Marcus Parks
Appearances
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Yeah, she was in her early 20s. She was a very erratic human being.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I'd actually put Jack Lemmon as the grumpier old man.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
Everyone loves Meredith Burgess, though.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
You're agnostic? You don't seem agnostic. You seem very passionate.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
I hate mysteries.
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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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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Episode 602: The Black Dahlia Murder Part III - Blood and Brown
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.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Yeah, he's over the captain.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Infant baptism, in their opinion, was utter horseshit because babies can't really decide anything for themselves.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Within weeks, if the average 17th century infantile death from syphilis is anything to go on, Euronymous' child died a horrible, horrible death.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Thank you. And make sure that the box is way too big for what I ordered.
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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.
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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.
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He's nice. And Torrentius claimed to go on long walks in the woods where he would have extensive conversations with Satan himself.
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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.
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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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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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You can start talking like a douchebag when you say that. No, listen, no.
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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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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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There's a lot of energy to draw upon.
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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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Well, I mean, he's definitely on the road. He's abandoned his ailing wife. He went to go make money.
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Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
And honestly, you spend an afternoon with her.
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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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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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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.
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yep. Jacobs was a quick-tempered alcoholic rapist, but an excellent sailor nonetheless.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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!
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You think it's time to get some new shit, you think?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
We're talking about it now.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
You really are.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Eastern. And that is, of course, starring Mr. Ed Larson.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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. ...
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
I still feel like the low seas.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to stay home.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Hail Peter. Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping you would.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World
Yeah. Oh, that is nice. I was hoping you would.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Come on, baby, do this for me.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
There are so many fucking characters. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
So was Hanson dying and he just wanted to get Thaddeus some information?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yes, you're making things purposefully confusing for people.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
What did the guy say who killed Elizabeth Short after he killed her? What? Abracadabra. Marcus liked it.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Did you think it was crocus pocus?
Last Podcast On The Left
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
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.
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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.
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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?
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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,
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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.
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Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
What do you think of that? Not pretty small, huh?
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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.
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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.
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, along with 700 phenobarbital pills. I just like to be awake.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Oh, nice.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Yeah, it's what you use to roofie women.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Fuck! Oh my God, Jeff did do it! It's been me!
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Obviously, Leslie was using Jeff as his alter ego.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Well, there's three parts for a reason. Yes.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
They were call me when you get them responses.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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...
Last Podcast On The Left
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
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad
Especially not them.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
And we're here for the Batavia.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
It's actually a very bad problem with homeless people.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Yeah. But you could eat.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 606: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part II - Batavia's Graveyard
Henry, here's a secret. You can have one anytime.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Oh, wow.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Episode 609: Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell - The Doomsday Murders Part I - Beyond The Veil
Yes. That's wild.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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 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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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?
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
That's Red Manly for you.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
And he didn't, mostly because she divorced him.
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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.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
He had to be put away for a little while, yeah.
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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.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
It did.
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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?
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Just set a ball.
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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.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Sheriff's Department to believe she was killed by a military man.
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Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
Of course it is!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
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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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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...
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 600: The Black Dahlia Murder Part I - The Girl from Hollywood
as to who personally I think is the best suspect and why.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.
Last Podcast On The Left
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.