00:00:06
hey weirdos I'm [ __ ] okay leave it in hey weirdos I'm Elena and I'm Ash this is morbid
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[Music] it's Friday so we're like hella unhinged in the office very unhinged going we're
00:00:40
going cray cray today day I also just pulled out of my what is that weirdo a um picture of a cricket that my youngest
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Drew for me and it's the most uh unhinged and adorable looking Cricket I've ever seen I can't even see it from
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here cuz the green is very light I just see a Long Branch perhaps very happy little Cricket she greeted me
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this morning she goes Titi which cat do you like and just showed me a picture of
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two cats and I picked the one I like and she goes okay and then she just whips a
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pair of scissors out cuts it out and hands it to me that was her thing this morning I made this for you I made this
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for you I was like all right good morning thank you yeah now that I just pulled it out of my pocket cuz I felt it
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like rustling and she had asked me and John this morning like first thing like welcome to Parenthood everybody like
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first thing you just hear would you like a cricket a worm a centipede a spider or
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a ladybug for a pet and me and John both go ladybug at the same time and she goes
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only one of you can have it and John said ladybug and I was like damn it and I was like all right I guess I'll take a
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worm and she was like worm is mine and I was like why did you offer it then okay
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and I was like I I don't want any of those other ones and she was like you get a cricket what about Cricket
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crickets aren't bad crickets are ugly when you really look at a cricket they're also loud yeah like have you
00:01:59
ever had a cricket locked in your house yeah you it's a form of torture I'm sorry do you remember the day that we
00:02:04
were cleaning Ma's room in a [ __ ] Cricut just yes like dive bombed at me and tried to live inside of me crickets
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are no joke like that one was beautiful I love the sound of crickets outside I don't want it in my house but Google a
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snow wasn't it a snow Cricket yeah maybe maybe that's those are beautiful how I get out of it maybe I just be very
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specific about the type of cricket yeah it's called manifestation look it up there is like a a cricket I didn't even
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mean to do this like what a seg I'm a segue Ken right now there's a cricet infestation happening what somewhere in
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the United States right now it's like it's like a migration or something but they're like Mormon crickets they're
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called and I think they're like reddish color they're like very Tick Tock it guys people are taking video of it no
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it's horrifying it's like the end times like people can't come out of their house people are Lo like they're
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literally like a blanket of crickets is covering the side of their house oh my God it's the end times don't say
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that to me I already me like it looks like the end times but it's not it's a normal thank you of nature speaking of
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the end times though since we're on the [ __ ] subject and this is going I'm U let me just from the jump here this is
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going to sound absolutely unhinged but it's a genuine concern of mine and it's a genuine thing that I have been
00:03:20
experiencing lately and I need to know if other people are experiencing it I exp I've experienced it with you
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multiple times in like the past couple weeks birds are [ __ ] Wily lately yeah birds are being weird birds are just
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going right in front of your car like flying in front of your car trying to get you to hit them it happened to me
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this morning again on the way to your house and I was like why are you trying to make me kill you I don't want to do
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that yeah you're right I've seen it happen a couple of times like bad lately bad I will say my crows are are doing
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okay yeah no they're acting totally fine they're not acting a fool I have a lot of crows in my neighborhood all of a
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sudden because they're like hey we're family do you think they're like following me from your house like
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there's like multiple families of them maybe damn my crows are real guys no they are genuinely they're really my
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crows now yeah they are my family did you leave them anything um I started feeding them that's good yeah so I have
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little you have to I want you to like leave them a treasure though cuz they'll bring you back a treasure yeah I want to
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do that that's that's fun I want us to have that kind of relationship you know there was one that would bring like oh
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no I'm sorry that was a squirrel you're like we we don't want those I don't want
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a squirrel No squirrels are far too common I want a murder of crows you know I just have a lot of cats
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personally I thought you were going to say I just have a lot of feelings those two I do have a lot of feelings I have a
00:04:44
lot of a lot going on all right but that's where we are on this Friday yeah weird un a fun Journey kids crickets and
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birds yeah gross there you go and MERS which we're going to talk about legiate ones here there you go segueing right in
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I have a very interesting today it's uh Veronica Gideon and the Easter Sunday murders I do not know this no you don't
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I do not um I looked up like 1920s 1930s crimes to get in a place of like I really was looking for something like
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ash like socialy kind of thing and I ended up with a model o Veronica's a model okay but it begins with her
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parents okay mhm so in many ways the lives of Joseph and Mary Gideon her parents were like a lot of other
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immigrants who had come to to the United States just before the outbreak of World
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War I Joseph Gideon left Hungary in the early 1900s and he moved to New York a short time later not long after arriving
