00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
00:00:33
Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. If audiobooks are your thing, or if you've been meaning to listen to more of them,
00:00:40
you should check out a podcast called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, hosted by Cal Penn.
00:00:46
Each episode spotlights standout audiobooks on Audible across all kinds of genres.
00:00:51
Sci-fi, comedy, romance, thrillers, and more. With Cal talking to guests who help break down what makes each story worth listening to.
00:00:57
It's a fun, easy way to discover your next great audiobook. Check out Earsay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:06
Goodbye! Where does summer take you? Maybe it's a coastal road trip or a quiet morning with the windows wide open.
00:01:12
Summer smells like bright citrus, warm sand, and endless possibilities. With Pura's smart diffusers and the new summer collection,
00:01:19
you can restore your sense of place and bring those unforgettable moments right into your living room.
00:01:24
Find your summer escape today. Visit Pura.com to learn more. Goodbye. Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
00:01:34
Shop now for up to 50% off select jewelry featuring personalized pieces to must-have summer favorites.
00:01:39
Timeless jewelry made to move with you through every moment. Shop in-store or online now through July 5th.
00:01:45
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:09
That's birthday girl Georgia Hartstar. That's Garen Kilgariff. And we're here to birthday podcast for you.
00:02:16
If you're watching us on Netflix, there's a gorgeous, and I mean gorgeous, set decoration by our set decorator.
00:02:24
Truly. Corey. It's so beautiful. It's purple themed, which is just my color. These are, I guess, sweet peas.
00:02:30
What is it? Sweet peas? I don't know. Correct. Oh, flowers. They're beautiful. And I asked Molly, because Vince the other day really casually goes, so what is your favorite flower anyway?
00:02:41
After 13 years. Making small talk after 13 years. Oh. So I was like, someone asked him, and I'm not going to ask him who it is.
00:02:48
But what if he just wanted to know? Yeah, what if he was actually curious about you?
00:02:52
Oh, well, I guess it's just content. Everything is content. Is it weird that if I were, and I kind of was, born when this podcast started, I'd be 11 years old today?
00:03:04
Oh, my God. That's the best age to be. Yeah. 11? Oh, my God. I think when I was around nine, I really started coming into my prime.
00:03:12
Yeah. And then it sunsetted around the age of 12. And when I was 13, it was absolutely a disaster.
00:03:18
Because you're not a girl and you're not yet a woman. As everyone knows. Everyone, but only me and Britney Spears really understood.
00:03:26
Really can talk about it. I thought these were fake. They're so beautiful. They are.
00:03:30
No. No, no. They are beautiful. Yes. Let's toast this so I can drink this. Happy birthday, Georgia.
00:03:37
Thank you. You are 11 years old today. Congratulations. Thank you, too. Live there.
00:03:42
I have a book recommendation. For your birthday. If that's what you want for your birthday, you get one thing.
00:03:46
Okay. That's what I want. You're going to love it. This is a book that's more your style, but I loved it so much.
00:03:52
So it kept me in because. Much like Pride and Prejudice. Right. Exactly. It's called When Winter Comes.
00:03:58
It's about this teenage girl from Cincinnati in the mid-1800s. She has to flee town.
00:04:05
She lives a rough and tumble life. Prospects are not good for her. Steals some money, gets the fuck out of town.
00:04:11
Finds the first way out, which is a wagon train that she pays her way on with this German family.
00:04:17
So they're going across to the West to make their life in California, and she's going to fucking change her life.
00:04:27
And so the Donner Party moves on, and there they go. Yes. Donner Party story, perspective, angry 17-year-old girl.
00:04:37
15. Smart, plucky, but not just naive, but wary. It is so fucking good. And it's just, it's totally, you know, of course, fiction, but it's based on so much fact.
00:04:50
And I can tell you, nothing will make you, like, stop feeling bad for yourself or the fact that you have to clean your house or whatever the fuck than listening to a girl getting through the fucking Donner Party Winter.
00:04:59
I'm all, okay, wait, who wrote it? Okay, so it's called When Winter Comes by a woman named V.A. Shannon.
00:05:05
And I think this was her first novel, and man, it's fucking good. Knocked it out of the park.
