Phoebe Judge
Appearances
Criminal
The Raid
Coming to ABC and Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church. And then she got diagnosed with cancer. A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved. We thought she was God's gift, but she was a liar.
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The Raid
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from ritual. I'm not a New Year's resolution person, but I do care about routine and about little things we can do to stay healthy. One thing you can easily add to your routine is a daily multivitamin. I've been taking rituals essential for women for about a year and a half. I take two tablets a day, every day.
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You can take ritual on an empty stomach, and they don't smell bad. They smell like mint. It contains nine key nutrients, like omega-3 for your brain, vitamin D, which can be harder to get now that the days are shorter, plus magnesium and boron for your bones. Rituals Essential for Women is USP verified. That just means that every ingredient listed on the bottle matches exactly what's inside.
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Ritual's Essential for Women 18 Plus is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com slash criminal. Start Ritual or add Essential for Women 18 Plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 25% off. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. With Quince, you can update your wardrobe without spending a ton of money.
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They offer classic, high-quality pieces, like their Mongolian cashmere sweaters, which start at just $60. I've got my eye on their long-down puffer coat. It's water-resistant, comes in nine colors, and according to the reviews, it's incredibly warm and comfortable. I try not to buy new things all the time, and when I do, I want them to last.
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Everything I've gotten from Quince looks great, no matter how many times I've washed and dried it. Whatever you're looking for, all of Quince's items are priced 50-80% less than similar brands. They offer lower prices by partnering directly with top factories, cutting out middleman warehouses, and the costs of a physical store. Upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag.
Criminal
The Raid
Go to quince.com slash criminal for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash criminal to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash criminal. When you first heard about the raid on the Marion County record, what did you think? Here we go again. Felicity Barringer is a journalist.
Criminal
The Raid
When the police came to his door, Eric asked to look at their warrant. The warrant said they were searching for evidence of identity theft and, quote, unlawful acts concerning computers. At the same time, police were also searching the newspaper's office blocks away. They searched the house and the newspaper office for several hours.
Criminal
The Raid
The Stanford Daily is the student-run newspaper at Stanford University. In the spring of 1971, the paper was covering two protests— One after a Mexican-American professor was denied tenure, and one after a black janitor had been fired.
Criminal
The Raid
The Stanford Daily's photographer was there and took photos of a clash between police and protesters. He took photos as police entered the building.
Criminal
The Raid
13 police officers were injured. At the time, the staff of the Stanford Daily had a policy about its photographs and how they could be used.
Criminal
The Raid
A few days after the protest, on April 12, 1971, Felicity Barringer had just left an English class and was about to walk into the newspaper office.
Criminal
The Raid
The Palo Alto police were inside their offices. A judge had issued the warrant because he believed the newspaper had photos that would show who had hurt the police officers.
Criminal
The Raid
Walter Cronkite said about the raid, this sounds like some remote totalitarian state. Later, the Palo Alto police said they'd gotten a search warrant rather than a subpoena because they worried that the newspaper staff would destroy photos if they knew the police wanted them. In the end, the police raiding the Stanford Daily didn't find any incriminating photos of protesters at all.
Criminal
The Raid
The paper filed a lawsuit against the Palo Alto police chief, James Zurcher, They argued that by entering their offices with a search warrant, their First Amendment rights to free speech and free press and their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure were being violated.
Criminal
The Raid
At least seven officers were involved in the raid, including the chief of police, a man named Gideon Cody. They eventually started taking things as evidence. Eric Meyer's laptop, a hard drive, his mother's computer, her router.
Criminal
The Raid
The Supreme Court reviewed the case in 1978. James Zurcher, the police chief, gave an interview to the Stanford Daily and said that if the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision and decided in favor of the police, quote, I would certainly give a lot of thought to any third-party searches in the future.
Criminal
The Raid
In the end, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Palo Alto police, deciding that using a warrant to search the newspaper was constitutional. It was extremely disappointing. The Boston Globe called the decision, quote, a first step toward a police state. There was so much outcry that then-President Jimmy Carter encouraged Congress to take up the issue.
Criminal
The Raid
In 1980, Congress passed the Privacy Protection Act, which barred law enforcement from using warrants to search newsrooms in almost all situations.
Criminal
The Raid
Since the Privacy Protection Act passed in 1980, newsroom raids have been rare. Until the raid on the Marion County Record. We'll be right back.
Criminal
The Raid
Five days after the raid, the Marion County Record put out its weekly paper, the first since the police raided its newsroom.
Criminal
The Raid
The day after the raid, the Marion Police Department wrote a Facebook post defending their search, acknowledging the Federal Privacy Protection Act, but suggesting it doesn't give special protection, quote, when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.
Criminal
The Raid
The newspaper's lawyer, Bernie Rhodes, responded in a letter to Police Chief Gideon Cody, your characterization of the law is wrong. Here he is speaking with KCUR, a public radio station in Kansas City.
Criminal
The Raid
In videos at the time, you said, you know, this will make national news. And the police didn't seem to believe you.
Criminal
The Raid
On the Wednesday after the search, the Marion County attorney said that he was withdrawing the search warrant that had been used for the raid. He said that there was, quote, insufficient evidence for it. A judge ordered that the items the police had taken be returned.
Criminal
The Raid
When the newspaper's lawyer realized that the sheriff's office had made a copy of data from their hard drive and hadn't returned that copy, they went back to court.
Criminal
The Raid
By then, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, or KBI, had announced that it was taking over leading the investigation from the local police. In a statement, the director of the KBI said, No one is above the law, whether a public official or a representative of the media.
Criminal
The Raid
But a spokesperson from the Kansas Department of Revenue, which runs the website that reporter Phyllis Zorn accessed, said that it was legal to check the status of someone's license on their website, that it's, quote, public-facing and anyone can use it. Almost a year later, in August of 2024, an investigative report was released.
Criminal
The Raid
The report, prepared by two special prosecutors, found that reporter Phyllis Zorn had not broken any laws by accessing Carrie Newell's driving record online. It found instead that when a Marion County police officer called the Department of Revenue to ask about her search, he reached a, quote, erroneous conclusion that Phyllis Zorn lied about her identity in order to access the record.
Criminal
The Raid
The report added, quote, other than this single phone call, no additional investigation was done. The report also addressed the question of whether the police chief, Gideon Cody, was retaliating against the newspaper for looking into his background. They wrote that it was more likely that the police, quote, genuinely reached the conclusion that they had uncovered a crime.
Criminal
The Raid
The report went on to say that, quote, it is not a crime under Kansas law for a law enforcement officer to conduct a poor investigation and reach erroneous conclusions. But the special prosecutors did find probable cause to believe that Gideon Cody had broken one law.
Criminal
The Raid
Restaurant owner Carrie Newell told investigators that in the days after the raid, Gideon Cody had told her to delete text messages between the two of them. She said that he asked her to delete them because he didn't want anyone to misconstrue anything, like a smiley face emoji.
Criminal
The Raid
Gideon Cody was suspended and then resigned. He was charged with obstruction of justice in August of 2024, and the case is still ongoing today. We reached out to his lawyer for comment and didn't hear back. How did this raid change your newsroom?
Criminal
The Raid
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Eric Meyer and his parents bought the Marion County Record in 1998 to keep it from being sold to a newspaper chain. His father had worked at the paper since 1948 as an editor, and his mother was a columnist and editor. Eric started working at the paper when he was a kid.
Criminal
The Raid
In addition to the criminal charge against Gideon Cody, the newspaper has filed a federal lawsuit against him and other officers and the former mayor of Marion, David Mayfield, who allegedly authorized the raid.
Criminal
The Raid
Eric Meyer had written critical editorials about him, and the lawsuit states that David Mayfield wrote on his Facebook page about two weeks before the raid that, quote, the real villains in America are the radical journalists, teachers, and professors. The lawsuit also states that the raid violated the newspaper's constitutional rights, along with the Federal Privacy Protection Act.
Criminal
The Raid
We reached out to the lawyer defending David Mayfield and other city officials named in the lawsuit, and she declined to comment.
Criminal
The Raid
There's a memorial honoring Eric Meyer's mother, Joanne Meyer, outside of the Marion County Records offices. The video of her standing up to the police during the raid went viral. She and Eric received a number of awards, and she was posthumously inducted into the Kansas Press Association Hall of Fame, along with her son.
Criminal
The Raid
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sachiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
The Raid
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
The Raid
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Criminal
The Raid
Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Raid
When Gideon Cody was sworn in as the new police chief of Marion, the record covered it, writing that he would make $60,000 a year as police chief and that he was one of three candidates who'd interviewed for the position. Before that, he'd been working as a police captain in Kansas City.
Criminal
The Raid
Their sources said that he was under internal review by the police department for allegedly making insulting and sexist comments to a female officer. Reporter Deb Groover at the Marion County Record started working on a story about Gideon Cody's past. Did he know that you were looking into, that the record was looking into his backstory?
Criminal
The Raid
A few months later, on August 1st, 2023, a local congressman held an open forum at a coffee shop in Marion. Police Chief Gideon Cody was there. So was Eric Meyer and another reporter from the Marion County Record. The coffee shop was owned by a woman named Carrie Newell.
Criminal
The Raid
Carrie Newell later said that the Marion County record has, quote, "...a longstanding reputation for twisting and contorting comments within our community." A court document later said that Carrie Newell said that people were, quote, high-fiving her for making the reporters leave.
Criminal
The Raid
After the forum, the Marion County Police Department posted about the event on Facebook, writing, Thank you, Carrie Newell, for the invite. The next day, Eric Meyer and Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn wrote about what happened in an article with the headline Media Ejected at Open Forum. That day, they got a Facebook message.
Criminal
The Raid
Reporter Phyllis Zorn had received a screenshot of a letter from the Kansas Department of Revenue. It outlined all of the steps Carrie Newell would need to follow to get her license reinstated. She'd lost it after a 2008 drunk driving conviction. The person who sent the tip also said police were aware that Carrie Newell did not have a valid driver's license and was driving anyway.
Criminal
The Raid
Eric and Phyllis wanted to figure out whether the document was real. So we called the state. Phyllis Zorn called the Kansas Department of Revenue, also known as the KDOR, and asked if she could find the document on their site. The person on the phone told her how to do it.
Criminal
The Raid
The Facebook tip had come from someone who was friends with Carrie Newell's soon-to-be ex-husband.
Criminal
The Raid
The vice mayor of Marion was also sent the same document on Facebook. She forwarded it along to the city administrator because Carrie Newell was applying for a liquor license.
Criminal
The Raid
That night, Carrie Newell went to a city council meeting. Eric Meyer was there, too. And Carrie Newell formally accused the newspaper of stealing her information by illegally accessing the state's website. She said that not only had they stolen her information, but they'd shared it with the city's vice mayor, Ruth Herbel.
Criminal
The Raid
On August 11th, 2023, police arrived at the home of a man named Eric Meyer in Marion, Kansas.
Criminal
The Raid
Four days later is when police knocked on his door with their warrant to search his house and the newspaper office. In the warrant, Gideon Cody had written that downloading the document from the state's website involved either impersonating Carrie Newell or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought.
Criminal
The Raid
In home security footage, Eric's mother, Joanne Meyer, is wearing a house coat, holding on to a walker. She's 98.
Criminal
The Raid
There are six police officers in her living room. One is holding a flashlight, looking at a desk.
Criminal
The Raid
Eric Meyer is the editor and publisher of a local newspaper, the Marion County Record. Marion is a small town about an hour north of Wichita, and at the time, the paper had about 4,000 subscribers. Eric took over as editor of the newspaper in 2021 after working as a reporter and editor and as a journalism professor for decades.
Criminal
The Raid
At the newspaper's offices, police told reporters they needed to wait outside while they conducted their search. Reporter Deb Groover later said when the police initially came in, she thought there might have been a bomb threat. When she realized what was happening, she tried to call Eric Meyer.
Criminal
The Raid
She said that Gideon Cody told her she couldn't call anyone and that he grabbed her phone out of her hand. Deb Groover was not involved in the reporting on Carrie Newell and said so to Gideon Cody, but she had been the reporter asking questions about his past.
Criminal
The Raid
On body camera footage, you can hear Gideon Cody saying, keep a personal file on me. I don't care. The sheriff's office threw a pizza party for the officers after the raid. Gideon Cody left his body camera running during the party and can be heard telling the Marion County Sheriff that taking the phone out of Deb Groover's hand, quote, made my day.
Criminal
The Raid
The police had also raided a third location, Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel's home, where they seized her laptop and cell phone. You can hear her reacting in body camera footage.
Criminal
The Raid
The next day, Joanne Meyer had a heart attack and died. She'd been working for the paper for almost 60 years, writing her column up until her death. Were you able to publish a paper that week after the raid?
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
It was called Operation Ranch Hand, and its informal motto was, Only you can prevent a forest. The most common herbicide was Agent Orange, produced for the U.S. government by several companies, including the Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. Agent Orange got its name because its barrels were marked with an orange line. And it makes people very sick.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
And you weren't picking up any, you know... heat sensors from the infrared on the helicopter.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
investigators asked Rodney and their son to come back to the Grandview Overlook to show them what had happened.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
By some estimates, 400,000 Vietnamese people died from exposure. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that 3 million people were harmed, including hundreds of thousands of babies born with birth defects. In 1988, an Air Force researcher wrote a letter to Senator Tom Daschle, quote, We were aware of the potential for damage.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
We'll be right back. By the end of the second day of searching, there is still no trace of Julie Wheeler. Here's Deputy Chief Ranger Stanley Wilson.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Officers from the Federal Probation Department, along with the West Virginia State Police, decided to visit Rodney Wheeler at home.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide. But a lot of U.S. soldiers were exposed, an estimated 2.6 million. In 1991, Congress began to offer funding and treatment to American soldiers who served in Vietnam and had certain diseases.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
So did that mean that the Wheelers had put the shoe and the cell phone at the bottom of the gorge?
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Julie Wheeler told Stanley Wilson that she had not gone to the overlook at all. It was just her husband and teenage son.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
She was arrested, along with her husband, and pled guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice. Eric Gose prosecuted the case. She still needed to be sentenced for her original conviction for health care fraud.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
An additional year. So her total sentence was 54 months, Her husband was sentenced to two months in prison.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
When you hear about a case like this and see what they tried to pull off, do you just think, what were you thinking? How did you think this was going to go?
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Julie Wheeler is out of prison. We tried to reach her for this story, but didn't hear back. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
This episode was mixed by Michael Rayfield. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
And they later introduced a special program to help children whose parents were deployed to Vietnam and whose exposure may have caused the child to be born with spina bifida, a condition where the backbone and spinal cord don't properly develop. Those children can get benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs. One of them was Kelly Wriston.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Tom Dominski first heard about Kelly Wriston in 2017. He's the resident agent in charge at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General in Pittsburgh. He was brought in because something didn't seem right with the way the health care worker, Julie Wheeler, was billing the government.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
So tell me a little bit more about how did she get caught? I mean, how did the red flag happen?
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Hi, it's Phoebe. I wanted to let you know that on Tuesday, April 8th, I'm hosting a trivia night on Zoom along with Lauren Spohr. Our whole team is putting together questions. And of course, there'll be prizes. If you'd like to be there, join Criminal+. You can learn more about it at thisiscriminal.com slash plus. Here's the show.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
In February of 2020, Julie Wheeler pled guilty to federal health care fraud. Her sentencing was scheduled for June. She was facing up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine and would be ordered to pay restitution, potentially as much as $469,000.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
A couple of weeks before her sentencing, on May 31st, she and her husband, Rodney Wheeler, and their 17-year-old son visited the Grand View Overlook in the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Between 1962 and 1971, the United States government sprayed more than 19 million gallons of herbicides in Vietnam. Parts of Cambodia and Laos were also sprayed. The military wanted to strip the leaves from trees, making it hard for the Viet Cong to hide from U.S. military airplanes, and to kill all the crops, eliminating sources of food.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Just after 8 p.m. on May 31, 2020, Rodney Wheeler and his teenage son called 911 to say Julie Wheeler had fallen over the cliff.
Criminal
The Bottom of the Cliff
Stanley Wilson is a deputy chief ranger with the National Park Service.
Criminal
The Stay
In the early 2000s, he learned that he had a daughter. Her name was Nikki, and he got custody of her just after she turned two. Her mother had lost custody soon after Nikki was born. Nikki had been sick for a lot of her life. By the time she was two, she'd been to the doctor more than 45 times. She had breathing problems and kept getting infections that were resistant to antibiotics.
Criminal
The Stay
Robert Robertson's execution, which was scheduled five days later, was put on hold. his lawyers tried to get access to Nikki's medical records and asked experts to look at them and explain what they thought had happened. Robert's lawyers were especially interested in finding scans of Nikki's head that had been made immediately after she arrived at the emergency room.
Criminal
The Stay
The jury in Robert Roberson's trial hadn't seen these scans, and neither had the medical examiner who performed Nikki's autopsy. Initially, no one could find them, But then, in 2018, a new employee at the court found a box in a courthouse basement which included the scans.
Criminal
The Stay
Experts pointed to the fact that Nikki had been a very sick child, and that she had had breathing problems before her death. They also pointed out that she had been prescribed medications that are no longer prescribed to children, including high doses of Phenergan, which later had a black box warning against prescribing it to children who are under two or have a history of respiratory issues.
Criminal
The Stay
and codeine, which is an opioid, that the FDA now restricts for children because of the risks of breathing problems and death. They also said that Nikki had had undiagnosed pneumonia.
Criminal
The Stay
The state responded, saying that the evidence they'd presented at the trial that Robert had shaken Nikki was still convincing. Prosecutors called the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy to testify, and she said that she did not see any evidence that Nikki had chronic pneumonia or that her injuries could have resulted from a short fall from the bed.
Criminal
The Stay
She said that blunt force trauma and not an infection stopped her breathing. The judge wrote... While the applicant has shown that there is new scientific evidence not available at the time of his trial, he has failed to show by a preponderance of evidence that had this new evidence been presented at trial, he would not have been convicted.
Criminal
The Stay
In January of 2002, a couple of months after Nikki had started living with Robert, he took her to the emergency room. She'd been coughing and vomiting for days. A doctor prescribed a drug called Phenergan to help with her nausea. Nikki was sent home, but her temperature started going up. At the pediatrician's office the next day, her temperature was 104.5.
Criminal
The Stay
They emphasized blunt force trauma as the cause of death. They felt that it was still clear that Nikki's death was a homicide, as the autopsy had concluded, and the court seemed to agree.
Criminal
The Stay
So all of this is going on in the days leading up to his execution, this gigantic public campaign, and his lawyers behind the scenes doing everything they can to try to convince someone to stop this execution.
Criminal
The Stay
One day before Robert's scheduled execution, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee met for a hearing.
Criminal
The Stay
Kayla says the detective told lawmakers he'd relied too much on the medical consensus at the time. And he said his perception of Robert's flat affect as an indication of guilt was wrong. He hadn't known that Robert had autism.
Criminal
The Stay
She was prescribed more Phenergan, but this time it was in a cough syrup with codeine. At the same time, Robert's girlfriend was in the hospital, and so Nikki stayed with her maternal grandparents. Robert picked Nikki up the next night. Robert says when they got home, he made Nikki a snack, and they watched a movie together until they were falling asleep.
Criminal
The Stay
The detective said, quote, I told my wife last week that I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that I was so focused on finding an offender and convicting someone that I did not see Robert. The hearing lasted more than eight hours.
Criminal
The Stay
And then the committee issued a subpoena for Robert Robertson to testify four days after he was scheduled to be executed. He can't show up to a subpoena if he's dead. He can't show up to a subpoena if he's dead. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile.
Criminal
The Stay
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Criminal
The Stay
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The Stay
You can shop plans at mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's mintmobile.com slash phoebe. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month, five-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.
Criminal
The Stay
Robert put Nikki to bed in his bed so she wouldn't be sleeping alone. Robert says that around 5 a.m., he woke up because he heard a strange cry and saw that Nikki had fallen out of the bed. He says he talked to her for two hours to make sure she was okay, and then they went back to sleep. He says that when his alarm went off around 9 a.m.,
Criminal
The Stay
When you went to bed that night, what were you expecting to happen the next day, the day of Robert Robertson's scheduled execution?
Criminal
The Stay
Robert was scheduled to be executed around 6 p.m., Legislators on the committee that issued the subpoena argued that Robert Robertson's experiences, and being the first potential shaken baby syndrome execution, made him the only person who could testify about the impacts of certain aspects of the junk science law.
Criminal
The Stay
They asked for a stay of execution to allow Robert to respond to the subpoena and testify immediately. Their request was denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The execution would move forward.
Criminal
The Stay
But then, less than an hour and a half before the execution was scheduled, a district court judge issued a temporary restraining order validating the subpoena and blocking the execution. Then, at the Attorney General's request, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the restraining order. The execution was back on. So the legislators on the committee asked the state Supreme Court to step in.
Criminal
The Stay
The tweet read, The Supreme Court of Texas has granted a Texas House of Representatives emergency motion, in part, an issue to stay, effectively halting the execution of Robert Robertson. It included a link to the judge's opinions.
Criminal
The Stay
He couldn't wake her up, even when he grabbed her face and shook it, and her lips were turning blue. So he rushed her to the emergency room at that point. At the hospital, doctors performed CPR and intubated Nikki. Hospital staff noticed a bump on the back of her head and performed a CAT scan, which showed blood between her brain and her skull.
Criminal
The Stay
One prison official offered to find Robert some clothes so that he wouldn't have to wear his prison uniform while he testified. And prison staff asked Robert what his favorite color was, so they could find him something in that color.
Criminal
The Stay
But the attorney general's office and the legislative committee couldn't agree on a plan in time. A couple of days later, the Attorney General's office sent out a statement to, quote, correct falsehoods.
Criminal
The Stay
It said that Robert had murdered Nikki, that the junk science objection has, quote, no basis in reality, and that Robert was lawfully sentenced to death and had, quote, exhausted every legally available appellate avenue. Members of Nikki's family on her mother's side, including her maternal grandfather, wrote a letter to the legislators on the committee.
Criminal
The Stay
Towards the end of the letter, they said, We remain convinced that Mr. Roberson is guilty and directly responsible for Nikki's death. Nikki's death is a real tragedy in this case, and her loss has left a profound hole in all of our hearts. In December, the Legislative Committee issued another subpoena for Robert to testify. But that hasn't happened either.
Criminal
The Stay
The scan also showed brain swelling, but no fractures. Nikki was transferred to the Children's Medical Center in Dallas. Soon after she got there, she was given more scans. And she was also examined by a child abuse expert.
Criminal
The Stay
In late November, the judge who signed the death warrant last year and who had decided against ordering a new trial for Robert Robertson in 2021 recused herself from the case. She didn't give a reason. A new judge hasn't been assigned. Kayla Guo will continue reporting on Robert's case and has agreed to come back and update us. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me.
Criminal
The Stay
Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
The Stay
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
The Stay
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast.
Criminal
The Stay
We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Stay
The idea of shaken baby syndrome first came about in the early 1970s, when a neurosurgeon in England started noticing that some of the infants and children he was treating had bleeding between the brain and the skull, without any outward signs of head injury.
Criminal
The Stay
Social workers told him that they'd noticed parents attempting to discipline their babies by shaking them, and the neurosurgeon theorized that the mysterious bleeding could have been caused by shaking. A radiologist in Pennsylvania later came up with the term Whiplash Shaken Infant Syndrome. Eventually, it became a more formal diagnosis.
Criminal
The Stay
And in 2001, the year before Nikki was taken to the hospital, the American Association of Pediatrics published a paper that recommended a presumption of child abuse when an infant came in with certain symptoms.
Criminal
The Stay
Nikki had all three symptoms. The day after she arrived at the medical center, she was taken off of life support. Robert was not told before. And how did he hear that Nikki had died?
Criminal
The Stay
The child abuse expert at the hospital signed a statement that day, stating that in Nikki's case there had been, quote, some flinging or shaking component, which resulted in bleeding between the brain and the skull, along with diffuse brain injury. Robert was arrested before the autopsy was performed and charged with capital murder. And what did he say when he was told that this was...
Criminal
The Stay
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy had concluded that Nikki's death was a homicide. and testified that, quote, when a child is shaken hard enough, the brain is actually moving back and forth within the skull, impacting the skull itself. The child abuse expert at the hospital in Dallas testified that, quote, it is not something that ever happens accidentally.
Criminal
The Stay
It is not something you see in normal children who are cared for by reasonable adults. And what did Robert Robertson and his defense attorney say had happened?
Criminal
The Stay
And the lawyer said, okay, fine, maybe... You know, she was shaken, but he didn't mean to hurt her.
Criminal
The Stay
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. With Quince, you can buy yourself some really nice new things to wear, but at a reasonable price. They also sell shoes and bags and jewelry... If you've ever heard Lauren complain about my bracelets making noise during an interview, you know that I'm a fan of bangles.
Criminal
The Stay
Quince offers a classic plain gold bangle, which I like, and they have other options too, but not so many that it's overwhelming. The same goes for their sweaters and blouses. With Quince, you can pick from a few curated options to find a classic quality piece that you feel like yourself wearing. Whatever you're looking for, all of Quince's items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands.
Criminal
The Stay
Kayla Guo is a reporter for the Texas Tribune. She's talking about the case of a man on death row named Robert Roberson. Robert Roberson was born in Mineola, Texas in 1966. In his 20s, he spent time in prison for burglary and passing bad checks. By his mid-30s, he was living in a small town between Houston and Dallas and had a job delivering newspapers.
Criminal
The Stay
You can give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash criminal for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash criminal to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash criminal Thank you. Appointments made through the app can happen quickly, often within 72 hours of booking.
Criminal
The Stay
If you need to see someone right away, ZocDoc can help you find someone with an opening that same day. You can stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash criminal to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash criminal. ZocDoc.com slash criminal.
Criminal
The Stay
Ten years after Robert Robertson was convicted, Texas became the first state to pass a law that allowed courts to reconsider cases that relied on science that has since evolved or been discredited. It's been called the Junk Science Law.
Criminal
The Stay
The science behind all kinds of forensic evidence that one seems certain has changed. Bite marks, burn patterns, blood spatter analysis, and also shaken baby syndrome. Specifically, the link between three symptoms and the assumption of abuse.
Criminal
The Stay
In 2012, the neurosurgeon who had originally proposed the idea of shaken baby syndrome wrote that it was a hypothesis. not proven medical or scientific facts. By 2015, at least 16 people around the country who had been convicted using the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis had been exonerated. One judge called it more an article of faith than a proposition of science.
Criminal
The Stay
Robert Robertson's execution was scheduled for June 21, 2016. He got a new lawyer who filed an appeal for him based on the junk science law.
