway up her belly. What you'd call the true waist just under her ribs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It's a science. It takes a village, a whole team. The torso had been laid out on the ground about a foot above the legs, but it had been deliberately placed to the left of the corpse's bottom half with a line on the outside of the right leg ran up to the line on the left side of her torso. In other words, the two sections were deliberately placed, crime scene, as a work of art.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The less artistically-minded of eyewitnesses, however, described the placement as though two hunks of human flesh had been laid down like two sides of beef. As for the victim's arms, they were extended, imposed above her head like a discarded marionette, as one of the first reporters to write about the corpse put it, and her wrists, ankles, and neck were marked with deep rope burns.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Her right breast was also missing, but just the right— as were many of her organs. The liver, however, was intact and hung slack from the bottom of the bisected torso. But perhaps most gruesome of all, her face had been beaten and mutilated, her lips and cheeks carved out to give her the appearance of a wide, gaping grin.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, it was immediately obvious that this person had been killed elsewhere, not just because of the time it would take to mutilate someone like this out in the open without someone seeing, but because there was very little blood on the grass. In fact, the body had been completely drained of blood in addition to being washed or soaked in water.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, let's fucking jump right into this shit because I cannot wait. I love this story so much. And it's going to be a fucking journey, ladies and gentlemen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The grass was still damp under the body, meaning someone had placed it between midnight and dawn. The dew was still there, and the deliberate posing meant that the killer had done all of this for maximum effect. This was not a crime of passion. This was deliberate.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But when you say empty field, I want to make sure you know it's like two feet from the sidewalk. Yeah. Like it's just there's a road, a sidewalk and two feet off of that sidewalk is the body.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Near the body was a sack used for cement containing watery bloodstains. This was almost certainly the sack used to carry the body. It appeared, however, as if it had been carried by more than one person. Police also found a spot of watery blood on the nearby sidewalk, and a bloody footprint from a man's shoe was near the victim's head. These, however, were the only instances of blood at the scene.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, the only witnesses to any part of the body disposal were a neighbor and who else but the local paper boy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But both the paperboy and the neighbor saw a 1936 or 1937 black Ford sedan stop at the side of the body. The neighbor said he saw it at 6.30 a.m., but the paperboy said he saw it two hours earlier at 4 a.m., meaning whoever dropped the body may have returned after the initial dump for some reason.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The only other hard clue at the scene, which turned out to be nothing at all, was a men's wristwatch found in the weeds near the body. It was considered to be a military-style watch, which, along with the victim's choice in men, would inform certain lines of investigation later on. But within an hour, Jane Doe No.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
1, as she was still known at that time, was placed in an aluminum coffin and taken via hearse to the L.A. City morgue. Reportedly, when the coroner was told that the body had been cut in half, he requested that he be allowed to have lunch before he began the autopsy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The photos of the Black Dahlia crime scene are pretty hard to find on the internet these days. But as Henry said, I have a book called Exquisite Corpse, Surrealism, and the Black Dahlia Murder that shows the whole thing in great detail. And my God, is it horrific.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That might be our fault, though.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just a butthole. Yeah. But nevertheless, in the next day's edition of the Los Angeles Examiner Herald, photos of the corpse were published on the front page before the victim was even identified. While they did edit the photos, cleaning up the blood, bruises, and knife cuts to the face, they did show a fair amount of mutilation.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And even though someone airbrushed a blanket over the body, it was still a hell of a front page for 1947. But the news in Los Angeles in 1947 was one hell of a business.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
No, Ouija's photographs, that's what I was going to bring up. Ouija was a crime scene photographer in New York City, and his... Pictures are fucking graphic, extraordinarily graphic, and they were printed in the newspaper, like, every day. You had the worst gore you could possibly fucking imagine just printed in the newspaper.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Almost. See, before the cops even showed up at the crime scene that day, two reporters and a photographer had arrived on the scene first. And this was a regular occurrence with crime scenes in Los Angeles. And one of those reporters was journalistic legend Agnes Aggie Underwood, who plays a big part in the story of the Black Dahlia.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, she's the prototypical tough broad. Born in San Francisco in 1902, but she'd spent her youth in the foster care system. A relative in Los Angeles finally took her in when she was a teenager, but only so Aggie could be exploited as a possible child movie star.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, this is an extraordinarily Lynchian tale.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, Aggie settled down for a bit as a housewife with her husband, Harry, but decided one day to get a job at the Los Angeles Record working the switchboard just so she could buy a pair of silk stockings after her husband said they couldn't afford them.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
getting a job before long aggie underwood had worked her way from switchboard operator to reporter and by january of 1947 aggie underwood was the best crime reporter on the herald express staff at the age of 44 she was short and sturdy with a square jaw and a big grin prompting her editor to say quote she should have been a man And in fact, Aggie did do her best to fit into the boys club.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
She refused to cover gossip or pop culture and dressed, quote, shabby and slapdash like her male coworkers, wearing no makeup and the lowest heels she could get away with.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
I want you to know I'm one of the guys.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, Underwood was actually quite proud of being a true crime reporter, later saying that she was no sissy in her reaction to blood and guts. When a corpse was discovered, Aggie would usually be the first on the scene, pushing her way past beat cops trying to control their gag reflex so she could grab an ID off the body.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Eventually, this moxie would land her in the city editor's chair, making her one of the first women in the U.S. to have the job. During her 17-year reign, she kept a sawed-off bat on her desk to swing at overzealous Hollywood press agents.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, if Aggie's newsroom was too quiet, she'd walk out of her office with a starting pistol, fire it into the air and yell, quote, Don't let this paper die on us today. Moxie. But back when Aggie was the best crime reporter at the Herald Express, she was the paper's best bulldog when it came to getting the story.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And the Black Dahlia would be the biggest story of her life and the biggest story her paper ever covered.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, we're going to get into that in just a second. So on January 15th, 1947, the viciously mutilated corpse of a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth Short was found in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Within weeks, she would become known as the Black Dahlia, and her murder would remain one of the most infamous unsolved cases in American history.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Aggie wanted the story no matter where the story led, and then once the story was over, it's time for the next fucking story. Hell yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, while Aggie Underwood and the rest of the reporters who'd been on the scene that morning tried to figure out what this story was all about, the body of Jane Doe No. 1 was lying on a slab in the L.A. City Morgue, about to be examined by the chief autopsy surgeon for Los Angeles County, Dr. Frederick Newbar.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, he was discovering even more disturbing details about the body. Although, again, we're not going to go into every single detail just yet. So no fucking emails about how we didn't talk about how fucking dilated her anus was or whatever your favorite gruesome tidbit might be. And it was super dilated.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, after determining the age, 15 to 20, he thought, he put the cause of death as most likely coming from one of the many blows to the head she'd suffered. They were hard enough to kill, but not hard enough to break the skull. Next, the coroner moved on to the bisection.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
A very sharp, long-bladed butcher's knife had been used to sever the body in half, cutting through the intestine, kidneys, and the soft disc between her vertebrae. Flesh had also been cut from her left thigh to remove a tattoo of a rose.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The tattoo detail was held back from the press at the time, but the Herald Express did allude to the wound in their coverage by saying a piece of flesh had been gouged out of the leg. This was most likely done after the victim was already dead.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But when the coroner moved on to the face, he concluded that the victim had been given her satanic smile, as Aggie Underwood put it, while she was still alive. Then, as a final indignation, the killer had filled the victim's stomach with feces.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. No, I thought you're not talking like logs.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That gum you like is coming back in style. Now, this is a little out of character for us because we don't often cover unsolved cases. But what if I told you that Elizabeth Short's murder was, in fact, all but solved and has been for almost 75 years now?
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
I'm a people pleaser. No matter what, Ed, you're always going to be a simple man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, once it was all said and done, and again, more details later, the coroner concluded that whoever had mutilated this corpse had some knowledge in surgery because the body was so cleanly bisected. This, however, ran contrary to how haphazard the facial mutilation had been, leading many to speculate for years on end that there had to be at least two people involved in this murder.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But it was very... Well, that's the thing. What people didn't know for decades was that the coroner had ruled that the facial mutilation, an act of sadism, had been done before death, while the bisection, a cold act of disposal and display, had taken place after. Definitely.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, actually, no, it wasn't. It was cut off and shoved inside her...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
They were like ragged.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
She was definitely alive. Yeah. When that was happening. Well, the reason why people didn't know the fact about, you know, before and after was because the full autopsy report has never been made public. We only have excerpts. And the LAPD's official line is that the full report on possibly the one of the most, I'd say, top three most famous murders in Los Angeles history is forever lost.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But there are some who say that the report was lost on purpose because there may have been information contained therein that the LAPD didn't want the public to know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Secondhand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
No, there's only, as far as we know, there are only four people in this world who ever read the full report. You know, the guy who wrote it, the head of homicide, the chief homicide detective at the time, and the two homicide detectives who were assigned to the Elizabeth Short case.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, the public's hunger for information about this case was partially fueled by the fact that in 1947, there were five major newspapers in Los Angeles. And that's just major newspapers. That doesn't even count the small ones. This is in a city of almost two million, half the population of Los Angeles today.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And every single one of these papers were competing with each other for the latest scope concerning the murder. Incredibly, the sheer number of reporters on the streets every day scouring the city for any bit of information about any given case, they actually outnumbered the investigative force of the LAPD. And some reporters were actually far better at homicide investigations than the cops were.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, you might say that's just because the reporters didn't have to follow the rules that the cops did. But let's just say that the LAPD wasn't too fond of rules in 1947 either. This was decades before the Miranda ruling. You know Miranda rights? That was 1966.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, because there were no Miranda rights, that meant that cops routinely held people for questioning without informing them of their rights for days on end. But because there were so many reporters, there was a constant tradeoff of information between the police and the press. But that came with a price.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
What if I told you?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
A reporter often had to weigh the cost of reporting a story that might make the LAPD look bad because negative press for the LAPD could cut off the information spigot from the cops.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
that for very good reason the most likely suspect was swept under the rug and has stayed there despite a mountain of evidence pointing towards his guilt i would say uh like and subscribe please well over the course of this series we're definitely going to be getting deep into the who amongst the garden of who's but who really isn't the big question here i mean for some people it is for me i mean that's the whole reason we're doing it but
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But if you have a big story about the LAPD being a bunch of bastards, that can sell a lot of newspapers as well. It can.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But such was their collaboration that some reporters were even given badges by the L.A. County Sheriff to gain restricted access to crime scenes. They could also use these badges to help themselves out when they ran afoul of the law. Like, say, if a rummy reporter had a few too many one night and got stopped on Sunset Boulevard, you just flash the badge and you're good to go.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The first reports from Aggie Underwood at the Herald Express described the killing as the act of a werewolf fiend. Those are the words she used. And for many days afterward, the Black Dahlia murder was referred to as a werewolf attack. I mean, of all of the murders to call a werewolf attack. Yeah, I mean, not literally, of course.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
They weren't saying there was a werewolf at Luce in Los Angeles, but the mutilation certainly played a number on the imaginations of the local Angeleno. Seems more vampire to me because there was no blood. You know what? It could be more. It could be sort of a vampire werewolf combination.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But the story also absolutely fascinated Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Examiner edition that featured the airbrushed photos of the crime scene with the headline, Fiend Tortures Kills Girl. That sold more editions than the one announcing Pearl Harbor.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But before long, police would identify the young woman found in the vacant lot from her fingerprints, which had been wired to the FBI using an early version of the fax machine called a sound photo.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Within hours, the FBI linked the fingerprints to an arrest made on a girl who'd been busted for underage drinking four years earlier with a bunch of military officers at a restaurant in Santa Barbara. The LAPD was sent a mugshot of a beautiful young girl with raven black hair. A stunner, as the papers put it, who had originally hailed from the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Which is where Jingle Bells was written, was in Medford, Massachusetts.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, they were of age.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
They might have also been arrested for, what do you call it, contributing to the delinquency? That's what the crime is?