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in the US in New York he met Mary katosi I hope I said that right she also immigrated from Hungary like right
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around the same time so they bonded over that shared experience and culture and after dating for a little while they got
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married in 1908 and they moved to atoria and queens a few years after marrying Mary gave birth to the first of the
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couple's two children a girl that they named Ethel and then a few years later in 1917 Mary gave birth to a second girl
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who they named Veronica but she went by Ronnie which I love oh that's really cute also this entire time all I can
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think of is The Veronicas I feel so untouched you know that song I do I remember that I also it
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makes me think of a Gilmore Girls episode when she goes to when Rory goes to college and they spell her name wrong
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on her ID and they call her and it's spelled Ronnie and she was like Ronnie is not even slightly short for any
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girl's name on the entire planet and Laura says Veronica but like that's not helping and because she's like freaking
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out and it made me think of that I love that I also love that you can find any Sabrina the Teenage wge Gilmore Girls or
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there's another show too Boy Meets World I can usually yeah I can usually hit all
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those with references yeah I love that that the amount of like um like movie or TV quotes that stick in my mind mind
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Yeahs other things it's alarming isn't that the worst when like things like that stay like yeah like I can recite
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that entire scene we played out of your mind this morning I know all the words yeah that see that's wild and I I don't
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even know when that song came out like early alss but ask me what I had for dinner last night and I couldn't [ __ ]
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tell you tell you yeah anyway Ronnie is a nickname for Veronica and that's what Veronica used very cute the girls were
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both really beautiful in appearance but they ended up being very different in their personalities Ethel was always
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kind of somewhat Stern uh but Ronnie was more Carefree more fun she had like a a very wild Soul since
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Joe Gideon had arrived in the US when he was still fairly young he didn't have a
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ton of marketable skills and so in the early years of their marriage he relied on kind of just various odd jobs to
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support himself and his new family he worked as a janitor a bartender an industrial painter and although the work
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was somewhat menial they were able to live modestly and after just a few years they were able to combine their savings
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with a small dowy that Mary bought brought to the marriage dowry that's wild I know early 1900s bro and with
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their combined savings they were able to purchase a little bit of a rundown Brownstone but nonetheless a [ __ ]
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Brownstone a brownstone in Manhattan yeah on East 53rd Street so they moved into the first floor of the building and
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then they rented out the upstairs rooms to the borders and for a little bit of time I love this Joe operated a Speak
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Easy in the basement because [ __ ] 1920s anytime you bring a speak EAS easy into my world I'm just there for it
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there for it I love a Speak Easy I love a Speak Easy now and love easy like there's I sorry we're very tangent to
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you today but it's just it's Friday you know Friday uh I saw that there there's a vampire Cafe in New Orleans what yeah
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and you can drink like you get a a drink in a blood bag okay I told John this last night and he was like I don't want
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to do that and I was like I do do you know somebody who does though and he was like I do do you know anybody I was like
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let's be real is she sitting right in front of you asking you to love her do you know someone who wants to drink out
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of a bud bag yeah you do you married her uh but I was but also there's a Speak Easy associated with it that you get
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like a card and then you have to go to a separate place and like show them the card and they let you into the speak e
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that's so cool and that is so [ __ ] cool to me there's one in Hudson and um it's in it like looks like an an ice
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cream shop in the front like it is an ice cream shop in the front and then you have to like go to this special door and
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me and Drew went to it one time I forget the word that you have to say but you have to like or it's like a question you
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have to ask and they like kind of lead you into it to but you have to figure it out and it's fun I love it I love a
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Speak Easy moment we need more make them everywhere let's open a Speak Easy let's
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open a speaky no that restaurant business is crazy yeah no [ __ ] that I mean like good for you if you want a
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restaurant hard like shit's real hard that's cry anyway for a short time he did operate a Speak Easy in the basement
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but unfortunately it was shortlived because that was when you like kind of weren't allowed to and that was the
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whole vibe lame lame local police shut it down prohibition so without the income from the Speak Easy Joe was
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forced to fall back on the only skill he really like had that he could maintain and was like actually very good at which
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was upholstery so he opened a shop a few blocks from the apartment Ander shop quite a skill it is yeah it especially
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back then that was like a great skill to have he could do a lot with that so in time Joe built up his uh upholstery
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business business and the income provided Financial Security for the family but behind closed doors domestic
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life was their specific domestic life was one of conflict and dysfunction unfortunately no I was really hoping
00:10:41
that wasn't the case I know cuz they like in the beginning great a you're really like putting your pennies