Criminal
The Mirage
Support for criminal comes from better help. That back-to-school feeling can come at any age. I know a lot of people love it. It's not my favorite feeling. I like summer. But the fall is a good time to take stock of where you are and where you'd like to be. Therapy can help. If you're thinking of starting, you might try BetterHelp.
Criminal
The Mirage
Hi, it's Phoebe. Today we're bringing you a story about a bar in my hometown of Chicago. It was called the Mirage Tavern. And even though it sold drinks and had regulars, it was a front. But probably not the kind you're imagining. Our friends at the radio show and podcast Snap Judgment talked with some of the people who ran the bar back in 2018 in an episode they called Night at the Mirage.
Criminal
The Mirage
Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home.
Criminal
The Mirage
His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. We're going back on tour this November to Austin, Tucson, Boulder, Portland, Detroit, Madison, Northampton, and Atlanta.
Criminal
The Mirage
If you've never seen a Criminal Live show before, it's not like a live taping of an interview. It's a real show. Nine brand new stories, specially chosen because they're fun to share in a room full of people, with music, photos, videos, and animations. We can't wait. You can find out more information at thisiscriminal.com slash live. See you soon.
Criminal
The Mirage
It's entirely online and designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if you don't like them, it's very easy to switch therapists and try someone new at any time for no additional charge. Rediscover your curiosity with BetterHelp.
Criminal
The Mirage
The 25-part series that the Chicago Sun-Times ran, called The Mirage, became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local special reporting. The Pulitzer jury said the paper had shown extraordinary commitment in terms of cost and legal risk to reveal widespread abuses by public officials.
Criminal
The Mirage
But in the end, the Pulitzer board refused to give them the prize because the reporting had been based in deception. Pam Zekman and Zay Smith wrote a book together in 1979, also called The Mirage. Two years after Zay Smith spoke with Snap Judgment, he died of lung cancer. He'd been a reporter for more than 40 years. Special thanks to the team at Snap Judgment.
Criminal
The Mirage
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
The Mirage
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll join our membership program, Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to criminal episodes without any ads. And you'll get bonus episodes with me and criminal co-creator Laurence Ford, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
Criminal
The Mirage
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Mirage
Visit betterhelp.com slash criminal today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash criminal. We're going back on tour this November to Austin, Tucson, Boulder, Portland, Detroit, Madison, Northampton, and Atlanta. If you've never seen a Criminal Live show before, it's not like a live taping of an interview. It's a real show.
Criminal
The Mirage
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. Sometimes large phone companies promise one price, but the bill you receive tells quite a different and more expensive story. Mint Mobile is trying to take a different approach. When they say you'll pay $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan, they mean it.
Criminal
The Mirage
Nine brand new stories, specially chosen because they're fun to share in a room full of people, with music, photos, videos, and animations. We can't wait. You can find out more information at thisiscriminal.com slash live. See you soon.
Criminal
The Mirage
All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even keep your own phone and your same phone number. One of our friends gave Mint Mobile a try and said it was incredibly easy to make the switch and that his service is exactly the same as it was for much, much cheaper.
Criminal
The Mirage
To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's mintmobile.com slash phoebe. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash phoebe. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower, above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
Criminal
The Mirage
Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. Cement Mobile for details. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. Now is the time to think about sweaters. Quince has a lot of very nice, affordable sweaters that cost 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands. They have a new organic cotton fisherman boatneck sweater that I've been wearing every day.
Criminal
The Mirage
It's oversized and doesn't pill, and it's simple and well-made. I also like their cashmere t-shirts. They have cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, even washable silk button downs. And it's not just clothes. I also like their bedding. They have three different weights of down comforter, lightweight, all season, and ultra warm.
Criminal
The Mirage
You can stay warm this fall with some new high-quality items from Quince. Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash criminal for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash criminal to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash criminal.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly found a church where she could finally sleep. When she woke up, she continued roaming Manhattan. Then, someone she knew recognized her and told Polly that the police were looking for her.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
They took her to Manhattan's prison, the Tombs, and transferred her to the Staten Island Jail. That day, the editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, published a story about Polly.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The Herald reported that they found a nightcap, nightgown, and hair similar to Polly's color in George's bedroom. Soon, all of the papers started publishing their own accounts of what happened. One reported that Polly had poisoned Emmeline with a dose of acid. Another used Polly's separation from her husband and her bad character as signs that she probably committed the murder.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Another reported that Polly had confessed. She hadn't. A few days after her arrest, Polly went into labor alone in her jail cell and delivered a stillborn baby. When word got out, a penny paper reported that Polly had smothered her own child. James Gordon Bennett of the Herald printed that Polly had nearly a half dozen abortions during her relationship with George Waite.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
During the investigation, the editors of the Penny Papers petitioned the commissioner and the district attorney to let the press observe the witness examinations. Previously, press weren't allowed to sit in on those proceedings. But James Gordon Bennett argued that the press was the living jury of the nation. The district attorney and the commissioner allowed it.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
From his jail cell, George Waite knew the penny press was writing about him. He was being charged as an accessory after the murders. He decided to publish a letter in the papers claiming his own innocence. He wrote he had no idea how Captain Houseman's daughter, Annalise's beads, had ended up in his shop. And George did not come to Polly's defense.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly's trial was scheduled for June 1844, five months after she was arrested. One reporter predicted that it would be a mess. Quote, they manage these matters wretchedly in New York. That reporter was Edgar Allan Poe.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
He even invented a word for this way of thinking, radiocination. The idea of using logic, more than just facts, to solve a crime. In post-detective stories, the main characters used radiocination to solve crimes police couldn't.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
To him, the police seemed, quote, blown about in all directions by every varying puff of the most unconsidered newspaper opinion. The trial of Polly Bodine began on June 24, 1844, on Staten Island.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Neighbors formed a line and started passing buckets of water from the nearest well. They were able to put the fire out. Three men volunteered to go into the house to check that the fire was fully out.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The prosecution argued that Polly murdered Emmeline and Annalisa the night before Christmas Eve, stole their belongings, and then returned on Christmas to set fire to their house. They called a relative of Polly's who testified that she heard a scream coming from Emmeline's home the night the prosecution said she committed the murder.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
A neighbor said she saw Polly go to Emmeline's house that same night, but never saw Emmeline alive after that. She also said that the morning of Christmas Eve, she saw Polly leaving Emmeline's home with a shawl over her head. The prosecution also called two Staten Island ferry workers, who said they saw Polly taking the ferry to Manhattan the morning after the murders were discovered.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
They said they noticed her because she ordered a slice of cake and a gin so early in the morning. Then, Polly's son Albert took the stand. He was 16. He'd been subpoenaed. He said he didn't know where his mother was for part of the day on Christmas. Polly told him she was going to a neighbor's home. But that neighbor testified she never saw Polly.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Neighbors told them that the owner of the house, Captain Houseman, was out at sea on his oyster schooner, and that his wife, Emmeline Houseman, and their one-year-old daughter, Anne Eliza, were visiting relatives. When the volunteers entered the house, one of the men checked the kitchen.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Before the trial, authorities brought the pawnbrokers to the Staten Island jail, where Polly was being held.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
In her defense, Pauly's attorneys told the jury that it was George Waite, the apothecary, who had committed the murders.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The defense also argued that Pauly wouldn't kill Emmeline and her niece because they were so close.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
After the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision because one juror ran away, they had to start over. A second trial was scheduled. The court couldn't find 12 jurors on Staten Island who hadn't already read everything about the case and the penny papers. So they moved the second trial to Manhattan.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Next to her was the burned body of her daughter, Annalisa. The press reported that both bodies were wrapped in a blanket, but the blanket was barely burned. They also reported that Emmeline's hands were tied with a silk black handkerchief in a sailor's knot. Captain George Houseman returned from sea the next day.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The head of a museum down the street from where Polly's trial was held, a man named P.T. Barnum, noticed all the excitement. P.T. Barnum, short for Phineas Taylor, had started his career with a traveling musical, Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater. He bought a museum in Lower Manhattan.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
It featured exhibits like the Siamese twins Chang and Ang, an alleged orangutan's torso with a fishtail that he called Fiji Mermaid, and bearded ladies.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The museum called the wax figure a faithful representation of the celebrated Polly Budine.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
It cost 25 cents to see the wax figure. The real Polly was down the street in court.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The Dead Rabbits and the Roach Guard were Irish gangs in New York City. Their rivals were the Bowery Boys, an anti-Irish gang in Manhattan's Bowery neighborhood. They were known for committing crimes like looting and starting riots throughout the city. The longest riot, a fight between the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys, lasted two days. Eight people died.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
New Yorkers were scared of the gangs, and the defense knew that. Then the defense brought forward Polly's sister, Caroline. She testified that she had seen Emmeline alive the day after the prosecution claimed Polly had murdered her.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly's niece also testified that she saw Emmeline on Sunday morning. She said she knew it was her by the way her arms were swinging when she walked.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Pauly's lawyer also had an answer to why Pauly lied to her son about her whereabouts the night of the murder.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly's lawyer asked Polly to dress in black from head to toe to show that she was in mourning for her sister-in-law and niece. Outside City Hall, New Yorkers debated the case. Gamblers in Brooklyn took bets on the verdict.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The jury settled on a murder conviction with a recommendation that she not be executed. She was sentenced to life in prison. But in response to the verdict, the Washington Union wrote... Pauli's defense attorney appealed the case to the New York Supreme Court. He argued that the jury in the second trial had been influenced by the penny press. He said, The court granted the appeal.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
the court interviewed 4,000 potential jurors, but couldn't find 12 people who said they were unbiased. Polly's lawyers asked to move the trial out of the city to a small town of 9,000 people upstate called Newburgh. But reporters in New York City kept writing about the case and calling for Polly's death.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
And at the Brooklyn Eagle, a young reporter in his 20s named Walt Whitman had been following along. A decade before Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman had been covering executions and joined the anti-gallows movement.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
In his reporting on Pauly's case, he called it a vindictive penalty and described Pauly as a miserable creature being dragged from prison to prison.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
At the Brooklyn Eagle, Walt Whitman wrote that this case proved that the death penalty should be abolished. The National Police Gazette blamed the death penalty abolition movement for her acquittal.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Some people on the island claim that she eventually confessed to the murder. Visitors would travel to the site of the murders to see the kitchen where the victims were found. Her wax figure at Barnum's American Museum stayed up until the museum's closure in 1865.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
In the book, Heads, Faces, and How to Study Them, phrenologists analyzed the physical qualities of criminals and concluded that Polly was one. They wrote that her face lacked the loving mouth, the lips looked punched, critical, fault-finding, unloving and unlovable, and that her nose was long, sharp, inquisitive, and inclined to interfere and disagree.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Five years after her acquittals, Polly, who'd been written about extensively for years, wrote something herself. It was published in the New York Herald, the paper that had called her a wretched woman and the living embodiment of despair. The paper published an inaccurate story that she was peddling fruit in Philadelphia hotels.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
She wrote to the editor, James Gordon Bennett, and said she was a daily reader of his entertaining paper, but she said she wasn't selling fruit and asked for a correction. Quote, You, as a gentleman, will oblige me The New York Herald retracted the story. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sachiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Gabrielle Berbet. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Emma Munger. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The autopsy of the body found that Emmeline had a stab wound on her arm so deep that it fractured the bone. 18-month-old Annalise's skull was completely fractured. They determined that the mother and daughter were murdered before the fire. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. In the 1840s, Staten Island was mostly farmland. The farmers grew corn, wheat, and potatoes from Manhattan and New Jersey.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
We hope you'll join our membership program, Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to Criminal episodes without any ads. And you'll get bonus episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The first ferry service between Manhattan and Staten Island started only a few decades earlier. Only about 10,000 people lived on the island.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Captain George Houseman's family was one of the wealthiest and most important on the island. His father, Abraham, got rich from managing a granite quarry and farming oysters.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Abraham had eight children. George Hausman was his second son. And Alex Horta says George was closest to his younger sister, Polly. Polly got married when she was 15 to a 24-year-old man named Andrew Bedine.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly and Andrew moved to a little house on the ocean, and within a year of getting married, had their first son. Soon after, they had a daughter. But after three years, their marriage fell apart.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly could only divorce Andrew if she could prove adultery, which would have been an expensive process, attracting even more attention from people in town. So instead, Polly decided to move in with her father, Abraham. Her brother George lived next door with his wife and daughter.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Polly and her daughter, Elizabeth, would walk across the yard and keep Emmeline company while her husband, George, was away. Polly also spent a lot of her time in Manhattan. Her son, Albert, had an apprenticeship at an apothecary shop in Lower Manhattan. But Polly wasn't just visiting her son. She was having an affair with his boss. His name was George Waite.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Rumors began spreading about Polly. Soon, she found out she was pregnant. They decided to keep it a secret.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from ritual. I'm not a New Year's resolution person, but I do care about routine and about little things we can do to stay healthy. One thing you can easily add to your routine is a daily multivitamin. I've been taking rituals essential for women for about a year and a half. I take two tablets a day, every day.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
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Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Ritual's Essential for Women 18 Plus is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com slash criminal. Start Ritual or add Essential for Women 18 Plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 25% off.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The first penny press was printed in New York in 1833, and other cities followed. In 1835, a newspaper man named James Gordon Bennett founded one of New York's largest penny presses, the New York Herald. He claimed, what Shakespeare did for drama, such shall I do for the daily newspaper press.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The penny press headlines were catchy and vague, like highly important if true, or from Florida, more murders, and another one gone. The stories were not always accurate. In the mid-1830s, one penny paper reported a series of articles that an astronomer had found evidence of unicorns, two-legged beavers, and creatures that were part human and part bat on the moon.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
On December 27, 1843, two days after the bodies of Captain George Houseman's wife and daughter were discovered, the Herald's headline read, Destructive Conflagration at Port Richmond, Two Lives Lost. A rival paper's headline read, Horrible Affair, Mysterious Murder and Arson at Staten Island. The police had barely started their investigation and hadn't made any announcements.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
But James Gordon Bennett published that a gang had killed Emmeline and her daughter.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
The New York Daily Tribune reported that Emmeline had also been gagged, which wasn't true. But among Emmeline's family, there was a suspect, and it was Polly Bedine. Emmeline's father knew that Polly Bedine was the last person who Emmeline was seen alive with. And he began telling people that Polly murdered his daughter.
Criminal
The Christmas Fire
Finally, Polly went inside a restaurant where the owner saw her, pregnant and soaking wet, and offered her food and a bed. Polly said as she was falling asleep, she overheard other guests talking about a murder on Staten Island and that the authorities were looking for a woman suspect. She left and continued walking.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Support for Criminal comes from BetterHelp. Fall isn't my favorite time of year. I like summer. And when fall comes around, the days are getting shorter, vacations are behind us, and there's a sort of back-to-school anxiety in the air. If you haven't been feeling like yourself, you could consider a session with a licensed therapist.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
But Mamie says after the hearing, they still felt sure that the land, the 13 waterfront acres where Lai Curtis and Melvin lived, was still theirs. But then, about three years later, in 1982, they received a trespassing notice. The family was told that they didn't own that land anymore. Shedrick did.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
During the hearing that had been described as chaotic, Shedrick's lawyer looked at the rights of the surviving 11 children of Mitchell Reels, and he concluded that Shedrick was the owner of the waterfront property.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
According to the family's former lawyer, Claude Wheatley III, one of Mitchell's sons, Calvin, had given verbal authorization for Claude to sign over the 13 acres to Shedrick, and Calvin died shortly after. Mamie says she doesn't think her uncle Calvin would have done that.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Claude Wheatley III said that Mitchell's heirs received notice of the decision, but Mamie's family said they weren't notified and didn't find out until years later. By then, it was too late to appeal the decision.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
This is Kim Doohan, Mamie's niece. She didn't grow up on Silver Dollar Road, but visited often as a kid. When did you first become aware about what was going on with this land?
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
She says a lot of Black families in eastern North Carolina that had owned land on the water had lost it.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Now they were being told they didn't have access to it anymore. And then Shedrick sold the 13 acres of the family land to a developer. Melvin and Lycurtus lived on the part of the land that was going to be sold off. What were they supposed to do?
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
This is Mamie Reels Ellison. Her mother's family, the Reels family, has owned land on the coast of North Carolina since 1911, when Mamie's great-grandfather purchased 65 acres. What was it like growing, you know, in the summer here, being a kid here?
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Not far from his house, Melvin had built a small club, which he called Fantasy Island.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
For a while, Melvin kept fishing like normal and kept inviting friends and family over to his club. He didn't want to leave, and it didn't seem like the developers were going to start any construction. Here's his brother, Lai Curtis.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
We visited Melvin, Lai, Curtis, Mamie, and their family at their mother Gertrude's home on Silver Dollar Road. When we got there, Melvin showed us around the land. And turning around, so the rest of the property, is it all, the rest of the 65 acres, is it all in here?
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Hurricane Floyd hit the North Carolina coast in 1999, more than ten years after Melvin and Ly Curtis' land was sold. They were still living on it. After the hurricane, Melvin and Ly Curtis and their brothers built their mother a new house on her land. That's where we spoke with everyone. Five years after Floyd, in 2004, Melvin and Ly Curtis learned that there was a court order.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
They had to vacate the land. They also had to tear down their houses themselves so the land would be ready for the developers. The developer Shedrick had sold it to had hired Claude Wheatley III to finally enforce the eviction, the same lawyer who'd originally represented the Reals family as they tried to protect the family land.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
We contacted Claude Wheatley III for this story, and he declined to comment. How did it feel when you were told that you were trespassing on your own land?
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
At first, Lai Curtis thought maybe he could try to move his house, to move it back further into his family's land. But his mother, Gertrude, told him not to. She said, that's yours.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
The Reals family tried again to get the courts to reverse the decision that gave the land to Shedrick, but nothing worked. Kim Duhan told a reporter, That land was never his to sell. We're angry at the courts. We feel like we own the land. Melvin and Lycurtus stayed put, ignoring the court order. And then, one morning, an explosion woke Melvin up. He said he'd never heard anything like it.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
His shrimping boat, named Nancy J., was sinking. He reported it to the sheriff, but they didn't ever find out what had happened. The whole thing made Melvin even more nervous. He said he'd wake up in the middle of the night feeling anxious about someone being outside his house. Sometimes he'd take a flashlight outside and shine it around. It was hard to eat. He says he lost a lot of weight.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mamie remembers Lai Curtis was anxious too, even if he didn't talk about it. Sometimes she would see him awake early in the morning, walking up and down Silver Dollar Road. In early 2011, a hearing was scheduled. Here's Mamie.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Their attorney warned them that Melvin and Lai Curtis could be put in jail for civil contempt for not obeying the court. Kim Doohan remembers Melvin came to visit with her before the hearing.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, and suited to you and your schedule. Visit BetterHelp.com slash criminal today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash criminal. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
The hearing took place in Beaufort, North Carolina, in March of 2011. By this time, Melvin was 64. My Curtis was 53. Kim says they thought they'd get an opportunity to present their case in front of the judge, but instead, the judge said he was sending them to jail. Kim says it felt like a punch in the gut.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
She remembers they didn't even really get a chance to say goodbye before Melvin and Lycurtus were led away. Melvin made eye contact with her and mouthed, Remember what I told you. The bailiff only had one pair of handcuffs. They didn't usually need them in civil court. So one side of the handcuffs went around Melvin's wrist and the other went around Lycurtus'.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
What did you think when they said you're going to jail? Were you surprised? I was, because I didn't think they could do it. A judge can hold someone in contempt for their actions in the courtroom, after an outburst, for example, or for actions outside of court, like refusing to obey court orders. In North Carolina, the most common situation is someone has refused to pay child support.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Sometimes journalists have been held in contempt for refusing to reveal their sources. Sometimes the person held in contempt just has to pay a fine. Sometimes they spend a short amount of time in jail. It isn't like being charged with a crime. A judge can just announce that they're holding someone in contempt, and the punishment can happen immediately. It can happen without a trial.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
So they were put in jail because at the hearing they were trying to say, no, we're not leaving this, this is where we live. We're not leaving land. And because Melvin and like Curtis refused to say, we're going to be, we're going to leave, they were held in contempt of court and put in jail.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
They expected to be in jail for 90 days. They were there for eight years. Next time, the rest of the Reels family story. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Special thanks to Ruth Robertson. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. For more on the Reels family story, you can read Lizzie Presser's article. Their family bought land one generation after slavery. The Reels brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave it. We'll have a link in the show notes.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal+. Once you sign up, you can listen to Criminal episodes without any ads, and you'll get bonus episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, too. You'll also get to come to special virtual live events with our team.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Our next one is coming up on October 30th. We're playing Criminal Trivia. To learn more and sign up, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram and TikTok at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mimi Reels still lives on her family's land, surrounded by dozens of family members living on Silver Dollar Road, the road that runs along the Reels' property.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mamie is the youngest of nine siblings. She was closest in age to her brother-like Curtis. Their mother had ten siblings. Many of them lived on Silver Dollar Road.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mamie says at the heart of her family was her grandfather, Mitchell Reels.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
And then, when Mamie was about 10 years old, her grandfather got sick. Her mother, Gertrude, took him to C-level hospital. He had cancer.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Mamie Reals' grandfather, Mitchell, died in October 1970. He was buried in a cemetery on the Reals family land, right next to Reals Chapel. Mamie says people have been buried there since the 1800s. The 65 acres on the North Carolina coast had originally belonged to Mamie's great-grandfather, Elijah Reals. He was born in 1866, and his family had been enslaved.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
He was able to purchase the land in 1911 when he was 45. He lost it when he couldn't keep up with the taxes, but his son Mitchell bought it back from the county in the 1940s. And Mitchell never wanted the family to lose it again.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Very soon, I get to do my favorite thing. Go on tour and meet so many of you. This month, Criminal is coming to Austin, Tucson, Boulder, Portland, Oregon, Detroit, Madison, Northampton, and Atlanta. If you didn't get to come and see our 10-year anniversary show earlier this year, this is your last chance.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
But because Mitchell Reels didn't have a will, the land became something known as Ayers' property.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Ayers' property dates back to Reconstruction and Jim Crow. It's something that was especially common among black families, who weren't always able to access the legal system to make legally binding wills, or who didn't want to. Mimi says her grandfather didn't trust the courts.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
With Ayers' property, when someone dies without a will, any land they own goes to their descendants, who then jointly own the land. But the property isn't cut up and given in chunks to each descendant. Instead, each of them gets a percentage in all of it, like owning shares in a business.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
And the property title often remains in the original owner's name, making it hard for descendants to leverage it. It's hard to apply for a loan. And when there is a dispute, it's hard to hold on to it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls Ayers' property the leading cause of Black involuntary land loss. In the 20th century, Black farmers all over the country lost over 90% of their land.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Today, more than a third of Black-owned land in the South is Ayers' property, including the Reals family land. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. I think one of the nicest things you can do for yourself is to update your bedding. Quince makes it easy. You can get new pillows, a new comforter, or a ribbed cotton coverlet for much less than you'd pay elsewhere.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Quince bedding, like their clothes, is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. I ordered their 100% cotton luxury organic sateen bedding bundle, which comes with a duvet cover, two shams, a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and two pillowcases. I picked it after reading a lot of reviews and seeing how many people said these are the best sheets they've ever had.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Turn up the luxury when you turn in with Quince. Go to quince.com slash phoebe to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash phoebe for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash phoebe Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. After Mitchell Reels died in 1970, his daughter, Gertrude Reels, Mamie's mother, was able to get a judge to put it in writing. The surviving 11 children or descendants of children of Mitchell Reels are the owners of the lands exclusive of any other claim of anyone. Mamie Reels was 11 when her grandfather died.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
By the time she graduated from high school, some of her older siblings had already moved into their own homes on Silver Dollar Road. Mamie's brother, like Curtis, lived in a trailer next door, and her brother, Melvin, built a house right by the water. Melvin bought a boat and made his money fishing and shrimping.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Around this time, Mamie remembers her grandfather's brother, Shedrick Reels, started coming to town. Mamie didn't really know him. He lived in New Jersey.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
You'll get to hear seven brand new stories, most of which will probably make you laugh. I'll even try to come and say hi at the merch table. Get your tickets while they last at thisiscriminal.com slash live.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
In the legal document Mamie's mother had secured from the court, the land was only for Mitchell's children and grandchildren, not his siblings. But Shedrick didn't agree with that.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
In 1978, he claimed he owned a chunk of land on Silver Dollar Road, around 13 acres, right by the water, the most valuable part of the land, and the part of the land where Mamie's brothers, like Curtis and Melvin, lived. Shedrick claimed that he'd had the deed to the 13 acres since 1950, which Gertrude and her children didn't believe.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mitchell, Mimi's grandfather, had the deed for the full 65 acres, including the waterfront.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
Mamie was in her late teens by this time and remembers helping her mother and father figure out what to do.
Criminal
The Family Land, Part 1
There was a court hearing about Shedrick's claims. Shredrick was using something called the Torrens Act, where all you need to do is prove to a lawyer that you own the land, and the lawyer then reports it to the court. The family's lawyer, Claude Wheatley III, later described the hearing as chaotic.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace. You can do it all in one place, all on your terms. Visit squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The person at the other end of the line seemed confused. But after a while, officers from the NYPD started arriving.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The money wasn't in great shape. Barbie and James say it smelled horrible. Oh, horrendously.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Do you think they maybe tried to drill the holes in the back of it and it was just taking too much time or they couldn't get stuff out? A hundred percent.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The police couldn't find any kind of evidence suggesting where the safe had come from. And James said the bills were so damaged that as they dried, they started falling apart.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
There's a law in New York City that says that found property valued at $10 or more has to be reported to police. But in this case, the NYPD told a reporter that the money was so severely disintegrated, it didn't count.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
So right there on the side of... Right in Corona Park on the Meridian Bridge. They said, sorry, yeah, it's good luck.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Barbie Augustini and James Cain grew up in New York. Barbie was born in Queens, James in Brooklyn.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
So the police leave, you're there with this muddy mess of $100,000. How do you even get this home? Yeah.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
And then they walked out of the park. And when you got home, did you take it out of the bag?