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. Well, her name was Elizabeth Short. Now, reporters began finding out details about Elizabeth Shore little by little as they fanned their way out from the information they could glean from her arrest in Santa Barbara. Back in 1943, she'd been working as a clerk at Camp Cook in Lompoc, California, and had once won the base's Cutie of the Week contest.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, Elizabeth Short's boss at Camp Cook said that she had a childlike charm and beauty, but she was shy. But as far as she'd known, Elizabeth never smoked and rarely drank. All she knew is that Elizabeth had disappeared in 1943 to parts unknown after a rumored sexual assault.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, Elizabeth's father, Cleo Short, was also from Medford, Massachusetts, but lived just two miles from where Elizabeth's body was discovered in 1947. Reportedly, he reacted coldly to the news of his daughter's death and was mostly uncooperative.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, her father was a piece of shit. Well, he'd actually moved to Los Angeles on his own in 1945, but hadn't seen nor spoken to Elizabeth since she'd started working at Camp Cook four years prior to her death. He'd been an absent father in her childhood, and while they had tried to reconnect in California, he'd cut ties with her because he didn't approve of her lifestyle.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Back in Boston, we'd call her a whore! Yeah.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The big question is why Elizabeth Short was murdered. And more importantly, how many people were involved before, during, and after? To try and answer that question, we're going to spend the next three episodes taking a tour through 1940s Los Angeles.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Most cruelly, though, was what a reporter from the Los Angeles Examiner did to secure details about Elizabeth Short's life. See, while the Herald Express had Aggie Underwood, the Examiner's city editor was a man named Jimmy Richardson, a recovering alcoholic in his 50s who was said to be, quote, the last of the terrible men.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, Richardson was a newsman without fear. He once waged a one-man war against gangster Bugsy Siegel in the 30s. But Jimmy Richardson was also a man without conscience who would do anything to get a story.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He had one of his crime reporters call up Phoebe Mae Short, Elizabeth's mother, and tell her that he was a reporter covering a beauty contest that her daughter had won, and he just needed a little more background on the bathing beauties.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Got this phone call. Got this phone call from a reporter like, hi, this is Jim Phelps from the Los Angeles Examiner. Guess what? Your daughter's won a beauty contest. It's a beauty contest.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
After the reporter gobbled up details about Elizabeth Short, happily relayed by her mother, he was ordered by Jimmy Richardson, listening on another line, to pull out the rug and tell Phoebe May that actually her daughter had been murdered and left next to the sidewalk in a vacant lot. Comment? Let's see what happens when we take the puppy away.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, what the examiner reporters had learned was that Elizabeth was a free spirit of sorts, the third daughter of five born to a single mother. Elizabeth was also a high school dropout, dropped out her sophomore year. Friends from Medford later described Elizabeth as a fashionable girl who was destined for a more glamorous world than the Boston suburb could offer.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
In other words, she was the type of girl who moved to California. But they also described her as a bit manic depressive. Using the parlance of the times, they said she'd be gay one minute and blue the next.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
You should have been a man. The people, the papers, the movie industry, the mob, and of course, the biggest gang of them all, the LAPD.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, and everyone knew that I needed to get out of Texas. To the point where they were almost rude about it.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He did.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, Elizabeth certainly wasn't going to stay in Medford, but she also didn't have a good idea of where else to go. In her short 22 years, Elizabeth had lived in Miami, Chicago, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and a handful of other cities, with her most recent address being in San Diego.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And so after discovering where she'd most recently lived, Richardson told his crime reporter to drop everything and head to San Diego to dig up whatever he could find. But with what little information the press already had, they were painting a very negative picture of Elizabeth Short. Her's was the fate of yet another pretty girl drawn to the promise of fame and fortune in Hollywood.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
In essence, the press called her a morally bankrupt floozy who'd slept her way across Southern California. Endless reports about her supposed sexual escapades soaked the papers. And before long, the desecrated innocent became, in the words of author Pew Eatwell, a temptress prowling the rain-soaked streets of an urban film noir.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, that's the thing is that she had, I mean, we talk about, you know, like modern people being born earlier. Like Elizabeth Short's really no different from like your average woman in 2024. Not at all. But for 1947, she was very unique. Like she was living an unconventional lifestyle that made people very uncomfortable. Yeah.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Love military men.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. Now, this change from virgin to whore spoke to a social anxiety that was bothering Southern California in particular at this point in American history. Inspired by portrayals of strong women in film, girls were moving to L.A. to live a life of freedom. I mean, they wanted to live like men. They didn't want to resign themselves to the roles of domestic servants or mothers.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
We're also going to cover a myriad of theories concerning who killed Elizabeth Short. All of them have a degree of plausibility. But in the end, there really is, in my own personal opinion, only one suspect worthy of serious consideration.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
This, however, wasn't just a 1947 issue. The influx of young women began in the early 20th century. And by 1920, there were more women in Los Angeles than in any other city in the country. And a lot of those women had dreams of being movie stars.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs made the moral panic even worse with his 1922 novel The Girl from Hollywood, which was about two young women who moved to Hollywood but soon fell into drug addiction, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and death for one of them. Elizabeth Short was in short order painted as the real-life girl from Hollywood.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, by some accounts, Elizabeth Short was being referred to as the Black Dahlia as early as January 17th, two days after her murder. But it actually took several weeks before that little detail came to define her entire existence. Jimmy Richardson, the last of the terrible men, if you'll remember, said that he invented the name. I invented the name.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
While Aggie Underwood claims that she invented the name. I discovered the Black Dahlia. But in reality, the name Black Dahlia had been given to Elizabeth while she was still alive. Elizabeth had jet black hair and liked to wear it high. And when she lived in Long Beach, she was known to frequent a drugstore wearing a black two-piece lacy bathing suit.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
She naturally caught the attention of the local men who began calling her the Black Dahlia after, appropriately, a Raymond Chandler film noir that had been released the year before called The Blue Dahlia. She liked playing into it. Very much. She very much enjoyed attention from men.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But and I'm not judging on that or anything.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That, however, begs the question as to why this man's name isn't right up there with some of the most famous murderers in history. Why his name hasn't become a byword for overkill. Because if you're not familiar with the Black Dahlia murder at all, it really is one of the absolute worst America has to offer. And that's saying something. I mean, we love killing people who come out West. Yeah.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But part of the reason why the name caught on in Los Angeles was that there had actually been several local murders that had been labeled with a flower. Murders that had been covered by Aggie Underwood herself. Which is probably the reason why she did probably cement the name. Yeah, she definitely, I think she almost certainly cemented the name. One of those was the White Carnation murder.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
So named because a white carnation had been found on the top of the body of a dead waitress. Along with that, you had the Red Hibiscus murder and the White Gardenia murder. Oh. But. Put flowers on.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But all those have faded into history because no name had the poetry of the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, under Jimmy Richardson's direction as city editor, the Los Angeles Examiner was one of the first papers to put together a more 3D portrait of Elizabeth Short. In San Diego, at her last known address, she'd stayed with two women named Elvera and Dorothy French.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Elvera had found Elizabeth sleeping in the Aztec theater a little over a month before the murder and had invited her to stay at her home out of pity. Why Elizabeth was sleeping in the Aztec, seemingly hiding out... No one knows for sure. That's one of those details we will get to.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
In San Diego or here in Los Angeles?
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Oh, really?
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, it's the one downtown. Yeah, it's looking real rough. Really just came to a halt here. I'll go masturbate there later.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, Elizabeth had told Elvera and Dorothy that she'd gone to L.A. to be an actress, but was looking for work in San Diego in the meantime. She also claimed that she was a recent widow. Her husband, she said, a one-major Matt Gordon, had just been killed flying over India. And she further claimed that she'd given birth to his child, but the child had also died.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, that's... She did not have a kid. Well, that's the thing. I mean, Major Matt Gordon did exist. He did die over India in September of 1945. Elizabeth Short did receive a telegram from the Major's mother informing her of his death. But the mother said that she sent telegrams to all of her son's friends as a courtesy.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And there's no evidence of a marriage between Matt Gordon and Elizabeth Short. Nor is there any record of her giving birth to a child. Sure.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes. Quite possibly. Now, these half-truths that Elizabeth told about herself make it a hell of a lot harder to figure out what was really happening in her life during this time period. But she did tell Dorothy and Elvira that she had an inside track to Hollywood through some celebrity and was doing some work as a movie extra. That's also, we don't think, there's no record of her as a movie extra.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
There is some, like, very short, piece of video footage that is thought to be her, but it's just her on the street.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But to answer that question, it all has to do with the hypothesis I have. I think that people actually like the Black Dahlia murder better as a mystery that will remain unsolved for all eternity, although the reasons why people want it to remain mysterious differ from person to person. From one perspective, if the case remains unsolved...
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But what's known for a fact is that on some nights, a knock would come at the door of Elvera and Dorothy's home while Elizabeth was staying there. She would refuse to answer and would become terribly frightened, but would also refuse to say anything about who might be on the other side of that door. And those for you to remember, this is up to a month before her death.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
To make things even more mysterious, about a week before Elizabeth's body was found, a man and a woman arrived at the house where Elizabeth was staying in a car driven by a second man. Three people had shown up in San Diego looking for Elizabeth. But when they knocked on the door, Elizabeth got panicky and refused to answer again.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That's one of the big theories. All Alvera and Dorothy knew was that Elizabeth suddenly wanted to leave San Diego as quickly as possible after that encounter with those three people. And two days later, she left with a tall, red-haired, freckled man in his 20s named Red.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The Jimmy Richardson's crime reporter miles ahead of the police got a license plate number from Red's car from a nearby motel where Red and Elizabeth had stayed the night before she returned to Los Angeles. The car belonged to a 25 year old pipe clamp salesman named Robert Manley, known to his friends. As Red.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And so, Jimmy Richardson ordered his reporters to get an interview with Red Manley, the first prime suspect of the Black Dahlia murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. Now, Manley was in San Francisco on a work trip when Jimmy Richardson's reporter showed up at his home in Huntington Park. Unfortunately for Red, the person who was home that night was his wife, who was none too pleased to be questioned about the Black Dahlia murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That's Red Manly for you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
You know, what's funny is that now that you say that and I think back to all the, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Elizabeth Short, with her almost movie star face and complicated erratic backstory, she becomes an almost romantic, even angelic figure, the Beat Generation's wandering sacrificial lamb laid out like an art installation in the middle of the City of Dreams.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, as soon as Red returned from San Francisco, he was ambushed and arrested by cops and reporters. Immediately, he said, quote, I know why you're here. But I didn't do it. Yep. Immediately. First thing he said. Now, Manley wouldn't talk to the cops or the reporters who would help find him. But where Jimmy Richardson left off, Aggie Underwood stepped in.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
In the most 1940 speech you could imagine, she, according to her recollection, told him, quote, Look, fella, you're in one hell of a spot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Taking Aggie's advice, Manley told his story to her first, then repeated it over and over again to the police.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, he said that he had met Elizabeth Short in San Diego the previous December, just after he and his wife had a baby. According to Manley, his marriage was going through an adjustment period.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
So he decided to test himself with a pretty young girl to quote, I just wanted to see if I could still love my wife.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, he claimed that he never slept with Elizabeth Short, but they did ride around, dance, and have dinner. They did kiss, but he said that when they did, she was, quote, kind of cold. I think it was because she was cut in half at the time. Now, Manley left Elizabeth in San Diego after their first fling, but returned the next month on January 8th when he offered to give her a ride back to L.A.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
at her request. That night, though, before they left, they danced and had some drinks, and Manley said that Short was happy until they got to the motel room.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He said that she became sullen and silent, and when he tried making a move, she said that it was her time of the month.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And she refused to even discuss sex. Manley said fair enough. But the suspicious part of the story began the next day on their way back to Los Angeles. Well, have it your way. I'll go ahead and fuck myself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But by the time they made their way to Laguna Beach at around 5 p.m., Elizabeth got anxious, staring intently at every car that passed, straining her neck to see who the passengers were while saying almost nothing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But when they finally got to Los Angeles proper at around 6.30 p.m., Elizabeth said that she needed to go to the Biltmore Hotel to meet her sister because she was planning on returning home to Medford, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Short's getting the fuck out of town. Or at least trying to. She says she's trying to. To him. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And so, Manley dropped Elizabeth off at the Biltmore, and the doorman later said that Elizabeth waited in the lobby for three hours. Finally, she left alone at around 10 p.m. But she did make several calls. Yeah. And that was the last reported sighting of Elizabeth Short until her body was found in Le Merit Park six days later.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. Now, Manley's alibi checked out easily enough. He was playing cards with his wife and friends the night of the murder, and his wife further said that it was absurd to think her husband would kill anyone because he fainted at the sight of blood.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And he didn't, mostly because she divorced him.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, about a year after the investigation, she divorced him, and he never fully recovered from being the first suspect in the Black Dahlia case. Suffered numerous nervous breakdowns as a result.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He had to be put away for a little while, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, to the point of her beauty, the very name the press gave to the crime that killed her, the Black Dahlia murder, makes it sound almost ethereal, like a song or a poem. But... If you introduce a suspect into this story, the beauty fades along with the romance. It's no longer the Black Dahlia murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It did.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But what was strange about Red Manly was what happened to Aggie Underwood just after her interview was published. Aggie, the best true crime reporter the Herald Examiner had, was pulled off the case without explanation. Well, in response to getting taken off, Aggie sat in her editor's office and did an embroidery for hours until she was put back on the story. You see what I'm making?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Just set a ball.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Says home is where the nuts are. And she soon after uncovered an interesting link between Elizabeth Short and another murder that had occurred about two and a half years prior. On October 12th, 1944, a woman named Georgette Bauerdorf was found murdered in the bathtub of her West Hollywood apartment, raped, beaten, and asphyxiated. A military badge was stuffed in her mouth, which led the L.A.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Sheriff's Department to believe she was killed by a military man.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Of course it is!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes. Furthermore, Bowerdorf was a junior hostess at a club called the Hollywood Canteen, known to be frequented by men in the military. And who else should be working the same job at the same club at the same time as Bowerdorf but Elizabeth Short? Dude, just like all the girls in Twin Peaks worked at Two-Eyed Jacks. Yeah.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Believing it to be too much of a coincidence, Aggie published an article linking the two murders with the incredible headline, Werewolves Leave Trail of Women Murder Victims in Los Angeles.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, Georgette's diary had been confiscated by the LAPD after she'd been murdered, and it was discovered upon second look that there were quite a few entries about Elizabeth Short and the time the two girls had spent working at the Hollywood canteen. Laura Palmer's fucking diary. Yes. Of most interest was their relationship to a then well-known actor named Arthur Lake.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Arthur Lake had played Dagwood in a series of 28 movies based on the comic strip Blondie between 1938 and 1950. Lake was known for playing light romantic roles, but was always a bit of a mama's boy. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
1947, yeah. And it just so happened that Aggie Underwood's newspaper was one of the many newspapers that William Randolph Hearst owned. So with one quick phone call from Hearst's mistress, any investigation into Arthur Lake, Georgette Bauerdorf, and Elizabeth Short was quickly nipped in the bud. Although there are no serious theories that say that fucking Dagwood murdered the Black Dahlia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It's now the story of the Black Dahlia killer, which places Elizabeth Short's death firmly in the grubby world of true crime with no escape. Yeah, then she's just some murdered lady. There is, however, an opposing perspective here that has nothing to do with romantic notions.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. But just because Arthur Lake wasn't involved, that didn't mean there wasn't a connection between the murders of Georgette Bauerdorf and Elizabeth Short, even considering that Georgette's murder was nowhere near as violent or performative as Elizabeth's.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, I mean, you'd think it would be definitely, you'd think it'd be a huge ramp up, but... But Aggie never got to find out anything about these connections because the moment she started looking into this link, she was taken off the story a second time. Except on this occasion, it was because she was promoted to city editor of the Herald Express.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Oh, yeah. But everyone thought it was strange that the only reporter making real progress at their paper on the biggest news story of the decade was reassigned twice without explanation.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Don't know, Eddie. Don't know. But Aggie took the job, and the story, more or less, went back to Jimmy Richardson. Now, besides the black sedan that had been spotted at the murder scene in the wee hours before Elizabeth Short's body was found, there really weren't any concrete leads as to who was responsible for Elizabeth Short's murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But on January 23rd, the phone rang at the office of the Los Angeles Examiner, and it was Jimmy Richardson who answered.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
On the other end of the phone was a man with a voice that has been described again and again as soft and sly. He was asking for the city editor. Jimmy said, speaking.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Instead, the Black Dahlia murder, often considered one of the most gruesome crime scenes in history, can also be seen as a cautionary tale of a girl who, in the words of many people at the time, reaped what she sowed.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And so, after Jimmy very matter-of-factly said, we need it, the soft voice said, I'll tell you what I'll do.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Immediately, Jimmy wrote the words, trace this call, on a piece of paper and handed it to his assistant, who jiggled the receiver arm on Jimmy's telephone to get the attention of the switchboard girl. The soft voice went on to say that he had Elizabeth's address book, her birth certificate, and a few other items that she had in her handbag.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
When Jimmy asked when they could expect these items, the soft voice said, Oh, within the next day or so.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Flabbergasted, Jimmy sat back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and said, I think I might have been talking to the killer of the Dahlia. And sure enough, two days later, a package arrived at the examiner's office postmarked January 24th, the day after Jimmy Richardson had gotten the call. Written on the front of the package in words clipped from newspapers and magazines was this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And inside, among other things, was Elizabeth Short's birth certificate, social security card, and a baggage claim check for two suitcases and a hat box at a local Greyhound station. But most important was a brown leather notebook filled with names and numbers, what appeared to be Elizabeth Short's address book. Strangely, the name Mark Hansen was printed on the front.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And believe you me, we'll be getting into Mr. Hansen on the next episode. But even more strange was the fact that several pages had been cut out of the book, meaning that it was possible that whoever sent it didn't want the reporters or the police to have certain bits of information.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes. Oh, yeah. But lest the police get too excited, the entire package had been soaked in gasoline, which meant that there were no usable fingerprints on anything that was inside or outside of the envelope.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Four days later, though, the promised letter to follow arrived at the examiner. This time it was a handwritten message and very short. It said, quote, Here it is.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, the cops awaited January 29th like it was Christmas Day, and they couldn't wait to find out what the fuck Black Dahlia Avenger meant.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