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together and making this work and you got two beautiful daughters and then damn it conflict bummer yeah cuz the
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thing was like many men of his generation Joe was a strict disciplinarian and he had a very rigid
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personality he saw little value in things like fun and social activities oh he said the [ __ ] is that for he said
00:11:08
none of that he said no get a job live your life don't have fun what's fun jump rope as far as he saw it the culture of
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his adopted country was far too permissive and he rallied against the quote unquote rotten American System
00:11:23
where children laugh at their parents and start running wild before they cut their
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teeth I mean yeah like kids run wild it's giving Kim from Gilmore Girls it really is what the [ __ ] are you guys
00:11:34
doing what the [ __ ] are you doing get these kids together yeah so Joe's rigidity and personality usually uh
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caused tension in the relationship that he had with his very American daughters cuz they were born there being raised
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there and had friends there and everything uh specifically Ronnie she was a lot more stubborn she was wild she
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was quote unquote boy crazy far much more than her sister Ethel I mean their names are kind of fitting for their
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personalities I feel kind of just like did that to them that's on you dog yeah and well and
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also she's the little sister the little sister's always crazy of course the youngest is always going to be the crazy
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the way it goes but Ronnie she saw her father as spineless and irresponsible that's a quote damn and at times it
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seemed that she may have gone out of her way to defy him by staying out past her
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curfew coming home drunk which her father respond responded to with quote unquote corporal punishment so he okay
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so which was something that was going on at the time yeah you know not okay in any
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way but it very much accepted in the time though it was not outside of the norm yeah so desperate to escape her
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abusive and oppressive really father Ronnie dropped out of high school after just three semesters and enrolled in
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beautician or what we would call cosmetology school today her goal was to get training as a hairdresser but where
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she went the Muller butiti program they provided training on a wide range of subjects from hair styling to treatment
00:13:01
for scalp and skin diseases it seems like a really good school but the program proved itself to be far more
00:13:07
rigorous and complicated than what Ronnie was really looking for so after just 6 months of training she quit and
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just kind of vibed in unemployment for a while she was still young at you know fun employment there you go now a few
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years later in the spring of 1933 Ronnie tried again to get away from her parents
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This Time by marrying Bobby flowers he was a friend of the family whose parents owned a bowling alley in the
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neighborhood not surprisingly the teenage marriage was something of a disaster you don't say it's crazy and
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after just a few months the couple had the marriage and nuled and Ronnie ended up moving back in with her parents I
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think it was early 1934 now even though the marriage itself didn't last very long it did seem like
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it was the final Act of defiance that Joe Gideon was willing to tolerate but rather than kick his daughter out of the
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house he actually was the one who opted to leave the family he told he left the house he told his
00:14:02
friends that he was tired of the Disobedience and the fact that his wife always took Ronnie's side instead of his
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so he packed a bag and went to live in a small corner of his upholstery shop interesting just did he was like you
00:14:15
interesting response you know what ladies I'm good ladies I've had enough of you women wow wow Joe yeah here here
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I was rooting for you with your with your Speak Easy I know right you know I mean at least he didn't kick his teenage
00:14:31
daughter out I guess yeah absolutely I mean that's a plus and he's still like like he maintained a relationship with
00:14:36
his family he just stayed mostly at the upholstery shop okay so it was an interesting dynamic in in the 30s in the
00:14:45
30s [ __ ] was complicated yeah this is also like mid Great Depression too as soon as you said [ __ ] was complicated I
00:14:53
my brain just went 30s and then it was like where are we de yeah so you know everybody
00:14:59
feeling things walking on eggshells kind of Vibes that that we don't know what it
00:15:04
feels like so you know very essive time it is so it turned out that Joe's departure was just the first major
00:15:11
change for the Gideon family not long after her father moved out Ethel who was actually coming off of her own brief
00:15:17
teenage marriage oh my decided to start planning for her future her future excuse me and enrolled herself in
00:15:23
secretarial courses at Hunter College those courses actually eventually led her to Vanity Fair where she quickly
00:15:30
Rose through the ranks and became the personal secretary of the Magazine's editor at the time Helen nordon good for
00:15:36
you Ethel right just like bang bang boom I love that Ethel just was like you know
00:15:41
what I would like to start planning for the future and then she was like baboom and just went on like a trajectory to
00:15:45
Vanity Fair good for you insane and around that same time she had been introduced to a man named Joe I think
00:15:51
it's cner he was a friend of the family and an aspiring lawyer so like boy with a good head on his shoulders hey look at
00:15:58
that now had recently been flirty with her mother's uh her mother Mary's last border he was an yeah she was just young
00:16:05
and getting it this guy was an unemployed sculptor so she didn't really see him as a viable husband yeah but
00:16:10
just flirt with him yeah flirt with the hot artist or I don't know if he was hot
00:16:14
but for Ethel's sake I hope he was yeah you know you know but she was like uh aspiring sculptor aspiring lawyer what
00:16:22
am I going to pick here in the mid-30s in the mid-30s during the Great Depression lawyer so in June of 1936
00:16:28
after after dating for a while she and Joe cner were married in a small ceremony in Manhattan and she said Peace
00:16:34
Out sculptor bye now with Joe and Ethel both out of the house the multif family Brownstone on East 53rd Street was way
00:16:41
too big way too hard to manage for just Mary and Ronnie who had moved back home at this point so they moved to a much
00:16:47