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Something about the mud underwater seemed to have preserved the money. And now that it was out of the lake, it was coming apart quickly. They thought the Ziploc bag would keep the money from drying out. But over the next couple of days, the bill started getting really stiff.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Hungry Root. Hungry Root is like having your own personal shopper and nutritionist all wrapped into one. They handle the weekly grocery list, recommending healthy groceries and meals that are tailored to your tastes, nutrition preferences, and health goals. You tell Hungry Root how you like to eat.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
High protein, anti-inflammatory, dairy-free, vegetarian, gluten-free, and more. And they assemble a shopping cart with recipes. Then you can go in and edit, even removing single ingredients that you don't like. Hungry Root also has healthy groceries like smoothies, kid snacks, and reduced sugar candy, plus ready-to-eat meals, salad kits, and even supplements.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
My favorite Hungry Root recipe so far has been short rib quesadillas. You can take advantage of this exclusive offer. For a limited time, get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to HungryRoot.com slash criminal and use code criminal. That's HungryRoot.com slash criminal, code criminal, to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
HungryRoot.com slash criminal, code criminal. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. If you're hoping to save more money this year and stop overpaying for things you might not even realize you're overpaying for, consider switching to Mint Mobile. A three-month Mint Mobile plan costs only $15 a month. Compare that to the average monthly cell phone bill for most people, $144 a month.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
No fine print, no hidden charges, and customers still get unlimited talk and text, high-speed 5G data, and more. One of our friends switched to Mint. He says his phone bills are much cheaper now, and his service is just as good. Switch to Mint, and new customers can get half off an unlimited plan until February 2nd.
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Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's mintmobile.com slash phoebe. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Yeah. They started dating and moved in together, along with Barbie's daughter and son. When COVID hit, James lost his job operating cranes for a sanitation company. Barbie had recently had surgery and was recuperating at home. And the schools were closed. So all of you were home together. Yes. And I assume no one could go out. You weren't working, but you could watch TV.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
This wasn't the first time Barbie and James had found cash while magnet fishing.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
But the bills were damaged by the water, and James says they weren't usable.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Every bill in circulation is printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, either in their Washington, D.C. or Fort Worth, Texas facility. The office in Washington also redeems what they call mutilated currency, dollar bills that are so damaged they can't be used in a store or in a bank.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The money that's brought to the Bureau has usually been damaged in a fire, by water, chemicals, or animals, or after being buried. A damaged bill can be redeemed if at least part of it is identifiable as U.S. currency. Every year, the Bureau receives more than 22,000 requests from people who are hoping to redeem damaged dollar bills. The total value of those requests is about $35 million.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They also shred a lot of bills. And people can request large amounts of shredded money for things like art projects, or buy a small bag as a souvenir at one of the Bureau's visitor centers. So in the spring of 2024, when Barbie and James were trying to figure out what to do, they knew who to contact. But they couldn't just mail a backpack of $100,000 to D.C.,
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
James said he tried calling the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but says there was no response. He emailed them, asking if they could bring in the backpack in person. In his email, he wrote that the experience was, quote, driving us a little crazy and we're a little afraid.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
It looked like an automated response, but it had an address. They didn't have an appointment, but Barbie and James decided they were just going to show up at the address in D.C. and hope someone could help them.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They got on the bus at 6.45 a.m. on a Friday morning. They wanted to make sure they got there before the Bureau closed for the weekend. So what happened when you got to D.C.?
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They went through security, and the backpack had to go through the metal detector. James told the guard why they were there and warned them about the terrible smell. The guard said something into his radio, and two people came down the stairs to talk to them.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They told James and Barbie that they'd seen money that someone's grandparents had buried in the backyard, which had practically turned into dirt.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They were handed a case number and were told that they needed to wait for an update on the exact amount and for a check. Did you celebrate? Oh, yeah.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They especially like to watch videos about treasure hunting. James says he's always been fascinated by it, ever since he was a kid.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
This was in the spring of 2024. They got an email with an update about their case, including the estimated wait time.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
So in two and a half years, if all works out, you'll get a check.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Have you already started spending the money in your head? Do you not even want to believe it?
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Emma Munger. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. You can watch all of Barbie Agostini and James Cain's magnet fishing videos on their YouTube channel. It's called Let's Get Magnetic. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. And at the end of each episode, we share things that we've been enjoying. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
In the videos they were watching, people were finding all kinds of stuff, like old war relics. Some people found old cannonballs while magnet fishing. One man in England found an old Viking sword that experts say is probably over 1,000 years old.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They found a good spot by the pond. And they spent a couple of hours throwing the magnet in and trying different ways of moving it around.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Sometimes they'd find coins, but only international coins. American coins are made from metals that aren't magnetic. Eventually, they got a bigger magnet.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They used a grappling hook to drag the motorcycle out of the water. It took six people to get it out, covered in mud and slime.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Yeah. Well, we'll put it on, but I don't know what a thumb cuff is.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They've found computer hard drives, silverware, acupuncture needles, at least five empty safes, a key fob for an Audi, which still seemed to work, cut-up car parts, and a lot of cell phones. But Barbie says, for her, it's not really about the stuff.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
But then one day, they pulled their magnet out of the water and a gun was stuck to it. And then they pulled out another one. Three in one day.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The police arrived, questioned Barbie and James, and left with the guns.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
More recently, they found another gun that looked new, like it hadn't been in the water for more than maybe a week or two. It looked like it still worked.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Barbie says she always wants to know. And one time, she called the police to ask, but the police didn't share any information. Magnet phishing has sometimes led to new evidence. In 2015, a couple in Georgia were reported missing. The couple, who were in their 60s, had gone to meet with someone who claimed to be selling a Mustang on Craigslist. They were found shot dead off a county road.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Investigators arrested the man, who'd claimed to have a Mustang for sale. He pleaded not guilty. The case was delayed for years. In the spring of 2024, a magnet fisher in Georgia found a rifle in a creek. A few days later, the fisherman returned to the same spot and this time found a bag with driver's licenses and credit cards, which turned out to belong to the couple.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
That led to investigators obtaining warrants and finding more evidence. About six months later, the Mustang seller changed his plea to guilty and is currently serving two life sentences. That same year, a magnet fisher in New Orleans found a human skull that had been padlocked to an exercise dumbbell. He also found a handgun and a gun barrel.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
The police sent in a dive team and two cadaver dogs to search the area and ask the public for tips in the case. Police told reporters they weren't aware of any unsolved cases where someone had been decapitated. The case is still unsolved. And a magnet fisher near Boston found an unexploded bazooka rocket from World War II. It turned out that the rocket still worked.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Bomb squads sent an emergency alert to the public that they were going to hear an explosion that day, and then they detonated it. Barbie and James have found grenades.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Sounds like by this point, you've gotten to know the NYPD pretty well.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
And then, one day in May of 2024, Barbie and James had just gotten back to Queens after a trip out of town.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Corona Park is one of New York's biggest public parks. It has two large lakes. Barbie and James picked a bridge that crosses one of the lakes. James threw the magnet far into the water. The first couple of times he pulled it back out, it was just covered in sludge.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
James and Barbie refer to that day in Corona Park as the day our lives changed forever. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
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Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
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Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
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Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Visit squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. James Cain said as soon as he heard the magnet attached to something, he guessed it was a metal box.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
Wearing thick rubber gloves, James removed some of the mud that was covering the safe. It was locked. He picked it up, and black water and sludge came pouring out of it.
Criminal
Guns, Grenades, and $100,000
They found two stacks of bills that looked like a lot of money.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Everything in one place. Check out squarespace.com slash criminal for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
They began to review Heinz's medical and financial records, and also sent someone to his house to look for paperwork.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Hines' estate was worth $834,000 Canadian dollars, and he had told everyone he didn't have any family. After he died in 2017, Adeline Balgobin was in charge of starting the paperwork.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Adeline talked about it with her boyfriend, police officer Robert Kanasiewicz. And then she reported to the OPGT that Heinz had left a will, that she'd received a voicemail from someone who said they had a copy of it. According to that will, all of Heinz Sommerfeld's money would go to one person, a close friend of his, Robert Kanasiewicz.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
But one of Adeline's colleagues, also working on Hines' case, had discovered something. Hines actually did have family, his half-brother, Peter.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Adeline's colleague had put all this together and spoken to Peter without telling Adeline. The colleague didn't know about the will appearing. Peter was told that he would be inheriting Heinz's money.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Peter had not seen or spoken to his half-brother in over 10 years. He had never heard of Robert Kanasiewicz.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
The will had been signed by two witnesses, John David William Leminski and Jonathan Stephen Asseltine. It had been notarized. their lawyers seemed satisfied. Peter and his wife didn't know what to think.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Once a will is submitted, it needs to be verified by someone who works at OPGT. Adeline Balgobin was there to do it. Eventually, Robert received nearly $800,000, all of Heinz's money, minus legal fees.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
At one point, Robert decided it would be good to call Heinz his half-brother.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
And then, Candace Dixon, the woman Robert had been living with for years, got a concerned phone call from her uncle. He'd gone to a hair salon and chatted with the receptionist, whose husband worked at the OPGT.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Robert said he didn't know what the receptionist was talking about. But Candace took his phone and searched for the name Adeline. What came up was a photo of a business card with Adeline's name and place of work, the OPGT.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Adeline Balgobin stopped responding to Candace's emails. But later, she did call.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Robert also sent cease and desist letters to Adeline's colleagues. The letters threatened them with lawsuits if they didn't stop claiming that he was involved with Adeline. Candace wanted to call the police about Adeline being a stalker, but Robert convinced her not to. To make her feel better, Robert showed her a photo of what Adeline looked like, so she'd know her if she saw her.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
But the photo wasn't of Adeline. It was of one of her colleagues at the OPGT. The relationship didn't last much longer. Candace broke up with Robert and asked him to move out. He did, and moved in with Adeline. But he didn't change his mailing address.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
And this time, Candice decided to open the letter. We'll be right back. Design is everywhere in our lives, even in places we barely notice. From the foods we eat, to the TV shows we watch, to the manhole covers we walk on. 99% Invisible is a weekly podcast that opens listeners' eyes to the design and architecture all around us and explores why and how it all works.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Host Roman Mars asks questions like, why do we use the bleep sound to cover up inappropriate words on radio and TV? How did the mall become a ubiquitous part of American life? And why are French bulldogs so popular in America? 99% Invisible answers all that and more every Tuesday. Follow and listen to 99% Invisible wherever you get your podcasts.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Candace sent Robert an email with some of the photos from the SD card. The subject line was, really faithful. Adeline was from Trinidad, and Candace posted racist memes on Facebook and Snapchat, making fun of her. At one point, Robert went to Candace's condo, but the concierge wouldn't let him in, saying they'd call the police if he didn't leave. Robert shouted at them, I am the police.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Candace's mother got involved, posting on Facebook, If you hurt my daughter, I can make death look like an accident. Candace started looking into the letters, trying to find out who Heinz Sommerfeld was.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
In December 2019, police froze Robert's bank accounts. Both he and Adeline were suspended with pay. She hired a lawyer who told her she should break up with Robert. She didn't.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Adeline decided to try to make it work. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. a little bit about who is Robert Kanasiewicz.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Robert graduated in 2008 and got a job with the Toronto Police. He made decent money. But Catherine Laidlaw says he had expensive taste. He liked to go out to clubs and restaurants. And one night, when he was in his late 20s, he ran into an old classmate at a club, Candace Dixon.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
After a few years of dating, they bought a condo together, a penthouse with two bedrooms. Candace made the down payment, and Robert paid the monthly mortgage. Candace was working in marketing. Robert was still with the Toronto Police, and sometimes signed up for paid gigs on the side.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
At concerts, sporting events, or sometimes government offices. One of those offices was a place called the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
The OPGT, as it's called, quote, provides services to protect the financial, legal, and personal care of mentally incapable Ontarians.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
One day, a 26-year-old woman named Adeline Balgobin was at her job with the Ontario government when a co-worker came up to her.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
That's where Robert met Adeline Balgoban, who worked at the OPGT. Did Robert's friends know that he had both of these relationships going on?
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Candace had no idea. Robert used burner phones or Snapchat to communicate with Adeline. Until about a year in, when Adeline discovered that his relationship with Candace wasn't in the past, like he'd said.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Catherine Laidlaw says Adeline confided in friends and co-workers about the situation. At one point, she texted a friend, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm ready to move on with my life. But still, she didn't end the relationship. By 2017, Adeline and Robert had been seeing each other about three years.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Adeline was assigned to look after a new case at work, the estate of a man named Heinz Sommerfeld. Heinz Sommerfeld had been entered into the OPGT system years earlier. He'd been diagnosed with dementia. And when his doctor asked if he had any family, Heinz said no. He later died in a nursing home.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
As his client representative, Adeline was in charge of arranging for his burial and canceling Heinz's pension benefits and insurance coverage. The OPGT would also figure out what to do with his money. Usually their clients didn't have huge amounts. But Heinz's case was different. He had an estate of nearly one million Canadian dollars. And he had no will. We'll be right back.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
This is reporter Catherine Laidlaw. Adeline's co-worker knew how much she wanted to meet someone. So Adeline went downstairs to introduce herself to the police officer. They started talking. His name was Robert Kanasowicz.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
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Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Check out squarespace.com slash criminal for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for Criminal comes from Bombas. I've been wearing Bombas socks for years. I give them as gifts. They're simple and well-made and last forever. My current favorite is their half-calf with stripes.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
They're the perfect height and never fall down. And they don't have seams on the toe. Bombas also makes grip socks for Pilates classes, running socks, compression socks, and wool socks for hiking. They've got slippers, shoes for the beach, and clothes, too. I'm about to try their crew neck t-shirt, which is 100% cotton and has very good reviews. One more reason I like Bombas.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
For every item you purchase, they donate an item to a person experiencing homelessness. And as of about a month ago, Bombas is going international. They offer worldwide shipping to more than 200 countries. Go to bombas.com slash criminal and use code criminal for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash criminal. Code criminal for 20% off your first purchase.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Bombas dot com slash criminal. Code criminal. Heinz Sommerfeld had grown up in Germany. When he was 11 years old, he and his family, his mother, stepfather, and half-brother, moved to Canada.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
At one point, Heinz got mad at his half-brother Peter, and Heinz stopped talking to him.
Criminal
The Man Without a Will
Catherine Laidlaw says Hines' neighbors tried to keep an eye on him. He was getting older and seemed to struggle with his memory. Over the years, he became more and more paranoid.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Yoshi Kojima offered to teach Ed how to mount butterflies and to give him the equipment for it. He asked Ed if he'd be interested in selling butterflies. Ed said yes. Did you get the sense that he completely trusted you?
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed says he laughed it off. Kojima told him when he got back to Japan, he would start sending Ed butterflies to sell on eBay for him. He and Kojima kept in touch over email and sometimes talked on the phone.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Months passed, and Yoshi Kojima never sent anything. Ed decided he'd get Kojima's attention by setting up his own eBay auctions.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
He asked other fish and wildlife agents to bid thousands of dollars on his butterflies.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed had used photos that Kojima had sent him in his listings. Yoshi Kojima told Ed he should be ashamed and that he was stealing his photos. He said they were copyrighted. At one point, Kojima told him they were no longer friends.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed Newcomer moved on to other cases. He investigated a case of fish being smuggled in from Indonesia, and he started looking into pigeon breeders in Los Angeles who were killing hawks to protect their birds. And then, in 2006, he got a new tip. Another insect dealer said he had news. He'd heard that Yoshikojima was coming back to the bug fair.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
At the bug fair, Ed tried to find a way to run into Kojima. He waited in the passage between two of the exhibition halls.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed told him he was working with a man from Germany who was sending him rare butterflies, but they kept showing up with broken wings and broken antennas.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Sometimes Yoshi Kojima would make comments about finding Ed attractive. He asked if Ed was bisexual. He tried to show him porn.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Eventually, Kojima started sending Ed butterflies. He sent swallowtail butterflies that are so rare they're only found on Corsica and Sardinia, and peacock swallowtails that live high up in the mountains in the Philippines. Researchers don't know how many are left. He even sent two Queen Alexandra's bird wings. At last count, researchers estimated there were 21 left in the wild.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. So tell me a little bit more about how he would do it.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed brought the butterflies and the recordings of his Skype calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office. They convened a grand jury, which eventually indicted Yoshi Kojima on 17 counts of illegally selling and smuggling endangered wildlife.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
The next time Kojima said something suggestive to him on a Skype call, Ed replied, not until you come to L.A., and laughed. On July 31, 2006, Ed got a call from U.S. Customs that Kojima was on a plane that was going to land in Los Angeles in less than an hour. A team of agents went to the airport right away. Kojima was arrested as he came out of customs.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed watched the arrest from behind a pillar. He wanted to make sure Kojima couldn't see him. Later, Ed went to the jail where Kojima was being held before his first court appearance.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
It had been three years since their first meeting at the bug fair. Yoshi Kojima pled guilty to all 17 counts of selling and smuggling endangered species. He was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and fined almost $39,000. When he was released in 2008, he was deported back to Japan.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Nine years after Yoshiko Jima was arrested in 2015, a 25-year-old man named Alexander Bick was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport. He had 150 endangered butterflies in his luggage, including birdwing butterflies. Fish and Wildlife had asked Ed to join the investigation because of his experience with butterfly smuggling cases. Ed interviewed Alexander Bick when he was arrested.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Yoshi Kojima has not agreed to any interviews since he was released from prison. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Plus, you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
In 1998, a Canadian butterfly researcher was caught trying to smuggle butterflies inside a hollowed-out book. And in 2023, a man was charged with smuggling butterflies to the U.S. by labeling them as origami paper craft and wall decorations. But when Yoshi Kojima started mailing his rare butterflies, they got through without a problem. How much was he selling these butterflies for?
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
They can be as big as dinner plates. There's one called the Ornithoptera alexandre, also known as Queen Alexandra's birdwing. It's one of the largest butterflies in the world. They can measure around 11 inches across.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Once, a man in the early 1900s saw one. It was too high to reach, so he took out his gun and shot it. He took it to a museum. The man who tipped off Fish and Wildlife about Yoshi Kojima said that he was going to be at the Los Angeles bug fair. He was going to be selling insects. and he agreed to try to talk to Kojima and wear a wire.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
The male beetles have long horns that they use to fight each other. People often keep them as pets. You're not allowed to import live ones into the United States without a permit.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed Newcomer worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 20 years. He started as a special agent.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. With Quince, you can buy yourself some really nice new things to wear, but at a reasonable price. They also sell shoes and bags and jewelry. If you've ever heard Lauren complain about my bracelets making noise during an interview, you know that I'm a fan of bangles.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
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Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
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Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
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Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
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Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
ZocDoc.com slash criminal. When fish and wildlife agent Ed Newcomer got Yoshi Kojima's email address, he realized he was going to have to keep pretending to be Ted Nelson. He waited a week before contacting Kojima. He wrote to say thank you for the butterflies, and wrote that he had tried to identify them.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Ed's boss, Marie Palladini, was also at the coffee shop, watching. Another fish and wildlife agent was watching from the parking lot. Were you nervous? I mean, this is the first real undercover meeting.
Criminal
The Butterfly Smuggler
Yoshi Kojima was so good at finding and capturing one specific butterfly in the Sierra Nevada mountains that people said no one else could even find any for two years. Ed Newcomer first heard about Yoshi Kojima in 2003. Someone had called in a tip.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
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Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Support for Criminal comes from Quince. Quince makes a very beautiful Mongolian cashmere crewneck sweater. It comes in more than a dozen colors, the length is perfect, it doesn't pill, is very soft, and I just got another one in burgundy for Christmas. I already have the heather gray, and I wear it all the time.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
This sweater has more than 14,000 reviews from happy people saying things like, this is my go-to sweater, and love the fit, color, and texture, and mostly the price. It costs $50. Quince's whole collection of essentials come in 50% to 80% less than similar brands.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
If you like the sweater as much as I do, you could get yourself the matching hat or the gloves or buy the whole set for someone as a very fancy gift that you will have paid a lot less for than they'd guess. You can get Cozy and Quince's high-quality wardrobe essentials. Go to quince.com slash criminal for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
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Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And then he started kind of panicking, I think.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
In September last year, Ashley Klass was renovating her 100-year-old home and pregnant with her third child. Her oldest, Sailor, had just turned three.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Ashley says at the time, Sailor was obsessed with the movie Monsters, Inc.,
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It had only been about 30 minutes, but the envelope wasn't on the counter. The money was all over the floor in small, wet pieces. And Carrie, he yelled for you.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
But Saylor kept telling them she was sure that there were monsters in her closet. And she kept getting scared at night.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It didn't work. Sailor started sleeping with Ashley and her husband in their room.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Did you at any point kind of think to yourself, well, okay, maybe it's not monsters, but this is a really old house.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And then around the end of October, she stopped talking about the monsters.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Ashley had her baby in mid-February. And then, a couple of weeks later, Sailor started to say there were monsters again.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I mean, were you kind of thinking, you know what, I'm exhausted. I have this brand new baby. There are no monsters. I might be at the end of my rope on this one with the monsters in the room.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And then, on the first nice spring day of the year, Ashley remembers that she and her husband spent the day outside with the kids.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Ashley called the pest control company, and they came out and said it was honeybees. They wouldn't intervene because honeybees are endangered. So after a lot of calls, Ashley eventually found a beekeeper who would come over and have a look.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Ashley wasn't home at the time, but her husband called her and put her on speakerphone while the beekeeper headed towards Sailor's room.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Their dog Cecil, a 100-pound golden doodle.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And did you immediately think, oh my God, we were giving this kid a fake spray bottle?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
He also told them that the reason Sailor had stopped hearing them during the winter was because the bees were dormant during those months. And they started getting ready to pollinate again right around the time Sailor said the monsters were back. What did he do next after you found out where the bees were?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The beekeeper started scooping up the bees and putting them into a box with mesh panels. And Ashley and her husband went to pick Sailor up from preschool. They told her what had happened on the way home.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Oh, yeah, we're talking about bees. Do you remember when you heard sounds in your room? Mm-hmm. What did it sound like? Did it sound like monsters?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It sounds like bees. Yeah, well, you were right. I guess it did sound like bees. Well, Sailor, thanks for talking. I like bees.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I'm glad you like bees, Sailor. You were close to a lot of bees for a long time, so I bet you're going to like bees for the rest of your life. Yes. Yes. Earlier this year, a rumor started going around that there was a small black bear hanging around the road near my house. I was in a place where there weren't really any black bears, and I was intrigued. Could it possibly be?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I started worrying about my new dog, Eight, going outside. She was only seven months old. I knew she was big, like 80 pounds big, and strong, but not strong enough to take on a black bear. She isn't much of a fighter, except when I'm trying to take the millionth sock that she's stolen out of her mouth. My father calls her Socks. I started being extra careful on our walks.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I steered clear of some of the trails in the woods near streams. I have no idea if black bears like streams, but I figured that's where I would hang out. Then one day, I was walking eight up our road, and a woman yelled out, there's the bear. I panicked. I was looking everywhere.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And then I realized that the woman was pointing at eight, who was happily wagging her tail, oblivious to anything wrong in the world. When we got home from our walk that day, I told everyone I'd seen the bear. How long have you been interested in reptiles?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Patrick McKnight works with reptiles. How many reptiles do you own today?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
What is the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? In my head, turtles like to get wet and tortoises don't. That's all I know.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Patrick moved the gigantic turtle in with his other three at their reptile facility. But then a tree fell on it, and they had to remodel. He and his wife moved the tortoises into their house. He says the tortoises mostly spend their time walking. He called it patrolling, usually the perimeter.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
If both Patrick and his wife were leaving the house, they'd put up baby gates. One day, they came home to find the baby gates torn down.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I mean, he hadn't just kind of torn these up. He'd also eaten the bills. Oh, yeah.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Patrick heard his wife yelling.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
He sent us a photo of what had happened. We couldn't figure out what we were looking at. There's a toilet on its side, knocked away from the pipes. There's water all over the floor. And little pieces of lettuce. A lot of them. And in the corner, an enormous tortoise.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Toilets can weigh 120 pounds. Patrick says the turtle is 31 years old. They call him Mega Turtle. A tortoise's lifespan is estimated to be somewhere between 80 and 150 years. But a tortoise named Jonathan, who lives on the island of St. Helena, is estimated to be about 192 years old. What will you do? I mean, Megaturtle is going to outlive you. He's going to outlive me.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I mean, he's going to outlive maybe all of us. What's the plan? Where will he go?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from GiveWell. GiveWell is an independent nonprofit that has spent the last 17 years researching charitable organizations. Only after careful and in-depth research will they give donation recommendations to only the highest impact causes. Over 125,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate more than $2 billion.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And GiveWell's research shows that these donations could save over 200,000 lives. They want to help you to make informed decisions about high-impact giving. So all of their research and recommendations are available on their site for free. You can make tax-deductible donations to their recommended funds or charities, and GiveWell doesn't take a cut.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
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Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Steve Smith and Louise Brown work at one of Europe's largest wildlife hospitals. It's in southeast England, near Oxford. It's called Tiggy Winkles Wildlife Hospital. That's quite a name for a wildlife hospital.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Wait, there were enough sick hedgehogs that it could create a whole hospital? Yeah.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Well over 300 at any given time.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Today, people find and bring in all kinds of wild animals, and the hospital treats them for free. Steve is the veterinary surgeon at the hospital, and he's performed surgery on everything from a bat to a toad with a broken arm.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The hospital is busy. They're usually treating more than a thousand different animals at a time. One day, they got a call about what Steve calls a strange large orange bird.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Or are we going to get the money back?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
But you're thinking, I have no idea what a big orange bird in England, what could this be?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The person who had found the sick bird managed to catch it.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And what happened when it arrived?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And it smelled familiar, like curry. Yeah, really strong smell.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The herring gull is one of the most common types of seagulls in the UK. They're always grey and white with black wing tips.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
How do you think he got covered in curry?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Herring gulls are what the British Trust for Ornithology calls opportunists. They prefer crabs, but will eat almost anything they find. They named the bird Vinny. Vinny was perfectly healthy, just needed a bath.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Seagulls, are they friendly birds?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
A herring gull can be about 26 inches long. And when it flaps its wings, the wingspan can be close to five feet.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
One bath wasn't enough. They kept him at the hospital, and over the next couple of weeks, they had to give him a bath every two or three days. Steve says that anything on a bird's feathers can interfere with their natural methods of waterproofing and insulation.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Seagulls are smart. At least one type of gull is able to solve puzzles, like pulling on a string to get a piece of food. And they will sometimes tap their feet on the ground fast, mimicking the sound of falling raindrops, because the sound brings worms up to the surface where the gulls can easily catch and eat them. They drove Vinny to a lake and got him out of the car.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
He was in a dog crate and kept trying to break his way out with his beak. They walked for a few minutes and stopped by the lakefront. Then they opened up the crate and Vinny took off.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
In March, at a different animal rescue in England, the Lower Mosswood Nature Reserve and Wildlife Hospital, a woman brought in a baby hedgehog she'd found on the side of the road. A baby hedgehog is also called a hoglet. It's not a good sign to see a hedgehog out during the day. The woman wanted to help.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
She took the hedgehog home and put it in a box with some newspaper, a hot water bottle, and a little dish of cat food. But it didn't move all night or touch the food. So she brought it to the animal rescue. The staff opened the box and immediately knew it wasn't a hedgehog. It was the furry gray pom-pom from the top of a hat.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The doctor said the woman took the news very well and had just wanted to help. Last November, Brett Ingram had just started a new job near Dallas. She says the first couple of days were stressful, and she got home late on her second day.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Then she looked up, and she says she saw a large breathing ball of gray fur.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
What did the face look like?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Brett called a wildlife rescue person to come help, who told her she didn't do night calls.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It shouldn't bite you? Yeah. I mean, I don't know much about possums, but I do know that they have teeth.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
You know what I think I would have done? I would have gotten my animals and would have barricaded ourselves in a room until that wildlife rescue would open up the next morning.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
She says that eventually she was able to grab him.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
You tried to calm him down. So you held him for a second?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
How did you smell once you put the possum down?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Brett says she saw him again a few days later near her porch.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And made his way into her Christmas tree where it was warm. Well, Brett, I want to thank you very much, and I wish you good luck this year with no animals.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nydia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Special thanks to the pets of Criminal. You can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. And at the end of each episode, we share things we've been enjoying. Recently, I recommended the Ken Burns Leonardo da Vinci documentary. I'm always hoping to get a phone call that they need a new Ken Burns narrator and I can have the job.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And what do you do? Do you just, do you like put it in a colander? How do you clean? What do you do?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
So what exact sentence did you say to the bank when you brought the bills back?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Do you think that, you know, there was something about this money, like that he, that this, this is better than a steak. I mean, that he kind of sensed that this was real valuable stuff.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
I think that's pretty disgusting what you just told me about the smell. How much money did you end up getting back?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Did you talk to him about it? Did you try to like show him some of the bills and say no?