They figured it was probably in reference to some sort of wrong that Elizabeth Short had committed, either real or imagined, that the person who had killed her had avenged something. But once January 29th came, they thought that they were going to find out for sure. But January 29th came and went.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The next day, another postcard arrived at the examiner, this time returning to the cut-and-paste method. It said, quote, Have changed my mind.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes. See, Elizabeth Short, just 22 when she died, lived an unconventional life for 1947. She was a drifter of sorts from Massachusetts, who just sort of ended up in and out of Southern California. A kid who didn't or couldn't buy into the conventions of post-World War II America.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And after that missive, the newspapers in Los Angeles and the offices of the LAPD were flooded with letters and postcards supposedly from this Black Dahlia Avenger, making it impossible to tell what was real and what was a hoax.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
This guy, the Zodiac, BTK.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
The false leads overwhelmed the investigation on both sides. And while there were four viable fingerprints taken from the second postcard, it was believed by the FBI that only the first package and the first postcard were from the actual killer. Although they may also have their reasons for holding that opinion.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
From there, though, the police had to contend with a mountain of what they called confessing Sams. These were men and women who didn't do the crime but wanted to take credit for the murder anyway.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It was interesting, though, that at least one confessing Sam got attached to another brutal murder. Just a few weeks after Elizabeth Short was killed, another woman, a 45-year-old pilot, army nurse, and bit player named Jean French, was found beaten and stomped to death on the corner of Grandview and Indianapolis Avenue. On her torso, someone had written a message in lipstick. Fuck you, BD.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Presumably, fuck you, Black Dahlia.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
They said it could also be fuck you BP, but it could, you know, who knows? It could be anything, but it was either BP or.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah. Also, the crime, the killing of Jean French, also unsolved to this day. The cops believed at the time that Jeanne French had been murdered in a rage by the Black Dahlia killer because two days earlier, the Herald Express had declared that a man named Joseph Dumais, who would spend years confessing and recanting about Black Dahlia, was the man who murdered her.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
500. Such a ridiculous number.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
No idea. Now, some of these confessing Sams were led by the press and public opinion to create fantastical stories that were nowhere near the truth. See, for a time, it was speculated that Elizabeth Short was gay because she was sometimes known to be in the company of, quote, bossy blondes and women with Amazonian proportions.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, the gay angle was, of course, salacious, but it also served to further smear Elizabeth short. Because while male homosexuality in Hollywood in the 1940s was condemned, lesbianism was actually seen as the far greater sin and the bigger perversion.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
You know what I mean? Lesbians. There's a dick going into a hole. I can grasp that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, it was said that gay women dressed in men's clothing to trick innocent young girls into horrifying sadistic situations, just like the Black Dahlia murder. And a reporter at the Examiner was particularly sure that the murderer was a disgruntled lesbian.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
These were men trapped in women's bodies, they said. Neurotic, tragic, absurd, and dangerous. And it seemed like this story was actually going to play out when a woman named Christine Reynolds confessed to Elizabeth's murder.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Reynolds said that she'd met Elizabeth at a gay bar called the Crown Jewel on January 9th, and it killed her soon after, using some of the worst details about the mutilation that had been held back from the public as proof. Namely, Christine had said after the murder of Elizabeth Short, she had, quote, cut some of her goddamn hair off and shoved it up her fucking pussy. And the thing was...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
This did happen. The killer did cut off a piece of skin from Elizabeth Short's pubic area before forcing it into her vagina after her death. But when Christine Reynolds was further interrogated, it was found that she had a girlfriend who worked for the LAPD who had told her all the gory details about the mutilation that had been withheld from the public.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Nevertheless, the lesbian angle continued to be pushed for years.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Who knows? All of this came and went in the course of a couple hours. She gets put in the box and starts confessing. One of the big... tricks that they used with these confessing Sams was the hair color. Yes. Because everyone sort of assumed that when Elizabeth Short was killed that she still had her like famous raven black hair.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But no, she'd actually dyed it using henna really like pretty recently before. So her hair when she was killed was actually kind of a reddish light brown. Okay. Yeah. So if they didn't know that detail, then it was like, okay, you definitely aren't the person who killed her.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, the man who was responsible for sifting through all the Confessing Sam stories to maybe find the real killer was also the only guy in Los Angeles who seemed to have a real hook on who the Black Dahlia killer might be. That man was Dr. Joseph Paul DeRiver.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He was a psychiatrist who worked for the Los Angeles Police Department. He's an interesting guy. He is interesting. And of course, some people say that he's completely discredited because he made up his job. But, you know, it's the 1930s. Somebody's got to make up the job.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, I made this up. I made up this job. This is the job we created. Now, because of the public display of the body and the Black Dahlia Avenger communications, DeRiver was convinced that the murderer would continue to interact with the public. Yes. So, if someone wanted to talk, DeRiver would listen. Because DeRiver had already danced to this song once before.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Well, as a consequence, Elizabeth Short became an example of what could happen if you stepped outside the boundaries that society had drawn for the average American woman in 1947. Put another way, people could make a stark comparison with no middle ground using Elizabeth Short's murder.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
See, in 1937, he'd worked a case called the Babes of Inglewood. It's now lost time. But before the Black Dahlia, it was the most disturbing set of homicides the city had yet seen. In this case, three little girls, ages 7, 8, and 9, were found raped and strangled to death in a gully in Baldwin Hills.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Going just off the way the bodies were positioned and the fact that their shoes had been removed and placed next to them, DeRiver deduced that the killer was a sadistic pedophile in his 20s who was meticulous in his appearance, he was religious, and he was remorseful.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It's hardly a bigger story. Yeah, it's a huge story, yeah. And now, like, actually, I found some information about it, but, you know, there's no fucking Wikipedia page about the Babes of Inglewood. Well, police soon found something very close to that in a 32-year-old crossing guard named Albert Dyer, who said he lured the girls to the park with a story about rabbits.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He then separated, raped, and strangled them one by one before preying over each corpse. DeRiver's mostly accurate profile was among the first to ever lead to the capture of a killer in Los Angeles, so DeRiver became a sort of star expert thereafter.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He also established the LAPD's Sexual Offense Bureau, which led to the California Sexual Offender Registry that was created partly because of the Black Dahlia murder.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes, it was used to criminalize LGBT people. It was basically used as like a gay list. And that was used mostly during the sex crime panic of the 40s and 50s. But DeRiver's actual target with this registry was sexual psychopaths like the man who had killed Elizabeth Short.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
DeRiver believed that particularly nasty sex offenders should be castrated, tattooed on the forehead, and get their ears clipped to a sharp peak so children could easily identify.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
You're either the girl that was found bisected in a vacant lot, or you're the happy housewife who lives in the home built on top of the crime scene.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But even though some of his ideas were fucking insane, DeRiver was the one who found the man who might be the key to the entire Elizabeth Short mystery. See, as was demonstrated by Elizabeth's paranoid behavior in the time just before her disappearance, it just might be that she got herself mixed up with some unsavory characters during her time in Los Angeles.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
These unsavory characters were the men who ran the city's underground, Men who had the power to not only cover up one of the most famous murders in history, but to eventually derail an indictment that would have almost certainly resulted in a trial that could have introduced a lot of uncomfortable questions.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And it's with these men, those questions, and the world where all this happened that we'll return to the Black Dahlia murder next week.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Whoa. And it wasn't photographed until about 11 a.m.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, there's a there's a lot. I mean, there's a million theories about who may have done it, why the motivations like you can for every argument you could make. There are six arguments you can make against it. Like, yeah, I mean, there I guarantee you there are people that just because I said the name Dr. Joseph DeRiver have discredited every single thing that I've said before or after.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Just because you even mentioned Joseph DeRiver because in their theory, in their world, they must remove Joseph DeRiver from the picture completely for their theory to be true.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yeah, we're going to go through a fair amount of them. Next week, we're really going to be getting into some of the other theories, some of the really interesting things, some of the stuff it does have to do that relates to the art world, some of the stuff that relates to the cops. And then on episode three, we're really going to get into the theory...
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
as to who personally I think is the best suspect and why.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Yes, those very sweet men. Unsavory.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
I think it's actually more. I think we're pretty getting pretty close to 650 at this point. Yeah.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Of course, Toronto is also this next year. That's on May 3rd. Don't forget to buy your tickets to that. It's at the Elgin Theatre.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Try. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
In reality, though, Elizabeth Short was neither of these extremes. As reporter Jimmy Richardson put it, Elizabeth Short wasn't bad, but she wasn't necessarily good either. She was just lost, a person trying to find a way out, a wanderer who bounced around the country in search of happiness and purpose. In other words... Elizabeth Short was as human as they come.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Or so we assume. That's the thing. We actually don't know a lot about Elizabeth Short's actual motivations. A lot about what she really wanted out of life. We're not really sure. We can just piece together things from what people who knew her said.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But in this tale, there is also a bevy of inhumanity. That savagery lies in the method of her murder and the likely motivations behind it. A story that's filled with a thousand questions about who did what, when, where, and why.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Oh, no. This entire episode is scored by Angelo Badalamente. Like at certain points, just like in your mind, just think...
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
it's so this this i don't know what it is this time this story fucking creeped me out but to help answer all of our questions we used three sources the black dahlia files by donald wolf black dahlia red rose by pew marie eat well and black dahlia avenger colon a genius for murder colon the true story colon part one by steve hodell there's a
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zebrowski.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It might not be the theory that we subscribe to, but you know what? That's okay. That's called opinion. So on the morning of January 15th, 1947, a woman named Betty Bersinger and her three-year-old child were walking through the half-finished neighborhood of Leimert Park, a small neighborhood in Los Angeles that was still dotted with grassy vacant lots waiting for a home to be built on top.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
But as Betty and her daughter strolled down the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue, she noticed broken glass on the sidewalk and a large black cloud of flies buzzing over what seemed to be two separate objects lying just off the footpath.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Why is that?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, when Betty got closer, she thought, perhaps unable to fully process the sight before her, that someone had cut a mannequin in half and thrown it on the grass. She thought it was a mannequin because the objects were porcelain white. Her first concern, however, was this unsettling sight might frighten some of the kids playing in the nearby park.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
So she decided to call the city to see if someone could come do something about this mess in the vacant lot. She knocked on the door of a nearby house, reported what she saw, and went about her day, shopping at the mall while one of the most enduring mysteries in true crime history unfolded in that lonely, vacant lot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Now, around 11.07 a.m., after a second bystander who processed the crime scene a little more thoroughly called the police, saying something horrible was laying in a vacant lot in Le Merit Park, the first policemen showed up on the scene. Their first reaction was to shout, Holy hell, someone's cut this girl right in half.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Operations that laid the groundwork for the secret government time travel mind control experiments that came to define the conspiracies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
So the Phoenix Project started way back in the 1940s as a simple weather control program. Simple. The Phoenix Project was the antecedent to all the projects to come. Eventually, though, the Phoenix Project expanded into mind-reading technology. And all of it was made possible because of the work done by the infamous Austrian pseudoscientist Wilhelm Reich.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Can we even just cut the scientist out of it? Pseudoscientist.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. I mean, we've always wanted to do a full segment on Wilhelm Reich. And this seems like a good opportunity to do it because Reich sideways views on science is the ship that launched a thousand crackpots because his theories can sound good if they hit your ear the right way, even if they have very little basis in scientific fact.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Basically, Wilhelm Reich had the theory that sexual energies or organ energy, as he called it, they could be harnessed and used in everything from cancer treatment to weather control. And there are still plenty of people who thought he was on to something. Oh, yeah, that's right.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Thank you. Concentrated Oregon.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, you could be one. You come up with a good pseudoscientific theory, you could be one next week. Fuck yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, let's briefly get into the actual history of Wilhelm Reich, because his work on Oregon energy supposedly laid the bedrock for the Phoenix Project, which in turn supposedly formed the basis for the Montauk Project. Oh, definitely did. You can take the supposedly out of that one.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
In this world. Yeah. Now, Wilhelm Reich began his career as an Austrian psychoanalyst who studied under Sigmund Freud. And as we all know, Freud had quite a bit to say about sex and its connection to humanity. But since sex was very much the basis of Reich's work, Freud would warn Reich against having sexual relationships with his patients. Reich, of course, did not listen and had four of them.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. One relationship, in fact, turned into a marriage, and his wife eventually became a psychoanalyst herself. Don't worry, my sweet young wife.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
German sex. Oh, yeah. Now, by the early 20s, Reich was publishing articles in Germany about the idea of, quote, orgiastic potency, which was the ability to release emotions from muscles by losing yourself in an uninhibited orgasm.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Muscles was a really big thing with Wilhelm Reich. Muscles. By the 30s, he'd even registered as a communist because he believed that there was a link between sexual and economic oppression. That all went south, however, when Hitler came to power in the 1930s.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Figuring that Hitler's Germany wasn't the place for a swinging sexual communist, Reich left his wife and fled to Denmark with his girlfriend in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor. That's fucking brutal, dude. Yeah. Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I'm going to go fuck professionally. From there, Reich made his way to Sweden, which he described as, quote, better than a concentration camp.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, he's right. Definitely is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Reich, however, met resistance in Sweden as well. See, Reich was meeting his patients for their hour-long visits in his hotel room, which led local police to believe that Reich was a pimp turning out his girlfriend to a never-ending string of Swedish neurotics.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
By 1934, Reich had moved on to Norway, where he attempted to combine his psychological theories about orgasms with biology by exploring Freud's metaphor of the libido being an electrical or chemical substance. Now, Freud had himself abandoned this theory 40 years earlier, but that didn't stop Wilhelm Reich from taking Freud literally.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
No, no, no. Just because somebody has a degree or a doctorate does not necessarily mean that they are an intelligent person or that you should listen to what they have to say.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, there's always the bottom of the class. There's always, you know, everyone talks about, I was the third in my class. There's also, like, second to bottom.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Reich began performing experiments by attaching a device that recorded the oscillations of electrical currents to his friends. Then he would direct those friends to kiss and touch each other so he could take readings. Now play with the bottom of your titties.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
From those readings, Reich began to deduce that there was some actual separate sexual energy at play here. A heretofore unknown energy. Reich spent years doing various experiments along these lines in Norway. But by 1938, Reich had made his way to the big time. The United States of America. Yeah!
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And within a year, Reich announced that he had discovered the very biological cosmic energy that Freud had touched upon in his own studies of human sexuality decades previous. Reich dubbed his discovery organ energy. And he soon after opened a new branch of science called organomy to study it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
No, it's not. The sounds are horrible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Do you think that he was inspired by Vril Energy at all? Vril Energy? I don't think so, because Vril Energy was very much more of a Nazi thing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It's quite possible.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, I think he may have had some influence, but he wanted to take it his own direction, and he was very horny. Super horny. There's nothing horny about Vril Energy.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, all this sounds pretty goofy, and it is. But Wilhelm Reich took it extremely seriously. And once he got infected by the American entrepreneurial spirit, his experiments around Oregon energy became quite intense, even though he didn't have a license to practice medicine in the United States.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
After finding out all he could by experimenting on animals, Reich moved on to experiments on humans in his basement. There, he would enclose nude test subjects in five-foot-tall plywood boxes lined with rock wool and sheet iron. These were materials that were meant to concentrate the Oregon energies.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That's exactly why you're so tired. And, of course, we have with us the open-minded Ed Larson. Very open-minded this week. I'm here to learn. You know, I'm going to ask some questions. Sure.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, basically, these boxes were a sort of Faraday cage, which Faraday cages are normally used to block electromagnetic fields. Reich, however, called his boxes organ accumulators. Reich claimed that an organ accumulator could grab the organ out of the air because the organ is around us at all times. Clouds, fuck.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, and it could transfer the organ to the new test subject in a concentrated dose all while he sat nude in the box. He or she, of course. Well, cumulators. Are you cumming yet? I'm cumming later.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, it was Reich's theory that bombarding the box with organ energy could kill cancer and cure schizophrenia, amongst other things. And he used these boxes on hundreds of subjects over the years. Now, despite heavy criticism from the scientific community, and I do mean heavy criticism.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
He was a doctor. Everyone likes a quote unquote doctor. Wright continued his research on Oregon energy, but eventually went too far when he opened the Organomic Infant Research Center in 1950. Wow. The OIRC, as it was called, aimed at preventing, quote, muscular armoring in children from birth. Yes. Organ energy, of course, was supposed to prevent so-called muscular armoring, which was bad.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It's bad. And I suppose had something to do with negative feelings getting stuck in the muscles.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Not just there, but also the organ energy is around us all the time. Yes, we've got to catch them. And it's in the soil, too.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
This is an important chapter in conspiracy theory history. We're talking about the Montauk Project today. This is a very important chapter. This is something that we've been wanting to cover for a very, very long time. We weren't quite ready yet, but I think now we finally got the chops to do it. We got the juice for it. Oh yeah, this is the bullshit noise that is technically, that strings...