more affordable fourth floor walk up on East 50th Street their previous home like the bigger one on 53rd Street it
00:16:54
hadn't it wasn't a lot to speak of but honestly it was a man compared to the quote unquote cramped and dimly lit
00:17:02
apartment on 53rd Street that's tough yeah the new apartment consisted of three very small bedrooms a kitchen and
00:17:09
a combination dining and living area so it was tight quarters in there yeah but despite that extremely limited amount of
00:17:16
space Mary still insisted on having a border to help with the rent she was like I'm not paying this whole [ __ ]
00:17:21
rent by myself D all right so the cramped accommodations of the new apartment probably would have been
00:17:27
unbearable but Ronnie's new work and social schedule kept her occupied on most nights through her sister Ronnie
00:17:33
had actually made the acquaintance of a p a magazine publisher at kast oh [ __ ]
00:17:38
who was taken with her beauty and suggested that she model for his daughter an aspiring artist oh wow look
00:17:45
at these cows I know like just using their connections and at that point Ronnie didn't have a job so she was like
00:17:51
hell yeah yeah and literally within a few months she became a working model she was posing for artists photographers
00:17:57
and her most lucrative work serving as the model for lurd covers of detective fiction magazines oh yeah so like a like
00:18:04
a pulp model of the time yeah and very interesting where those magazines take some people yeah like we've had we've
00:18:13
had many criminals who are very interested in this one we just uh recently spoke of yeah so interesting
00:18:22
and Harvey Harvey glatman yeah yep we had a few yeah that's how he would lure people there was there's a few that were
00:18:29
very into those magazines they were troubling it makes sense yeah and it I were the I don't know like a lot about
00:18:35
those magazines were they like they were pretty like normal magazines where like
00:18:40
girls were just posing as detectives or it was just like you know detective fiction kind of thing so it was very
00:18:46
like over the toop very like um like newr kind of the old black and white yeah but it was just the um the visuals
00:18:54
I think were two weird things like two things and making a yeah I think it was like I
00:18:59
mean it was obviously like people with a healthy mind could read those and move on with their life an unhealthy mind
00:19:08
took it to a place so it's not the magazines I would say it's like the person reading them yeah that makes
00:19:12
sense so yeah that's what she was doing she was just modeling for a bunch of different stuff including those sure
00:19:18
that was the heavy paying thing I'm sure yeah it sounds like it was so now even though Ethel had moved out and Joe's
00:19:24
relationship with his family was still challenging The Gideons particularly Joe and Mary actually made a point of
00:19:29
staying in contact and insisted on spending major holidays together okay well that's nice yeah and I feel like
00:19:35
really big for the time you know what I mean that's pretty that's pretty big yeah like we're going to stay together
00:19:41
for holidays like our family unit is important but disfunctional butun but definitely yeah it's nice that they were
00:19:47
trying to stay together in some capacity yeah and aside from that Joe's a holstery shop also had no place to bathe
00:19:53
so keeping on good terms with his wife meant that he could use her apartment to bathe every couple weeks when usual
00:19:59
routine of washing himself and just the sink wouldn't cut it yeah I I mean a bath is nice stay on good terms for a
00:20:05
nice show every once in a while valid yeah in the early afternoon of March 28th 1937 Joe woke up late and started
00:20:12
making his way to Mary and Ronnie's apartment to have Easter dinner on this day he was particularly eager to see
00:20:18
everybody because he and Mary had recently decided to reconcile oh wow and they were going to tell Ronnie and Ethel
00:20:24
over dinner like we're getting back together wow I didn't see that coming I know so he reached the apartment
00:20:29
building around 2: p.m. arriving just a couple moments before eth Ethel and her husband showed up and Joe rang the bell
00:20:35
for Mary's apartment waited to be buzzed in but nothing happened he was just about Turing the Bell again when one of
00:20:41
the tenants was leaving the building and held the door open for them to enter so
00:20:46
unsure whether or not his wife and daughter were home Joe Joe told Ethel and her husband just like hang on wait
00:20:51
in the lobby and I'll run up the four flights and see if they're home like why climb the four flights of stairs if you
00:20:56
don't have to yeah so he climbed up the four flights knocked on the door when he
00:21:01
reached Mary and Ronnie's apartment and when no one answered he tried the door which wasn't just unlocked but also
00:21:08
slightly a jar oh that's always a bad sign yeah inside he was greeted by another pretty awful sign um Tucci
00:21:16
Ronnie's uh pecking dog I think that's how you say it Peck came over to him like nervously and then just crawled
00:21:24
beneath the living room couch so like clearly was off something was off now Mary 100% knew that the family was
00:21:32
coming over and would have at least started preparing dinner by this point but in the kitchen Joe found only the
00:21:39
ingredients for dinner which seemed to have been sitting out on the counter all night oh no so like something was very
00:21:44
off here and the abandoned feeling of the apartment was starting to make him feel really uneasy but what he really
00:21:49
noticed was how eerily silent everything was like you could hear a pin drop in there yeah so he moved to the main
00:21:56
bedroom where everything was equally undisturbed the bed was neatly made everything was as orderly as he had come
00:22:02
to expect from his wife she was a very neat person yeah but there was however what appeared to be a broken up bar of
00:22:08
soap on the floor and that was strange now stepping over the soap Joe walked from the main bedroom to the adjacent
00:22:15
room and pushed the door open slightly which is when he saw the nude body of his daughter lying dead across the bed
00:22:22
Veronica Ronnie Joe didn't need to touch her to know that Ronnie was dead her skin at that point had taken on a
00:22:28
slightly blue tinge a stark contract to the bruises on her neck and her eyes were open just staring lifelessly at the
00:22:35
ceiling oh so absolutely horrified he quickly backed out of the room and entered the third bedroom where he found
00:22:43
the body of Mary's border Frank Burns dead in his bed he had a blanket covering everything but his head which
00:22:50
was just caked in blood and gore what the [ __ ] so Joe ran down the stairs from
00:22:55
the apartment where his daughter and son-in-law were still waiting in the Bobby and he screamed to them they're
00:22:59
all dead murdered what the where's Mary you'll find out oh no so they went back up to the apartment all together and
00:23:07
Ethel just sat in the kitchen sobbing while her father and husband continued looking around the the apartment cuz
00:23:12
nobody knows where Mary is after just a few minutes it dawned on Ethel that wait
00:23:17
nobody knows where Mary is like what's going on here so they're trying to figure it out and Joe suggested maybe
00:23:24
she went to the nearest precinct for help like maybe she She Came Upon the scene too and ran to get help damn so it
00:23:30
was then decided that Joe would go check for Mary his wife at the station while Ethel and her husband called the police
00:23:36
and waited at the apartment for them to arrive which I can't imagine having to sit in that apartment cuz remember it's
00:23:43
a tiny cramped apartment yeah where your sister's dead in one room a border B is
00:23:48