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
For the past three years, one of our last episodes of the year has been stories about animals. And it's always one of my favorites to make. Last year, there was a story about a denture-stealing mouse, a cockatoo named Harry who snuck onto a cruise ship and was given a cabin of her own, and a cat named Onion who could find his way into anything, even a rice cooker.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
And as always, the story that's become a tradition. From the New York Times in 1908, about a large dog that the paper described as a splendid Newfoundland, who rescued a small child who'd fallen into a river outside of Paris. The dog was rewarded with a steak. And then, two days later, another child fell into the river and was rescued by the same dog, who got another stake.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It kept happening, almost every day. People in the area were starting to worry. And then they discovered that the dog was pushing the children into the river himself, so that he could claim his reward. The headline read, Dog, a Fake Hero. It's that time of year again. Today, stories of animals really going for it. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Carrie and Clayton Law live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
This spring, in Durham, North Carolina, where I live, someone called 911 and told the operator, there's a noise that just won't stop, and I'm very tired, and I want to know what the heck is going on. She described the sound as an alien spaceship. Around the same time, in Newbury, South Carolina, the police department started receiving noise complaints about some kind of industrial machine running.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The sheriff said they'd also received complaints about a constant noise that sounded like a siren or a whine or a roar, and that some people had even flagged down deputies to ask what was happening. When officers responded to the caller in Durham, North Carolina, and the complaints in Newberry, South Carolina, they discovered that they were all coming from the same source, cicadas.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
This spring, for the first time since Thomas Jefferson was president, two types of cicadas emerged from underground at the same time. There were trillions of them. They find their mates by being very, very loud, so loud that scientists who study them wear earmuffs.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Okay. Clayton, you're like lukewarm, but...
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
The Newberry, South Carolina Sheriff's Office issued a statement that said, Although to some the noise is annoying, they pose no danger. Unfortunately... It is the sounds of nature. Here's another story about a 911 call.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Police Sergeant Demir Kaduzovic was on duty. This was North Ridgeville, Ohio, around 5 a.m. There's a bar nearby called the train station, and Demir said that his first thought was that the caller had been at the bar and had had too much to drink and thought a pig was following him. But Demir and another officer went anyway.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Exactly this time last year, they'd hired some people to build a fence in their yard. And they planned to pay the fence installers in cash. Clayton went to the bank and withdrew the money in 50s and 100s. The bank teller sealed it in an envelope.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Eventually, they got the pig into the police car. It sat in the back seat. The police department put up a Facebook post about what had happened. They included a picture of the pig in the backseat of the car. The pig is kind of big. It looks to me like it weighs 50 pounds with black bristly hair.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Someone's pet who dug her way out of a fenced-in yard and taken herself for a walk. In September, a woman on an airplane traveling from Norway to Spain opened her in-flight meal and, as one passenger said, quote, a mouse jumped out.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Reportedly, the situation was very calm, although the man sitting next to her told the BBC that he tucked his pants into his socks, quote, so the mouse would not crawl up his legs. the plane made an unscheduled landing in Denmark.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
Support for Criminal comes from Ritual. In the winter months, the days are shorter and sometimes the sun has already gone down before the work day is over. An easy way to make sure you're still getting vitamin D is to take a multivitamin. I've been taking Ritual's Essential for Women every day for a while now. I appreciate that it's smaller than a lot of multivitamins, and it smells like mint.
Criminal
Turtle vs. Toilet, a Monster in the Closet, and a Surprise Possum
It's a much more pleasant experience. You take two rituals essential for women capsules a day, each containing nine key nutrients, including vitamin D, folate, vitamin B12, and omega-3. And your body absorbs those nutrients slowly, so you don't have to take it with food. Plus, Ritual is USP verified.
Criminal
Valentine
Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace. You can do it all in one place, all on your terms. Visit squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.
Criminal
Valentine
There was a lot of watching British gardening shows and Rick Steves. But more than anything, my mother wanted to watch Larry David. She would laugh and laugh. My father would often come at the end of the day, and I'd head back to his house. He and my mother were married for 30 years, had three children together, and had been divorced for a decade. But they never really drifted apart.
Criminal
Valentine
My father would show up to the hospice every evening around five. And hours later, I'd call and ask where he was. And he'd say, your mother and I are sitting outside, having a glass of wine and listening to Blossom Deary. It's a beautiful night. My mother had been giving him a hard time about his decision to grow a beard. She'd said, Tony, what are you going to do about that beard?
Criminal
Valentine
It's really awful. Then one day he walked in, and the beard was gone. My mother and I were at Captain Jack's, a seafood restaurant, when I realized something had changed. Her favorite thing in the world had been their onion rings. She looked at me after eating a few and said, You know what, Phoebe? I'm not really hungry. She said that day what she said every time we got in the car.
Criminal
Valentine
I'm here driving on this beautiful day with my girl Phoebe. What more could I want? Right around this time I did an interview with the musician Peggy Seeger. It was a difficult interview for a lot of reasons. But there was a point where, listening back now, I think I couldn't hide what was happening. What was it like to lose him?
Criminal
Valentine
And when we do, we're never happy with how it comes out. But we tried. We went to the hair salon at 8 a.m. We were on our way to the interview by 9.30. I like to be early everywhere I go, so we got there early. We were sitting in the car in the parking lot waiting. And two minutes before we were supposed to walk in, I got a phone call.
Criminal
Valentine
No, I don't know. I only ask because I wonder if you had been watching someone decline for a very long time and be sick, even though he was good at it. And I wonder in some way... Of course, the easy answer, and that's the answer. Of course, it's hard. It's the worst thing in the world. It's horrible, of course. But that's not really, that's just the simple thing.
Criminal
Valentine
I wonder in some way whether because you had this life with Irene that was happening in some way, and because he had been sick, I just, that's what I'm interested in. You know, is it anything more than just, of course, of course, horrible? My mother had started to have pain. I'd see it in her face, and she'd hold her stomach. She never complained, but I was always watching, constantly asking.
Criminal
Valentine
At one point she said, "'Phoebe, you asked me five minutes ago. The answer is the same.' "'We had this new language. Where are you on a scale of one to ten?' Three we could live with. When it got to five, I went to find the nurses. The nurse station was just outside my mother's room. I passed by it every time I walked down the hall to get her a Diet Pepsi or push her outside to have a cigarette.
Criminal
Valentine
I got to know them all, and they were wonderful. I'd go and tell them that my mother was at a five again, and the answer would always be, well, that's not good. Let's see what we can do. They would come and talk to her and comfort me and find a way to get the pain to go back down. One morning, my mother said, let's go for a drive. It was a beautiful May day. Things were green.
Criminal
Valentine
We drove on back roads to my father's house to pick something up. As we were driving back, I saw my mother grimace a bit in the passenger seat. I asked her about her pain. She looked out the window and said, don't ask me about that anymore. Let's talk about the trees. We'll be right back.
Criminal
Valentine
Building a website can seem intimidating if you've never done it before, but you don't need to worry when you use Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform to help you stand out and succeed online.
Criminal
Valentine
No matter your level of experience, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website for your project or business so you can get your product, service, or content out there for the right audience to find. They have plenty of tools to help you tailor it to fit your personality and vision. And if you aren't quite sure what you want, Squarespace has the tools to help you figure it out.
Criminal
Valentine
Like their website builder called Blueprint AI. It just asks you a few questions about your brand or business, and it uses that information to create a blueprint for your online presence. Plus, your websites will look great no matter what device people use to access them. A phone, computer, or tablet.
Criminal
Valentine
My mother had gone to have a CAT scan of her stomach a few weeks earlier because of some issue with gallstones, her gallbladder. Nothing serious. But during that scan, they had found something else on her pancreas. Pancreatic cancer. I remember sitting in the car listening to the woman and thinking, I needed her to stop explaining things for a second. I couldn't catch up.
Criminal
Valentine
Visit squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials.
Criminal
Valentine
This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.
Criminal
Valentine
Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. My sister Chloe died in 2015. She was just about to turn 30. She and my mother were very close. Soon after we found out that my mother had cancer, she started talking about Chloe a lot. And talking to her.
Criminal
Valentine
Wish you were here. Hope you're having a good time. But you're having a good time, and I'll be happy if you're not here.
Criminal
Valentine
As my mother got sicker, I found myself talking to Chloe, too. I was on a run one morning, and out loud said, Chloe, get ready. She's coming. I've done all I can here. It's your turn now. I kept saying it. I knew things were really turning when she didn't want a cigarette. I'd try and get her to eat little bites of things. I started calling people and telling them that they should come.
Criminal
Valentine
Come now and not in a week or two when she may be sleeping a lot. A lot about the last 15 years of my mother's life had been hard. And all I wanted to do now was to make her as happy as possible, letting only the good things through. Okay, Mom, what did you just say you were?
Criminal
Valentine
I said that I wanted to be, and I'm going to be, happy and... I forget the other thing.
Criminal
Valentine
My mother was always talking about how she needed a manicure. So I decided I would give her a manicure, not something I've ever done before. She'd been keeping her hands kind of balled into fists, and I gently opened her fingers and painted her nails bright red. My niece and my mother were very close, and we decided that it was time for her to come and say goodbye. She goes to school in Vermont.
Criminal
Valentine
My father went to pick her up, and I met her at the door outside to let her know that Grandma looked a little different. Standing in the hall outside of my mother's door, my niece said, She's dying, Phoebe. And I said, Yes, she is. And she's so happy you're here. And then this 15-year-old walked into her grandmother's room and sat right on the side of her bed and leaned down and said, Hi, Grandma.
Criminal
Valentine
I'm so glad to see you. My mother wasn't really eating anything by this point. We'd started putting Diet Pepsi in a dropper, the same kind they were using to give her morphine and Ativan. Chocolate chip ice cream still worked sometimes. A few bites. She'd let us know when she didn't want any more.
Criminal
Valentine
I had to go and have a meeting with the nurses for a few minutes, and I left Madeline in with my mother. I asked her to take care of her for a little while. She seemed a little nervous. When I came back 15 minutes later, I peeked my head in the door and saw Madeline spooning little bits of ice cream into my mother's mouth and then using a napkin to make sure she hadn't dropped any.
Criminal
Valentine
My mother was staring right at her. I decided to leave them alone. The nurses kept telling me that they couldn't say exactly when my mother would die. I kept asking. I'd been asking that question since December. This was May. They told me she likely had a week or less.
Criminal
Valentine
The options weren't great. My mother at 73 had had some health issues and was not a good candidate for the long and invasive surgery that could be done. Putting her through radiation, chemo, treatment would be hard and probably wouldn't add that much time to her life. Pancreatic cancer. I didn't know much about it, but I'd always heard that it was the worst.
Criminal
Valentine
They said that sometimes people need to feel like they have permission to go, so we should start telling my mother that she could leave any time. What a wild thing, I thought. But I would say it. I started telling her that she could go anytime, that everything was going to be okay, that her children would be fine, and she had done her job.
Criminal
Valentine
My cousin is a geriatric nurse practitioner, and I asked her what she thought about this. She said, yes, and that my mother should hear it from each of her children and see our faces, not just voices on the phone. One morning, I got my sister and brother on FaceTime. My mother's eyes were closed, and she wasn't speaking much.
Criminal
Valentine
But when she heard their voices, her eyes opened, and they both told her that they loved her and that it was okay to go. I always had a hard time leaving at night, but the aides and nurses started telling me that sometimes people need space. It felt very counterintuitive. I would get back to my father's house at 7.30 or 8.
Criminal
Valentine
My partner Sarah would be there with dinner and our new four-month-old puppy. I'd walk in and immediately call the nurses and ask how she was. I'd tell them that I would be back there at 8 a.m., but my arrival started getting earlier. 8 a.m. became 7 and then 6 and then 5. It was like a magnet. I'd wait outside her room just watching, trying not to wake her. I didn't know what else to do.
Criminal
Valentine
I didn't want to be anywhere else. I kept thinking about the heat wave in Chicago when I was nine. My mother dragged the mattresses off of our beds and put them outside. On New Year's Eve, she would always set up Twinkies and root beer and create a string maze through all the rooms of the house.
Criminal
Valentine
Before we went to sleep, she would come in and say goodnight, and you could pick whether you wanted your head rubbed or your back rubbed. I didn't forget that stuff. On May 15th, I stayed in bed until 4.45 a.m., and then left to see her. When I walked in, my mother was still there, breathing slowly and then not breathing. Someone told me that dying is a lot of work, just like giving birth.
Criminal
Valentine
I was trying not to crowd her. Sarah and I went to an antique festival, something that I would normally never agree to. My Aunt Jane was there with my mother and texting updates all the time. It was an odd thing, walking around looking at old fishing rods, knowing that the next text I could get might be that my mother was gone. I ended up buying a painting of a man riding on the top of a whale.
Criminal
Valentine
He kind of looked like a pilgrim, and he was wearing these shoes with heels. I kept thinking how much my mother would like that. My father was fixated on making arrangements. It hadn't been so long since we did this for my sister. I remember that funeral director saying we would need an urn of some sort.
Criminal
Valentine
He said he could sell us one, but if it were him, he would go to Michael's and buy a nice cookie jar or something like that to make sure it had a lid. So we did. A white ceramic cookie jar from the mall. We dropped it off. It was a set of threes, so we told them they could keep the rest. When we came back to pick up her ashes, they told me there was a problem. She didn't fit.
Criminal
Valentine
They had really tried, but they were having a hard time getting all the ashes in the largest of the jars. I asked if I could try. I walked back into the office and saw Chloe's ashes there in a cardboard box, a plastic bag the size of a bag of flour. A man showed me that it just wasn't going to work, so I asked if he would hand her to me.
Criminal
Valentine
It's hard to be told that there's nothing anyone can do. When my father was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, I got on the phone and he was sitting with an oncologist a week later, making a plan, signing up for the newest clinical trial. And so this news, to be told that this was it, was odd. Lauren and I walked into the studio and started our interview with PBS.
Criminal
Valentine
And I moved and shaped and stuffed her in there, and I held her in while I asked the man to quickly get the superglue on the top of the lid. When Sarah and I got back to the hospice house, my aunt and uncle and father were outside. The sun was out. I walked into her room to say hello. Her eyes were closed. We changed her into some clean pajamas.
Criminal
Valentine
I'd become a pro at this point, at rolling her over, holding on to her as the aide or nurse pulled the sheets out from underneath. Whenever we would turn her, my mother's eyes would shoot open. She hated it. She was in pain. She would grab onto my hand with so much force, I couldn't imagine that this was someone who was dying.
Criminal
Valentine
I'd tell her that I was right there, and there was no way I was going to let her fall. I'd make a joke about how strong I was. When we finally got her changed and moved, it was always a relief. I'd fall down next to her and say, We did it, Mom. It's over now. And then I'd offer her a little Diet Pepsi. That night, the aides told me that they had her.
Criminal
Valentine
She was well taken care of, that she would want me to get some rest. I was told that people's feet start to look a little blue and get cold at the end. So before I left, I felt my mother's feet. Warm. Warm. The next morning, it was still dark when I arrived.
Criminal
Valentine
I slipped into my mother's room, and unlike the way I'd left her the night before, now her eyes were open, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe. The nurse came in, and we gave my mother her medicine early, and then the nurse put a patch on my mother's neck to help her breathe. It didn't work. I was trying not to let my mother see how upset I was at the fact that she seemed to be struggling.
Criminal
Valentine
I sat down by her side and held her hand and talked to her about the funny painting with the man in the heels. I told her I'd go get us some coffee. Then I went into the hall and asked the nurse what she thought about the idea that people need space to die. She said, well, yes, but also people leave the way they lived. If your mother was a social person, she might like you around. Company.
Criminal
Valentine
When I walked back in the room, my mother's eyes were still open, staring right at me. But her breath was calm. The calmest breathing I'd ever seen. I told her to go find Chloe, and that I'd come find them. And I told her thank you. And then she took her last breath. I had my hand on her shoulder, and I closed my eyes, and I just started breathing. The birds outside the window had not stopped.
Criminal
Valentine
The rain had not stopped. After a minute, I felt my mother's wrist. No pulse. I kept standing there with my hand on her shoulder. After about ten minutes, I walked out to the nurse's station to let them know that my mother had died at 8.16 p.m. The nurse came in and listened to her chest, and then said, Valentine, it was an honor caring for you. I'd never really been with a dead body before.
Criminal
Valentine
I'd been to the body farm for an episode of Criminal, but I didn't really know what to expect. I had no idea how peaceful it would be. I called my father and Sarah, and they started the drive over. I spent the next 20 minutes alone with her in the room. After a while, the aide came in and asked if it would be all right to wash my mother a little so we could get her changed. I said, of course.
Criminal
Valentine
I said I would help. It was so funny. My mother's back was still warm. Her cheek was cold. We washed her and then dressed her back in her favorite gray sweater and put the Phoebe pin on her chest. and then braided her hair, and I put a bow at the end, and sprayed her with Chanel No. 5, her favorite. I put her pocketbook on the end of her bed.
Criminal
Valentine
I remember being asked questions about how I felt about true crime media and what makes a good story, and thinking, none of this matters at all. Two days later, I flew to Massachusetts to see her. I remember walking into her room and realizing that this cancer hadn't taken over yet. She seemed great, happy, hungry. It was that first trip to see her after I found out that I started recording.
Criminal
Valentine
When the funeral home showed up, I realized that this was the one thing I couldn't do. I didn't want to see her being taken away. I stayed in the room until I heard they were outside, and then I did what I had done for so many days in the past months— I left my mother's room and went for a run. Sarah stayed with my mother until they took her away. I ran the same route that I had all those times.
Criminal
Valentine
When I got back, my mother was gone. Sarah told me that when they opened the door to bring my mother out, the whole staff and all the volunteers were lined up on both sides of the hallway, wishing my mother a good journey, telling her how glad they were to have gotten to know her. I wrote her obituary the next morning. It was strange to try to get the feeling of her right.
Criminal
Valentine
I wrote that she loved beautiful things, stone walls, French braids. She loved a good joke. She loved a well-cut suit on a man. She loved Cape Cod. She loved the sun. She loved fried clams but did not like bellies. She loved onion rings, chocolate chip ice cream. She loved a marshmallow sundae. She hated eggs and whipped cream. She loved opera and the talking heads, Italian vogue.
Criminal
Valentine
She loved an event and was a fantastic hostess. She loved her children. I chose the picture that she asked for, for the obituary, of her on the beach on Cape Cod when she was about 38. We had her memorial in Sudbury, Massachusetts, where she grew up on June 1st, in a beautiful old chapel, I wore my mother's skirt. We always called it the butterfly skirt. She'd worn it at Chloe's funeral.
Criminal
Valentine
I played some of the tape I had recorded of her over the last few months, so my mother was there with us in the room.
Criminal
Valentine
Would you introduce yourself? My name is Valentine Judge. I'm 73 years old, and I've been living in Chicago for about 25 years. And now I'm back here close to Phoebe and close to the many humorous acts that we will perform.
Criminal
Valentine
I did see that, honey. You like that? Oh, wow. Look how young I am. Valentine, you looked pretty good then. You did look pretty good then. That was when I was flirting.
Criminal
Valentine
Yeah, but cropped in a little bit. Okay, cropped in. That's the picture you want?
Criminal
Valentine
I said that I wanted to be and I'm going to be happy and I forget the other thing. Comfortable.
Criminal
Valentine
comfortable and I'm both because you're being served donuts in bed I'm being served donuts in bed and my girl Phoebe is here so I am happy and now we just need to find the remote okay I'll sign off okay say you gotta end the show you gotta say something to end the show I have to say something to end the show yeah well the star of the show is going away That's me, yes.
Criminal
Valentine
Okay. Would you introduce yourself? My name is Valentine Judge. I'm 73 years old, and I've been living in Chicago for about 25 years. And now I'm back here close to Phoebe and close to the many humorous acts that we will perform.
Criminal
Valentine
If you'd like to hear even more This Is Love, subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you're already a listener, tell someone about it. Thanks very much. Criminal and This Is Love are created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.
Criminal
Valentine
Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. You can learn more about the show on our website, thisislovepodcast.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisislovepodcast.com slash newsletter. You can listen to This Is Love without any ads by signing up for Criminal Plus.
Criminal
Valentine
You'll also get to listen ad-free to our other shows, Criminal and Phoebe Reads A Mystery. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes and more. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at This Is Love Show. This Is Love is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.
Criminal
Valentine
I think they know that now. Oh, they do? Okay. Anything else you'd like to say while we're recording? Phoebe, I love you, and I'm so glad you came to see me, and I hope you come back again soon.
Criminal
Valentine
Well, I'll be back tomorrow and then next week. Okay, well, we're going to say over and out for now, and we'll bring it back out.
Criminal
Valentine
I remember meeting with the hospice team. I just started asking questions. My main one, always with the caveat, I know you can't tell me exactly, was what they had seen with pancreatic cancer and how long people lasted. One of the nurses told me, I've seen people live a year and a half, and I've seen people eating a bag of Doritos today and then dead tomorrow.
Criminal
Valentine
But I'd say your mother has about six months. And then she told me how to get something they called a comfort care box, which is an actual locked box full of drugs, morphine and Ativan. I told the nurse my mother had just eaten a pound of onion rings and was in no pain at all. Her response was, better to have it. You never know.
Criminal
Valentine
I stood in line at the pharmacy with all the other people picking up their prescriptions, and all I kept thinking was that they were there to pick up stuff that would keep someone alive. This was about two weeks before I was supposed to go on tour, the 10th anniversary criminal tour. My mother had been very interested in ticket sales.
Criminal
Valentine
I told her that Chicago was going great, things were a little light at that point in New York. She told me not to worry. It was a hard thing deciding to go through with the tour, knowing at any moment I could get a call. We were dealing with a finite number of days, and I would be choosing to spend them in Seattle and Philadelphia. I started calling my mother each day at 4.30 exactly.
Criminal
Valentine
How are you feeling? I'm feeling just fine. Oh, good. When I talked to you yesterday, you said you had low energy.
Criminal
Valentine
Not much. I already looked at the weather forecast. We'll do for a little bit tonight.
Criminal
Valentine
Oh, but... I know, it's all going to melt. How are you feeling? Good, good. Well, I don't have anything else to report. I'm just, you know, working away and that's it. Well, I'll see you on Friday.
Criminal
Valentine
I talked to her about what I should wear on tour. My mother was always very glamorous and loved clothes. I told her how Lauren thought it would be a good idea for me to wear a tuxedo. She didn't agree. But you can see the vision. Yes, I definitely can. If it's a well-fitted tuxedo... Yes.
Criminal
Valentine
That would make a big difference. Who else is on stage with you? Lauren. So she could wear a tuxedo? Oh, well, now, if both of you are wearing tuxedos, then it makes more sense.
Criminal
Valentine
I was absolutely determined to find a way for her to come to our show in Boston... I kept talking to her about it, from every city. I called my mother before the show. I remember standing outside of the Fitzgerald Theater in Minnesota, giving her an update on the crowd. I told her I would see her in a few days. Finally, we arrived in Boston.
Criminal
Valentine
I got to the theater early to make sure that her seat would have the best view. She'd be using a wheelchair, and I spent a long time trying to map out the best route for her to get backstage. I told everyone that my mother was coming and that she was sick, and the staff at the Wilbur Theater were wonderful. The security guards were waiting outside when her car pulled up to the loading dock.
Criminal
Valentine
I was shocked at how they treated her, like royalty. We got my mother to the dressing room, and more and more family and friends arrived. We made this little pin for the tour. It's kind of a joke. It's a photograph of me looking at the camera during a local news interview years ago. I gave her one, and she put it right on. I spent the whole show looking out at the audience and finding her.
Criminal
Valentine
She was sitting next to my aunt. I kept looking to see if she was laughing. She was, not all the time, but some of the jokes were landing. She was always a harsh critic. My aunt told me that when the show was over and people were clapping, my mother tried to stand up. My aunt tried to stop her, but my mother said, I'm standing up. And she did.
Criminal
Valentine
The security guys carried her wheelchair down the steps out to the loading dock. I told her we had seven more shows, and then I'd be back to Massachusetts to be with her. She told me to do good work, don't worry about her, and that she'd see me soon. A few days before I got home, I asked if she could have another scan. She seemed to be doing so well. No symptoms.
Criminal
Valentine
I wondered if there had been a mistake. We planned a family weekend on Cape Cod, her favorite place on Earth. She grew up going there with her three sisters. The night before I went to pick her up, the doctor called. The cancer had spread over her pancreas and now to her liver. I asked the doctor what she would do if this were one of her parents.
Criminal
Valentine
And she said, I would let them be and have as much good time as possible. We went ahead with our Cape Cod weekend. My partner Sarah went early and cooked and filled the house with flowers and made a bedroom for my mother. And I sat with my mother and talked and looked at pictures.
Criminal
Valentine
Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. This week, we released our 100th episode of our other podcast, This Is Love. To mark the occasion, we've done something very different. A story about my mother, Valentine, who died this spring. We wanted to share it here, too.