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But the problem with combining children with research that focuses on sexual energy. Yeah, what's wrong with that? It tends to bring out the perverts when you start advertising for job opportunities in the paper.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That's the thing. While nobody had any allegations against Reich himself, many people later reported sexual assaults at Reich's research center, sexual assaults that were perpetrated by Reich's employees. That's called the process. See, Reich formed a team of 30 therapists who would stand before naked children in Reich's basement, all while Reich described each child's so-called blockages.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, Reich then instructed these therapists in what he called vegetotherapy, which involved, among other things, massaging the children.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Reich's Institute, however, lasted for a surprisingly long period, two years. Wow, yeah. But it was finally shut down after a parent reported that one of Reich's therapists had taught her five-year-old son how to masturbate. And the charges were only dropped after Reich agreed to shutter the Institute's doors.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It does. It really does. It does. Well, eventually, the people who took Reich down for good were the FDA because they began taking issue with all the bogus claims Reich was making about his organ accumulators. Turns out, no proof they actually worked. Reich, in turn, accused the FDA of being... Wait a second.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
What do you mean it's not working? Reich, in turn, accused the FDA of being government hoodlums, and he was soon after arrested for violating an order to not ship organ accumulators or their parts across state lines. Wilhelm Reich was therefore sentenced to two years in prison and actually died in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in 1957 from a heart attack.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It usually is. But the problem is that Wilhelm Reich lives on the fringes and people who live on the fringes, you know, stuff like this is a badge of honor. Oh, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
You know, and it also, the stuff about Wilhelm Reich, look, it really does go back into the idea of conspiracy theory and distrusting the government and all that shit, because these people that believe in Wilhelm Reich's theories, they're often the same type of people who don't believe in vaccines. And they can point towards the FDA as, look, look at this evil, this evil branch of government.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, I mean, at its core, the Montauk Project is what happens when you take a handful of the great conspiracy theories of the 20th century, from MKUltra to alien collaborations with America to secret government time travel experiments, and you put them all into one building in Long Island.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
They went in and they destroyed this good man who was just trying to make our babies horny and healthy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
it is rough i i see what you're saying yeah because you're it it's the truth he's a it's hard everybody kind of took it around with it oh where we're at right now in american history and world history when it comes to all this shit like this is stuff that's been accumulating excuse the the term but it's been accumulating for decades upon decades upon decades damn near a century now
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. Yeah. But despite Wilhelm's claims that the government was out to get him because of his Oregon accumulators, it is said that the Phoenix Project, the antecedent to the Montauk Project, they used Wilhelm Reich's theories about Oregon as the basis for weather manipulation, amongst other things.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
See, according to Reich, the other side of organ energy is that it was also responsible for bad weather. Dead organ was said to be found in thunderstorms and hurricanes. And in the 40s, Reich supposedly invented a device called a cloudbuster that could either build up organ energy in the air or disrupt dead organ through broadcast.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And broadcast is going to be a very important thing for the Montauk Project.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
The theory goes that Project Phoenix was partly about controlling the weather using Reichsorgon technology. Now, according to our whistleblowers, Reich's technology actually worked, but the government abandoned the project because it would open them up to lawsuits if their ability to control the weather was made public. Who's going to fucking sue them? Is the weather going to sue them?
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
No, people whose buildings are destroyed by thunderstorms that were possibly, you know, created by the government.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
They really don't.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, some of you may already know that the story of the Montauk Project was very loosely adapted into the Netflix show Stranger Things. In fact, the original pitch for Stranger Things was a found footage project called Montauk.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That would be... Mbatoot? Nope. Incorrect. Absolutely not.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Richard, yeah. Richard Motti. Motti.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I think it's also really expensive as well.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Maybe.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But weather control was not the only goal behind Project Phoenix. See, while Reich had fled Germany to avoid Nazi persecution, the U.S. government, during Project Phoenix, allegedly combined his Oregon technology with Nazi psychological research to develop psychic computers. Wow! Yeah! As to what a psychic computer is. Yeah, what is it? AI. No, no, no. A psychic computer.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But while Stranger Things is admittedly a delightful show and quite lighthearted, the actual story of the Montauk Project, or at least the story that has been presented to the world, is far darker and far more unbelievable, although you will notice similarities here and there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
This is totally different from AI. Fucking Christ, man.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, a psychic computer. Peter Moon claimed that sensor technology was developed in the 50s that could use a computer to display what a person was thinking on a mind-reading machine. It was said that Congress, however, once again got cold feet. Supposedly, they were afraid that the psychic computers could be used to control congressmen. So they shut down this portion of Project Phoenix as well.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And the man allegedly behind the Phoenix Project was a Hungarian scientist named Dr. John von Neumann. Von Neumann was actually a very real mathematician, one of the most well-respected and accomplished in history. He contributed to the development of quantum physics, digital computers, big part of the Manhattan Project.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I'm the yo-yo man. So this conspiracy is already sullying this incredible mind, and you want to sully him even further by claiming he invented the yo-yo.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But according to author Peter Moon, Dr. John von Neumann was also one of the minds behind the Phoenix Project, and the government therefore brought back Dr. von Neumann and the rest of his team to Montauk Point when the next big military experiment was cooked up in the late 40s. The next iteration was known as Project Rainbow, but some of you might know it better as the Philadelphia Experiment.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah! It took place in Montauk, on the very spot where the Montauk Project would also be developed. Now, the Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged top-secret World War II-era project that had the initial goal of rendering a battleship invisible to enemy radar by creating an electromagnetic bottle that diverted radar waves around the ship, which sounds fairly reasonable.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But it's, you know, apparently it's very difficult and it turns you into a bunch of jello. Well, according to the legend, the Philadelphia experiment went awry when the battleship used in the experiment, the USS Eldridge, turned invisible, then suddenly reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia, 600 miles south of Montauk Point.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
As Henry put it to me, the Montauk Project is, in essence, the story of alien tech stolen by the Nazis to create a nation of time-traveling boys.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, supposedly, the surviving crew on board the Eldridge were found, at best, confused and disoriented. At worst, some sailors found themselves fused into the bulkheads of the ship itself as a result of the unintended consequence of teleportation.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Nikola Tesla in the year 1943. Yep. How was he there?
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, as for the sailors who were just confused.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
The invisible battleship? No.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, as for those who were just confused and disoriented.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, as for the sailors who were just confused and disoriented as a result of the Philadelphia experiment, many had to be discharged from service and rehabilitated because the experience was so traumatic. And it's said that most never recovered from the total mental breakdown that the experiment caused. Now, officially, Project Rainbow was halted after this supposed accident.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That, however, is only part of the tale here. The story goes that between 1943 and 1984, the Montauk Project also conducted experiments that brought fearsome beasts into our reality from the planes beyond, using psychics, kidnapped children, William Reich's organ energies, the Antichrist, and the actor Mark Hamill. who is still trying to fight to get his way out of this story.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But according to Peter Moon, the Philadelphia experiment was only the beginning of what went on at Montauk Point. Supposedly, Dr. Von Neumann and his team spent 10 years studying the effects that the Philadelphia experiment had on human bodies and specifically the human brain.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Eventually, it's said that they learned that humans are born with the time reference point, which they claimed was the basic orientation point each person has that connects them to the universe and the way the universe operates.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. Or a birth date. Not, no.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Thank you. I would say it's more like a barcode. It's like a barcode, like you scan the barcode and the barcode gives you information. But if the time reference point is changed, as it was with the crew of the USS Eldridge when the Philadelphia experiment hurtled them through time and space, then those who experience a change in reference point can suffer from extreme psychic trauma.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
The way Peter Moon put it, a human's energy is attached to a timeline in this universe. But the Project Rainbow technology created an artificial, separate reality that was completely different from our own timeline, which is how the ship and the men aboard were able to travel through time and space and turn invisible. They hopped over to the artificial reality, then came back to ours.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But when the men of the USS Eldridge were sent to that artificial timeline, they received energy from the wrong universe and the inability to sync with that energy caused the widespread insanity. It's sort of like the barcode. It's like if you pop it and you get the wrong type of reader, then it's not going to work. Yes.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It was instantaneous. It was instantaneous?
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Mm-hmm. Now, supposedly, Dr. Von Neumann petitioned Congress for funding to figure out ways to prevent insanity when using Project Rainbow technology. But Congress, ever the scaredy cats in this story, they turned down the proposal out of fear of what would happen if the technology fell into the wrong hands.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yes. Project Rainbow and Project Phoenix were then supposedly folded into the military, who were particularly excited to get their hands on a piece of radar equipment used in Project Phoenix called the Sage Array. Now, the Sage Array is a very real thing. It actually still exists on Long Island in Camp Hero State Park as a part of the remaining structure of the military base.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But in Peter Moon's world, the Sage Array operated in a frequency window that could break in to human consciousness.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
So once the military had the Sage Array, they refocused the project towards mind control and psychic powers, thus beginning Phoenix Project 2, better known by the much catchier name of the Montauk Project.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But as far as what the goal of the Montauk Project was, it mainly focused on unlocking the farthest reaches of human potential by developing our psychic abilities via alien tech. And it was the development of those abilities that led to all the time travel and monster manifestation. And it led to the scariest, funkiest lounge chair to ever exist.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, as I said, Congress reportedly refused to fund any of this stuff. But the authors of the Montauk Project book claimed that they were told by so-called Montauk acquaintances that the entire operation was funded by what else but mountains of Nazi gold. Cool.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Allegedly, during World War II, a train carrying 10 billion in Nazi gold was traveling through a tunnel in France when the whole thing blew up. The cause of the explosion was a mystery, and the gold was never officially recovered. But according to the whistleblowers, that $10 billion in Nazi gold was used to fund the Montauk Project for years.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I don't want any Montauk acquaintances. I don't want any fucking Massapequa consequences.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Take that back. I'm taking that back. Oh, I guess all I got to do is just go spend a weekend in Massapequa.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Remember, Montauk Project. I'm missing diners. That's all I'm missing. We all are. But the best diners in America. All in Long Island. And so, by the early 1970s, the Montauk Project was in full swing and had expanded to performing experiments on humans, animals, and aliens.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Ah, and I do realize that the alien part here does take a bit of explanation.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Just accepting. Just ready to believe. Oh, yeah. See, according to the authors of the Montauk Project, the first treaty between an alien civilization and the U.S. government was signed in 1913, while the second treaty came a few decades later in the mid-40s. These aliens who signed this treaty with the United States government were known as the K-Group.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Z is more the Nazis than Alpha.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And from what I can tell, these were the more benevolent aliens. Alarmed by the development of atomic weaponry, the K-Group promised an exchange of alien technology in return for our abandonment of nuclear technology. But when the U.S. government inevitably broke the treaty, the K-Group pulled out of the agreement. The K-Group were soon replaced in the early 50s by the Regalian Greys.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, and the Regalian greys were far more evil and not at all concerned with humanity blowing ourselves up. These are your classic alien greys. The greys' only concern was a steady supply of bodies on which to experiment. And as long as we kept serving up bodies, they keep giving us technology.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
As far as the K-Group goes, I would imagine that it's K-Group aliens that are experimented upon in the deepest reaches of the Montauk Project facility. Although that's just wild fucking speculation on my part. I mean, it's as good as any.
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No.
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How do you think we got into the air after Kitty Hawk, man?
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Nah, man. I'm talking about the big fucking jumps. These big jumps. Because everyone says, oh, isn't humanity so fucking incredible that we went from Kenny Hawk to the moon in 60 years?
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Okay. And it's actually with Eisenhower, that's the 50s.
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Well, I mean, Eisenhower did somewhat presage the war on terror that if we, you know, he did make his famous speech that if we were to put money into the military industrial complex, then war itself would become a business and therefore never ending war would be a consequence.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, considering the works of Wilhelm Reich, it's probably not a surprise that one of the Montauk Project's most infamous operations involved a group of children and teenagers. These kids, programmed with psychosexual mind control techniques, came to be known as the Montauk Boys.
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Yeah, they put that in Middle America. They definitely changed the entire tone of the project.
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There were kids in Long Island playing stickball in the 1970s.
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Yeah. What is stickball?
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It's just baseball.
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A little boy in Queens playing stickball?
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Well, supposedly, groups of young boys and teenagers. By the way, when you say, look at that guy, audience can't see that. I'm just saying he's right in front of us. I know it's right in front of us, but we're not doing this for us.
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Supposedly, groups of young boys and teenagers were abducted from all around Long Island by the Regalian Grey Aliens, and those boys were then delivered to the Montauk Project. Once there, they were separated into three groups by age, 6 to 12, 13 to 16, and 17 to 22. Shithead, bigger shithead. Problem. Society's issue. Yes.
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The youngest group was placed into two subgroups, one for genetic manipulation and one for mind control. Those who were genetically manipulated would stay on the base, while the mind control group would be reprogrammed and sent back out into society to hold various high-powered positions as lawyers and politicians.
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Well, these mind-controlled Montauk boys were thereafter sleeper agents who could be activated by the government at any time to form gangs of vigilantes who could eliminate enemies of the government.
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At one point, yeah. Now, these weren't armies fighting against the government. These were people, these are armies of 14-year-olds or older. Fighting other governments. No, fighting Americans, like killing people that were threats, killing people like you and me. Hey, I dare you, Montauk boys.
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The middle group, 13 to 16, would also be subject to genetic and mind control manipulation. But these boys were reintroduced into society as so-called disruptors. These disruptors worked on the opposite side of the fence, spearheading satanic movements and other similar cults to subvert society when it needed to be subverted. The oldest Montauk boys, however, were simply used as slave workers.
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But Montauk boys of all ages could be pulled into Montauk experiments at any time if the scientists at the Montauk Project needed a boy for whatever reason. That's when they became Montauk men. Yeah.
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It's also a part of the experiment because you've got to experiment to see if you can turn a very rebellious 19-year-old Long Island boy into a slave. I'll tell you what, with the Nazi gold, a little Long Island boy will do anything you ask him to do. I'll tell you what. Then he's an employee.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, as far as how the Montauk Project Mind Control Program worked, the programmers focused on boys ages 9, 14, and 19, because those ages were considered peak points for mind control manipulation.
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Yeah. First, the boys would be placed in a room naked. Yes. Where...