dead in his and your mom's missing and you're just waiting for the police to show up and that poor dog was scared and
00:23:54
he was so scared yeah so detective Martin Owens and William Gil Martin were the first to arrive at the apartment
00:24:00
just a short time later among the first thing they noticed was that other than the two dead bodies the apartment
00:24:07
appeared to be completely undisturbed there was no sign of forced entry really no sign of a struggle it was like the
00:24:13
killer had been let into the apartment and the victims really didn't offer any resistance when he attacked huh
00:24:19
detective Gil Martin entered the room where Ronnie's body lay and as he looked around he noticed that something was
00:24:25
sticking out from underneath the bed crouching down to look beneath he found the body of Mary Gideon oh no she was
00:24:32
fully clothed but it did look like her underwear had been torn and she too had been strangled holy [ __ ] less than an
00:24:39
hour later the apartment was packed with detectives Patrol officers the district
00:24:43
attorney and of course because it's the 1930s a slew of photographers some of them with the police but most of them
00:24:50
just from the Press of course aside from the bar of soap crumbled on the floor nothing seemed to be out of place or
00:24:56
disturbed but Ethel did notice that a small green alarm clock that Ronnie kept on her dresser was missing from the room
00:25:04
hm otherwise nothing had been taken and anything valuable was just literally sitting right out in the open all things
00:25:11
considered the investigators were quick to conclude that whatever this was it wasn't motivated by robbery that was
00:25:18
very clear that's interesting so a preliminary examination of the bodies revealed that Frank Burns's death had
00:25:24
been quick and likely happened while he was sleeping he'd been laying on his side when the killer crept into the
00:25:29
bedroom and delivered 11 quick stabs in the head and neck with a long pointed instrument that they believed to be an
00:25:36
ice pick or something very like it damn there was no way to determine the order where in which the wounds were inflicted
00:25:44
but the fatal wound was delivered to the base of the skull quote unquote just below the foran Magnum foran Magnum
00:25:51
that's hard to say and that's where the spinal cord enters the skull so that would have killed him instantly yeah uh
00:25:58
later it was learned that he was deaf in one ear and he was laying on the side of
00:26:02
his good ear so he didn't even hear that's why he didn't wake up when the others were being murdered oh man yeah
00:26:09
both Mary and Ronnie died by manual strangulation and it says the Killer's hands applying such for force that Miss
00:26:16
Gideon's thyroid cage was torn while Ronnie's throat so showed signs of hemorrhage in the larynx and muscles of
00:26:22
the neck holy [ __ ] that takes a lot of strength and a lot of like determination
00:26:29
and to think at least one of them was was being strangled while another was nearby you know and to think that like
00:26:37
they weren't able to stop that person you would assume that's a big scary [ __ ] person but Mary's knuckles were
00:26:44
really badly bruised indicating that she put up a big fight against this attacker
00:26:48
oh man and finally although they wouldn't be able to know for sure until an autopsy had been completed given that
00:26:54
Ronnie was discovered nude and Mary's underwear had been torn Detectives assumed at least one if not both women
00:27:00
had been sexually assaulted oh that's awful unfortunately with the exception of the missing clock and a few strands
00:27:07
of gray hair found in Ronnie's hand the scene was very light on evidence and leads but there was one thing that
00:27:13
investigators found curious as soon as detectives arrived at the apartment Tucci the dog had been barking nonstop
00:27:20
in a loud shrill tone to the point where the ASPCA actually had to come remove him from the
00:27:26
apartment and according to the neighbors this was a common occurrence anytime somebody new or unfamiliar came to the
00:27:32
apartment but none of them recalled hearing that dog barking at any time the previous evening oh that's interesting
00:27:38
so it supported the theory that whoever the killer was they had been to the apartment before at least enough that
00:27:44
they would have been recognized by the dog and assumingly L into the apartment cuz no sign of a struggle but like the
00:27:51
lack of evidence in the apartment a canvas of the neighbors proved pretty equally unhelpful one man who lived two
00:27:58
floors below Mary recalled hearing a scream around 11: p.m. followed by a brief scuffle I it's always wild to me
00:28:04
when people are like yeah I heard this woman scream was crazy I didn't do anything and it's like okay what what
00:28:11
and this guy was like not quite sure what he heard so he stuck his head out the window to listen for further sounds
00:28:18
like he heard something enough that he was like wait what the [ __ ] was that but
00:28:21
then he didn't hear anything following that so he just went back to bed like what the [ __ ] just like I could I feel
00:28:26
like I couldn't go back to bed after either I don't maybe that's just me yeah maybe that's just us another neighbor
00:28:33
Charles Robinson reported that he'd come home late a little after 2: a.m. and noticed that the Gideon's door was a jar
00:28:39
but as and this is so [ __ ] creepy he said as he passed by the door slowly began to close as if someone were behind
00:28:47
it oh shut the [ __ ] up and he said I don't know there was something about the way that door started to close that gave
00:28:52
me the creeps and I beat it to the sixth floor as fast as I could and that's a gross ass man yeah not blame on that one
00:28:59
I would do the same thing there's no like violence that you can hear you're just like something about that that's
00:29:04
just like I just don't like that that's strange and so creepy so while the apartment yielded frustratingly few
00:29:11
Clues detectives did find Ronnie's diary which they hoped might include some information on who she was with the
00:29:17
night of the murder in addition to containing a long list of phone numbers the diary entri is actually dated back
00:29:22
to 1932 and they were surprisingly detailed but most importantly were the most recent entries referring to
00:29:29
somebody that Ronnie only referred to as b h just the letter B who's B yep as one
00:29:36
of the detectives slipped through the pages of the Diary the phone in the kitchen actually rang so detective
00:29:41
Charlie mcgallen was standing closest to it and picked up the receiver and the man on the other end asked to speak to
00:29:46
Ronnie McOwen explained that she wasn't available and after identifying himself as an NYPD detective he asked for the
00:29:52
names the man's name and address the man said his name was Steven butter m M and
00:29:58
he had been out with Ronnie the night before Oh so thinking that they may have found the be referenced in the diary
00:30:05
detectives rushed over to Butter's apartment just a short distance away and immediately brought him down to the
00:30:11
precinct for questioning are you butter who are you but because the detective on the phone
00:30:17
and the officers who escorted him to the precinct had given him literally no indication about what this was all about
00:30:24
he had no idea why they wanted to see him or talk to him when they got to the precinct he could tell from the
00:30:30
reporters crowded around out front that something awful had happened oh no once inside it was eth who finally told
00:30:37
Steven what happened to Ronnie and the others what way to find out I know from her sister from that moment that he sat
00:30:42
down in the interrogation room detective lions and commissioner Valentine could tell that Steven butter was not their
00:30:48