Criminal
Valentine
I do see that, honey. You like that? Oh, wow, look how young I am. Valentine, you looked pretty good then. You did look pretty good then. That was when I was flirting.
Criminal
Valentine
Yeah, but cropped in a little bit. Okay, cropped in. That's the picture you want?
Criminal
Valentine
That whole weekend, we ate and laughed and drove around the beaches she loved so much. She sang old songs with my Aunt Jane. They told stories about growing up. My mother seems so alive.
Criminal
Valentine
When she left, all we talked about was coming back when it got warmer, when the flowers were out. and then I basically moved into the hospice house. I started using her room to do interviews over Zoom for Criminal and This Is Love, or if there was an open room, I'd sometimes do interviews there, or track, which is what we call recording my narration.
Criminal
Valentine
On a Friday night in January 1893, a group of masked men arrived at the jail. Yes? Hold on, Lily. Hello? Hello? Absolutely. Lily, just one second, Lily. One second, Lily. Sorry. No problem.
Criminal
Valentine
Mom, just try to take... Sorry to make you be quiet for a little while, Mom, but I'll be done soon. Thank you very much. Good, good, good. Thank you, thank you. Okay.
Criminal
Valentine
All right. Sorry, I'm back. One Friday night in January 1893, a group of masked men arrived at the jail in a small town outside of New Orleans. It became a routine. I'd arrive around 8 each morning, after stopping to get her a cinnamon roll or an old-fashioned donut on the way.
Criminal
Valentine
I'd walk into my mother's room and sometimes find that she wasn't there, already down in the dining room, having an English muffin and coffee. Always coffee. Or sometimes I'd find her in her room not yet awake. I'd walk in and try to sit down quietly. She'd usually wake up quickly, and I'd go sit on her bed, and she'd say the same thing always. Hi, darling. I'm so glad to see you.
Criminal
Valentine
And then, you know what I'd really love? Coffee. Most mornings, she would remind me that I had my 9 a.m. editorial call coming up. I'd say, I'll be quick. And her response was always, take your time. In between meetings and interviews, we would go out, taking long drives around western Massachusetts, always with a big emphasis on lunch.
Criminal
Valentine
On December 14th last year, Lauren Spohr, who I've made these shows with for the last 10 years, and I were driving to the local PBS television station in North Carolina to record an interview about the last 10 years of Criminal. I remember we decided it would be a good idea to go to a hair salon that morning and have them try to do something with our hair. We never do this.
Criminal
Valentine
And then, usually with a stop for marshmallow sundaes and Diet Pepsi. We'd come back so my mother could take a nap and I could do some work. Most afternoons, sneaking away for a run. The same route up and down Pleasant Street to the top of the UMass campus and then back. 3.2 miles. My mother would say the same thing to me as I left. Please be careful. And I'd reply the same way every time.
Criminal
Valentine
Don't worry, Mom. It's on sidewalks. She'd be waiting when I came back. How'd you do? My mother was very present during work calls. At one point, Lauren was telling everyone that one way to keep cut flowers from wilting is to add a few drops of vodka. My mother joked, same for me. Another time, we were having an edit for the criminal episode about jaywalking.
Criminal
Valentine
I offered to go into another room, but she said she was happy just listening. And then, an hour later, she said out loud, this is the most boring thing I've ever heard in my life. Everyone laughed. Her sisters and cousins would come and visit, and then the singing would start. My Aunt Phoebe would sing the songs they made up when they were little.
Criminal
Valentine
When my mother was six, she made up a cereal she called Crimies, which was just a bunch of healthy cereals all mixed up together. But when you called them Crimies, it made it more exciting. and she made up a jingle. Here's my aunt playing the piano in the living room of the hospice.
Criminal
Valentine
Crimeys, ooh, Crimeys, ooh, Crimeys, they are so good. Crimeys, ooh, Crimeys, ooh, Crimeys, they are so good. One more time.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Near the end of the summer, Betterstein got a phone call from the investigator assigned to Dexter's missing person case. But the only news he had was that he was retiring. He'd be passing the case on to someone new.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
The officer told Betterstein if she wanted to know more, she should contact the coroner. She called the coroner, asking why no one had told her any of this sooner.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
The investigator from the coroner's office said that he had found a pill bottle in Dexter's pocket, so he had Dexter's name right away. He said he'd also gotten Betterstein's name and information.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Betterstein Wade asked where her son Dexter's body was, but no one could tell her.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Betterstein decided to get in touch with a reporter named John Shoupy, who works for NBC News. John had interviewed Betterstein for an article about the death of her brother, George.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
John started looking into it and requested public records like crash and incident reports.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
John says the death was ruled accidental, and that the off-duty police officer was not suspected to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And once the coroner got Dexter's body, I mean, would it have been his job or Hines County to notify his family?
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Okay, so there is no argument here that, wait a second, you know, we didn't contact Dexter's mother because we didn't know who this person was. They knew that this was a man named Dexter Wade.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
John says that the coroner's office investigator then passed along Betterstein's name and contact information to the Jackson police. What are the laws about notifying family after deceased family members?
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Which is what Mississippi's law says. But it doesn't specify what reasonable means. And it doesn't list any required steps.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Betterstein-Wade raised her children in her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, where her mother and brother George also lived. And what was life for you like? Tell me a little bit about what was going on in your life.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
When she went to see where Dexter was buried, Betterstein brought her sister and reporter John Shoupie.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Hundreds of people attended Dexter's funeral. The Reverend Al Sharpton gave the eulogy.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
John Shoupie reported Betterstein's story for NBC News. He says he started to wonder if this had happened to other families in Jackson.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
He and his colleagues found two more people who'd been buried without their family's knowledge. Then John heard from more and more families who wondered if the same thing had happened to their relatives. The city of Jackson has now adopted an official policy for how to notify next of kin, something most cities already have.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
In January of 2024, Anthony Fox, the police officer convicted for the death of Betterstein's brother, George Robinson, was released from prison. The state attorney general for Mississippi had been working toward overturning his conviction since before Dexter went missing. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that the evidence was insufficient to support the guilty verdict.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
For a while, Betterstein worked as an aluminum welder. Then she says she got a job doing security. She worked night shifts, which meant she didn't get to see her kids as often. She remembers that as her son Dexter got older, he and his friends could be hard to track down.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
We reached out to the Jackson Police Department and haven't heard back. Anthony Fox, who's now with a neighboring police department, told us he'd been maliciously prosecuted. Quote, the appeals court saw the evidence of the case and ultimately acquitted me.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
After high school, Dexter stayed in Jackson. He and his girlfriend had two daughters, Janelle and Jocelyn. And then, when he was in his mid-20s, Dexter went to prison.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Dexter had married his girlfriend while he was in prison. A few years after he got out, they got divorced, and Dexter moved home with Betterstein. He still saw his daughters often.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
He was released from prison in 2017 at age 31. Betterstein says he wasn't really the same.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
One day, Betterstein noticed a window in their house had a crack in the glass. She asked Dexter if he could fix it, and she went to work. When she got home, she saw that Dexter had removed the entire window, leaving a big hole in the side of the house. She says that upset her, and she and Dexter fought about it.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
If you enjoy learning more about the world around you, I want to tell you about Radio Lab, a podcast from WNYC. Hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser, Radio Lab's goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that?
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Nine days went by. Betterstein says at first she didn't want to call the police. Four years earlier, her brother George was beaten by a police officer and later died.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
The police had been talking to people in George's neighborhood because earlier that day, a pastor had been killed at a church nearby. Three officers approached George sitting in his car in his driveway. One of the officers was a man named Anthony Foxx.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Anthony Fox said he told George to get out of the car and that he saw George reach for something between the seat and center console. He said he told George to, quote, stop reaching. George said he was trying to unbuckle his seatbelt. Witnesses said they heard George tell Anthony Fox he was struggling to get out of the car because he was recovering from a stroke. He was 62.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Whether it's about chemistry, politics, new technologies, or ancient beliefs, Radiolab's rigorous curiosity gets you the answers so you can see the world in new ways. Radiolab. Adventures on the edge of what you think you know. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
An ambulance was called to the scene. Paramedics bandaged his head. He was given a citation for failing to obey and resisting arrest and was released. That night, Georgia's girlfriend found him unconscious and called an ambulance.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
He died two days later, on January 15, 2019. The county coroner ruled George's death a homicide, saying he died from blunt force trauma to the head. The officers involved in his death were initially placed on paid leave, but the Jackson police conducted an internal investigation and cleared all three of wrongdoing.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
The mayor of Jackson announced that the district attorney would conduct a separate investigation into George's death. A grand jury was convened, and all three police officers were indicted and charged with second-degree murder. In the end, only one of the officers, Anthony Fox, was convicted. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
But then, in the summer of 2023, the Mississippi State Attorney General started working to overturn the conviction. Bederstein says the whole thing was all terrible for the family. And then, in the midst of it all, her son Dexter went missing. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Betterstein Wade's family had an active lawsuit against the city of Jackson and the three police officers involved in her brother George's death when her son Dexter went missing. Betterstein's mother didn't want her to call the police.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
Betterstein sent the Jackson police a photo of Dexter, and they told her they'd put out a civil alert. Weeks went by with no news.
Criminal
Dexter Wade
In one Facebook post, Betterstein wrote, By Father's Day, Dexter was still missing. It had been just over three months. That day, Betterstein posted, Please come home.
Criminal
High Tide
And then Harriet Tubman kept walking. She knew she needed to get to Pennsylvania, the nearest free state. She was the North Star as a guide, as her father had taught her. And she followed the rivers, what she knew ran north. Eventually, she made it to Philadelphia. But in Philadelphia, Harriet Tubman received a message that her niece was going to be sold.
Criminal
High Tide
And Harriet decided to turn around to get her out. It worked. The next year, she did the same thing for her youngest brother... The family decided to move to Canada together. Philadelphia had become too dangerous after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, also called the Bloodhound Act.
Criminal
High Tide
This basically meant that any Black person could be kidnapped, accused of being a runaway slave, and sold into slavery in the South. So Harriet Tubman left the country.
Criminal
High Tide
She developed her own roots and strategies that she would share with people. She learned that Saturdays in winter were the best days for an escape. Enslaved people often had Sunday off, so slaveholders wouldn't know they were gone until Monday. And the long winter nights gave them more time to walk in the dark. She tried to get people out before the holidays.
Criminal
High Tide
Slaveholders often sold enslaved people at the end of the year to pay off debt. Etta Fields Black writes that the Christmas holidays were known as the weeping time. When she walked, Harriet Tubman would rub red onions on her feet so bloodhounds couldn't pick up her scent. And she carried a loaded gun.
Criminal
High Tide
One journalist later wrote that she, quote, possessed a miraculous geographical instinct, never forgetting any detail of a route. She got her parents out of Maryland. They were in their 70s and unable to walk the long distance. So Harriet built a type of horse-drawn carriage for them. She tried four times to get her sister Rachel and Rachel's children out, but never succeeded.
Criminal
High Tide
She became known as Moses. People didn't know her real identity. Many slaveholders assumed Moses was a white man. And then the Civil War broke out. In South Carolina, the Union, or the U.S. Army, occupied Beaufort and surrounding areas. Etta Fields Black writes that Harriet Tubman would almost certainly have been following the news about what was happening.
Criminal
High Tide
Etta L. Fields Black is a historian and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Minus Hamilton lived with his wife, Hager, and some of their adult children were enslaved on the same plantation. In 1863, Minus Hamilton told someone that he was 88 years old.
Criminal
High Tide
She was going to be spying on the Confederacy. Why do you think that she was recruited as a spy? I mean, what were they looking for?
Criminal
High Tide
Harriet Tubman gathered intelligence from people who'd escaped slavery and were now living in a type of refugee camp.
Criminal
High Tide
And Harriet Tubman also recruited men who knew how to navigate a boat up the river. And so after sunset on June 1st, the three boats were ready to go, headed for the rice plantations.
Criminal
High Tide
As the boats got close to each of the seven plantations on the Cumbee River, rowboats were put in the water to transport people to the boats. When Minus Hamilton saw the boat, he went straight for it.
Criminal
High Tide
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Criminal
High Tide
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Criminal
High Tide
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Criminal
High Tide
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Criminal
High Tide
Plantation owners and their overseers tried to force or convince enslaved people to hide from the U.S. Army. But Etta Fields Black says people watching the boats approaching knew why they had come.
Criminal
High Tide
He had grown up on another plantation in the area, and came to this plantation with his wife and two adult children after they were sold. It was about a year before the start of the Civil War. Minus Hamilton had been working on this plantation for a few years, and on that June morning, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Criminal
High Tide
The soldiers on the boats were black men from the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers Regiment, and so some of the soldiers were familiar to people on the rice plantations. Harriet Tubman later described how she saw people running to the boats.
Criminal
High Tide
Hundreds of people rushed to the riverbanks to make it onto the boats. Harriet Tubman said it was like there was a, quote, mysterious telegraphic communication between people in the area telling them to run to the river. Someone described how the crowds extended in every direction as far as the eye could see.
Criminal
High Tide
And then, the Union commanders ordered everyone back on the boat, as fast as possible.
Criminal
High Tide
The soldiers started setting fire to the plantations. Minus Hamilton later described watching everything burn.
Criminal
High Tide
But there is a problem. Since one of the three boats had run aground and never made it to the plantations, there wasn't enough room for everyone.
Criminal
High Tide
The crew in the rowboats had to hit people's hands with their oars to get them to let go. One person described the people left by the river as, quote, "...the saddest sight of the whole expedition." But the sun was coming up, and they had to hurry. As the boats pulled away, the riverbanks were full of personal belongings that people hadn't been able to bring.
Criminal
High Tide
On one of the boats, a white Union commander, Colonel Montgomery, asked Harriet Tubman to, quote, speak a word of consolation. But Tubman and the newly freed people could barely understand each other.
Criminal
High Tide
756 people got on the boats that morning. Etta Fields Black calls it one of the most successful Union expeditions of the entire Civil War.
Criminal
High Tide
Etta L. Fields Black's book is Cumbie, Harriet Tubman, the Cumbie River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War. While researching the book, Etta says she was surprised to find documents, soldiers' pension files, with new details about the men who fought in the raid and their families. And she found one of her ancestors in the records.
Criminal
High Tide
After the raid, Minus Hamilton told this story to a Union commander. After that, we don't know what happened to him. But we do know a little bit about his daughter, Bina.
Criminal
High Tide
Harriet Tubman lived to be 91. Do you think that it's possible that Harriet Tubman and Minus Hamilton might have met on the boat?
Criminal
High Tide
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
High Tide
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to Criminal episodes without any ads. And you'll get bonus episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
Criminal
High Tide
But then they heard a boat approaching on the water. The night before, right after sunset, three boats had left the wharf of nearby Beaufort, South Carolina. They were headed for the Cumbee River. It was high tide, so it was less likely for the three Union Army ships to run aground. But to get to the Cumbee River, they had to first sail through another river, the Coosaw River. This was risky.
Criminal
High Tide
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
High Tide
Before we get to today's show, I wanted to tell you about a podcast I think you'll really enjoy. It's called Gastropod. It's about the science and history of food. But really, it's about all the things you never knew about what you eat every day. Like the forgotten history of peppermint and why it makes your mouth feel cold. Or whether New York City bagels really are better because of the water.
Criminal
High Tide
But there were men aboard the boats who knew these rivers well. Some of them were formerly enslaved men who had grown up in the area and had freed themselves. and they'd been recruited by a Union spy to help the Army navigate. Her name was Harriet Tubman. She was on one of the boats going up the river. The boats only had six hours before the low tide would make it very difficult to sail back.
Criminal
High Tide
When the people on the rice field saw the first boat, Minus Hamilton said that the plantation overseer started shouting at them.
Criminal
High Tide
They had nine children. From the time she was five years old, Harriet Tubman watched her younger siblings while their mother was forced to work. When she turned six, Harriet was sent to work for a neighboring family, and she had to live with them, leaving her own family.
Criminal
High Tide
Harriet Tubman later described how, as a child, she felt humiliated when she was forced to stand up in front of the White family in a special petticoat made for her.
Criminal
High Tide
She was hired out to another family to take care of their baby. Harriet was so small that she couldn't hold the baby, but had to sit on the floor with it in her lap. If the baby cried, she had to stay up all night, and if the baby's mother woke up from the noise, she would whip Harriet. She was eventually sent to a farm to work as a field hand.
Criminal
High Tide
or why American mangoes taste so bad, and what that has to do with George W. Bush. Subscribe to Gastropod wherever you get your podcasts.
Criminal
High Tide
She had to be carried back to the farm, but no one called a doctor. The next day, she was sent to the field to work, but was so injured that the man she worked for said she was, quote, not worth a sixpence.
Criminal
High Tide
Throughout her life, Harriet Tubman suffered from seizures and could suddenly lose consciousness. She experienced visions, which she interpreted as prophecies. She described how she would sometimes hear angels singing, or felt like she was floating above the earth. When she was a teenager, the slaveholder tried, but failed, to sell her.
Criminal
High Tide
And so Harriet offered to pay him every year if she could decide who she worked for and what she did. He agreed. She started working in a store and in Wheaton cornfields and gave most of her wages to the slaveholder.
Criminal
High Tide
She used part of her earnings to buy her own cattle, who helped make tasks like plowing easier. She went to live with her father, and they spent a lot of time outdoors.
Criminal
High Tide
Etta Fields Black writes that Harriet Tubman had a, quote, gift for reading the landscape. Her father taught her how to use the North Star as a guide. She noticed the way moss grew on trees, and she knew the different kinds of plants in the forest. In her early 20s, she married John Tubman, who was a free black man.
Criminal
High Tide
The people working in the rice fields on that day in 1863 were enslaved. They were working on one of several rice plantations on the Cumbee River in South Carolina. One of the men working in the field, Minus Hamilton, later described that morning.
Criminal
High Tide
But if they had children, they would be born into slavery because Harriet was enslaved. After their wedding, Harriet had visions of mothers and children being separated. She worried this was a warning of what was to come.
Criminal
High Tide
Both of her sisters had children. One of them was just a baby. The children stayed behind when the two women were sold to a chain gang.
Criminal
High Tide
She later said that after she saw what happened to her sisters, she was always afraid that she might get sold too and prayed several times a day that it wouldn't happen. And then, when Harriet Tubman was in her 20s, she started suspecting that she and her brothers were going to be sold. And so they decided to run away. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from quints.
Criminal
High Tide
Every once in a while, it's nice to treat yourself. But a lot of times that comes with a high price tag— Quinn says that when you shop with them, you can get quality luxury essentials at affordable prices, like their sweaters made of Mongolian cashmere that start at just $50.
Criminal
High Tide
They also have sweaters made of organic cotton, and they sell 14-karat gold jewelry, including gold hoop earrings, one of my favorites, in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I've tried some things from Quince myself, like their cotton relaxed Oxford shirt. The fabric is sturdy and crisp and holds its shape. I've washed it so many times and it still looks good.
Criminal
High Tide
And I like that I can dress it up or down. Whatever you're looking for, all of Quince items are priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands. You can give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash criminal for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash criminal to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash criminal
Criminal
High Tide
Support for Criminal comes from Ritual. Spring is a good time to think about any new additions you'd like to make to your routine. My routine always shifts slightly with the seasons and the weather, like when it gets too cold to swim outside. But I always take a multivitamin. Ritual is essential for women. I've been doing this every day for more than a year now.
Criminal
High Tide
You take two capsules a day, and they each have nine key nutrients, including omega-3, vitamin D, magnesium, and boron. They're designed with something called delayed release, so that your body absorbs the nutrients just when it needs them throughout the day. And Rituals Essential for Women is USP verified.
Criminal
High Tide
That's a certification that proves that every ingredient listed on the bottle is actually in the vitamin you take. Rituals Essential for Women 18 Plus is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com slash criminal. Start Ritual or add Essential for Women 18 Plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 25% off.
Criminal
High Tide
But a few days later, Harriet Tubman tried again, alone. She couldn't tell any of her family members, or even her husband, what she was planning to do. It was too risky. She walked off the plantation singing to herself and kept walking for about a mile until she reached the home of a Quaker woman. She hid in the backyard, waiting for the woman's husband to come home.
Criminal
High Tide
She made two stops on the Underground Railroad, which was well established by the 1840s
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Apollo had read an old book called Whiz Mob, which explains slang used by teams of pickpockets on the street. He read a lot of books about magic and crime.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Ava didn't keep the watch. She wasn't stealing for money. She was stealing because she was good at it. She was so good at it that people would pay to watch her work. But she says that got old, so she came up with a new idea. I figure I could pickpocket information. That's what you do now? That's right. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Ava had moved to Las Vegas, and she and Apollo were living together. They called the group their brain trust. They said there wasn't a real structure to their meetings at first. They just wanted to get people talking to each other.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
The idea for the brain trust was that they would consult for security companies, speak at law enforcement conventions, put on demonstrations and lectures.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Do you remember, Ava, a time when you asked another magician or thief or con artist, you know, one of these guys, why they did what they did and what their answer was?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Abe and Apollo also traveled around the world, looking for people for the brain trust. Once, they went to Spain to try to talk to pickpockets.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Apollo and Ava say that the members of the group had an unspoken agreement. While they were involved in the brain trust, they wouldn't break the law.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
She remembers one time when she was working a party. She'd ask someone to think about their mother's maiden name.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
When we met Ava in the studio, we asked her to show us one of her tricks. She told me to pull out my credit card and hold it so only I could read the numbers. And then she recited the number. Before we even started the interview, Ava handed me a piece of paper and asked me to draw something on it and not show her. I put the drawing in my pocket.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
And then, near the end of the day, we sat down together again. She put my hand on her wrist and asked me to think about the picture. Then she drew almost exactly what I had drawn. A dog.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Sure. You have to come and see this. Oh, my God. This is nuts. For a while, Ava and Apollo performed together. But Apollo says Ava liked to make spreadsheets and plan ahead, and he liked to make up a show on the fly. They decided they were better off doing shows alone. Then they got married. Do either of you, I mean, do you ever manage to trick each other? I mean, is it possible?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
In 2016, Ava and Apollo told their friends and family they were having a baby. They invited everyone over for the baby shower and made another announcement.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Eva was born four years after the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, it's called the American War. After American troops left, a communist government took over and started trying to unify the country.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Ava Doe and Apollo Robbins' daughter, Maya, joined us in the studio. What grade are you in?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
First grade. And do you like school? Mm-hmm. What's your favorite thing?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Eve and Apollo told us every year on Maya's birthday they teach her a new trick, so we asked to see one.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Does that work? Yeah. Okay, do you want me to bring it up? Yeah, but just don't show me. Okay, I won't show you, I promise. Okay, wait a second, I'm going to get it right now. Okay. Okay, I'm ready.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
That's right. How did you do that? You know, do you ever think to yourself, well, I'm really good at keeping secrets and I'm good at magic, but because my parents are really good, too, I'm not going to get away with it?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Ava told us that sometimes Maya asks to learn certain tricks. There's one they call a cups and balls routine, where the magician places cups over balls and makes them disappear.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
She remembers her teachers talking about the communist leader Ho Chi Minh.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
We asked Apollo and Ava if it's important to them that Maya learns magic, like a family business. But they told us it's about something different.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
I mean, do you think in the beginning your relationship changed? Do you think, Ava, if you had said, you know what, I'm not interested in any of this, I want to be a farmer, you know, or a million other things, that the relationship would have... worked as well as it did, as well as it had?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
I mean, implicit in the workings of your relationship, is it both your interest in this topic, in deception, in all the psychology of it, you know, in magic, in tricks?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
If both of you right now decided that you didn't care that you were going to be – you didn't care about rules or the law and you weren't nervous about it, could you take off with Maya and make yourselves incredibly rich and go off and live a wonderful life on a deserted island?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Yeah. Do you feel like both of you are rather insulated from being conned or pickpocketed?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Zajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Right, because you go to school and your teachers are, I mean, you trust that your teachers are teaching you things that you should know. I mean, this is why you go to school.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. If you want to see videos of Ava, Apollo, and Maya showing me and Lauren magic, join Criminal Plus at criminal.com slash plus. If you join, you'll be supporting our work, and you'll be able to listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads, plus you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. You can find out more at thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
The day the war ended, a communist military leader said, You have nothing to fear. Between Vietnamese, there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated. But Ava's mother and father worried. They knew people who'd been sent to prison camps, also known as re-education camps, because they were thought to be anti-communist, including Ava's grandfather.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Ava didn't know it at the time, but her father's job was to get people to the boats at the Vietnamese shorelines. In order to do this, instead of staying as far as possible from the police, he started trying to get close to them.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
There were other things Ava didn't know, like her grandfather's real name. Her whole life, she'd known him by his fake name. He'd moved from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, trying to run from the communists and changed his identity. Ava's mother told her this when she was around 10 years old.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Eva remembers her parents were always talking about moving, leaving Vietnam.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
When she was a teenager, her family got the papers they needed to immigrate to the U.S. She remembers saying goodbye to their friends and family.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
They soon moved to California. Ava was a good student. She went to UCLA for college and wanted to become a psychiatrist. And when she graduated, she stayed in Los Angeles. And then one day, she visited Las Vegas for a bachelorette party, and a man approached her and her friends.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
I mean, did you immediately, once he gave the engagement ring back, say, how did you do that?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Apollo had been working as a kind of magician, specializing in theft. He's been called the best pickpocket in the world. After that first night, what was the next thing you two did together? Did you go on a first date, or do you remember the next time you saw each other?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Wait a second. So you could right now tell me my credit card number?
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
He told her he was from Missouri. His father was a minister, and he had two half-brothers.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Apollo says that a man at the magic shop sold him a book about coin magic, and he started studying it and practicing tricks.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
When he was 22, Apollo left Missouri and moved to Las Vegas. Years later, he got Ava's number at the bachelorette party. And then they started getting to know each other during those long phone calls.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
The Magic Castle is an invitation-only club for magicians. We actually visited for our episode, The Shell Game. It's in an old mansion in Hollywood.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
Did the fact that Apollo was a professional in this deception and pickpocketing make you nervous when you first started seeing each other? Did you find yourself thinking, well, maybe he's just using me, deceiving me. He's good at this.
Criminal
Ava and the Pickpocket
They ended up driving up to a mountain cabin he'd rented to surprise her. And the surprises didn't stop.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusault was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1940. It wasn't uncommon at that time for a family to hold a wake in their home after someone had died. People would come to pay their respects. Growing up, Robert Dusault would attend these wakes in people's houses.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Around 8 a.m., Robert Dusselt entered the Hudson First storage facility. He walked up to the desk and handed a slip of paper to the man behind it. Sam Levine, owner of Hudson Furs. On the slip of paper were four names.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusault tied up Sam Levine and the four other workers in the building, made them put pillowcases over their heads, and told them to stay quiet. Chucky and some of the men came in and headed for the vault.