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Then a series of Pavlovian dog tests would be forced upon the boys until they were mentally and physically broken enough to accept new consciousnesses. And these tests were supposedly intense enough where many boys died in the process.
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Well, they were. I mean, kids were running away from home quite a bit in the 60s and 70s, but the... Cops, unfortunately, tended to use that as an excuse to not investigate anything. Even when the evidence was sitting right in front of him, like Dean Corll, for example. He was the most famous example in Houston in the 1970s. He killed 27 boys, 29, something like that.
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Teenagers. Yeah, he was. Until one of the boys killed him. One of the boys that was helping him kill other boys ended up killing him when Dean Corll tried to kill the boy.
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Actually, wow.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
The other side of these tests on the Montauk boys was that scientists could use alien radio technology to pick up patterns of fear and hopelessness. And some of these Montauk boys were supposedly killed at the height of their fear so they could be harvested by the regalian gray aliens while they were full of adrenaline. And that hopelessness was piped through in them through their mothers. Yep.
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Yeah, and in this little building, when you tell them you can't go in there... the people of Long Island started to create a story around this location on Montauk Point.
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Rob, how much is your Long Island mother? Hopelessness or hopefulness? Somewhere in between. All right, good. But, you know, this whole concept of making boys afraid before you killed them to make sure you got the maximum amount of adrenaline, this was all written about 1992, decades before it was repurposed into QAnon lore.
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With Montauk, it's satanic panic myths with aliens replacing Satanists combined with MKUltra, where with QAnon, you've still got the government collaboration, except it's Democrats and celebrities and the deep state replacing the aliens.
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Oh, the middle is still very fat.
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It's a big side quest. Plum Island. Yeah, yeah. Now, I'm sure... that all of this seems pretty intense so far. But while we've already covered MKUltra style experiments, invisible battleships, and treaties between the government and alien civilizations, we've just started to scratch the surface on the Montauk Project.
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Now, the reason why we know about all of this in detail is because the man who co-authored Peter Moon's eponymous book about the conspiracy, he was also a scientist who claimed to have been a part of the Montauk Project for over a decade. This supposed whistleblower's name was Preston Nichols.
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And if you believe everything Preston had to say, which is asking a lot, he lived quite possibly one of the most interesting lives in human history.
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Yeah. I tried figuring it out too. Yeah. I had no idea what his real profession was throughout life. You know, he didn't really start coming out and talking about all this stuff until he was what in his forties or fifties, something like that. Yeah.
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So as far as like what Preston Nichols was before he became an author that was published by the same house as a behold, a pale horse, he's big question mark.
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Well, Preston Nichols said that he was an electrical engineer and an inventor. He sadly left this world in 2018. But the story he imparted before his passing is an incredible one. And it was told, as Preston put it, despite brainwashing and threats to silence him.
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Supposedly, Preston Nichols discovered the truth behind the Montauk Project while doing telepathy research with psychics in the mid-80s. He had found that psychics were having their powers suppressed by radio waves, and eventually he traced those waves directly to Montauk Point. Preston Nichols, however, soon discovered the truth behind the truth behind the lies behind the truth behind the lies.
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and figured out that he himself had been a key figure in the Montauk project, but his memories had been wiped after the project was shut down using technology of his own making.
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Please.
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He was also a powerful hypnotist. He could hypnotize himself and other people. And he also asked other people, and there were many people that told him many things. And also, yes, this other guy that we're going to get into next episode, and this other guy, Duncan Cameron, He could commune with aliens and channel with aliens.
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And these aliens were also some of the ones that worked with the Montauk Project. And these aliens all told Preston Cameron a lot of stuff, who told this guy, Preston Nichols, a lot of stuff. And then Preston Nichols is like, oh, yeah, that's definitely what happened.
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Okay. Now, according to Preston's co-author, Peter Moon, Preston occupies nonlinear space. See? which means that he is operating on a consciousness not regulated by linear thought. Can't be controlled. Can't be contained, man. Therefore, his memories and experiences do not always conform to linear applications. Yeah, dude, like taxes and work.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, since the Montauk Project is such a hodgepodge of so many conspiracy theories, it can, not surprisingly, turn into a confusing labyrinth of pseudoscience and dead-end narratives quite quickly. Almost immediately. Additionally, the men who tell the story about the Montauk Project are, simply put, liars of the highest degree. Pathological, even.
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Which is a nice way of saying that it appears as if he's lying quite often.
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Additionally, Preston himself wrote that while people have been quick to call his writing science fiction, that does not make him unhappy because he is aware that what he writes about is controversial.
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Preston Nichols also claims that his work has been ripped off by Hollywood countless times for TV shows and movies. It has! Although the Hollywood elites have done it quite cleverly, so as to make lawsuits difficult, if not impossible. Also, I'm a bit not liquid at the moment. Yeah, specifically, Preston claimed that the shows Farscape and Sly. Sliders were both based off his work.
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They definitely were. Sliders? Yeah.
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No, this is kind of sliders.
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No, Sliders is Jerry O'Connell is a brilliant science student working in his basement.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
No, he built a dimensional hopping device in his basement, and then he somehow brought in his professor, the girl that he worked with at the store, and a random soul singer who happened to just be driving by at the time, and then they started hopping dimensions together using the sliding device.
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Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But before we get into Preston Nichols' biography completely, I will warn you that it does sort of feel, his autobiography, it does sort of feel like talking to an annoying friend who tries to one-up everything you say with a story that's ten times more impressive and clearly untrue at every turn.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Some of the claims they make about both the project and their personal lives are either impossible or so easily disproved. But they've built it all into the storytelling. Yeah. The co-author of the definitive book on the Montauk Project, he totally cops to this. His name is Peter Moon, and he says that his book, also named The Montauk Project, is not
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No, the Eldritch, I believe it existed. I believe it was a real battleship. They had to pull it apart. Destroyer.
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Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, from what it seems like, Preston Nichols saw himself as somewhat chosen for high strangeness, as he described having his first encounter with aliens when he was just five or six years old. He saw many more UFOs over the years and tried to capture them on film and camera, but he claimed that each time the footage would go missing or it would corrupt itself.
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This, Preston believed, was proof that the government had had him under surveillance since childhood. Now, Preston was a sickly child, but all of Preston's health problems, including cerebral palsy, disappeared at around the age of 17. I grew up out of it.
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Next thing you know, I'm fine. This is funny. Through later hypnotic regression, Preston came to realize that he had been cured of all his ills when the alien race known as the Pleiadians took him to their home planet of Alderaan for medical treatment and education.
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He said that along with the disappearance of his health problems, he suddenly had a mastery of electronics and a so-called guiding voice appeared in his head. It was suddenly available to give him answers to any question he had.
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The Pleiad system from the planet of Alderaan.
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Yeah.
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In Star Wars. The Pleiad system. Yeah, the Pleiad system out in the spiral arm, Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse. I think something, Betelgeuse.
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Alpha Centauri.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, the planet of Alderaan might sound familiar. That's because Alderaan was Princess Leia's home planet in Star Wars. Ah, see? You'd think this would be a bit of a gotcha moment against Preston Nichols. But it is, in fact, quite the opposite. That's why I got you. According to Preston, everything in Star Wars is actually accurate to the truth of the universe.
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And quite a few pieces of media, like Star Wars, are, in fact, actual histories, while the history that we know as Earth history is not history at all, but fiction.
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necessarily a hundred percent true see that's just because some of its information is based on intuition psychic readings and the channeling of various alien entities peter moon however does go on to say that if at least part of his claims weren't true yeah then the mainstream media wouldn't have spent so many years not covering his book like mark is here
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Now, as far as our history being a fiction goes, Preston claims that the Pleiadians, the same aliens who helped him, they were actually involved with Hitler and the Third Reich, but only because the Pleiadians were involved in a millennia-long war against the Draconian race, a.k.a. the reptilians, who had colonized the Earth in the form of the Jewish people. Is that real?
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This, however, according to Preston Nichols, Ed, is not a racist statement.
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Eh, okay. So, yes. Yeah.
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Well, as I said, Preston Nichols claims it's not a racist statement to say that Jews are reptilians. Damn, it's just a fact. Deal with it. Yeah. It's like how all Asians are hybrids of greys and insectoids.
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That's why they have the worker bee mentality.
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These are just facts, Preston says. It's nothing to get offended over.
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Not supposedly. The Nazis agreed to a technology exchange with the Pleiadians, and the Nazis offered up people in concentration camps as alien experiment subjects, most likely the communists and the gay people, because, you know, I would imagine the Pleiadians already had plenty of reptilians.
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But supposedly, through this treaty, the Nazis learned about mind control, nuclear tech, and time travel. According to Preston Nichols, though, Hitler apparently went, quote, off mission and took things a little too far. Ha ha! So be assured that the Pleiadians staunchly anti-Holocaust.
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But luckily for the good old US of A, America was able to get their hands on all the alien technology the Pleiadians handed over to the Nazis through Operation Paperclip. Cool. When we rehabilitated all those Nazis. Naturally, much of that tech knowledge was then applied to the Montauk Project. Whoa, man. Do you think Clippy was a Nazi?
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But now that we've had a bit of history, let's get back to the incredible life of Preston Nichols. Now, Preston's biography was not just limited to science. Oh, no. Preston is far too cool for a life of solely intellectual pursuits. Yeah, too cool. Chicks keep pulling me out of the academic game.
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Rather, if you believe what Preston Nichols claimed, he changed the face of pop and rock music many times over, acting as a key yet unsung figure in the music business. Allegedly, it all started for Preston at a very young age, sometime in the late 1950s.
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See, Preston claimed that his Cub Scout leader, a dude by the name of Cal Mann, recognized Preston's innate abilities in the field of electronics and took Preston to New York City when Preston was just 12 years old.
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I'm doing it, man. I'm putting it out there. But in the conspiracy theorist's mind, not covering the book is tantamount to actively suppressing the information contained therein.
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Well, Preston had an interest in music, and he had supposedly built a special recording device at the age of 12 that was able to tap into the esoteric principles of any song, thereby amplifying how well it could connect to an audience. Cal Mann was a musician, Preston wrote, who was better known by his stage name, Chubby Checker.
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And the song Preston supposedly used his new equipment to record was The Twist.
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Hold on. This guy claimed he was Chubby Checker? No, no, no, no, no. Preston claimed that Chubby Checker was his Cub Scout leader and that Chubby Checker was so impressed with his electronic skills that Chubby Checker took him to New York City so they could record the twist together. Okay.
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None of this is true. Oh, yeah. None of it's true. What? Cal Mann was a songwriter, but he wrote Let's Twist Again, which was the sequel to The Twist. Whoa! Hank Ballard wrote The Twist. And that's not even to mention the fact that Chubby Checker's real name was Ernest Evans. And he certainly wasn't a Cub Scout leader taking 12-year-old boys on trips to the city.
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Cal Man's real name actually was Cal Cohen. Oh, he changed it. He was a very nerdy white man. And yeah, he changed it when he got into the songwriting business.
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I believe it was him.
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What does Chess Records have to do with him being chubbier fat? He's just distracting us from what we have to do here, Marcus.
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But the thing is about all the information about Cal Man and Chubby Checker and Hank Ballard, all that's not easily attainable in 1992 when Preston's book was released. Preston actually, he even spelled Cal Man's name wrong. He spelled Cal with a C instead of a K. So I think that Preston just figured that it was safe to make both this claim and the avalanche of name dropping that's about to come.
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It might have been something like Pegasus Press. Yes. Like, I mean, legit in the fact that he, I don't know if he had to put up his own money to put it out. I don't think it was a, it wasn't a vanity pressing. I know that for sure.
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Mm-hmm. Now, Preston claimed that he also worked with the surf rock hitmakers The Ventures on many of their albums as an engineer. And through The Ventures, Preston met singer Frankie Valli, who recruited Preston as the drummer on Big Girls Don't Cry.
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Yeah.
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Well, the thing is about these claims, Preston told his readers, don't even bother trying to verify all this. Because after Preston saw the kind of hell that Chubby Checker and Frankie Valli went through with being famous, he decided to have his name withheld on all of his work in the music industry, which is incredibly extensive. Supposedly.
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For example, Preston claimed that he helped Phil Spector develop a wall of sound recording technique.
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I can't go into all of his like, I can't go into all of his fucking like stories because he goes on and on and on and on. I'm definitely bringing all these down. Like that he was responsible for the Beatles jump and artistic ability with Sergeant Pepper. I was like, yeah, they came over to America. And I said, why don't you try recording on the big speaker?
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Sky Books, I think they, I think it's the same imprint that put out Behold the Pale Horse. Cool. I think so.
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He also said that he was the one who told Jimi Hendrix, like, hey, you ever thought about playing electric guitar?
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He was also the guy who told the Beach Boys, like, hey, you guys ever thought about singing together?
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Preston also claimed that he was not only the one who recorded Light My Fire by the doors, but that he was personal friends with Jim Morrison. And it was actually Preston Nichols who taught Jim Morrison how to perform live. Before that, Jim Morrison just stared at the wall.
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But interestingly, Morrison's story is actually related to another character from pop culture who also plays a role in Preston's history. Apparently, one of the most powerful psychic and esoteric minds on Earth belongs to the actor Mark Hamill. Hmm. But Mark actually started in the music business, according to Preston.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Preston claimed to have met Mark Hamill through Chubby Checker and Frankie Valli because Mark Hamill was writing songs for other people without taking credit with his brother Chuck as far back as 1967. That would make him. No, I mean, he was 16 years old.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It's a strange thing. 16-year-old Mark Hamill.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yes.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, no, he's still like just the act. Mark Hamill is just the actor. We're going to get into the Star Wars thing here in a second. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. At the age of 16, Hamill supposedly wrote and recorded Beg, Borrow and Steal and released it under the name of the Ohio Express. Oh, damn. No word, however, as if as to if Hamill also wrote the Ohio Express's other hit.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yummy, yummy, yummy. I've got love in my tummy and I feel like loving you.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But the connection to the doors here is that Preston claims that Mark Hamill actually wrote most of Jim Morrison's poetry. That's why it sucks. Although that's really not as big of a credit as I think Preston Nichols thought it was.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Preston claimed that everything he knew about audio engineering fit into his understanding of mind control, which is what made him, in his estimation, one of the great recording engineers of the 60s, despite his name never coming up once anywhere for anything.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
See, Preston claimed that sound waves held electromagnetic power, and his later work on the Montauk Project dealt with similar energies, as the Montauk Project was all about harnessing frequencies to control minds and shape realities. It was the music business, Preston said, where all these possibilities were opened up. It's an interesting idea.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
In fact, Preston was certain that the psychic implanting of messages into pop and rock tunes is how the Montauk Project was eventually able to lure in so many Montauk boys to be experimented upon. Have you ever thought about Billy Joel possibly being a Montauk Project...
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Billy Joel.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, that's true. isn't it?