subject no no one who's last name butter seems like they could do something that
00:30:53
horrible I know butter you know yeah it's like flowers yeah you know those are just nice last names there is a
00:31:00
flowers yeah I remember you mentioning the flowers did I already say that you did I remember hearing the flowers name
00:31:05
andan flowers yeah now he was obviously and very genuinely distraught by the news of the murders he was scared of the
00:31:13
veteran detectives peppering him questions and he seemed eager to help in any way that he could according to
00:31:18
butter his best friend Lincoln Hower had gone out of town for the weekend and asked Steven to quote keep an eye on his
00:31:25
girlfriend Ronnie while he was away because he had no other plans and because it wouldn't hurt to be seen with
00:31:31
a beautiful model Steven was like sure meanwhile Steven's like Jesus yeah right what did I do he's like what a weekend
00:31:37
for you to go away sir originally Ronnie and Steph's plan was to get together with another one of Ronnie's friends for
00:31:43
dinner but when Ronnie arrived to Steven's apartment a little after 8 she was alone and just said that her friend
00:31:47
had to cancel so abandoning their previous plan Ronnie and Steven met up with one of his friends and they all had
00:31:53
dinner at a local restaurant they had some drinks Steven's friend left at about 2 a.m. a.m. and at that point he
00:31:59
and Ronnie went to the Monte Carlo bar and grill for another drink and he walked her home at about 3:00 a.m. wow
00:32:05
he told investigators he walked her right up to her apartment door on the fourth floor and they made plans to
00:32:10
attend Sunday mass together at 10:00 a.m. and then he just walked back to his apartment man he returned right at 10:
00:32:16
a.m. the next day and rang the buzzer for Ronnie's apartment but when nobody answered he returned to his apartment
00:32:22
and tried calling a few times throughout the afternoon oh that's why he was calling that's why he was calling
00:32:27
convinced that he was telling the truth the detectives let him go uh a little after 9:00 p.m. and as soon as he
00:32:33
stepped on onto the sidewalk reporters essentially pounced on him oh yeah I'm sure trying to get any information the
00:32:39
guy right so the next day as investigators started digging more and more into Ronnie's background the story
00:32:45
of the murders hit the paper in an insanely Sensational way in 1937 Americans were still feeling the
00:32:52
crushing effects of the Great Depression and welcomed any story that could distract from the reality
00:32:58
and the Press of course was more than happy to deliver which it's like the fact that this was like an escape from
00:33:03
the reality of the Great Depression is like here listen to this pulp model's horrific murder in her apartment oh her
00:33:10
mom was also killed and another man yeah that's an escape from the bleess of the
00:33:14
Great Depression well just the way they went about this was so [ __ ] up that's the
00:33:19
thing like the Press is so Sensational about it like they're just like hey everybody it's a pulp model like you
00:33:24
know like you know that was the the number one thing here it's just so gross yeah now although three people had been
00:33:30
murdered and investigators couldn't say which if any was the primary target the Press instantly zeroed in on Ronnie's
00:33:36
Beauty and her career as a model I knew it of course the New York daily news dedicated the entire front page to a
00:33:43
provocative photo of Ronnie with an inset photo of her lifeless dead body being removed from the apartment wow
00:33:50
alongside a headline that read three murders and models flat she opened the door for
00:33:55
death [ __ ] you don't even know if she opened the door it's also not her flat yeah you don't know anything and
00:34:02
it's like it's not even it wasn't just her flat of all like she was living with other people and to just be like she
00:34:10
opened the door for death and it's like what do you open the door when somebody knocks on it back then yeah today my God
00:34:18
it's like in my story that I just had last time where like the Press just says whatever they want yeah just Mak [ __ ] up
00:34:25
talking about Mary and Parker's kidnapping and death how they just like made up that she was like horrifically
00:34:29
tortured and all this [ __ ] it's like you didn't even verify that information and
00:34:33
it was wrong and it's already bad enough why are you dramatizing it or dramatizing it whatever the [ __ ] word
00:34:39
is now stop making it cray you're making it cray cray in a lurid melodramatic tone the article detailed what they
00:34:47
referred to as the murder of the artist's model and the other two murders that is so [ __ ] up awesome that's
00:34:55
[ __ ] up and they all but declared that Ronnie was the Target and Mary and Frank
00:34:59
were just collateral damage she like how do you know that you don't she's a model
00:35:04
that has to be the reason like no one else had any kind of life that could have made this happen spoiler alert it's
00:35:11
not the reason see so it's like we're really just actually wow wow The Daily News reported as she stepped into the
00:35:18
apartment the killer was thought to have dragged Ronnie into the bathroom throttled her and started ripping off
00:35:23
her clothes the dying Beauty was born to the room where her mother lay lifeless and thrown on the bed it's like so crazy
00:35:30
that you guys have all this information that the detectives don't who told you what the that just made that [ __ ] up
00:35:37
like detectives had no [ __ ] idea what happened there was actually no actual like signs of violence other than the
00:35:45
bodies themselves I was going to say cuz part of the whole thing was like nothing
00:35:48
looked like it was T nothing looked out of place nothing looked victims like like yeah exactly wow yeah almost every
00:35:57
last article was written next to picture showing Ronnie in various St states of undress because of the kind of modeling
00:36:02
that she did and actually would have been more at home in the pul magazines that she modeled for versus the
00:36:08
Metropolitan newspaper like what are you guys doing but the salacious story of a
00:36:13
beautiful model murdered under mysterious circumstances was just too good for the press to resist it was like
00:36:19
right out of one of those detective novel um magazines yes very much that soon every photographer who had ever
00:36:25
shot Ronnie came out of the woodwork hoping to sell their nude and semi-nude photos to the highest bidder which was
00:36:31
always the tabloids with the lowest standards people are always going to people it's the theme of every single
00:36:39
story it's at least one of the underlying themes is people are always going to people and they've always been
00:36:46
people in it's just [ __ ] people have been people in in the best of times and in the worst of times in all the times
00:36:54
there's always going to people always that's that that's imagine imagine being one of those photographers and being
00:37:02
like hey I got a nude picture of that dead girl it's like what the [ __ ] is wrong what goes through your bra Splash
00:37:07
it on the front page of your tabloid and pay me a couple of dollars for it it's like and it's like yeah I understand
00:37:13
that this is like a tough economic time like do you have [ __ ] morals you don't have like a soul like come like
00:37:20
jeez like I'm that's not lost on me that people are like very very desperate clearly but I mean selling photos or sem
00:37:28
nude photos of a murdered girl to be splashed onto an unethical tabloid cover is not the way to do it no but within
00:37:37
days of their deaths the story had become almost entirely about Ronnie and had a uh noticeably misogynistic tone
00:37:43