Criminal
Into the Vault
They had planned to use high-powered drills with specialized drill bits to open the safe deposit boxes. But the drill bits were burning out, and they couldn't get through the locks. But then someone figured out a solution with a crowbar.
Criminal
Into the Vault
When he got to a wake, he would go through the receiving line downstairs and then go upstairs and look through closets and drawers, taking whatever seemed valuable. His sister Dorothy would help him sell what he stole.
Criminal
Into the Vault
It was one of the biggest robberies in the United States. $30 million in 1975 is about $170 million today. Where did Deuce and Chucky go after the heist?
Criminal
Into the Vault
Tim White says that each of the men who robbed the vault got $64,000 and that Robert Chucky and Chucky's girlfriend, Ellen, got on a plane.
Criminal
Into the Vault
They got a suite at the MGM Grand, Chucky was spending a lot of time at the craps table. He proposed to his girlfriend with a ring attached to a bottle of champagne. Robert Dusault was spending his money on sex workers and soon was only hiring one. And then they started dating. Her name was Karen Sponheim.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Chucky went back to Rhode Island. Robert Dussault and Karen Sponheim drove around California. Karen drove because Robert didn't know how. They stayed in luxury hotels until they ran out of money.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Chucky went to the other guys from the robbery, and Tim White says they pooled some money and gave Robert Dussault about $8,500. But he kept asking for more.
Criminal
Into the Vault
On September 3rd, 1975, authorities announced that they had indicted one suspect in connection with the robbery at Hudson First Storage.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusselt's picture was on the front page of the Providence Journal. Police called it a tremendous break in the case and the result of a lot of heel and toe work by the state and city authorities. Police also said they couldn't elaborate on how they got in his name.
Criminal
Into the Vault
He robbed pawn shops and shops that sold rare coins. He was caught after kicking down the glass doors of a clothing store and was arrested for fighting in a donut shop. He had 13 brothers and sisters. His brothers, Paul and Christopher, would plan robberies with him. They would follow delivery trucks. And when the driver left the vehicle, they'd steal everything they could.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusselt and Karen Sponheim were in Texas when he got a phone call from Chucky Flynn saying they needed to talk in person.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Tim White said Robert Dusault and Karen Sponheim left Dallas, afraid that Chucky was coming there to kill him. They drove back to Karen's apartment in Las Vegas. But Chucky was waiting for them there. He traveled to Las Vegas with two of the other men from the robbery. But Robert ended up talking with Chucky alone.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Chucky let Robert go, but law enforcement all over the country were still looking for him. In December of 1975, Karen Sponheim left Robert. He'd been abusive for months. She decided to go to her mother's house in California, but Robert was looking for her and broke into her Las Vegas apartment, thinking she would return there. Karen told the manager of the apartment complex to call the police.
Criminal
Into the Vault
On New Year's Day, police went to Karen's apartment, and Robert Dusault opened the door wearing a bathrobe. They let him get dressed and took him to the police station.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dussault was a sleepwalker, and when he was 15 years old, he fell 30 feet out of his third-floor bedroom window at 2 a.m. It made the front page of The Lowell Sun. His mother told police he'd been walking in his sleep since he was five years old. But at some point, Tim White says, Robert learned that the woman he'd known as his mother was actually his grandmother.
Criminal
Into the Vault
By then, the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 had changed the way the mafia interacted with the police. The Act had established the Witness Protection Program, and it went into effect in 1971, about five years before Robert Dussault was taken into custody.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dussault had already told the authorities what happened. Chucky was arrested and indicted along with four others. Robert Dusault and Chucky were charged with kidnapping, dangerous weapon assault, illegal possession of firearms and burglar tools, conspiracy, and multiple counts of robbery. Robert Dusault was charged as the lead gunman and a fugitive for his escape from prison.
Criminal
Into the Vault
But he wouldn't be going to prison because he was cooperating. The Womet brothers were charged as accessories to the crime. The state trial was the longest and costliest in Rhode Island history. Armed guards were posted in the courtroom. Witness testimony ended on the 79th day of the trial.
Criminal
Into the Vault
His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Raymond Patriarca died in 1984, and his son Raymond Jr. took over his post. Years later, when local journalists gained access to Raymond Sr. 's FBI file, they found that the FBI had an informant who said that Patriarca was the owner of the vault and that he had given his permission to rob it. Chucky Flynn went on to appeal his conviction.
Criminal
Into the Vault
A federal appeals court reversed the conviction, ruling that the presence of armed guards in the courtroom at the trial undermined his right to be presumed innocent. The case was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the state. Chucky Flynn got out on parole in 1989, but was indicted again two years later for drug trafficking, extortion, conspiracy, and illegal gambling.
Criminal
Into the Vault
He died in prison in 2001. As for Robert Dussault, he no longer existed. In 2006, Tim White and two former Providence Journal reporters, Wayne Worcester and Randall Richard, started writing a book about the robbery.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Tim White's father, Jack, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his reporting exposing then-President Richard Nixon's tax fraud. It was in response to Jack White's reporting that Nixon said, quote, I'm not a crook. Jack White died in 2005 at the age of 63. Tim White had always loved the story of the bonded Voltheist and wanted his father to write a book about it.
Criminal
Into the Vault
When his father passed away, Tim decided to do it himself. But there was one problem.
Criminal
Into the Vault
The last thing his father told him he knew was that Robert Dusselt had been given a new name and a job working for Coors Brewing Company.
Criminal
Into the Vault
And then, one day, Tim's mother brought him a box of his father's old reporting documents.
Criminal
Into the Vault
On the envelope, there was an inmate number. Tim used that to confirm that there had been a Robert Dempsey in the Colorado prison system and that he had died in 1992. Because he was deceased, Tim was able to FOIA the government for Robert Dempsey's FBI file.
Criminal
Into the Vault
He started spending more and more time with his best friend, Charles Flynn, who went by Chucky. And Robert Dussault went by Deuce. He got Deuce tattooed on his arm.
Criminal
Into the Vault
In 1982, Robert Dusault, under the name Robert Dempsey, was involved in the armed robbery of a coin emporium in Colorado. At that point, he was still testifying in trials related to the bonded vault case. Federal marshals picked him up at the airport on his way to Rhode Island to testify.
Criminal
Into the Vault
According to Tim White, the FBI file said he had escaped prison again in 1985 and was caught 21 days later after robbing another bank. His death certificate states that he died of heart disease on October 3, 1992, in federal custody in North Dakota. He was 51. When Tim White spoke with Robert Dussault's family members for the book, he was the one to break the news to them that Robert had died.
Criminal
Into the Vault
According to prison records, Robert Dusselt's body was sent to a funeral home and buried at Rose Hill Memorial Park in North Dakota. The only people present at the burial were the funeral director, a man handling the casket, and someone videotaping it.
Criminal
Into the Vault
On the tape, you hear the funeral director reading a few passages from the Bible in front of the open casket of Robert Dussault's body.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Once the funeral director finishes reading, he closes the casket and goes to lower it into the ground.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, Megan Kinane, and Lucy Sullivan. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Emma Munger.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. Tim White, Wayne Worcester, and Randall Richards' book is called The Last Good Heist, the inside story of the biggest single payday in the criminal history of the Northeast. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.
Criminal
Into the Vault
We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to criminal episodes without any ads, and you'll get bonus episodes with me and criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast.
Criminal
Into the Vault
We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusselt was in and out of prison through his late teens and twenties. He was charged for things like larceny by check and convicted of assaulting a police officer.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Chucky also spent time in prison. Sometimes they overlapped. In 1967, Robert Dussault, along with six other men, including Robert's brothers Paul and Christopher, planned to rob two banks at the same time. They would rob one bank, and then, when the Lowell police got there to investigate, they'd rob the other bank. But the night before, someone ratted them out.
Criminal
Into the Vault
The police knew about their plan and were waiting for them at the first bank. Later, Robert Dussault's brother, Paul, testified that the whole thing had been Robert's idea. Robert Dussault was sentenced to 15 to 30 years at a maximum security prison in southern Massachusetts called Walpole.
Criminal
Into the Vault
The prison manufactured license plates— And Tim White says that Robert Dusselt got the stamps into a crate of license plates on its way to the Department of Transportation, where a friend was expecting them.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Along the Mississippi River, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, there's a stretch of land nicknamed Cancer Alley, because according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the cancer rate is more than seven times the national average, reportedly due to a very high concentration of petrochemical plants. Hear how the community is fighting back against some of the top polluters in the country.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusselt was eventually transferred from Walpole to a lower security prison in Greenfield. Inmates were often granted unofficial furloughs to see their wives for a day or drive to medical appointments. And in the summer of 1975, Robert Dusault convinced a prison guard to drive him to Boston. On the trip, they stopped at a strip club.
Criminal
Into the Vault
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the most powerful organized crime family in New England was based in Providence. And it was all ruled by a man named Raymond Patriarca.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Raymond Patriarca rose to power in the 1950s and was respected by each of the so-called five families of organized crime. He had a pinball and vending machine business, but he made millions of dollars through loan sharking, illegal gambling, and labor racketeering, among other things.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Raymond Patriarca was allegedly a silent partner in a horse track in Massachusetts with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. According to the New York Times, people said Sinatra proposed to Mia Farrow with the diamond ring given to him by Raymond Patriarca. He was always at his office at the National Cigarette Service Company and Coin-O-Matic distributors in Providence.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Chucky Flynn went to Providence to work with some acquaintances of Raymond Patriarca that he had met through someone in prison. Two brothers, John and Walter, were met. But John and Walter's parents weren't Italian, and Tim White says that you had to have at least one Italian parent to be in Raymond Patriarca's inner circle.
Criminal
Into the Vault
The Womets were trying anyway, and told Chucky that they were working on something big. They invited him to participate. And Chucky invited Robert Dussault.
Criminal
Into the Vault
But inside the Hudson fur storage facility, there was a secret vault. Inside, there were 148 safety deposit boxes with millions of dollars worth of coins, jewelry, and cash.
Criminal
Into the Vault
It was called the Bonded Vault Company, and it was owned by Raymond Patriarca.
Criminal
Into the Vault
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative. Season three of this award-winning podcast is back, with stories about people fighting for justice in their communities.
Criminal
Into the Vault
In the latest episode, host Ashley C. Ford talks to Sharon Levine, who's fighting to protect her hometown, St. James, Louisiana, from petrochemical pollution.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Yeah. For more than 80 years, the petrochemical industry has operated in the region. And now, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the cancer rate is more than seven times the national average. When Sharon Levine heard about a new multi-billion dollar deal to build another plant near her home, she rallied her neighbors to fight it. I've been speaking ever since. I've been talking.
Criminal
Into the Vault
You can't shut me up now. Subscribed into The Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Robert Dusault and Chucky Flynn prepared to rob the vault inside of the Hudson Fir Storage Facility in Providence in the summer of 1975.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Many of the people who worked for him kept their money and valuables, often stolen, in the safety deposit boxes in Raymond Patriarca's vault.
Criminal
Into the Vault
The heist was originally planned for August 13, 1975. But the day before, while some of the men were cleaning out a van they had stolen to use as the getaway car, a policeman drove by. They got nervous and decided they needed to steal a new van. They postponed the heist by one day. On August 14th, eight men got into the van. Temperatures in Providence that week were in the mid-90s.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The marshal said that two of the fugitives who'd RSVP'd were on D.C. 's top ten most wanted list. Their names were Charles Watkins and Lloyd Golden. In 1983, Charles Watkins was convicted of second-degree murder. While he was in the D.C. jail, he was somehow able to get a prison guard uniform and escape. He'd been on the run for more than a year.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Here's Toby Roach on the morning of the sting, talking about Charles Watkins and Lloyd Golden.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Marshals were brought in from all over the country, so there was no chance the guests would see someone who'd arrested them before.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
He organized the contest. A group of men surrounded the limo. They opened the car door and arrested Robert Harris. There wasn't a flat tire. There wasn't a television station. And there wasn't a breakfast with boy George. The whole thing had been a sting. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Robert Harris, the man who was arrested, was wanted for burglary and had been on the run for 17 months.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
His name was Louis McKinney. He wore a top hat and played the role of master of ceremonies.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
There was an announcement that a car was parked illegally. This was the cue to the SWAT team to get into position outside of the door. Then they waited.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The people arrested were put in buses waiting outside the convention center. A U.S. marshal described by the Washington Post as exuberant said they were totally caught off guard. CBS reported that Operation Flagship arrested 94 people.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Reviewing his footage, CBS producer Alan Goldberg watched and re-watched the moment that one of the top ten most wanted fugitives, Charles Watkins, was put onto a police bus. And he noticed Charles Watkins saying they had the wrong guy.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The marshals had arrested the wrong Charles Watkins. They had arrested the father instead of the son. The LA Times reported that later, Charles Watkins Sr. produced identification and convinced the police that they had the wrong man.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Alan Goldberg learned that the other top-ten fugitive, Lloyd Golden, was not actually a top-ten fugitive either. He was wanted for the sale of narcotics, not armed robbery.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Alan Goldberg and his colleagues started looking more into the FIS program and re-interviewed the director of the U.S. Marshals, Stanley Morris.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Alan Goldberg remembers thinking that Operation Flagship was supposed to focus on really big, quote, high-value people. And so when he learned that it mostly brought in people with misdemeanors, he felt misled.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The U.S. Marshals had been having trouble finding him, so they came up with a way to get Robert Harris to come to them. At the time, Boy George was so popular, The Guardian described his concert tickets as rare as gold dust. And that gave a U.S. marshal named Toby Roach an idea. He made up a fake television station modeled on MTV called W Rock Video 66.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Whether it's legal, do you think it's ethical to trick people into something like this?
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Three weeks after Operation Flagship, 72 of the 94 people who were captured had been let go. Here's how Alan Goldberg's 1986 CBS piece ended.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
CBS reported that of the 10,000 people the Marshalls had arrested in the past four years of the FIST program, half were released within a week. In 1986, fist operations came to an end. We contacted the U.S. Marshals, and their historian told us that to his knowledge, undercover operations on this scale aren't done today. But he said, the concept continues.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. This episode was also produced by Sam Kim. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julia Harrison.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. please consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This Is Love, and Phoebe Reads A Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr, telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. And at the end of each episode, we share things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The U.S. Marshals sent letters to relatives of Robert Harris saying that a brand new television station was having the contest and that Robert Harris had been picked as the winner. Robert Harris wasn't the only target. There were a total of eight people arrested that day, all who believed they'd won tickets to see Boy George. Some of the U.S.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Marshals heard that when Boyd George found out about the sting operation, he filed a complaint with the Department of Justice. He didn't want anything to do with it. The Boy George Sting was one of a series of stings that were all organized by a special task force in the U.S. Marshals. It was called the Fugitive Investigative Strike Teams, nicknamed FIST.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
They specialized in finding ways to get hard-to-find people to come to them. This wasn't always the U.S. Marshals' job. For years, it had been part of the FBI's job to track down federal fugitives. But the 1980 budget cut some of the FBI's funding, and the Attorney General announced that the U.S. Marshals would now take on finding fugitives. The U.S.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Marshals Service was first created in 1789 by Congress as officers of the court. They served warrants and subpoenas and handled federal prisoners. Through 1870, they also took the national census. In the 1800s, they filled in as law enforcement in western territories where there was no federal government. They enforced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and Prohibition in the 1920s.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
In the 60s, they were assigned to guard students in a grading segregated schools. And in 1981, the Marshals Service created the Fugitive Investigative Strike Teams, or FIST.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
In 1985, they created a fake airline in Miami called Puno Airlines. Puno means FIST in Spanish. The Marshalls made their own Puno airline stationery and sent letters to the last known addresses of people they were looking for, congratulating them on winning a free trip. It included a fake boarding pass to the Bahamas. They even set up a fake ticket counter in the Miami International Airport.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
The sting resulted in 14 arrests. In another operation in Virginia, the marshal sent out invitations to a special event at a Playboy club. When they arrived, attendees were invited to board a black bus decorated with a giant bunny logo.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
When they got on the bus, they were arrested by undercover agents dressed like Playboy bunnies. More than once, the Marshalls set up fake delivery companies. One was called the Fist Bonded Delivery Service, which, according to the New York Times, sent out letters saying, quote, large packages worth $2,000 of undescribed goods were ready to be delivered.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
When people tried to claim the valuable packages, they were arrested. Toby Roach says that part of what was appealing about the Sting operations was that they were less confrontational. They weren't going to people's homes, which he says was safer for the U.S. Marshals. One of the first large-scale police stings in the United States happened in D.C. in the 1970s.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
They called it Operation Sting because the police officers, like the Paul Newman and Robert Redford movie, The Sting, D.C. police worked with the FBI to try to do something about a recent increase in stolen office equipment. They rented a warehouse and pretended to be the D.C. outpost of a New York mob family and spread the word that they would buy stolen office equipment.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
And they paid good prices for all kinds of things, so good that one man went to a department store, bought a gun, and sold it to the undercover officers for twice the price. The police officers dyed their hair black and tried to talk with Italian accents. But they didn't speak Italian. They could say ciao and arrivederci, but they mostly just made up words.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
They served meatballs and would offer you a Chianti or a whiskey and then get your fingerprints off the glass. One officer introduced himself as Angelo Lasagna. Another was Rico Rigatoni.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
After a few months of doing this, the police threw a party, inviting people they'd done business with to meet the head of the mob family, who was actually just a police officer dressed up as the Don and sitting in a high-back chair. So many people were arrested that night that the city jail ran out of space for everyone. One detective said, we played a game with them.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
We were romance, the mob, the greatest thing that ever happened to them. After it was all over, the police received letters complaining about the way the officers represented Italian-Americans during the operation. One of the officers said, we meant no harm except to the thieves. The New York Times reported that it was plain that the police had had some fun. We'll be right back.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
If you won, you'd be picked up in a limo and taken to see Boy George and the Culture Club perform at the Hartford Civic Center. One of the winners was a 22-year-old named Robert Harris. The television station said they would send a camera crew to film him getting picked up by the president of the station.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
In 1985, U.S. Marshal Toby Roach moved to Washington, D.C. He'd just been promoted to the Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia. At the time, there were over 3,000 wanted persons in the D.C. area and over 5,000 outstanding warrants. Toby invited his new boss, a U.S. marshal named Herb Rutherford, over for dinner.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
And they did it. They got to work on the biggest fist operation yet. They called it Operation Flagship. They named their fake television station Flagship International Sports Television, another fist acronym. The Marshalls sent out more than 3,000 invitations, offering free tickets to see the Redskins, now called the Commanders, and a chance to win a trip to Super Bowl XX.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
To claim the tickets, you had to come to a brunch at the Washington Convention Center. The invitation included a phone number to RSVP, The marshal set up a phone bank and waited for the calls to come in. As Toby Roach was preparing Operation Flagship, a young television producer named Alan Goldberg was working on a new CBS news show called West 57th.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
I mean, how did you get the marshals to tell you about an upcoming sting? I mean, you'd think that that would be something that they wouldn't want anyone to know.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Allen Goldberg and a CBS television crew were brought into Operation Flagship's phone bank room. The correspondent for the piece was Meredith Vieira.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
After picking up Robert, the limo drove a few blocks and then suddenly it stopped. The driver said he had a flat tire.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
About 160 people called to say they'd come to the brunch, scheduled for December 15, 1985. Very early that morning, CBS filmed the marshals preparing.
Criminal
Operation Flagship
Going over the PA system, what's going to go over there is, welcome to Flagship International, and now we have a special surprise. You're under arrest, put your hands on your head. So, unsurprised, you're going.
Criminal
Under the Wall
Siobhan is in love. She and her boyfriend are maybe thinking wedding bells. And even though there's no one she'd rather be with, she still wonders, what's the chance of this lasting? How do you get from that point to also being like, I cannot stand you, to the point that I want to cut my ties with you? This week on Explain It To Me, we find out, are we less likely to get divorced than our parents?
Criminal
Under the Wall
Follow Explain It To Me wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
He was also known to call police from borrowed employee cell phones, or pay phones, to tell them that there were employees locked in the cooler. But police couldn't catch him.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
In October of 1999, the Sacramento Bee reported that the so-called rooftop robber had taken his, quote, fast food fetish to the East Coast. McDonald's up and down I-95 between Virginia and South Carolina were being robbed. McDonald's corporate offered a $5,000 reward. Some people speculated that the suspect was a former McDonald's employee.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Mervat told her boss that she would handle making the tea and coffee right behind the front counter.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Was it clear that you were dealing with someone who was not only athletic, but also pretty smart?
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
The robber had fired his gun to scare employees, once into the ceiling and once into a fax machine. But police said he hadn't fired at any employees during his robberies. During one robbery, he pistol-whipped and tied up an employee, after the employee came up behind him and hit him over the head with a bucket.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Police arrested a 19-year-old man named Jacob Ray Farrell on the roof of a McDonald's in California. He'd triggered an alarm at 2 in the morning. But he had no weapon or black mask with him. And when police searched the roof, there was no hole anywhere. He told police that he had climbed onto the roof to try to get some sleep, and he was later ruled out as a suspect.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
McDonald's corporate increased their reward to $10,000. It must have been incredibly frustrating that you couldn't catch him.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
In early 2000, a robbery was reported at a Trader Joe's near Salem, Massachusetts. Police believed it was the rooftop robber. By then, he was linked to robberies at 35 other stores and restaurants across the country, mostly McDonald's, but he had also been connected to robberies at Burger King locations, as well as grocery, toy, and video stores. Police said he had stolen almost $100,000 in cash.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
And they seemed to have no idea where he'd turn up next. There's no set pattern, a Sacramento County Sheriff's Sergeant said. It's all a big lotto. Restaurants that hadn't experienced robberies were also finding holes on their roofs. Police suspected that in those cases, the rooftop robber had been scared off.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
A repairman in the Sacramento area who closed up eight rooftop holes said the robber was clearly determined. He said he had dug through asphalt and sheet metal and even used an axe to chop through a roof in one location. The police started asking the public for help. They set up a hotline for any tips. And they also released a description of who they thought the rooftop robber was.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
This is not the kind of person family members would be suspicious of, an investigator told a reporter. When they picture the kind of person who can rob, they don't see him. The investigator also said that the suspect was motivated by money and, quote, has a good relationship with his mother. She added, you can just tell that by the polite way he treats people.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
And then, a month later in May of 2000, a masked man entered the McDonald's in Belmont, North Carolina. He put Mervat Fayyad and her co-workers in the walk-in cooler and shortly after was caught by police. His name was Jeffrey Manchester. He was 28 years old and had a rifle, drills, pry tools, and hammers with him and a nylon bag stuffed with $8,000. He was also carrying a military ID.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
He was in the Army Reserves. The police put Jeffrey Manchester into the back of their car and drove him over to the McDonald's that had just been robbed to see if the employees recognized him.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
The officers had also found Mervat's keys, the ones he took, because they had a can of pepper spray on them. They gave them back to her. The McDonald's employees looked at security footage from outside the restaurant to figure out how he might have gotten to their store in the first place.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
There was a ladder to the roof attached to the side of the McDonald's, but the bottom six feet or so were locked behind a cage to prevent people from climbing up on it. Mervatt says the video showed him jumping up onto the unlocked part of the ladder and climbing up.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
She says it looked like he first tried to dig through the ceiling into the bathroom, but they'd just installed sheetrock and he couldn't get through it. He ended up coming through the ceiling of the stockroom in the back of the restaurant.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Skye Pooley, along with another agent, got on a plane to North Carolina.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Mervat got down on the floor. Her boss, who had been in the bathroom, came around the corner and saw the man with the gun behind the counter.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
They started talking. Jeffrey Manchester told them that he'd read about the McDonald's robberies on the West Coast and had decided to try it for himself. He said he was just a copycat and had nothing to do with the robberies in California. Skye brought up a robbery that had happened outside of San Francisco.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Jeffrey Manchester was originally from the Sacramento area, and he was estranged from his ex-wife. McDonald's officials said he had never worked at McDonald's before, but his ex-wife had a decade earlier. Sky Poley told us that when he looked into it more, he found that Jeffrey Manchester had worked at a McDonald's in the Sacramento area, but at a different location than his ex-wife.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
He had received Army artillery and airborne training, which would have involved jumping from heights and rappelling. And he was part of an Army Reserve boat unit that specialized in transporting military equipment from one base to another. He had most recently been on a training mission that had gone from California to Florida to North Carolina.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Mervat says they were five employees in the restaurant that morning. They were all rounded up and brought back through the kitchen to the hallway outside her boss's office. The man with the gun took Mervat's keys from her. She had a small can of pepper spray attached to them.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
One of his fellow Army reservists told a reporter that after the exercise was over, Jeffrey Manchester told him that instead of going back to California right away, he was going to stay with some friends. Three days later, he was caught by police in North Carolina. Jeffrey Manchester was indicted in North Carolina on 14 felony counts for robbing the two McDonald's restaurants.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
including one count of possessing a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of first-degree kidnapping for the eight employees he had held up. He pleaded guilty to several of the charges against him, like robbery and breaking and entering. But he pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping charges. His lawyer said he didn't believe he was guilty of kidnapping for forcing employees into coolers.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
a jury eventually found him to be guilty of seven of the eight kidnapping charges, and he was sentenced to 32 to 45 years in a North Carolina state prison. In the meantime, Sky Poli was working on connecting Jeffrey Manchester to the more than 40 other robberies and 22 attempted robberies that had taken place in California and across the country.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Jeffrey Manchester was never charged with any other robberies besides the two that took place in North Carolina. He was sent to Brown Creek Correctional Institution, a medium security prison outside of Charlotte.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
I think it was for the chase. If you want to hear part two right now, sign up for Criminal Plus. Part two will be waiting for you. Plus, you'll get ad-free listening on all of our shows and bonus episodes. Sign up now at thisiscriminal.com slash plus. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lena Sillison, Lily Clark, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Michael Rafio. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Then he asked her boss, Elaine, to get the McDonald's jackets used by employees. What were you thinking when he said, I mean, when he said get the jackets?
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Once they had their jackets on, the man walked them over to the walk-in cooler and shut the door.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
The employee saw that he had tried to lock them in by putting the long metal legs of a lemon slicer through the door's handle, but it didn't really work. Mervat Fayed still works for McDonald's today as a director of operations overseeing several stores. When we met her, she took us into the back, into the walk-in cooler.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
So you were all in here. And how long do you think you were in here total?
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
So when you walked out, you opened this door, and then were you all kind of looking around to see if he was still there?