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
What do you think happens to those two people that get brought from the back row to the front at every Madison Square Garden Billy Joel concert? Do you think those people just go home? Wow. Do you think Billy Joel's doing that out of the kindness of his fucking heart? No. No.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But in addition to being an unsung hero in the recording industry, Preston also claims movie credits by saying that he was the one who convinced George Lucas to cast his friend Mark Hamill in the role of Luke Skywalker.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
As such, Preston said that he was present during the filming of Star Wars. Every single scene. And that two psychics were present during all takes. In Preston's view, Star Wars was so popular because Lucas had instructed the psychics to implant psychic messages onto the film itself to make people like it more.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Additionally, Preston claimed that he was the one who gave George Lucas the idea for the Force. And later, Preston claimed that he used his extensive knowledge of sound to not only develop THX, but also mix sound for The Empire Strikes Back.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, I am forgetting that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
At this point, like, when I'm reading it, I'm just like, I can just tell the fucking weirdo that I'm stuck on the train with.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Bing bong. Okay, I get it. This is my stop.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, by the early 70s, Preston had either stepped back from the music industry for a little bit or he was splitting his time. Because starting around 1971, Preston began working for a military defense contractor on where else but Long Island.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Preston said that he was hired to be on a team of scientists who were tasked with examining some so-called foreign material, foreign technology, which turned out to be a captured UFO. The craft was a typical disc-shaped flying saucer with no seams, no obvious buttons, and no controls—
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
From what Preston was able to figure out from disassembling and reverse engineering the craft, however, it was operated not by conventional means, but by mind control, using psychic chairs powered by crystals.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, Peter Moon brought the story of the Montauk Project to the world with his 1992 book of the same name, which was co-written with a whistleblower who supposedly worked on the inside of the Montauk Project as a scientist for well over a decade.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Preston's timeline can be difficult to suss out at times because he can be extremely vague and he jumps around a lot. But it seems like the defense contractor on Long Island that had hired him to reverse engineer this UFO, this defense contractor, was the Montauk Project. Because soon after he cracked the psychic chairs, he became a full part of the operation.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Using the technology he'd gleaned from the mind-controlled UFO, Preston claimed that he was involved with the creation of a device that could send out thoughts from a giant transmitter. This device came to be known as the Montauk Chair. It's not funny, Eddie.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Being constipated because too much cheese. Now, a lot of the experiments in the Montauk Project would revolve around the Montauk chair. But in the beginning, Montauk boys would be sat in the chair while various radio waves, UHF waves, and microwaves of varying widths, pulse rates, and frequencies would bombard the Montauk boys' bodies just to see what effect it would have on their psyches.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Now, it was said that these waves could make a person sleep, cry, laugh, or be agitated. But it wasn't just the person in the chair who was affected. Supposedly, everyone on the base would get into a mood when the chair was turned on. Oh, yeah. So the brass began taking note of how powerful this thing could be.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
See, the chair was attached to that radar I mentioned earlier, the SAGE array, which, if you'll remember, was one of the big selling points for the military to turn the Phoenix Project into the Montauk Project. The SAGE array operated at just the right radio frequency to access the human mind.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
These two men claimed that after they began publishing in the early 90s, because the Montauk Project was just one book amongst a series of books, including Pyramids of the Montauk, I believe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Various others.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And once the Montauk Project figured out how to use the chair to break into the mind, it was only a matter of time before they figured out how to use the chair to project the minds of the people using the chair
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
outward using tubes tubes in the chair outside of the chair chair okay yeah and tunnels but time tunnels we'll get into it later that lead and they're tubes they're not pipes no tubes difference very much so no no what is the difference between a tube and a pipe in your estimation
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Well, the Montauk chair was also discovered to be quite useful for recording pop songs with subliminal messages. Got to. And Preston Nichols was naturally the engineer for these sessions that supposedly occurred on this military base on Montauk Point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That song, 1974's Everlasting Love by Carl Carlton.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It's a great song. Great song.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I'm glad they built this chair with the tubes. Yeah, yeah. We wouldn't have that cover of Everlasting Love without it. Nope. It was an early and wildly successful Montauk chair experiment. Although the subliminal messages that were in Everlasting Love, Preston Nichols declined to impart that information.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But once the potential for the Montauk chair was discovered, the Montauk project was able to move from controlling the minds of others to using the psychic powers of human beings to control and manipulate not just time, but reality itself. Yes. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for our conclusion with time travel, with pyramids on Mars, and of course, the Montauk Beast. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Lots of boys in space. Lots of boys. Many boys in space. Many boys in tunnels.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. Yes. No. Oh, no, no. That is it. Yeah, I forgot about the Montauk Monster. Montauk, you're talking about the thing that washed up on the shore, right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Wow.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, there's a lot of different things.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah, and you could also, if you are a Patreon member, you can tune in live to Last Stream on the left every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PST, 9 p.m. EST. You can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at LP on the left. And don't forget to check out all of our other wonderful streams at the Last Podcast Network at twitch.tv slash LPN TV and to check out all of the other incredible podcasts we have.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
here on The Last Podcast Network. If you want to stay in the podcasting realm, just go to lastpodcastnetwork.com or type in Last Podcast Network to whatever podcast client you enjoy using. Wow. Very nice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yes, and don't wait on your tickets for that. We're very, very close to selling out in Detroit. And we sold out in Toronto. Thank you so much, Toronto, for always coming off.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But after they began publishing in the early 90s, these two men claimed to have been contacted by a multitude of people who worked on the Montauk project itself. People who have confirmed, Peter Moon said, that everything written in the book is true, even though Peter said himself that not everything in the book is true.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Sorry, I just got distracted by the whole blunt and the wiping thing. Yeah, sure. Hail Gein.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
But Peter Moon is comfortable living with these contradictions because for him, reality is highly malleable for everyone. In fact, he says that as a general rule, if you think that you've been involved in a space-time project, then you probably have. Because the entire universe is, after all, a space-time project in itself.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
And Young Einstein. Okay, now you're really getting it. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. I am Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zebrowski. Interesting theories. I'm a Montauk boy expert. I bet you are.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It does connect to Project Serpo, yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Barack Obama on Mars and John Titor as well. Oh yeah, it all connects. That makes it real.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Exactly. But at the end of the day, the Montauk Project is still a classic old school conspiracy theory that folds in all the old favorites like the Philadelphia Experiment, the Reptilians, and Nazis. And that's in addition to its own swerves like time-traveling chairs and murderous monsters born from the human subconscious. And so, let's get into the Montauk Project by starting at its location.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Montauk Point, located on the easternmost end of Long Island in New York State. Supposedly, and I'm going to be using that word a lot today. Well, you know, it's a thought experiment. I counted it. I think in my script, the word supposedly is used 29 times.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
There could be a couple allegedlys in there. Oh, sure. No, that's the thing. It's not even counting the allegedlys. But supposedly, a lighthouse was constructed at Montauk Point specifically on the orders of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton in 1792 through an act of Congress.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
great the co-authors of the montauk project point towards the construction of this lighthouse as proof that the idea of doing clandestine scientific research at montauk point was something that has been planned since the founding of our country but it only came to pass starting in the 1940s i'm only going to give a little bit of pushback here only because a lighthouse is something that you can immediately see so it doesn't really make any sense it's just mark
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
It's just like, hey guys, if you want to do clandestine scientific research sometime in the future of this country, this is a good place for it.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That's part of it. That's a happy accident. That's a happy coincidence.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Seven basements underground. Now just west of Montauk Point is Camp Hero State Park, which until 1981 was an Air Force base called Fort Hero. As far as why Fort Hero was built in this spot specifically, it was believed that if the Germans had decided to invade the United States during World War II, Montauk was a likely invasion point.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
So to protect from invasion, we built Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard installations at Camp Hero, then disguised the entire base to look like a New England fishing village by painting windows on the concrete bunkers and putting ornamental roofs on the barracks to fool possible German spies.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
I mean, the largest Nazi rally in American history was held at Madison Square Garden. Yes.
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, the military base story is reasonable, but the authors of the Montauk Project maintain that Fort Hero was never just a simple outpost for protecting us from the Germans or testing torpedoes like the government wants you to believe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Mouse thinking?
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Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
That's a new one for me.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 615: The Montauk Project Part I - The Truth Behind The Truth Behind The Lies
Small fries here. As do I. Instead, Fort Hero, prior to being the site of the Montauk Project, was also where some of the most infamous alleged military experiments in history took place, like the Phoenix Project and the Philadelphia Experiment. So before we get into the Montauk Project proper, let's cover the operations that supposedly led to the project's foundings.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, when it comes to Hodel's connections, he would host gatherings at his home that centered around drug-fueled hypnotism sessions that were led by George himself. Yes. And that's when he wasn't hosting the orgies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That's the thing is that Betty Davis and George Hodel probably did meet each other at the very least because Betty Davis was actually very big in the modern art scene in Los Angeles. That's one of the things I found out is that actually the people that are most responsible for modern art coming to Los Angeles are Vincent Price, number one. That makes sense.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, Vincent Price, John Huston, and Edgar G. Robinson. That's awesome. Yeah.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But also the story will go- And Betty Davis was also in the art scene a lot as well.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, it's crazy shit. But George Hodel was ensconced within the Los Angeles art scene at this time. And these gatherings at George's place were attended by a wide range of artists, writers, and people in the film industry. For writers, for example, novelist Henry Miller was a frequent guest at George Hodel's home. And Henry Miller, if you'll remember, could himself write quite the tawdry tale.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But George's company most infamously included the surrealist painter and photographer Man Ray. Now, while people like Henry Miller came in and out of George's world and knew him pretty much as a local eccentric, Man Ray was a family friend of the Hodel's and took what I'd call a suspicious amount of photos of both George and his ex-wife.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Because you've got to get that good water, you know?
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
but with families family photo yeah but man ray would do them what do you think is fascinating yeah i mean you get incredible fucking photos i mean man ray is nothing if not extraordinarily talented i mean his work is incredible um you know despite what we may say about his personal life how many photos of your wife and someone else's possession is too much let's say like five well it depends on what
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But to understand why the connection between George Hodel and Man Ray is so interesting, you've got to understand a little bit about surrealism, which is the art movement that Man Ray belonged to and the one that George Hodel was obsessed with.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Continue, Marcus. Yeah, no. I'm glad you guys fucking prepped it. You guys lubed up the chamber. Thank you. Ready. Ready for art history. Well, basically, surrealism was the next step after the Dada movement, defined in the book Exquisite Corpse as a heady call to arms, extolling freedom of imagination and liberation from social constraints.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Style-wise, it's just like it sounds. Like, it's surreal. It's unsettling stuff. You know, Salvador Dali. He's the most well-known surrealist artist out there. Okay, so the good shit. Everyone, yeah, the good shit. Everyone's got, everyone's seen a surrealist painting in their life.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, here we are in Los Angeles. The fires are going, and we're talking about Black Dahlia Part 4. Still. So now that we've covered our man Leslie Dillon, whose story shows more than anything just what police corruption can do to a murder investigation.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, at times, surrealism was an interplay of irrationality, eroticism, and violence. And when it came to women in surrealism, they were rarely displayed as fully human entities in surrealist art.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Rather, the women in surrealist paintings and photography, particularly the works of Man Ray, featured recurring motifs of bisected and fragmented women, just as Elizabeth Short was bisected and fragmented. Now, many of the surrealists were fascinated with violence, both real and imagined.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
In the real world, they were captivated by true crime stories, violent accounts of Catholic saints, and Jack the Ripper. But they were also obsessed with the fictional writings of the Marquis de Sade, particularly his unfinished novel, 120 Days of Sodom. Yeah, dude, it's about 30 days too long.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I didn't see Salo.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Just go take a look at it. I've read graphic representations of 120 Days of Sodom, though. It's fucking foul. Yeah. It's awful.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Some people like it. No, I haven't seen it. I mean, it's not like every graphic representation, because if you graphically represented the things that happened in 120 Days of Sodom, you would be producing child pornography.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, to briefly recap the story, because it is important, 120 Days of Sodom is a novel from 1785 about four rich libertine Frenchmen who spend four months in a secluded castle in the middle of the forest trying to top each other in the realm of sexual perversion.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're using 20 victims and eight male accomplices with large penises. Accomplices decide simply called the fuckers. Yes. Hey, we're the fuckers. You order.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Let's explore the worlds of two suspects who have nothing to do with the mob or the LAPD. These suspects are your old-fashioned Los Angeles characters. Doctors who are both their own little individual labyrinths of secrets and lies.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
We're using 20 victims in this story. The four Frenchmen engage in incest, rape, necrophilia, bestiality, coprophilia, urine drinking, vomit drinking, and child sex abuse until it all culminates in murder most foul. And I do mean foul.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Eating shit.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Hell yeah, you learned something new today.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But above all else, the novel 120 Days of Sodom is so depraved as to be totally surreal. And the surrealist movement of the 20th century loved the novel for both its style and because they fancied themselves as libertines free from all social constraints.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Oh, yes. As the wife of Surrealist painter Max Ernst put it, most Surrealists flew close to the flame of De Sade on an intellectual level, but as for emulating the fantasies of De Sade's personae, they didn't even try.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
You know, they all wear suits. But because the Surrealists didn't dabble, that did not mean that some of them weren't associated with the people who did. People like George Hodel.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, very close to that type. Yeah, just like this sort of like rich puppet master with a lot of very famous friends, a lot of very well-known friends. That's insulated him. That throws a lot of parties. Yes. And comes very close to getting some sort of comeuppance, but never quite gets there.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, the problem is it's a lot of fun for about an hour and a half.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Right. He's a doctor, a Hollywood doctor to the stars. But it's very vague. He gives them drugs.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, the surrealist painter and photographer Man Ray moved to Los Angeles at the age of 50 after escaping World War II Europe, and he eventually made friends with George Hodel in Los Angeles. Man Ray's work, which often featured nude women, was said to be the finest defense of surrealism's central theme of transgressions via eroticism, which pointed more towards death than sexuality.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
In one photograph, Man Ray did a self-portrait of himself lying on top of the dead body of a woman killed by a gunshot. And in one of his paintings, Man Ray portrayed an abstract female bisected at the waist, just like Elizabeth Short was. Both of these works were finished in the 30s, years before the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And we're not saying that Man Ray was directly involved in the killing of Elizabeth Short, but he has been named as a person who may have involved himself in George Hodel's more disgusting pursuits.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
No, staged. Oh, okay. It was art, Eddie. Now, we don't know for sure how Man Ray and George Hodel connected in the first place, but George Hodel was certainly an arty weirdo, and the Los Angeles art world in the 1940s was predictably small. George Hodel's throwing around a lot of money, and he's buying a lot of works of art.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And that's the thing, is that no one can really figure out why Man Ray went to Los Angeles in the first place, although he said it was to get as far away from the war as possible. What we do know is that Man Ray was close to George Hodel in the 11 years he lived in Los Angeles, and this was confirmed by George Hodel's daughter, Tamar.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
My doctor has a better headshot than I do. Yeah, hey.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. But as far as Man Ray's connections to George Hodel goes, George Hodel's daughter, Tamar, said that Man Ray often photographed the whole family. And she said that he took nude photographs of her on occasion when she was still a young teenager. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Like, how many have existed in this city over the last, you know, 120 some odd years?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
No, there's still a George Hodel today, but how many have there been?
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That's true. Now, our first spec is included here, not necessarily because we think he killed Elizabeth Short. He probably didn't. But he is included because he is absolutely fascinating with surprising connections to both Hollywood and the world of fine art.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
No. Well, in October of 1949, Tamar Hodel, who was then just 14 years old, she told police that during one of her father's orgies at their home, he had raped her, and this act was witnessed by two other people. Hodel was soon arrested and put on trial for this horrific crime. George Hodel's lawyers had a simple plan for getting their client acquitted.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Their plan was to discredit Tamar Hodel completely, to make her look crazy, and they partly did so by using the Black Dahlia murder. During a conversation with the man who rented a room in their home, Tamar had said that her father's house had secret passages. and that her father was going to kill her and everyone else in the house because he had an insatiable bloodlust.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That bloodlust, Tamar had said, had already taken a victim, the infamous Black Dahlia. Now, Tamar was obviously making a joke. She said so.