that basically just blamed her for her own death before anyone knew the details of the actual case yeah I mean she was
00:37:49
the one who opened the door to the killer right obviously in reality anyone who met Ronnie immediately liked her but
00:37:56
for those who didn't know her she became another low class nude model with a diary full of men's phone numbers yeah
00:38:03
that we've heard that story before and actually even Ronnie's own father didn't hesitate to pretty much slander her in
00:38:09
the Press Jo Joe what the [ __ ] on March 30th just one day after he'd found his
00:38:14
wife and daughter dead Joe Gideon gave an interview to the Daily News and told them Ronnie made fools of lots of men
00:38:21
one of them killed her with my wife and the Rumor and in an article that more or
00:38:25
less placed the blame for the murders his daughter he continued on saying it's hard to say now but Ronnie was wild and
00:38:31
willful girls Ronnie's age don't realize it but you can't treat men that way oh Joe oh Joe
00:38:41
yikes yikes Joe I have so I have a string of things that I would like to let out of my mouth right now that I'm
00:38:47
just going to like be a quiet [ __ ] yeah you know what just Joe shut the [ __ ] up what theut F you can't treat men
00:38:55
that way what kind of grieving process is this I'm like slandering your child in the press your dead murdered child
00:39:04
and essentially blaming her and saying that she did it cuz she cuz she made fools of men and she shouldn't have
00:39:09
treated men like that not men if this is a man also that's the other thing assuming this is a which I know like you
00:39:15
know statistically but it's like we're just like assuming this is a man that Ronnie made a quote unquote fool out of
00:39:23
and that you know like you don't treat men like that this is what happens it's like you get murdered so we're not going
00:39:27
to say men shouldn't murder people we're going to say like don't make men feel bad women be subservient or else you'll
00:39:34
get killed if you make them feel bad they'll come and murder you and it's like can we maybe say don't do the
00:39:40
murdering part no okay got it okay we're just going to stick with this like fantasy world that everyone's living in
00:39:47
yeah it's really awesome love it love it love it wowers it'd be so hard to be alive back then yeah but while the Press
00:39:54
continued their campaign of slander investigators were really struggling to find viable leads that could move the
00:39:59
case forward given the lack of evidence the for the lack of a for entry and the fact that the dog was never Disturbed
00:40:05
investigators believed the killer could have been one of the many former borders
00:40:09
and within a day of the murders they had publicly identified 45-year-old chaur I
00:40:14
don't know why I said it like that chur uh George gay I believe it is as their Prime Suspect at the same time
00:40:22
they also identified 20-year-old Mary boo I think as a person of interest gay had been a tenant at the Gideon's
00:40:29
previous boarding house on East 53rd Street before moving out the previous December and Mary B I think it is
00:40:36
claimed to have been living with Mary and Ronnie as recently as a week before their deaths interesting yes which also
00:40:44
Imagine knowing that you were living there a week before H like that's intense but like that's and it's just
00:40:52
interesting that there's a uh there's a woman involved here mhm imagine that Jo so Joe now police detained and
00:41:00
questioned gay briefly but let him go after few a few hours later without giving an explanation to the Press which
00:41:06
they didn't need to Chief Inspector John Lions told reporters we hav't a thing to
00:41:10
hang our hats on and not long after Mary B was also cleared of any suspicions so
00:41:16
the lack of evidence or any kind of lead was frustrating but investigators they still had Ronnie's diary and they were
00:41:23
convinced that the Killer's identity had to be somewhere in its Pages among the more intriguing entries were those
00:41:29
related to that man only referred to as be oh yeah I forgot about that and from what the detectives could tell Ronnie
00:41:35
had known bee for at least a year and in that time the relationship had gone from
00:41:40
friendly to fearful oo she never said why but there were a number of entries where she made it clear that in the
00:41:46
weeks leading up to her death she had very much come to fear this man and worried that his behavior would escalate
00:41:52
to violence interesting now while the references to be were a promising lead lead police still didn't know the man's
00:41:59
identity so they turned back to Ronnie's personal life and before long they found
00:42:03
out about Ronnie's ex-husband Bobby flowers flowers that's where it I was like I knew I heard that name missing
00:42:08
Ronnie's ex-husband B Bobby B oh with a B mhm according to flowers he and Ronnie
00:42:15
had gotten into a handful of arguments during their relationship and one or two of them may have gotten physical oh no
00:42:21
and I here I was saying your last name is flowers I know but he swore that all of that was in the past it was true they
00:42:26
Rel ship had come to an end he said but not because of Any animosity they just got married too young and for the wrong
00:42:32
reasons so they decided that it was best that they parted amicably his explanation seemed reasonable and in
00:42:39
addition to that he also had an alibi for the night of the murder he'd been working as a hot dog vendor in a very
00:42:45
public location so that could have easily been verified by hundreds and hundreds of witnesses so he's not the be
00:42:51
okay now by March 30th more than 200 NYPD officers had been assigned to the case
00:42:57
and dozens of potential Witnesses and suspects had been interviewed but no new leads presented themselves having ruled
00:43:04
out guay as a suspect and confirming Bobby flower's Alibi detectives were back at square one all they could be
00:43:11
reasonably certain of was that these murders or at least the murder of Ronnie were a crime of passion and in addition
00:43:18
to that much to the shagrin of T of the tabloids the test results of the vaginal
00:43:23
swab showed that neither women had been raped oh okay I mean yeah so it seemed unlikely that this
00:43:29
actually was a sex crime but if not the ex-husband or her companion for that evening Butters there the most likely
00:43:37
suspects who would have had such anger towards Ronnie that they would have wanted to kill her in absence of any new
00:43:43
suspects detectives turned back to the person who had reported the crime in the first place father and husband Joe
00:43:51
Gideon I was wondering if they were going to ask some questions they did when detectives ow and and Gil Martin
00:43:57
arrived at the apartment right after the family's called to the police they both
00:44:01
seemed to notice that Joe's Behavior seemed out of the ordinary for what one would expect in those
00:44:06
circumstances unlike his daughter and her husband Ethel and they were sufficiently shaken up but Joe they felt
00:44:13
seemed unaffected H their suspicions were raised again in the days that followed when he gave those interviews
00:44:19
to various tabloids where he pretty much slandered his daughter and spoke quite frankly about his wife and their
00:44:25
separation they were like [ __ ] this is a little weird so also when Ronnie's body
00:44:31
had been processed technicians found several gray hairs on her body which they believed might have come from the
00:44:36
Killer and Joe Gideon had gray hair so during their initial interview with him he claimed that on the previous evening
00:44:43
like the night before the murder he'd gone out to a bar or the night of the murder excuse me he'd gone out to a bar
00:44:48
around the corner from his upholstery shop where he stayed all night drinking beer and playing ski ball until 2: a.m.