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Other alarms inside the store were going off too. The alarms for the safe and for the unattended ovens.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
About 12 officers responded. They started driving around, looking for the suspect. There had been another robbery at a nearby McDonald's late the night before. Employees there were also locked in the walk-in cooler. About a mile from the McDonald's, one officer noticed a car in the middle of a church parking lot. He went to look at the car and saw a man coming out of some trees.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
The man reportedly said to the officers, you guys did a real good job today.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
The morning of the robbery, Sky Poli says he got a phone call. He's a retired special agent for the California Department of Justice.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. Sometimes I'll save new clothes to wear for the first time when I'm on vacation. You can find new things for your upcoming trip at Quince. They have lightweight European linen pants from $30, a lot of styles of sleeveless linen dresses, bathing suits, and leather tote bags.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Twenty-five years ago, Mervat Fayyad was working at a McDonald's at the corner of North Main and Route 74 in Belmont, North Carolina, outside of Charlotte. She was just out of high school. We met Mervat at McDonald's to talk about one morning in May of 2000, when she arrived to open the restaurant around 5 a.m. with several other employees. There was a lot to do.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
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Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
I like to pack light, so it's just the kind of thing I'm looking for. Nice enough to wear to dinner and comfortable enough to wear on a plane. For your next trip, treat yourself to the upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash criminal for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash criminal to get free shipping and 365-day returns.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Quince.com slash criminal. Support for Criminal comes from Hungry Root. If you have unique health goals and dietary needs, like gluten-free, dairy-free, high-protein, and more, having interesting meals to eat can take a lot of planning and preparation. Hungry Root can help with that. They provide recipe recommendations and deliver the groceries you need.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
All you have to do is let Hungry Root know your preferences, and they'll fill your cart with recipes you'd actually want to make. And then it all arrives at your door. All of their recipes are designed to take 15 minutes or less to make. I just made their lemon pepper chicken with cilantro lime rice and would order it again.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
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Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
That's HungryRoot.com slash criminal, code criminal, to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. HungryRoot.com slash criminal, code criminal. About a year and a half earlier, in the early morning hours of December 17, 1998, police in Sacramento, California, got a call about a break-in at a local McDonald's.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Employees arrived at the restaurant and found a masked man waiting for them inside. He had a handgun and had avoided setting off any alarms by coming through the roof, using power tools. Days earlier, another nearby McDonald's south of Sacramento had been robbed in the exact same way.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
A few months later, in March of 1999, McDonald's was robbed in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. It was early morning when a man wearing a ski mask approached workers inside while holding a handgun. He ordered them into the walk-in cooler and took $900. He had entered the building by cutting a three-foot square hole into the roof.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
Police said that in recent months, other McDonald's locations in Northern California had been robbed too. A police sergeant told a reporter the suspect had entered through the roof each time, saying, quote, chains are built the same way and floor plans are pretty much the same. It cuts down on the workload. One detective told a reporter, I'd look up on the roof if I had a McDonald's.
Criminal
The Roofman, Part 1
By August of that year, there had been 27 similar robberies across California, Nevada, and Oregon. And the way the suspect got in each time, through the roof, wasn't the only thing connecting them. According to detectives, one reporter wrote, the robber's cordial demeanor is as distinct as his rooftop entry.
Criminal
The Reverend
Support for Criminal comes from Shutterfly. For the holidays this year, I'm going to print photos of people in my life and give them as gifts. Shutterfly makes it incredibly easy to get your favorite pictures off your phone and to your house. I also really like their photo books. I've done them to remember special trips, a big house project, and now, our first year with a puppy.
Criminal
The Reverend
His doctors thought he had years to live, but in May of 1971, he suddenly died. No autopsy was performed. The cause of death was listed as pneumonia.
Criminal
The Reverend
The suspicious deaths continued. In February 1972, Willie Maxwell's brother was found dead. Attorney John Denson.
Criminal
The Reverend
In May of that year, Dorcas Anderson and Willie Maxwell had a child. And then, in September, Dorcas Anderson was found dead. She was found in her car on the side of the road, just as Mary Lou Maxwell had been found.
Criminal
The Reverend
The police were not able to prove that any crime had occurred. Coroners ruled that Dorcas Anderson died of natural causes. Willie Maxwell was free to go. And free to begin requesting payment on the 17 life insurance policies he'd taken out on his second wife, he collected $80,000.
Criminal
The Reverend
The life insurance industry began in earnest after the Civil War. Casey Sepp says that by 1920, there were almost as many life insurance policies as there were Americans. And she says that by the time Willie Maxwell was taking out policies, the industry had become large, lawless, and lucrative. It was easy to take out a policy and easy to do it without anyone knowing.
Criminal
The Reverend
Willie Maxwell had policies on everyone. His mother, his aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, even his own infant child.
Criminal
The Reverend
Tom Radney filed so many lawsuits on Willie Maxwell's behalf that he was running out of potential jurors. Casey Sepp writes, It seemed there was hardly a man or woman who had not heard the Reverend plead his case against one insurance company or another. Casey Sepp interviewed Tom Radney before his death in 2011.
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In 1976, Willie Maxwell's nephew, James Hicks, was found dead in a car on the same road where Dorcas Anderson's body had been found. The medical examiner said there was nothing, quote, which would adequately account for the death of this subject. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. With Mint Mobile, what you see is what you get.
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The Reverend
Specifically, you get a three-month plan for $15 a month. All of their plans come with high-speed 5G data and unlimited talk and text. A friend gave Mint Mobile a try. He's not a fan of contracts or expensive things. He's happy with Mint. He said it was easy to switch and his service is the same, but much, much cheaper. He didn't need to get a new phone or a phone number.
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He says he wishes he switched sooner. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash phoebe. That's mintmobile.com slash phoebe. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash phoebe. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only.
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Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Support for Criminal comes from Quince. I think one of the nicest things you can do for yourself is to update your bedding. Quince makes it easy. You can get new pillows, a new comforter, or ribbed cotton coverlet for much less than you'd pay elsewhere.
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The Reverend
Quince bedding, like their clothes, is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. I ordered their 100% cotton luxury organic sateen bedding bundle, which comes with a duvet cover, two shams, a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and two pillowcases. I picked it after reading a lot of reviews and seeing how many people said these are the best sheets they've ever had.
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Turn up the luxury when you turn in with Quince. Go to quince.com slash phoebe to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash phoebe for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash phoebe. At this point, five people closely associated with Willie Maxwell had died. He got married again. His third wife was named Ophelia Burns.
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They lived with two children, the son Willie Maxwell had had with Dorcas Anderson, and a teenage relative of Ophelia's named Shirley Ann Ellington. In 1977, Shirley Ann Ellington was found dead, a mile from their house. She was 16.
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On June 18, 1977, the funeral for Shirley Ann Ellington was held at House of Hutchinson Funeral Home in Alexander City. People didn't expect Willie Maxwell to come, but he did with his wife.
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Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She's best known for her book, To Kill a Mockingbird. She submitted the completed manuscript to her publisher in 1959. Five days later, she packed her things and moved to Garden City, Kansas, to research a crime that had been making national headlines. The Clutters, a wealthy family of four, had been murdered.
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One of Shirley Ann Ellington's relatives, a man named Robert Burns, stood up in the pew behind Willie Maxwell and fired three shots directly at his head.
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Robert Burns was arrested. When he was asked why he did it, he said he was worried about the safety and well-being of the people around Lake Martin. He said he didn't want anyone else he loved to be murdered. The Montgomery Advertiser reported that people felt a, quote, sense of relief that Willie Maxwell was dead.
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District attorney Tom Young said that the case against Robert Burns would be, quote, treated as an out-and-out murder. Robert Burns hired Willie Maxwell's longtime attorney to defend him. Tom Radney takes his case.
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The district attorney, Tom Young and Tom Radney, had argued against each other many times in court before. Tom Radney had to figure out what, if any, defense he could make for Robert Burns, and what defense Tom Young wouldn't see coming. He decided to move forward with the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.
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She went with her childhood friend and next-door neighbor, author Truman Capote. He'd invited her to be his research assistant. They agreed on a fee of $900. She was excited to work on nonfiction, to learn how to tell a true crime story. She later told a reporter, "...the crime intrigued him, and I'm intrigued with crime, and boy, I wanted to go."
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Tom Radney also reminded the jury about all of Willie Maxwell's own relatives who had died under mysterious circumstances. According to the Alabama Journal, Radney questioned witnesses continually about Maxwell being an alleged voodoo practitioner and his involvement in the five deaths.
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Harper Lee was in the courtroom. She'd met Tom Radney a year before at the Democratic National Convention. They'd gotten along. He sent her a summary of the case, and she was intrigued. She set up camp in Alexander City. In the end, Robert Burns was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Tom Radney had won the case, and Harper Lee got to work.
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After the trial, Robert Burns was briefly institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital in Tuscaloosa. A psychiatrist who evaluated him said, in a way, killing Willie Maxwell was the sanest thing anybody did all summer. Why, I probably would have killed that man myself. When Robert Burns was released from the hospital, Harper Lee interviewed him twice.
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She met with the family members of the people Willie Maxwell had allegedly killed. Tom Radney gave her a suitcase full of documents, insurance paperwork, legal briefs, everything he had relating to Willie Maxwell. He told her to keep it as long as she needed to write her true crime book. She was calling it The Reverend.
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Over the years, people have said all kinds of things about the status of the reverend and whether the book exists at all. In 1997, 20 years after Willie Maxwell was killed, Tom Radney said that he and Harper Lee still spoke twice a year, and that each time she told him the book was still in progress.
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Reconnect with the people in your life this year with personalized holiday gifts from Shutterfly. Visit shutterfly.com and start customizing today. Get 40% off your Shutterfly order with promo code CRIMINAL40 and send something meaningful this year. Get free shipping on qualified orders. See their site for more details.
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Others have said that Harper Lee told them the book was nearly done, that it just needed an ending. Someone said the book was finished and locked in a trunk. Someone else said they'd read it and it was even better than in cold blood. Casey Sepp writes that Harper Lee was so elusive that even her mysteries have mysteries. Harper Lee died in 2016.
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Casey Sepp's book about Harper Lee and Willie Maxwell is called The Furious Hours, Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nydia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane.
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Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus.
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The Reverend
Once you sign up, you can listen ad-free to criminal episodes and episodes of our other shows, This Is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I just finished reading a new book on Phoebe Reads a Mystery about a detective named Lady Molly who solves crimes at Scotland Yard. I really enjoyed it. To learn more about Criminal Plus, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
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We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
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Truman Capote published a series of pieces about the clutter murders in The New Yorker, then later expanded them into a book, In Cold Blood. Harper Lee had spent six years helping him research and shape the book, and her role was widely known to the people in Kansas. But Truman Capote never acknowledged that she'd helped report or tell the story.
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Some people have speculated that he didn't give her credit because he was jealous. To Kill a Mockingbird had made Harper Lee famous. She won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Here she is in 1964.
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In 1977, people in Alexander City, Alabama, began to see Harper Lee around their towns. A man named Robert Burns had gone to a funeral and shot someone in the head in the middle of the day in front of 300 people. He didn't deny it. His lawyer didn't deny it. And Harper Lee thought it might be time to write her own true crime book. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
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Robert Burns was on trial for the murder of Willie Maxwell. Both men were middle-aged. Both were African-American. Newspapers reported that on his way to jail, Robert Burns told a police officer, I had to do it. And if I had to do it over, I'd do it again. His defense attorney was a man named Tom Radney.
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In his opening statement, Tom Radney told the jury, We admit he killed him, and we admit he shot him three times, and we admit he died as a result of the gunshot wounds that Robert Louis Burns put in him.
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Willie Maxwell was a well-known minister. Most people called him Reverend Maxwell, and by the time he was killed in 1977, everyone knew who he was. As one local paper reported, the attraction of the case is expected to be generated more by Reverend Maxwell's life than by his death. Six people who had been close to him had died in seven years. most of them family members.
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In each case, there were rumors that Reverend Maxwell had been involved, but the police could never prove it. People were afraid of him. He was born in Coosa County, Alabama in 1925. He was drafted into the Army during World War II, where he became a sergeant. When he returned from the war in 1947, segregation limited his access to jobs that paid well.
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He worked several jobs at once, in the timber industry, at a rock quarry, and in the same textile factory that manufactured the uniforms that he'd worn in the Army. He married a woman named Mary Lou Edwards.
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Casey Sepp says that Willie Maxwell was gaining a reputation as a charismatic and charming preacher. He was sometimes invited to various congregations and to speak at revivals. He had been ordained in 1962 and went on to get a certificate of theological study from Selma University. On August 3, 1970, he was invited to preach at a revival in the nearby town of Auburn.
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Reverend Maxwell called Mary Lou's mother and sister. They hadn't seen her. Then he called their next-door neighbor, a woman named Dorcas Anderson, who was very close with Mary Lou. She had seen Mary Lou, but much earlier in the day. Then he called the police. He said he thought his wife may have been in a car accident. He said they might go look on Highway 22.
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The Maxwells' neighbor, Dorcas Anderson, told police... that Mary Lou Maxwell had been worried and anxious all that day, and that she'd come over that night saying that Willie had called because he'd been in a car accident. Dorcas Anderson told police that Mary Lou said that Willie needed her to go get him. This was the opposite of what the Reverend had told them.
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No matter how busy we are, even through the holidays, there are small things we can do to maintain our routines, like taking a daily multivitamin. I've been taking rituals essential for women every day, twice a day, for a while now. This might sound funny, but I like the way they look, and I like the way they smell. So many multivitamins are big tablets that don't smell very good.
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Ritual vitamins are small, easy to take, and smell like mint. It's a much more pleasant way to ensure you're getting nine key nutrients every day, including iron, vitamin D, folate, vitamin B12, and omega-3. The capsules are made with a delayed-release design that basically lets your body absorb what it needs when it needs it.
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You also don't need to take it with food, so it can fit into your schedule how you see fit. And Ritual is USP-verified. That just means the ingredients listed on the bottle match exactly what's inside. Ritual's Essential for Women 18 Plus is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com slash criminal.
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The Reverend
Start Ritual or add Essential for Women 18 Plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash criminal for 25% off. In the weeks after Mary Lou Maxwell's death, Willie Maxwell began to write letters to life insurance companies.
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Willie Maxwell's trial for the murder of Mary Lou Maxwell began and ended on the same day. He hired a lawyer named Tom Radney to defend him. The neighbor, Dorcas Anderson, was slated to be the star witness because she was the last person to see Mary Lou alive. The prosecution expected her to repeat what she'd told police. But when she took the stand, she told a different story.
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She testified that there was no way Willie Maxwell could have committed the murder. Later, when Dorcas Anderson was called to testify in one of Willie Maxwell's civil lawsuits against a life insurance company, she introduced herself as Dorcas Maxwell.
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This is John Denson. He represented an insurance company in one of Willie Maxwell's civil lawsuits. His job was to prove that if Willie killed Mary Lou, the life insurance policies he'd taken out on her would be invalid.
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Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform designed to help you make a great website. Whether you're just starting out or trying to grow your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to choose a URL, show off what you're selling, reach more customers, get paid, and do it all while looking professional. Everything in one place.
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John Mooney says the two brothers are pretty different. As a kid, Daniel would get into trouble, and he had a temper. Christopher Jr. has been described as quiet and polite, quote, more like his mother.
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Danielle was interested in boxing. About 10 years ago, he opened a gym. And he's brokered fights for professional boxers like the British heavyweight Tyson Fury.
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Becoming a member of Criminal Plus helps us keep our shows going. So we're asking listeners to support the show directly. If you find our work valuable and you're able to, please consider joining Criminal Plus. If you join, you can listen to all of our shows without the ads. You'll get to come to virtual live events like trivia nights and live interviews, and you get 20% off all our merchandise.
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The deputy director of the UK's National Crime Agency told John Mooney, Daniel Kinahan is to boxing what Pablo Escobar was to football. When Daniel was in his mid-30s, he was friends with another Irishman named Gary Hutch. Gary's uncle, Gerard Hutch, reportedly ran an organization known as the Hutch Gang.
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Gary's uncle had been involved in crime since he was 10, when he led a group of children who committed crimes in Dublin in the 70s. They were known as the Bugsy Malones, named after the movie Bugsy Malone, where children played the roles of adults. But Daniel and Gary had a falling out after the Kinnehans accused Gary of being a police informant.
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And then, John Mooney writes, Gary tried to have Daniel assassinated. The Kinnehans and the Hutches met to settle the dispute. They met at the airport in Madrid. John Mooney reports that the Hutch gang agreed to pay 200,000 euros to Christopher Kinnehan. The Hutches also let Daniel Kinnehan kneecap a member of their group. But then, Gary was shot dead near his home.
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The Hutches blamed the Kinnehans and retaliated. But then, so did the Kinnehans.
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We'll be right back. Thanks to Squarespace for their support. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform designed to help you make a great website. Whether you're just starting out or trying to grow your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to choose a URL, show off what you're selling, reach more customers, get paid. And do it all while looking professional. Everything in one place.
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No matter what you're working on, whether it's a podcast, a special event, photography services, or a consultation business, you can customize your website to reach the right people. If you're creating video content, like online courses, tutorials, or workshops, Squarespace has built-in ways to support that.
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With Squarespace, you can upload your videos into an organized, paywalled library, and they make it easy to collect payment with thoughtfully designed invoices and online payments. Plus, they have tools that make it convenient for people to keep in touch with you. Tools that help you send emails to potential customers, or that let your customers schedule their own appointments.
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Check out squarespace.com slash criminal for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for Criminal comes from NetSuite. It's not easy running a business. You can't predict the future, but know how factors outside your control will affect your business.
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But if you want help preparing for any outcome, try NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is a top-rated cloud ERP that stands for Enterprise Planning Resource System, and it's a way to manage your entire business on one fluid platform.
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NetSuite can bring everything together, accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR, and lets you see it all in one place, which makes it easy to get a more holistic view of what's going on. NetSuite offers real-time insights and data you can use to make better decisions when it matters most.
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No matter the size of your company, NetSuite can help you respond to immediate challenges and seize opportunities. Almost 40,000 companies already use NetSuite to help future-proof their business throughout the most unpredictable of markets. You can download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash criminal. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash criminal.
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And you get the twice-monthly bonus episodes and other extra bonus content, like behind-the-scenes videos. Thanks very much to all of you who've already signed up. We can't tell you how much your support matters. If you'd like to learn more or sign up, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus. That's thisiscriminal.com slash plus. And thanks very much. Here's today's new episode.
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That's netsuite.com slash criminal. In February 2016, Daniel Kinahan was in Dublin for a boxing tournament called Clash of the Clans. The day before the tournament was supposed to start, a hotel in Dublin hosted a weigh-in to check the boxers' weight classes. Around 2.30 in the afternoon, two men entered the hotel. One of them was disguised as a woman, wearing a wig and a gray dress.
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And then three more men wearing what looked like police gear and carrying AK-47 rifles came in. They shouted to people in the hotel lobby to get on the ground and said they wanted to know where the boxers were. They started shooting and were gone within a few minutes. Investigators think they were Hutch gang members looking for Daniel Kinahan.
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One photographer who was there to cover the boxing tournament heard the gunman disguised as a woman say, he wasn't there, I couldn't see him. Daniel Kinahan had already escaped through a back door. Two people were injured, and one man, a member of the Kinahan cartel, was killed. Over the next year, a long list of family members, friends, and associates of the Hutch gang were shot and killed.
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In total, 18 people were killed during the Hutch-Kinahan feud, 17 of them said to have been killed by the Kinahans. Some of the dead were bystanders who were not involved in any of it.
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One clothing company sold sweatshirts with the words Team Hotch or Team Kinahan. They later pulled the sweatshirts and apologized. In the meantime, the Kinnehans had relocated from Spain to Dubai.
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That's when the U.S. government issued the wanted posters. The United Arab Emirates announced that it's frozen the Kinnehan's assets and is investigating them.
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One way the Kinnehans laundered money was by making legitimate investments. John Mooney spoke with one investment advisor who'd suggested to the Kinnehans that they should invest in artworks by the Japanese artists Yayoi Kusama and Banksy. But then, the U.S. government imposed financial sanctions on the Kinnehans. What does it exactly mean when a U.S.
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And then, researchers found Christopher Kinahan's Google reviews, and they started digging in.
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The reviews were posted under an alias, Christopher Vincent. That's Christopher Kinahan's middle name. And the researchers traced an email address connected to Christopher Vincent's Google account to an address attached to him. Reportedly, Christopher Kinahan had often used the alias Christopher Vincent.
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He had a website at the domain ChristopherVincent.com with the tagline, helping you to design your success. The website is no longer live, but researchers found an archived version of it. The homepage had a photo of the Dubai skyline at sunset and read, Being in the game is not as important as being ahead of it.
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But the researchers knew that Christopher Kinahan had recently enjoyed an acai bowl and eggs with almond bread and a green salad at a paleo restaurant in Dubai. It was called the Cycle Bistro. They began searching for photos people had taken inside the restaurant and uploaded to social media. They studied each photo to see if the Kinahans happened to be in the background.
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That wasn't the only photo they found of Christopher Kinnehan. We'll be right back.
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At a restaurant called Tasha's in Dubai, Christopher Kinahan gave it five stars. He took a photo of the patio through the restaurant's window and posted it with his review. When you zoom in, you can see Christopher Kinahan's reflection in the glass.
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And at a hotel in Budapest called the Oriana Palace Hotel, four stars out of five, Kinahan posted 44 photos, including one of a long hallway with marble floors and velvet curtains. At the far end of the hallway, there's a large mirror, and there's Christopher Kinahan. The review said, I'm on two minds with this hotel. I cannot rate it five stars, even though it is close.
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If I could rate it 4.5 stars, I would. But unfortunately, I'll rate it four stars. At the Hyatt Regency in Barcelona, he posted a photo of a bathroom with mirrors. He gave the hotel five stars but wrote, The location, in my opinion, is better suited to business community than the tourist travelers.
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John Mooney is an investigative journalist with the Sunday Times in Dublin. He reports on organized crime.
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Although I would stay here again for tourist break, as I believe it offers good facilities for a reasonable price. The reviews are from all over the world. Zimbabwe, South Africa, Turkey, Hong Kong, Belgium.
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Investigative journalists have reported that Christopher Kinahan has tried to set up a new base in Zimbabwe, near known drug trafficking routes, and tried to purchase a fleet of military aircraft. Journalists have also reported that the cartel tried to buy gold in Zimbabwe to move it through South Africa to Dubai as a way of laundering money.
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Check out squarespace.com slash criminal for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for Criminal comes from BetterHelp. When people talk about dating, sometimes you hear them talk about red flags.
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Kinahan's Google reviews confirmed that he'd spent a lot of time in those two countries. He reviewed an airport cafe in Johannesburg. We witnessed a stunning sunset as we shared drinks and discussed some business. The food was good. The company equally as good. But the only slight drawback was that the service was not quite equal to the cuisine.
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In one restaurant review, Christopher Kinahan complained about a waitress who kept calling him boss. We asked John Mooney to read the review.
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In one of Kinahan's restaurant reviews, he posted a photograph of his meal. In the photo, you can see a laptop on the table, next to the plates. The webcam is covered with tape.
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In his review, Kenahan wrote, "...I visited the Department of Economic Development in the Dubai Mall 7 November 2021 at about 11.30. I went there to use the interactive machine to update my Emirates ID. The only interaction with the staff that I had was with a security officer, who was most helpful in guiding me to the machine and then advising me on its use."
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Do you know how his sons felt when they found out that their father was posting these Google reviews? Do you have any idea? What do you think the sons were thinking?
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But over the years, Christopher Kinahan began to build a large criminal organization called the Kinahan Cartel.
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In January of 2024, Irish police said that they hoped to soon have an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to extradite Christopher Kinahan and his sons to Ireland. Christopher Kinahan may have tried to make a deal with Russia and Iran to get out of Dubai and avoid extradition. A police source said, Their world is now very small. There are only a handful of places that they can move to.
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As soon as they try to leave Dubai, we will be all over them. And in October of 2024, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates agreed on a new treaty, which could reportedly lead to the Kinhan's extradition.
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Just the last question. If you did get a chance to interview Christopher Kinahan, what would you ask him?
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Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
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And sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. And we do hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. Keep listening to hear one of our recent bonus episodes with me and Lauren Spohr answering listener questions. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
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We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Welcome to Criminal Plus. I'm Phoebe Judge. I'm Lauren Spohr. And Lauren, we did it.
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2024 is almost in the books. Complete. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Lauren. I always think about... how odd it is like that we've actually had 24 years since 2000 do you think about that you're thinking about y2k yeah 2025 that sounds wild to me where were you on new year's eve in 1999 oh i was i have a very good place that i was i was in the middle of lake superior uh on an ice road
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that ran from Bayfield, Wisconsin to Madeline Island. It's a miles-long road across Lake Superior, way, way up in northern Wisconsin. It was about negative 12. And I had walked out on the ice road all by myself. In the middle, the most wonderful thing about this ice road is they would line it with old Christmas trees to kind of show you the path. And
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And my father would take us out there and he'd stop the car in the middle of this frozen lake and open the doors and you'd hear the ice creaking underneath you. Horrifying. But I walked out and was out there by myself on the ice road in the middle of Lake Superior for that New Year's Eve.
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Christopher Kinahan has been described as photo-weary. There aren't many photos of him online or in newspapers.
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I mean, I was out there all alone in the middle. Last time we... told you that for our last episode of the year, I cannot believe it, we were going to be doing an APA, an APLA, Ask Phoebe and Lauren Anything. And we got so many emails and voicemails from you asking questions. And so here we are with... Should we jump right in? I'm going to drive. You're going to...
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Lauren has just received these questions and voicemails. Katie Bishop, our supervising producer, has collected them all. I don't know what these questions are, and Lauren is seeing them right now for the first time. So we are coming to these for us. She's kind of curated, picked through all of your questions. If we don't get to your question, there's always next year.
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Well, thank you, Sherry. My answer changes a lot for what I like to cook for myself at home, but I'm just going to say the first thing that comes to my mind, which is a salmon with some sort of – Kind of a salmon bowl. So a rice situation with salmon and some kimchi and some greens on the bowl and maybe a little avocado. That's something that I like to cook for myself.
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What's that thing you always used to make for yourself? It was some sort of tempeh?
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I... would say that I am always looking to go to a Vietnamese restaurant. That's true. I love pho. I love Vietnamese food. And so if you kind of – I also love Middle Eastern food. But, yes, if I can get good Vietnamese food, that's – and when I order at a Vietnamese restaurant or a pho restaurant, what I would get is beef broth, but hold the beef, tofu, and vegetables, right?