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Exactly. It's the worst thing you can say that someone did. Like, oh, he's the Black Dahlia killer. It's a byword for psychopath. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the lawyers used these comments to make Tamar look like she'd say just about anything to smear her father, and their scheme worked perfectly.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
While there was plenty of evidence against Hodel, he was eventually acquitted of all charges, although he did make a few well-placed bribes along the way to make sure that happened. Yes. Again, the corruption muddles things. But what was interesting about the acquittal was the reaction from Man Ray, or should I say, the lack of reaction from photographer Man Ray.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
A year after George's incest trial, Man Ray sent a friendly postcard to George from Paris, asking Hodel if he wanted anything from France besides a coquette, which is another word for a tart or a floozy.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, this stone suggests that Man Ray was not in the least bit disturbed by Hodel's incest trial. But when it comes to the surrealist link to the Black Dahlia murder, one of the most interesting parallels involves a game called Exquisite Corpse, which is what the book we use today is named after.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Oh, there had to have been a screamo band called Exquisite Corpse at some point. Yeah, right. There's a band called the Black Dahlia Murder.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, and it's not necessarily to see who can do the most disgusting thing or anything like that. It's just to kind of see who can do the most inventive thing. Well, in the Exquisite Corpse game, three artists take turns drawing a section of a body without seeing any other section.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
The first takes the head and shoulders, the second draws the torso, and the third finishes up everything below the waist. Exquisite Corpse was particularly popular with the Surrealists, and in 1934, an Exquisite Corpse drawing by four noted Surrealist artists that bore a large number of similarities to the mutilations performed on Elizabeth Short's body got published.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And this is about 13 years before Elizabeth Short was killed.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
In this delicate crayon-on-paper depiction of a woman's body, the figure's breasts are replaced by simple circular shapes that enclose asymmetrical triangles. As you might remember when we talked about Elizabeth Short's autopsy, her right breast was removed, which left behind a circular wound. And on her left breast, a triangular shape was cut out of her skin, just to the right of her nipple.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
In the exquisite corpse drawing in question, there's also a yellow mark just above the genital area, which corresponds to the vertical incision made on Elizabeth Short's body in the exact same place. But most important was the position of this drawing's arms.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
See, a woman with her arms raised above her head was a weirdly common motif in surrealism, but it was specifically common in the works of Man Ray. In multiple Man Ray photographs, He features solitary nude women over and over again with their arms bent, held over their head. And the woman in the exquisite corpse drawing we're talking about here has her arms in the same position.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Right, Marcus? Goddamn right. It's our fucking choice when we do what.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
The position of the arms in both the drawing and Man Ray's photos mirror the exact way Elizabeth Short's body was found.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, but this motif didn't stop with Man Ray. There was an incredible amount of surrealist art by multiple artists created both before and after the Black Dahlia murder that look uncannily like the crime scene photos taken in Leimert Park in a way that no other art movement connects to a specific murder. Do you know what the minotaur means?
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I mean, the Minotaur is, I mean, that's a little too far. Like, I thought about going into the Minotaur, but the Minotaur is like a massive side quest.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yes. Let's get into it. Now, the posing of Elizabeth Short's body has always been one of the biggest question marks in the Black Dahlia case, one that no one has ever been able to fully satisfy. In fact, it's one that most people haven't even been able to approach. No. But author Steve Hodel, George Hodel's son, he thinks that he cracked it using something he calls a thought print.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
According to Steve, thoughtprints, like fingerprints.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Like a buttprint.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Our second suspect, however, has some extremely compelling personal connections to Elizabeth Short and the neighborhood where she was found. And this suspect also slides nicely into the profile that Mindhunter author John Douglas drew up for the perpetrator of the Black Dahlia murder.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, thought prints relate to the potential identification of a specific individual through his or her own unique thinking and thoughts. It's a thought print. Yeah. The thinking behind the posing of Short's body, Steve maintains, is that the killer was a surrealist who wanted to shock the world with the most transgressive work of art in history.
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This would be a surrealist who took the motifs of bisection, raised arms, and mutilation to the next level by using an actual woman as the canvas.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And the reason why they call it the minotaur position, you know, with the arms raised up is because of a Man Ray photograph called Minotaur, which shows just a woman's torso and her arms raised up above her head. And the shadows make it look like a bull's head, you know, like the breasts, the nipples of the eyes, you know, and the arms are the horns.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But that's how it came to be known as the minotaur position.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
It's possible. Well, and that's the thing, is that there are other theories that would make that even more difficult. It's been posited in the past that the Black Dahlia murder was the work of more than one person because of the differing ways in which the body was mutilated and manipulated at the crime scene. But the authors of the book Exquisite Corpse take that theory one step further.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
They submit that a group of people familiar with surrealism may have tried to recreate an Exquisite Corpse game with the body of this young woman.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, in keeping with the general idea of the exquisite corpse game, multiple people may have taken turns with Elizabeth Short's body, each of them inscribing their signatures on her legs, genitals, torso, breasts and face.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
So let's get into these suspects, starting with probably the most well-known accused killer of Elizabeth Short, Dr. George Hodel.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, thus inspired, the authors wrote, this group would have crafted what they viewed as the most exquisite corpse of all.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Would not be the most devilish of all! And that's kind of the problem with a lot of these theories, is that they do require cartoonishly villainous characters.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yes. So now that we've talked about the surrealist links to the murder, let's return to George Hodel and how he came to be connected to the Black Dahlia.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
See, while his lawyer did succeed in getting George acquitted by making George's daughter look crazy because of what she'd said about George being the Black Dahlia killer, the plan backfired when the police opened a file to thoroughly investigate George for the murder.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. No, not in Los Angeles. Not with George Hodel.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. Well, the cops snuck a bug into Hodel's house and tapped his phone. But because George had connections, he was well aware he was being monitored, and therefore engaged in lots of loud sex, erotic poetry readings, and an inordinate amount of toilet flushes to toy with the cops.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, Hodel was also aware that his phone was being tapped. And during a conversation with a friend, Hodel said, quote, Suppose an eye did kill the Black Dahlia.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
The additional source for George Hodel, by the way, is Exquisite Corpse, Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss, which is an absolutely fascinating book full of incredible art, if you can find it.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, a lot of people have used this statement as proof that George Hodel killed Elizabeth Short. But one has to question why Hodel would say something so damning when he knew the police were listening. Because why wouldn't they come and arrest him immediately? Well, most likely, Hodel said it because he knew there was no truth to it. Because Hodel obviously liked playing with people.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
For example, his secretary died in May of 1945, almost two years before Elizabeth Short was killed. In fact, the secretary died before Elizabeth Short even came to Los Angeles.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
See, when it comes to making George a good suspect, the connections more or less end with all the surrealist stuff. It's very interesting, of course. Oh, yeah. That's why we talked about it. It's fascinating to see all these parallels.
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All the Marquis de Sade.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, that doesn't. As far as George Hodel goes, Steve Hodel maintains that George's handwriting is similar to the letters that the so-called Black Dahlia Avenger sent. But there's absolutely no evidence connecting Elizabeth Short to George Hodel in any way whatsoever.
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It really does. No, I mean, like I said, that's something that Steve claims. And, you know, there's plenty of arguments to be made against the handwriting analysis.
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Uncommon letter. I don't think they were in the Black Dahlia Avengers.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, the thing is that two women who knew Hodel, they were convinced that he knew Elizabeth. But most of the people who knew and worked with George Hodel said that he never met her. And Elizabeth Short never mentioned George Hodel, nor did she mention a George Hodel type to anyone she knew.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And the thing is that also the people who knew George Hodel said that there was no way he would have, like, if he would have killed a woman, he would not have displayed her body out for all the world to see and then communicated with the press about it. He would have kept it a secret. Like, George Hodel was a man of secrets.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. But the thing that drives the story the furthest from George Hodel is the location of the body. Hodel had no reason to be in Leimert Park. It was a 30-minute drive from his home. And there's no reason why George would dump Elizabeth Short's shoes and purse in a trash can on Crenshaw Boulevard.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Hodel also didn't drive a black Ford sedan like the one seen on the morning of the body's discovery, seen by two different people. And most importantly, he was recovering from a heart attack in January of 1947. That heart attack had kept him in the hospital for a month, which meant that he was far too weak to murder Elizabeth Short with such brutality, never mind strong enough to move the body.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Basically, Hodel was investigated because he had bribed his way through his incest trial and had skated the charges.
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Yes. Yeah. I think that George O'Dell, he's one of those characters. And I think people like him and Jeffrey Epstein, they do have their claws in deep to certain people in the government and certain people out there like in administrative positions, but others aren't. take one look at him and say, I'm not going within 10 fucking feet of that guy and I want to see that fucker in a jail cell.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I don't know. Well, two members of the DA's office were demoted because they lost George Hodel's incest case. So it's said that the DA put him on the suspect list for simple revenge.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, what they call the fifth quarter. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Steve Hodel still believes wholeheartedly that his father is the best suspect. Despite his best efforts, though, Steve says that the Black Dahlia case is still unsolved for several reasons.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
For one, when Elizabeth Short was still alive, she obscured her life to everyone she knew, which makes putting together a clear picture of her a near impossibility. That is actually, that's absolutely true. But it's not proof of George Hodel's guilt.
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Yeah, especially if they just do it once.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, because that's the reason why most serial killers get caught is that it's not necessarily because the cops are so damn good at their job. It's that when a serial killer kills another person and another person and another person, they get sloppier the longer they go on. And they eventually just make a mistake that's so egregious that basically they fall into a cop's lap.
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You know, it just happens again and again.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, they am. Well, second, Steve says that reporters and detectives have bought into various myths about the case, which have clouded their minds to the truth, which is what every single person who covers this case says about every other person's theory that isn't their own.
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Actually, I did read, and I can't remember which book it was, but when they were at the crime scene, one of the detectives did step over Elizabeth Short's body and say, God, these suicides just break me up.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But most importantly, from Steve's perspective, he claims that every detective who worked this case has intentionally sanitized or destroyed information connecting the killing to George Hodel because of Hodel's powerful connections and the possible compromise he may have obtained on those connections during his many orgies.
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That is true. Absolutely.
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I mean, all the orgies that I've been to have been pretty chill affairs.
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Mm-hmm. Orgies are more awkward than anything.
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They're very awkward.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, Steve also claims that a string of dozens of unsolved Los Angeles kidnappings and murders suddenly stopped in 1958 when George Hodel moved to the Philippines, which is where he died sometime after. In fact, Steve lays dozens of murders at his father's feet, making George Hodel one of the most prolific serial murders of his day.
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That is true. Yeah, very, very little. But in the end, as much as I admire Steve Hodel's enthusiasm, I agree with the many people who say that there's just not enough evidence to make George Hodel the one who killed, mutilated, and posed Elizabeth Short. As far as the surrealism angle goes, though, I'm not going to say that a surrealist artist murdered Elizabeth Short for an art piece.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But it is possible that surrealist art, however unconsciously, may have influenced the killer as opposed to being a straight up inspiration. Well, yeah, because we know it was mainstream. Yeah, well, I mean, by the year Elizabeth Short was murdered, it wasn't necessarily mainstream in America, but it was still pretty popular.
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Oh, very much so.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Salvador Dali was on television. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it had certainly stabbed its way into the collective unconscious of the country. And it is possible that whoever killed Elizabeth Short may have either seen some surrealist artwork or may have accidentally tapped into surrealist imagery during the murder and the posing of the body.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Because the similarities between the crime scene and the dozens of surreal art pieces is just too crazy to ignore.
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Mate, well, as far as the bisecting of the body goes, yes. But as far as the posing goes and the very specific way in which everything was left...
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
No, they all got destroyed by the reporters and the police. There was one footprint. Yeah, there was one footprint. There was one footprint, but it didn't match anything that they ever found. Well, FBI serial killer criminologist John Douglas does not think that the Black Dahlia killer is an art lover, nor does he think that our main suspect, Leslie Dillon, is the culprit.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And this brings us to the next section of our episode, The Profile. We're going to nail it down. Now, I know some people have problems with John Douglas, but while he can be hit or miss, you have to admit that he does sometimes nail it. So his opinion on who might have killed Elizabeth Short at least warrants a listen.
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John Douglas is the guy that, like, he wrote Mindhunter, and the TV show was, you know, based on him and so on and so forth.
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So in his profile of the Black Dahlia killer, John Douglas surmises that the man who murdered Elizabeth Short was white and in his late 20s, possibly older, but possessing no more than a high school education.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
This man lived alone and worked with his hands instead of his brains, possibly as a butcher, slaughterhouse worker, or some other profession where buckets of blood was the norm. At the very least, this man might have been a hunter who knew how to field dress a deer. The killer, Douglas continued, was compulsive, patient, rigid, and deliberate in everything he did.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And when he drank, he was likely to become even more of a difficult person. Because of this, the killer probably had a record for either threatening or assaulting someone with a knife. Lastly, the killer probably frequented sex workers and was under a lot of financial and personal stress in the time leading up to the murder.
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As far as how the murder went down, Douglas painted a picture in which the killer and Elizabeth Short spent several days together, days that the killer would have spent drinking. At one point, Elizabeth may have rejected his advances or mocked him for some physical or mental disability.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And when that conflict met the underlying stress and the alcohol, the killer snapped and took out all his rage on Elizabeth. As far as Kuttner and Aff went, that was just to make the transport of the body a little easier.
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Pretty much.
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Yeah, if you're in the Hodel camp, then her body was cut in half deliberately as a part of the art piece.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But for Douglas and those who subscribe to his profile, the location where Elizabeth's body was found is the single most important clue.
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Douglas suggests that the killer, quote, wanted to put the fear of God into the neighborhood in Leimert Park for personal reasons.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
As far as personal reasons go, the killer may have been working a construction job in the area that was put on hold or he could have had an emotional connection that was severed. Like I say, he played sports in a field that was bulldozed for new housing developments. He'd be mad at the neighborhood. And it's like basically this guy is who's mad at the neighborhood. Yeah.
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Or mad at somebody in the neighborhood. Yeah. The t-ball coach.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, also mad at Elizabeth Short, but mad at the neighborhood as well. But no matter what it was, the killer almost certainly had a personal connection to Leimert Park, or specifically that street or that block.
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I'm sorry, Steve Hodel.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Additionally, Douglas thinks that the killer's behavior after the body was found would stand out because he would have been anxious about leaving behind evidence or about someone seeing him dump the body. His neighbors may have noticed him cleaning his car or his home in a panic and They may have seen him ravenously consuming every piece of media about the murder.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
He had also been heard ranting about how ineffective the police were in their investigation and about how Leimert Park used to be a safe neighborhood.
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Yeah, and they also like to hear the cops describe the crime back to them, and they're also trying to see how much information the cops have and if it's possibly running towards them. Yes.
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But this guy's need to consume information may have inspired him to create his own news stories, which is why he mailed Short's belongings to a newspaper instead of the police, and why he communicated with them for a short time afterward.