00:44:55
so detectives went to this bar this Cafe to check on his Alibi and the bartender
00:44:59
did remember seeing him that night and actually even had Joe's uh ski ball high score recorded on the board for the
00:45:05
night oh wow but he said he didn't remember seeing Joe around closing time he was like yeah he definitely was here
00:45:11
but like I don't know I don't think I saw him around closing time so that meant that Joe had been where he said he
00:45:18
was that night but he very well have could have left early and gone to his wife's apartment to commit the murders
00:45:24
yeah like the time frame is a little shaky so no longer to verify Joe's Alibi detectives returned to the upholstery
00:45:31
shop on April 1st to ask him some followup questions the officers confronted him about what the bartender
00:45:37
had told him but Joe insisted that the man was mistaken and he had definitely been at the cafe the bar all night so
00:45:44
while one of the two detectives asked the questions the other looked around the shop and that's when they came
00:45:49
across the upholster kit lying out on the counter oh no the kit contained that everything somebody would need to
00:45:55
upholster furniture and including several large needles oous about this one of the needles the
00:46:02
largest one that most resembled an ice pick appeared to be missing based on The unconfirmed Alibi his obvious anger
00:46:10
towards his daughter and his being in possession of what could have been the murder weapon as well as a pistol
00:46:15
without a permit that was also found Joe Gideon was taken to the local precinct for further question I'm really hoping
00:46:22
that this is not what I think it is well at the precinct Joe stuck to his story about playing ski ball and drinking all
00:46:29
night on the night of the murders and offered his own Theory as to the identity of the killer according to Joe
00:46:35
a quote millionaire from Boston had been infatuated with Ronnie and had vainly offered her a car an apartment and some
00:46:41
money when Ronnie rebuffed his advances The Man became quote frustrated and had and had hired somebody to kill her that
00:46:48
was Joe's theory he told detectives about this theory on the day of the murders and it was investigated and
00:46:55
quickly dismissed as unfounded so he's been saying this from the from the gem yeah so they weren't very receptive when
00:47:01
he repeated it at the precinct because they pretty much ruled it out they thinking you're just trying to get out
00:47:05
of it exactly by the end of the day on April 1st a spokesperson announced to the press that Joe quote would be
00:47:11
arraigned on a formal charge sometime before morning however by the following day he had yet to be arrested or charged
00:47:18
with any crime but finally on the morning of the second he was charged with being in possession of an
00:47:23
unlicensed gun a pretty minor charge but enough to him for further questioning easy yep so detectives intensely
00:47:31
interrogated Joe keeping him awake for nearly 33 hours denying him food threatening and physically assaulting
00:47:39
him but by the end of the interrogation his story remained exactly the same wow nothing was breaking him I didn't see
00:47:47
that I thought you were going to be like and then wow now convinced that the police weren't doing it and this is
00:47:52
crazy convinced that the police weren't doing enough to find the killer the editor of true detective magazine where
00:47:58
Ronnie actually posed as a cover model sent one of his writers to Joseph's building to ask whether neighbors had
00:48:04
seen him come or go that night the editor did the police work yes okay this actually wasn't the first time that the
00:48:11
magazine had gotten involved in the story when the press and tabloid started printing all these slanderous lies about
00:48:17
Ronnie the magazine published a full page editorial intent on combating those lies and telling their considerable
00:48:24
readership about what a good person Ronnie had been God that just gave me chills yeah I know same I gave me chills
00:48:30
and it still gave me chills oh I love that they did that yeah they were like no [ __ ] all of you is who she was she
00:48:37
was our friend oh my God that like really gives me chills yeah especially back then yeah they didn't have to do
00:48:43
that and it's like the fact that he's sending he's like [ __ ] that they're not doing enough I'm going to send my own
00:48:48
investigation going out here like they're not asking neighbors whether they saw Joe I mean come on like this
00:48:53
guy's figuring it out and me like let's fig wow I love that it's amazing what a turn now it's unclear how much the
00:49:00
editorial influenced the case but this second intervention would prove to be a critical move the writer from True
00:49:06
Detective had knocked on only a few doors before he found a neighbor that said he absolutely saw Joe Gideon come
00:49:13
home drunk at 3:00 a.m. holy [ __ ] since investigators knew Ronnie had been killed a little after 3:00 a.m. that
00:49:18
meant Joe Gideon couldn't possibly have been the killer wow the editor of the True Detective
00:49:24
magazine cracked that just knocked and it was like one of the first couple doors he knocked on so it's like why
00:49:30
didn't I have to wonder if they were getting frustrated and they had to and felt they could place the BL and felt if
00:49:37
they beat the [ __ ] out of this older man that he'll admit to it like a false confession and we'll just go with it and
00:49:44
people will buy it because he kind of has been slandering his daughter in the past like he's kind of made it easy
00:49:49
right oh my God I'm like wow this is amazing but then I'm like but who the [ __ ] killed them well with the neighbor
00:49:55
having confirmed his alibi was released from custody on April 3rd having suffered more than 2 days of brutal and
00:50:01
not to mention illegal interrogation tactics according to the Press reports upon his release he had quote numerous
00:50:08
black and blue spots swelling cuts and abrasions on his face and head and his lawyer claimed that he had been kicked
00:50:15
and pulled and dragged and slapped for hours and he's innocent and he's innocent wow and no matter what he's
00:50:22
saying in the press that is his wife and his child like that's he feels something
00:50:27
deep down there I hope yeah so having lost their Prime Suspect detectives were right back to where they started days
00:50:32
earlier when the bodies were discovered detective Walter Harding told reporters there are four or five different angles
00:50:38
we're working on now and when we've cleared these up we'll have a complete and direct case but the truth was they
00:50:44
were no closer to catching the killer than they were on day one with no other leads to pursue they turned again to
00:50:51
that diary which is when they discovered an entry where Ronnie made it clear that
00:50:55
whatever feeling feelings whatever her feelings for bee might have been his attention was clearly focused on her
00:51:01
sister Ethel wait according to the diary and the weeks leading up to the murders
00:51:08
Ronnie had been concerned that be had become obsessed with eth and she was worried that he might do something
00:51:15
irrational to Ethel okay I have a couple of things here one why didn't they read
00:51:22
the whole diary that was my immediate question they're like oh we we did some some work and we found this thing we
00:51:29
didn't read before it's like it was I mean just read the whole thing read the whole thing I think it was a lot to get
00:51:34
through because it was five what yeah five years of entries High here start reading this [ __ ] or
00:51:43
like give people parts and have a book club exactly all of you read different parts of it get through it cuz I'm like
00:51:50
why was this so long coming but and also I'm like wait a second I'm immediately thinking something but I
00:51:59
don't want to like slander someone before I know so I'm gonna let you tell it good for you yeah good for you I
00:52:06
think you might be on to something wait a second uh so armed with this new piece
00:52:11
of information detectives went to Ethel Gideon and asked her whether she knew the identity of the man referred to as
00:52:17
be somewhat surprised she said she didn't just know his identity she knew him quite well the entire family did his
00:52:24
name was Robert Bob Irwin a former border at Mary's boarding house who'd become somewhat infatuated with her but
00:52:33
moved out and left the area when Ethel rejected his romantic advances and married Joe
00:52:39
cner and that is where we're going to pause and wrap up part one and we'll see you for part two I know who it is I
00:52:48
think if you if you listened pretty good in the beginning you might yeah pretty carefully in the beginning you might
00:52:54
have a clue yep I think I know but you'll find out in part two oh no this is such a sad case and especially if
00:53:03
this is the the scenario where this person was obsessed with Ethel and then went M identity it's like holy [ __ ] yeah
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damn brutal it's really rough and there there really is like for lack of a better way of saying it a lot of
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collateral damage here absolutely almost the entire thing is collateral the entire case yeah wow but we will talk
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about rest of this in part two so we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's wor that you
00:53:33
don't go listen to part two bye [Music] [Music] [Music]