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And it's very – it's an incredibly confusing order. They're like, well, wait a second, but you don't eat meat, but it's – but beef broth with tofu and vegetables, no beef. That's my order at the Vietnamese restaurant. What about you, Lauren?
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God, I've been pulled on a couple of those with you. You've been a good sport. How about the pizza? I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get Neapolitan pizza. And I understand the simplicity of it. I've been to some of the best in the country with you, and I'm always like, is this a little bland?
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Music is a very controversial topic around here because we all have our own opinions. So I'll tell you how it works. Here's how an episode of Criminal is made. A producer pitches a story. I pitch stories too. We have a pitch meeting once a week. where we all pitch and we all kind of decide whether this is interesting or not.
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And if we think the idea is interesting, a producer will go and kind of do a pre-interview with the guest, see if the guest is working out. Then comes back and talks to me and Lauren and says, you know, I think they are interesting. And we say, okay, let's book them. And then I will work with the producer to kind of research the story, get prepared. Then we do an interview.
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The producer is there with me. We are talking during the interview. I'm doing the interview. And then afterwards, the producer will take that raw interview that I've done and kind of make a rough draft of a script. Then that script will go to Lauren and the producer. And they'll do a read-through, a first read-through. And then after that, I'll come in for a second edit.
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And we'll read through and we'll fix the copy and we'll change things around. And these are long edits. Yesterday we were in for two and a half hours.
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So we kind of at every stage are trying to bring people in who don't know anything. Lauren, I know things because I've done the research and I've done the interview. But then when Lauren comes in, she doesn't know anything. And then when I come back in, I know something. Lauren knows something. But the new producer doesn't.
Criminal
Five Stars
The Kinahan cartel is reportedly led today by Christopher Kinahan, who's now in his 60s, and his sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr., both in their 40s. John Mooney has been investigating Christopher Kinahan and his sons for a long time.
Criminal
Five Stars
So after we go through that second edit, I will then take the script and I'll track it. which is what we call when I do the narration for episodes. And then the producer will take those clips of tape and my narration and put together a layup. We call it a rough mix. And they'll choose music when they're doing that process. They then send that mix back to me and Lauren, and we listen to it.
Criminal
Five Stars
And another new producer. Another new producer. We listen to it incredibly closely, and we give notes. The notes are down to, you know, can you put in half a beat more? Take out this breath. The music should start 0.5 seconds sooner. I mean, they're very, very detailed notes.
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah. And we skip the whole fact checking process, which is another thing that happens, a big thing that happens before I get to the tracking. But, you know, so that for music wise, I have a lot of notes. I have constant notes about the music. I have very strong opinions about the music. I'm constantly asking people to swap out songs, move things sooner, fade out slower.
Criminal
Five Stars
And then we will usually have to do retracts after first listening because we've made so many changes. And then the producer kind of finalizes it and sends it to Veronica Simonetti, who's our engineer. She masters the whole thing. It will get sent back to the producer who listens one more time. And even at that point, sometimes there's changes. And then it's kind of put to bed.
Criminal
Five Stars
And it's never too late to change something. You know, right after this, I'm doing retracts. Sometimes I'll do four or five different versions of retracts because we've thought about something or we're uncomfortable with the fact and we want to get some more, you know, research done.
Criminal
Five Stars
The funny thing about... I mean, I think one of the reasons, the main reason that this show is as successful as it is after so long is because of the smart people we work with. But the other really funny thing is that this process, me and Lauren kind of... started the show in this same idea that we would be there at every single step of the way and not kind of farm stuff out.
Criminal
Five Stars
But really, we care so much about every single bit of how these episodes are put together. And that's the way it's always been. We've been fighting over a song or a read since day one. And the team is a lot bigger, but we've kind of kept that throughout these last 10 years of how we produce episodes.
Criminal
Five Stars
I don't know. You know, in my family, we always call things famous. You know, something's famous. It's a famous box or a famous painting or a famous piece of clothing. So there's a lot of things like that that kind of get passed down. But I don't...
Criminal
Five Stars
Jingle, jingle for Merry Christmas. Sometimes someone will say the band has started up. Like Sarah will say to me, like, well, the band was going at 2 a.m. But you can always hear me coming, too, in stores. You can never lose me. But my first silver bracelet was given to me when I was 16 by my mother and father. And so it says 9-2-99, and it says happy birthday.
Criminal
Five Stars
So I have this bracelet, and I have reduced the number of silver bracelets over the years because I just couldn't hear it from Lauren anymore about the sound on the microphone. So I have reduced them, but I have this that I've literally been wearing since I was 16 and maybe almost never taken off. And I also have another one that my mother and father gave me when I was 21, another silver bracelet.
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah, I have a bottle of my mother's Chanel perfume that still, that I like to have things around. Like, you know, this is really interesting, but my mother's pocketbook, I haven't, I have with me.
Criminal
Five Stars
And I thought, what did you do? She had just started spritzing herself with Chanel No.
Criminal
Five Stars
So, yes, I think I feel like I do like to have things around me kind of in plain sight.
Criminal
Five Stars
It can be easy to see what you aren't looking for, but harder to say confidently what you are looking for and how you'll know it when you see it. Whether you're dating, married, or just want to improve your relationship with yourself, therapy can help you figure out what you want. And BetterHelp Online Therapy can be a great way to start.
Criminal
Five Stars
It's not not polite, but it's just an ability to be very honest and to not worry about— what the other person is going to necessarily think about that honesty. I don't know how to describe it, but it's a loud, loud relationship. Not yelling so much, but just very... Sometimes you're yelling. Well, sometimes you're yelling. But I think that...
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, yes, we are the co-creators of Criminal and started a business together. And so we have this business partnership. But I don't think people maybe understand that Lauren and I have such a close relationship that has nothing to do with Criminal. You know, so we are working all the time together.
Criminal
Five Stars
But then we also are very much in a... We're not talking... There's a million other things that we're not talking about. But, you know, when we're traveling... And there's a familiarity in the sense that I – we've said this before. Lauren and I can travel from Los Angeles to New York and not say one word to each other. And there's no obligation.
Criminal
Five Stars
You know, that's not because we're being jerks, but it's just you don't need to. You know, it's not – we're not trying to impress each other or entertain each other. And so you can just kind of just be. And it means that you can be together a lot, which we are, and you can travel together a lot and you can be very stressful situations.
Criminal
Five Stars
But because you're not trying to constantly impress or entertain the other person, you can just turn off a little bit. where I think if you don't have a very long or close relationship with someone, you feel like, how are they doing? Are they okay right now? Silence is awkward. What can we talk about? And I don't feel in any way that I got it. We don't need to be entertaining each other.
Criminal
Five Stars
John Mooney has never met Christopher Kinahan himself, who's now thought to live in Dubai. But lots of people have described him to John. He's heard voicemails Christopher Kinahan has left for people he was angry with.
Criminal
Five Stars
And, you know, it's not as though Lauren and I are only catching up when we're doing Criminal Plus. You know, we are talking to her. I asked someone on the team if they listen to Criminal Plus every week, and she said, why would I listen to Criminal Plus? I hear you and Lauren do this all day. Yeah. I don't need to listen to Criminal Plus. I get it all the time.
Criminal
Five Stars
So, yes, we're not doing Criminal Plus or talking like this because we need to be making a show. It's just, you know, kind of life.
Criminal
Five Stars
Oh, what a good question. Okay, two things just came into my head, and I don't know why. An eye mask and a box grater. Those are both good. Yeah, I don't know. Those just shot, of all the things, those shot in my head.
Criminal
Five Stars
What do you think it says about you and me that I chose box greater and you chose Oura Ring? I mean, the Oura Ring is like— In the centuries that we're living in.
Criminal
Five Stars
I remember laying on my mother's stomach. She was pregnant with my brother, Quentin. Quentin was born in – so I was born September 2nd, 1983. Quentin was born August 6th, 1986. So how young would I be if she was pregnant with him? I was pretty young, and I remember laying on her stomach. She was pregnant, and she was talking to me. She was in bed.
Criminal
Five Stars
She was talking to me about wanting to name my brother Guy because she thought the name Guy Judge would be good. That's one of my first memories. How about you?
Criminal
Five Stars
The memory that just haunts me is... All the nights where I would have to go to bed where it was still light out.
Criminal
Five Stars
Just me and Chloe in the bed, in the bunk beds. It was still light out and my mother closing the door and saying time to go to bed. And me just being so confused.
Criminal
Five Stars
Well, you're right. It is hard to be a skier when you grow up in Chicago because the ski slopes of Wisconsin will only take you so far, which is where we would go mainly. But also we would go to Vermont. And I went to college in Vermont. So the funny thing is that I have... not skied that many days of my life just because of where I grew up.
Criminal
Five Stars
But the skiing that I have done has been funny skiing, you know, in Wisconsin and then Vermont, which is, as anyone who skis knows, Vermont's a different beast than skiing in the West. So I've skied on a lot of ice before. You've skied in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. I watched you. Yeah. I love to downhill ski. I really love to ski in Utah.
Criminal
Five Stars
And every year I go for three or four days all by myself and I go skiing all by myself. And I will say that it is usually the case that I am the first person on the chairlift and I'm the last person off. And there was a claim to fame a couple of years ago where I was number two at Deer Valley with the most miles skied in a day. There's this thing that kind of track you. And I was number two.
Criminal
Five Stars
I was close to being number one as having skied the most in one day. So I love it. And I am very excited about trying to ski in Canada. I'd like to ski in Canada a bit. And I'd also love to ski in the Alps, which sounds rather grand to go skiing in the Alps. But those are two places I haven't skied yet. And yes, I will be skiing in 2025. I cannot wait. I have my skis in the car.
Criminal
Five Stars
I brought them just across my fingers. We'd have some snow. I have some of my cross-country skis in the car. So I'm ready to go.
Criminal
Five Stars
Fasciitis. It's terrible. The whole name of it's horrible. You know, Maureen, it's still there. It is better, but it's still there. I'm not running as long right now, but I'm still running. The thing that has helped me the most is when my calf is stretched and massaged, it helps the heel the most.
Criminal
Five Stars
Angela, I have been both a vegetarian and a vegan. Absolutely, I would consider it. I am very aware of the problems with meat. I actually don't eat that much meat. I would say most of my meals are meatless. But I do... Have, you know, meat occasionally, but 100% would be vegetarian or vegan.
Criminal
Five Stars
More so probably vegetarian than vegan, but I don't really care about dairy that much, so it wouldn't be hard for me to just be straight vegan. Lauren, you've been both as well.
Criminal
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Angela, it does not, actually. I'm wearing, I went running very early this morning. I'm still wearing my running clothes, which just means that shorts become longer pants. And I wear kind of not, I'm wearing kind of a long sleeve. Right now it's a Patagonia kind of thing with a hood that I wear running. I don't wear gloves and I don't wear a hat. I wear my baseball hat.
Criminal
Five Stars
That's wild that you don't wear gloves. I've never understood the gloves thing. Yeah, it's never been clear to me. I love running when it's cold. I would much rather run in the very cold than I would in the very hot.
Criminal
Five Stars
Yeah. Thank you all so much for writing in. We didn't get to—there are so many more questions, but we'll do this again, and thank you. Phoebe, what have you been enjoying lately? Well, one thing I've been enjoying lately is drinking a gallon of water a day. I love this. What is 128 ounces? Is that a gallon or two gallons? Unknowable. Okay.
Criminal
Five Stars
Well, I'm drinking 128 ounces of water a day, which sounds like I'm floating, but I'm not. It's actually not that much water, but I'm trying to drink a lot of water. It's the holiday season. There's a lot of, I feel like there's a lot of entertaining. There's a lot of food. There's just like a lot of excess, and I'm countering it by 128 ounces of water a day.
Criminal
Five Stars
Something else I've been enjoying lately, and it is controversial for me to say because you've heard me talk about how this show drives me nuts, is Ted Lasso. Oh, my God. I'm shocked. Tell me about it. So am I. I've never seen it. I've never seen it.
Criminal
Five Stars
Well, you – I mean, no, it's not, but it's very pure and wholesome, and the jokes are corny, and the acting's over the top. But there's something that I found rather comforting about it now.
Criminal
Five Stars
The third thing I've been enjoying lately is a book I'm reading called The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. It came out last year. It's set in Ireland. And I picked it up in an airport. I'd finished a book and I needed another book and I picked it up and I am really enjoying it. The Bee Sting, Paul Murray.
Criminal
Five Stars
When the Irish authorities have tried to press charges against the Kinnehans, they've hit a brick wall. Partly because Christopher Kinahan left Ireland decades ago. And eventually, John says, the Irish authorities were getting frustrated, so they pulled some strings.
Criminal
Five Stars
Well, thank you all very much for listening this year and for listening today. It means a lot to us. Thank you for calling in. Please keep calling in. Hello at thisiscriminal.com and 833-822-7850. Lauren, I hope you have a really wonderful Christmas. Yes, you too. And Happy New Year. I'll be speaking to you in 2025. And in 20 to 25 seconds. And in 20 seconds. Okay, bye-bye. Bye, everyone.
Criminal
Five Stars
In 2022, the U.S. government put out a statement saying that the Kinnehans were wanted for participating in organized crime.
Criminal
Five Stars
BetterHelp is fully online, providing convenient and affordable therapy for over 5 million people worldwide. Hi, it's Phoebe. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to let you know that it's longer than usual, because we've included a recent episode of Criminal Plus at the end.
Criminal
Five Stars
The State Department published three wanted posters, one for Christopher Kinahan and one each for his sons, Daniel Kinahan and Christopher Kinahan Jr., offering a reward of up to $5 million for each of them to anyone who could provide information that would lead to their arrest or to the so-called financial disruption of the cartel.
Criminal
Five Stars
After that, people believed the family started moving their money around and became even more protective and secretive. But then, in 2023, a researcher was searching the internet for clues about the Kinnehan's activities, and he found something that Christopher Kinnehan had written.
Criminal
Five Stars
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Christopher Kinahan loved to write online reviews. He'd posted more than 200 Google reviews of restaurants, hotels, and even airports. He reviewed government offices and COVID-19 test centers. In his review of a shopping area in Dubai, he wrote, Wonderful place to stroll around, particularly in the evening. Lots of restaurants to choose from. Family friendly.
Criminal
Five Stars
I unreservedly rate this area five star, but not cheap. And he once reviewed a Pret-a-Manger in Dubai and wrote, Food and service good I ordered to take away, five stars. A team of researchers and investigative journalists from the Sunday Times and an investigative group called Bellingcat got together to read and analyze Christopher Kinahan's Google reviews.
Criminal
Five Stars
Christopher Kinahan was born in London in 1957 to Irish parents. The family moved back to Ireland when Kinahan was still young. He went to a Catholic school in Dublin, but was expelled for bad behavior. He moved to a different school, the same one James Joyce had attended. At 19, he married a woman named Jean. And over the next four years, they had Daniel and Christopher Jr.
Criminal
Five Stars
Kinahan was arrested in 1986 during a police raid on an apartment in Dublin with over $100,000 worth of heroin. He was sentenced to six years in prison. John Mooney writes that Kinahan believed he'd been set up by a man named Raymond Salinger. Salinger fled Dublin and stayed away for many years. After he returned, he was shot dead while having a beer in a bar.
Criminal
Five Stars
Reportedly, Christopher Kinahan waited 17 years to have him killed. Christopher Kinahan went to prison again in the late 90s.
Criminal
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John Mooney writes that in prison, Kinahan kept a low profile. He avoided members of the IRA who were known for targeting drug dealers.
Criminal
Five Stars
In it, criminal co-creator Lauren Spohr and I take questions from our listeners about anything, from the meals we like to make to the way we score episodes. It's a fun one, and I hope you'll listen. We put these bonus episodes with me and Lauren out every other week for our Criminal Plus members to say thank you for supporting our work.
Criminal
Five Stars
Christopher Kinahan learned to speak French, Dutch and Spanish. The deputy director of the UK's National Crime Agency told John Mooney that he did it, quote, so he could deal directly with South American cartels. He wanted to cut out the middlemen.
Criminal
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When he was released after four years, Christopher Kinahan allegedly began wearing suits, and he read books by George Soros.
Criminal
Five Stars
Sometime in the early 2000s, he relocated to the Costa del Sol, a region in the south of Spain, and he ran his operations from there. He bought drugs directly from cartels in Colombia and sold them to gangs in Europe, while also offering money laundering services. And then he was joined by his sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr.,
Criminal
The Petition
Support for Criminal comes from Squarespace. Creating a website might seem like an intimidating task if you're new to it. But no matter your experience, Squarespace can make it simple. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that lets you build a beautiful, functional website. They have tools to help you make your website look exactly how you want, so you can connect your brand with who you want.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison tried to go back to school, but she couldn't sleep in the dorm anymore. And so she moved back in with her parents. A few days later, she had her first panic attack. Madison's mother, Mandy, kept thinking about what the county prosecutor told them. I knew he was so terribly wrong. She went back to his office.
Criminal
The Petition
She wanted to talk through the results of Madison's rape kit and her written statement. But the county attorney said the same thing, that he wouldn't bring a rape charge. Bethany College did its own investigation under Title IX. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that was signed by President Nixon in 1972.
Criminal
The Petition
This episode contains a detailed description of sexual violence. Please use discretion.
Criminal
The Petition
It prohibits discrimination at schools and colleges based on sex, including sexual harassment and sexual violence. Bethany College found Jared Stolzenberg in violation of its sexual misconduct policy and complaint resolution procedures. He was suspended and later expelled. Was the county attorney's response to Madison unusual?
Criminal
The Petition
Justin Boardman is a retired detective and advised Madison and her family on her case. He spent seven years working in a special victims unit in Utah where he would interview victims of rape and domestic violence. But he didn't feel his training had prepared him well. He realized he was approaching victims with the same instincts as he did suspects.
Criminal
The Petition
A number of studies have shown that it's normal for victims of sexual assault to act unemotional after they're attacked. They might even forget the details of what happened. They might be able to laugh and joke around.
Criminal
The Petition
He says victims of rape also don't always act the way law enforcement expects them to during an attack.
Criminal
The Petition
Justin Boardman left law enforcement. He started to run trainings for other police officers on how to better understand people who report sexual assault and violence. But most people never go to the police in cases of rape, and most rape cases don't end with a conviction. In the United States, it's less than 1%.
Criminal
The Petition
One study funded by the National Institute of Justice analyzed thousands of rape cases across the country to figure out why they weren't resolved through a jury trial. The principal investigator of the study said, quote, a lot of times detectives felt like they had really good, solid cases with enough evidence to make an arrest, but prosecutors declined to go forward.
Criminal
The Petition
The study found cases where prosecutors declined moving forward based on their own sense of a victim's credibility. It found that some prosecutors thought a jury was less likely to convict if alcohol or other, quote, risky behaviors were involved. Prosecutors also seemed less likely to pursue so-called he-said-she-said cases.
Criminal
The Petition
The county attorney in Madison's case told the Associated Press that sex crimes are, quote, extremely challenging to prosecute because the jury looks for, quote, that CSI type of evidence. In September 2019, over a year after Madison first met with the county attorney, she learned that he had decided to charge Jared Stolzenberg with aggravated battery for strangling her.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison Smith grew up in Lindsburg, Kansas. Lindsburg is a small town with just under 4,000 people.
Criminal
The Petition
He told the Washington Post, quote, Jared Stolzenberg pleaded guilty. He received two years probation. We reached out to Jared Stolzenberg for this episode, and he told us, quote, He went on to say, quote, At the sentencing hearing, Madison said she felt grateful for some sort of conviction, but she told the judge, quote, I feel angry that he was not charged for the sexual side of this.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison and her family weren't ready to let it go. A few months before, Madison's mother had heard Justin Boardman on a podcast.
Criminal
The Petition
Mandy and Justin eventually met in person, and he started to help Madison and her family think about other ways she could have a chance to present a rape charge to a jury. Then they came across an old law in Kansas.
Criminal
The Petition
The law was used during Prohibition by people who wanted to investigate bars that kept serving liquor, while state officials seemed to look the other way. In the last few decades, it's also been used by anti-abortion activists to go after clinics. Kansas is one of only six states where citizens can petition to do this, as long as they collect a certain number of signatures.
Criminal
The Petition
Which means Madison would need signatures from 329 registered voters to convene a grand jury.
Criminal
The Petition
While Madison thought about whether she wanted to use the old law, she said she heard about another woman in town. She said she'd also been raped and had also wanted to take her case to trial, but said that she'd heard the same thing from the county attorney.
Criminal
The Petition
Some of the people who walked by knew Madison and her family, but a lot of people didn't know anything at all. The streamers and balloons worked to get people to stop.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison and her family stood outside the hair salon for six hours, telling people what had happened.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison says they collected just under 200 signatures that day. They still needed over 100 more. And over the next few days, if Madison or her family heard of anyone who was willing to sign, they would go to meet them, wherever they were.
Criminal
The Petition
Eventually, they got the full 329, and they sent their petition to the district for review. But just a few weeks later, they learned it was rejected.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison remembers that around this time, she'd heard about another person who'd heard the same thing from the county attorney's office about their rape case.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison liked living in Lindsberg, but when she started looking at colleges, she thought about leaving Kansas.
Criminal
The Petition
Since Madison had already told her story to hundreds of people to collect their signatures for her first petition, she and her mother decided to reach out to some of them again.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison was babysitting for a family friend when she found out that the state had accepted her second petition. How long had it been at that point?
Criminal
The Petition
A grand jury was summoned to hear Madison's testimony in October 2021. Fifteen jurors were selected, just as they would be for a district court. They were given instructions by the district court. Their job was to determine, quote, whether the facts support allegations warranting a true bill of indictment.
Criminal
The Petition
Whether you're selling products, memberships, courses, you can do it all in one place, all on your terms. Visit squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison remembers that the jury wrote down their questions on a piece of paper and gave them to an attorney to ask her. She said they asked why she felt like an additional charge needed to be brought beyond the aggravated battery charge. They asked her to recount the night again. They asked if she had gone to therapy. She testified in front of the jury for almost an hour.
Criminal
The Petition
Her mother had to wait outside. And when her mother testified, Madison had to wait outside too. The rest of the proceedings were kept confidential, so they don't know who else testified, but they said they heard that the grand jury also questioned Jared Stolzenberg and the county attorney who declined to bring a rape charge.
Criminal
The Petition
The police officer who'd first taken Madison's statement told her that he'd testified. After Madison appeared before the grand jury, she went back to her job at a local health clinic. About two weeks later, she got the jury's decision.
Criminal
The Petition
Instead, Madison went to Bethany College, a small Christian school three blocks from her house. She planned to study biology, and she made a good group of friends. They did game nights every Wednesday and studied in the dorm together after classes.
Criminal
The Petition
The grand jury's decision didn't come with an explanation. Madison had already graduated from Bethany College. She'd gotten married to her boyfriend, and they'd moved into their own house a few minutes away from her parents. She felt ready to move on with her life. She told the Washington Post, From the very beginning, I have said I want my day in court, and I got it.
Criminal
The Petition
Even though it didn't go the way I hoped, I know I tried as much as I could. Today, she's almost done with nursing school.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison says she wants to start a mobile SANE-SART unit that can go to small towns so victims don't have to travel. The nurse who did her SANE exam was one of the first people she felt comfortable with after what happened. She says she still thinks about how the nurse made her laugh. piano plays softly Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
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The Petition
Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. This episode was mixed by Emma Munger. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
Criminal
The Petition
On February 11, 2018, during her second semester of her first year, Madison spent the day with her parents and friends and then headed back to the dorm.
Criminal
The Petition
And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter. We hope you'll join our new membership program, Criminal Plus. Once you sign up, you can listen to Criminal episodes without any ads. And you'll get bonus episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lawrence Ford, too. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.
Criminal
The Petition
We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Criminal
The Petition
She saw a text from one of her friends, Alana. Madison went to Alana's room and told her what happened.
Criminal
The Petition
In 2021, Jared Stolzenberg told the BBC that he regretted what happened. He said he had been rough with Madison. He said he was, quote, new to sex and wanted to try a, quote, sexual kink he'd seen online. He said he was, quote, stupid to try it, but he maintained that it had been consensual. After she read Alana's message, Madison told her parents she'd be coming home for dinner.
Criminal
The Petition
Alana came with her. When they got to her house, Madison's father was in the driveway. Her mother was on the way. Madison wanted to wait and tell them at the same time. She remembers watching her mother walk up the driveway.
Criminal
The Petition
Mandy Smith, Madison's mother. Madison's father had been a police officer and asked her if they could call the chief of police. Madison said yes. The family sat around the dining room table, waiting. An officer arrived to take her statement. She also gave him the written account she'd made the night before in Alana's room.
Criminal
The Petition
The police officer who came to their house asked if Madison wanted to take a SANE-SART exam. SANE stands for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, and SART is Sexual Assault Response Team. During an exam, evidence is collected for a rape kit. Madison said yes.
Criminal
The Petition
Madison remembers liking the nurse who did her exam. She made her feel comfortable. She even made her laugh. A SANE exam can take hours and can include taking samples of DNA from all over a victim's body, from fingernails, mouth, and genitals. The nurse noted in Madison's exam that she had bruising on her neck and the back of her throat. Madison decided she wanted to press charges.
Criminal
The Petition
Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.
Criminal
The Petition
People convicted of rape in Kansas are added to a public registry. She says that was important to her. She had a meeting scheduled with the county attorney to talk about what would happen next.
Criminal
The Petition
When Madison met with the county attorney, she brought her parents. But when they got to the office, the attorney asked to speak with Madison alone.
Criminal
The Petition
We reached out to the county attorney for clarification and didn't hear back. Madison remembers he explained that because the sex had started consensually and Madison never verbally withdrew consent, he would not prosecute what had happened as rape. Madison thought that didn't seem right. She says his hands had been around her throat and she couldn't speak.
Criminal
The Petition
But without the county attorney prosecuting, Madison's case couldn't go anywhere. So they left.
Criminal
The Petition
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminals. We'll be right back. Thanks to Squarespace for their support. These days, whenever you're curious about a business or brand, the first place you usually look is online. That first impression matters. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that lets you stand out and build a beautiful, functional website.
Criminal
The Petition
Their design tool, Squarespace Blueprint, has a ton of layout and styling options you can use to make your website look exactly how you want it to look. And it'll look great whether people are using your website on a computer, phone, or tablet.
Criminal
The Petition
You can use Squarespace to sell products, memberships, courses, and it's an easy experience for your customers since it lets you accept a wide variety of payment options. With Squarespace, you can customize your website so your business or brand presents exactly how you want it to. That way, you can connect with the right audience online. You can do it all in one place, all on your terms.
Criminal
The Petition
Visit squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.