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That's the other possibility, is that he may have just found it in a trash can and decided to have fun. You know, you just really have no fucking idea. No. And as far as why there were no more killings in the same style as the Black Dahlia murder...
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Douglas thinks that the killer removed himself from society by either engaging in a concentrated campaign of self-destruction or by committing himself to a mental institution. It's also possible, Douglas thinks, that the killer just drifted away into the darkness after it became apparent that the police were never going to come close to linking him to the murder of Elizabeth Short.
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Now, one of the people who thinks that there's very much something to John Douglas's profile is a former Los Angeles Times reporter named Larry Harnish. We're finally here to Larry Harnish.
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We're here. We're here. We're helping. We're around. Yeah. And that brings us to the third section of this episode, the actual good suspect. Now, author Larry Harness disputes almost every fact about the Black Dahlia case that's been put forth and says that he has the proof to back up most of his debunks, if not all.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But he's waiting to release this information until he finds a publisher for his Black Dahlia book, which is totally understandable. So while I'm saving it for the book argument that might sound a little cagey, I'll say that the theory Larry Harnish puts forth as far as who he thinks killed Elizabeth Short is highly compelling.
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I, for one, would absolutely read his book once it gets to a publisher because it does seem like Larry might have the goods to blow the lid off this whole fucking thing.
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Yeah. I kind of like that.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Like his father is like the head of the Guild of Calamitous Intent.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, as far as how Harnish got into the Black Dahlia scene, he was a copy editor for the Los Angeles Times who got an assignment to write a 50th anniversary story about the Black Dahlia murder in 1997. And he soon became obsessed like so many others before and after.
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Yeah. Well, so far, Larry Harnish has interviewed 150 people, including people who knew Elizabeth Short personally and members of the Short family. He got everybody. Yeah. As such, Harnish obviously feels quite close to the story and wants to reclaim Elizabeth Short from what he calls the Dahlia Freak.
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Yeah, he's definitely bad. But, you know, let's get more into this story. Now, while nine books make Steve sound like a crackpot with a penchant for self-publishing, he was actually an LAPD detective supervisor for 24 years. He's conducted thousands of criminal investigations and has been involved in 300 murder cases.
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Yeah, that's intense.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, when Harnish started looking into the story, he was focused on Leimert Park because he, like John Douglas, believed that the location of the body was the most important clue. But after looking into the history of the neighborhood from every possible angle, the most interesting thing about it was that a famous mobster lived just a few hundred feet from where Elizabeth Short's body was found.
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Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But that was more or less common knowledge by that point. But in August of 1997, a filmmaker sent Harnish a box of materials related to the case, and amongst the paperwork was a wedding certificate for Elizabeth Short's older sister. When the witness listed for the wedding, her address was 2959 South Norton Avenue, which was exactly one block from where Elizabeth Short's body was found.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I mean, it's fucking, it's huge. And it's completely verifiable. Like, this is something, there's no rumor here. There's no he said, she said. This is paperwork. This is a paper trail.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
So it was someone from it was actually they went to their church. They went to church together. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. Well, as it turned out, this witness was the daughter of a prominent Los Angeles surgeon named Walter Bailey, a surgeon who was well capable of bisecting a body.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Mm hmm. Now, that alone doesn't make Walter Bailey a suspect, but when Harnish began looking more into Bailey's story, he found a heretofore undiscovered web of scandal and controversy, which all pointed towards Bailey being the guilty party here.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
See, Bailey was a respected Los Angeles surgeon in the 1930s up until the early 40s, and he had a private practice just five blocks from the Biltmore Hotel. Like I said, the little pieces just kind of fill in bit by bit by bit. If you'll remember, the Biltmore was the last place that Elizabeth was seen alive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But because of his resume, he does, according to his very own book, hold himself in very high regard.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But by 1946, Walter Bailey had fallen on relatively hard times, having lost much of his status as a surgeon because he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease, and his personality was changing as a result. I'll kill! I mean, I'll have breakfast!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
are you my son no good bailey was therefore he was under a lot of emotional and financial pressure that ticks off a big box on john douglas's profile even more stressful though was bailey's personal life during the time of the black dahlia murder bailey was in the process of separating from his wife because he'd been having an affair with a fellow doctor this lady
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
This doctor had immigrated from Austria during World War II and had become a partner in Bailey's medical practice. Now, multiple people said that Walter Bailey had become a totally different person in the last years of his life. He actually died not too long after Elizabeth Short was killed, like a little under a year, right? Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, and his death certificate listed a condition called encephalomalacia, which might explain quite a bit here. This condition, encephalomalacia, effectively shrinks the brain and causes mental impairments that can lead to atypical violence.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Let's not get too many names in here. I love, I love her.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
No, she was fleeing the Nazis.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Continue. Well, Harnish also spoke to a professor of neurobiology who said that Bailey may have suffered a series of dementia-related mini-strokes that could have resulted in lower impulse control when it came to violent and or sexual urges, but would not have greatly affected his ability to be an effective surgeon. But most interesting is what went down with Walter Bailey's lover.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
See, Bailey changed his will in December of 1947, almost a year after Elizabeth Short was murdered and just before he himself expired.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Exactly. In the change, Bailey disinherited his wife and his adopted children, leaving half of his estate to his siblings and the other half to his Austrian lover. Yes. Who may or may not have been controlling Walter when his mental faculties faltered.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But Walter hadn't yet divorced his wife when he made this change to his will. So his wife started a lawsuit for her share of Walter's estate, claiming that Walter's lover was blackmailing him with a secret that would destroy his life. A secret that would be exposed if he ever went back to his family. This isn't These are court filings. And this court case was covered in the newspaper.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Like, it was a fairly big deal. It was a minor story, actually, in Los Angeles at the time, but multiple newspaper stories about this lawsuit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
They do. We know that. We've proved that for a fact. Very much so.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, but this whole secret-keeping mechanism was why Walter cut her and the kids out of his will. Now, you can go to Larry Harnish's website, lmharnish, that's H-A-R-N-I-S-C-H dot com. Oh, yeah. Yeah, put in the code GRUMPY for 20% off. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
to read his theory as to how the murder might have gone down and why Elizabeth Short may have called Walter Bailey from the Biltmore Hotel on January 9th, 1947.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. But the most important thing linking Bailey to Elizabeth Short is the body's location.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
We're talking about Larry Harnish like the audience knows who the fuck he is. The audience doesn't know who the fuck Larry Harnish is just yet, all right?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That there's one investigative direction. Yes. That is the only one we found. Well, going off Douglas' theory that the killer had an emotional connection to the neighborhood, Walter Bailey's wife was living at the house in Leimert Park at the time.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And it's assumed that Bailey left the body just a block from his wife so he could frighten her and put the fear of God into the neighborhood, as John Douglas put it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. Now, Larry does hold back on quite a few details that I would love to hear explained further. And I truly do believe that he has the goods to back up his claims.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
that is the true no it's flimsy but it is as flimsy as the rest of it yeah i don't like that's the thing is that like it is a connection it's just the motivation is a little like i don't know like it's a little wonky yeah like the the motivation through a window well yeah this is the thing you're always talking and that's honestly eddie great advice
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
We talked about him at the end of last episode. He is now the self-proclaimed grumpiest man in the world. I love him. But according to Steve Hodel, according to himself, Steve was a real-life hero born out of the imagination of Hollywood. Steve wrote this about himself.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Sure. And so am I. I mean, that's the, I really, I want to hear Larry Harness's explanation as to why like Walter Bailey would send all the shit to the newspaper. Even if he was in a debilitated mental state, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Or it could, yes, it could be. Yes. It could also be his. But who is the soft voice man? Like, you know, who called like before sending the shit?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But the soft voice man called and said that he was going to send shit before he sent the shit.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Or he may have just found the shit and decided to play his own game. That's also possible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But as far as why Harnish couldn't get his book published, he thinks that it's because Steve Hodel blew up the Dahlia investigation with his book Black Dahlia Avenger. Not surprisingly, Harnish does not think much of Hodel and his theories, but the two of them do agree that Leslie Dillon was not the man who killed Elizabeth Short.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. Well, concerning the Leslie Dillon story, Harnish says that author Pew Eatwell cherry-picked information to make Dillon look like the only possible killer. Harnish believes that Dillon was absolutely in San Francisco at the time of the murder, and he said if Eatwell had talked to him for five minutes, he would have told her so.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. Tarnish actually doesn't like any of the Black Dahlia books out there. And he has something to say about every single one. Severed by John Gilmore, 25% mistakes and 50% fiction. Boom.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Got you. Black Dahlia Avenger, fabricated crap.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Black Dahlia Files, painfully stupid.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And personally, I still think Leslie Dillon is a pretty good suspect, despite the problems. And I guess maybe I should say that, like, Mark Hansen is still a really good suspect as far as being involved goes. But, you know, I'd love to be proved wrong if there's a more likely story out there, if I could hear all this fucking debunk evidence that Larry Harnish has.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, if the body was dead for that long.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
He's totally right. No more bacons.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Hanes whites. No, I know her body definitely would. If it would have been if the most likely thing is quite possibly like if we're talking about Walter Bailey here that, you know, she was going through a dress book. She just was there for hours trying to call anybody. And then just Walter.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Bailey was like a name maybe she had the address of his office written down which was five blocks from where she was sitting at that moment so she may have called him up and say like hey can you think you can help me out oh sure thank you think maybe you can do something for me and then you know they start hanging out uh they hang out somewhere for days because that's the thing is that or he
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Like, yeah, there's still and there's the connection between, you know, Bailey and Elizabeth Short is that, you know, like Bailey went to his sister, her sister's church. So, like, you know, he's a well-respected surgeon. So it's, you know, quite possible that Elizabeth Short did know or knew or had or friends of friends of friends knew.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Or at the very least had his address, you know, maybe his net, maybe his, I don't know, maybe his number.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, in the end, the thing that makes all this so difficult to piece together is the mystery of Elizabeth Short herself. She lied about her life to just about everyone she spoke to, telling people that she was an actress or a waitress or a war widow or a grieving mother or the grieving mother of a dead child, none of which was true.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But because we know so little about the facts of Elizabeth herself, it's difficult to put together a narrative. And it's especially frustrating by the fact that living memory in this case is terrible. just out of the reach of present day. The youngest people involved in this now, I think, are in their 80s or 90s, and that's like the paper boy.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, that's why the Black Dahlia murder drives people crazy. Why every person who has a pet theory thinks that everyone else is an idiot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And why no one can seem to agree on even some of the most basic facts of the case. But if there's a single thing that everyone can agree on, it's that the history of the Black Dahlia herself will forever remain the most elusive mystery of all.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
And that lost history really is the only thing that could ever put together all the pieces that would give us a clear picture of just who killed Elizabeth Short.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yes. Well, the person who obfuscated the story the most. She did. Was herself. God help us. Because just we can never put together because all of the stories that she told to everybody else, like you just can't, you have this entire group, like you just have, it's trying to solve a murder based on a novel about like a novelization of someone's life.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
You know, like it doesn't you can't really you don't know what's true, what's not. You can't really follow any sort of investigative lines and you can't really make it anywhere because Elizabeth herself was not truthful to even her mother. Well, yeah, of course, not even her mother. Yeah. How many of us are you truthful to your mother, Henry? I tell her how many times I masturbate every week.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But her sisters, her friends, you know, like everybody, she told a different story to everybody she knew. And it just made it a complete mystery.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Nah, I'm done.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
They got the sunset one under control. I think it's back to three.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yes. Go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left to see us be physically warm. We have video episodes available. You can watch Side Stories on YouTube. You can also follow us on TikTok and Instagram at LP on the left. Don't forget to check out our Twitch streams at LPN TV.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, twitch.tv slash lpntv and see all the VOD stuff on YouTube. And don't forget to come out to see us on tour. I mean, I know we can't make Atlanta, but we're goddamn going to make it to Texas for our show in Dallas.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah, we're coming back as soon as we can. And yeah, don't forget about shows in Toronto, Detroit, and Nashville coming up in the next few months. And this shit's going to be good. I'm so exhausted. I'm about to die. Can I go home now?
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Thank you. Both of you as well. Really good stuff, guys. Hail sweet Satan. No, I hug you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
We will plug your book. I promise you. We're trying. That's what we're here to do. We're really trying to make this book deal happen.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That's it. Goodbye, Larry. Which is what this podcast is about to become.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I tried bringing him a magazine. He said he didn't want it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
After Steve's father, George Hodel, died in 1999, Steve went through his father's things and found pictures of a woman he didn't recognize. Pictures that appeared as if they were from the 1940s. As Steve stared at these pictures more and more, he came to believe that these were never-before-seen photos of Elizabeth Short.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, we're not alone in saying that the girl in these pictures is absolutely not Elizabeth Short. We know for a fact. Definitely one of them is not Elizabeth Short. Yeah. I mean, these two pictures don't even really look like the same woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Black-haired ladies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
But the photographs were close enough of a match to send Steve on a mission to delve into his father's past to see if there was some nefarious connection. Because Steve did know that his father, George Hodel, had a checkered past to say the very least.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
So George Hodel, Steve's father and the main suspect of this section, was a Los Angeles native born in 1907. He was a musical prodigy with a genius IQ of 186 who eventually decided on a career in medicine.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Barks. I'm here with the concerned Henry Zebrowski.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
After med school, Hodel made a name for himself in Hollywood as a sort of doctor to the stars, partnering with a mysterious Japanese physician about whom little is known.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Yeah. George also ran a venereal disease clinic, and as a result, he was put in charge of controlling venereal disease in the city of Los Angeles when he was named head of the L.A. County Health Department in 1939. In other words, Hodel had direct connections to the grubbiest parts of this city, and he was a powerful man with a lot of connections to boot.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, I don't know for sure, but it seems like George Hodel's inside track to Hollywood and beyond ran through a childhood friend. This is incredible. George grew up with Hollywood legend John Huston. He fucking directed the Maltese Falcon, played the main villain in Chinatown.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, George and director John Huston remained friends into adulthood, and they were so close that after John Huston divorced his wife in 1933, George married her soon after. Is that close? I think it is, because he knew John Huston. That's how he knew this woman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
I don't know if they swapped wives. I just know that John Huston divorced this woman, Dorothy, and George Hodel picked her up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That's why he's one of the greatest. His portrayal of the villain in Chinatown is one of the greatest villain portrayals in cinematic history.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Well, John Houston's ex-wife would become Steve Hodel's mother, although she and George Hodel were divorced by 1944 after Steve's mother filed a complaint of extreme cruelty. Now, by 1945, George Hodel was one of L.A. 's reigning shady weirdos, performing illegal abortions in between hedonistic orgies held at his Frank Lloyd Wright Jr.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
designed home, which had been bizarrely constructed in the style of a Mayan temple.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Now, on May 9th, 1945, suspicion fell on George when his secretary suddenly died in his presence. On that night, George allegedly called his ex-wife and told her to come over to his secretary's apartment, which... When George's ex-wife arrived, she found George's secretary unconscious from a barbiturate overdose.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
Incredibly, Hodel's main concern was not his secretary, but the two manuscripts that she had written, manuscripts that he gave to his ex-wife to burn. Hodel's ex-wife did as she was told, and the secretary quickly died from an overdose, while Hodel moved on with his life, having squashed whatever secrets she may have had.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 603: The Black Dahlia Murder Part IV - Exquisite Corpse
That is extraordinarily easily disproved.