00:05:09
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Do you think she picked V.A. Shannon in honor of V.C. Andrews?
00:05:14
Oh, possibly. It's a cool initial combination. It seems mysterious. It is. It's so mysterious.
00:05:20
It's great. I mean, I'm so excited. Like, historical fiction is like, oh, that's the way my weird school damaged brain can learn.
00:05:28
Yes. It's so exciting. I mean, it's immersive. And that's what makes people able to identify with what's going on.
00:05:36
Yeah. Just read it. It's great. Well, I'd like to give you a birthday present. Oh, okay.
00:05:39
I thought that was my birthday present. Just me listening to that recommendation, not turning my back.
00:05:45
So I, we recorded when it was my birthday episode and you were like, I have something for you
00:05:52
coming Right And then I think the next day I had a day off and we were recording again that week and we were doing something ahead of time So I got it in my head I had to give you a birthday present immediately Like I had to hurry up and do it And also especially with us where literally it been like
00:06:07
I'm going to get something. You've handed me things that are some of my favorite presents,
00:06:11
like months after my actual birthday. Hey, look at the hot dog phone you gave me.
00:06:15
Look at the corn dog portrait hanging in my office. It's just all hot dog theme, which I love.
00:06:20
It really is. Well, you know, that's how we know each other. It's pretty superficial,
00:06:23
but it works. And I'm 11. And so of course, hot dogs are my favorite thing. So also cats are your favorite thing. Love cats. And doing what you want is your favorite thing.
00:06:31
Oh my God. It's a tote that says I do what I want with like a cat drawing on it.
00:06:35
So I found that. And just the second I saw it, I grabbed it because I was like, I have to get her a present. So it's not like I searched and searched. But then
00:06:42
what I did was include inside a 15 step Korean skincare routine for you. Shut up.
00:06:50
That I'm happy to walk you through at any period of time. Oh, did you go to the new store in Pasadena that just opened?
00:06:57
Olive Young? Yeah. Not yet. I went to my bathroom sink and under the counter. Hell yeah.
00:07:04
Oh my God. Thank you so much. We've got some Estera. We've got Skin 1004. We've got Songboon Editor.
00:07:10
Heartleaf Spot Pad. Oh my God. You got some redness. That shit is truly, that's what I used on the road when my skin would get super dry and
00:07:18
it would bounce my skin up before so I could put makeup on it. That's my six peptide.
00:07:24
I love that shit. I like this brand a lot. Yeah. If you want to see what she got me and see these purple decorations too, you can go to,
00:07:31
we're on Netflix. Go check out Netflix. We could do a video that's me telling you about how to do that.
00:07:37
Okay. That skincare routine. Sure. If that's something that you would want to hear.
00:07:40
Yeah. For the fan cult. Uh-huh. Yeah. So join the fan cult if you want to see that, but just watch Netflix if you want to see this.
00:07:45
People have been asking for me to drop my skincare routine. And essentially it is a version of this because these are all the products I like.
00:07:51
I love it. Thank you so much. Fun. You're welcome. I'm going to bring this tote to Italy.
00:07:56
Let them know. And they're going to love it. You got to let them know. They're going to hate me.
00:08:00
Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, also, this has nothing to do with the present, but I follow so many Italian creators that do TikToks.
00:08:09
There's a guy that just stands. I think I've said this to you. There's a guy that just stands on the street in Florence and he's like, Lorenze, Lorenze.
00:08:15
And he just goes like this and shows you different areas of Florence. Where he's at that day.
00:08:19
There's a guy that one of the first ones I started following walks around Milan.
00:08:23
Oh, send it to me. I'm going to send it to you, but then I'm also going to watch that live stream and look for you.
00:08:29
I'm going to find him. Send it to me so I know what he looks like. He looks like an older Italian Brent Weinbach.
00:08:35
Okay. And he's very kind of like, uh, Milano, Milano. Love it. It's always like, don't you love it here?
00:08:41
And I'm always like, yes. Oh, I want to see that. I want to see that. I just love the idea that one day I'd be like that.
00:08:45
You and Vince are crossing in the background. I'm going to message him now. I'm going to get my people, my reps, to message this Italy influencer.
00:08:52
What would be fun for me is if you went around and tried to find, I think his name is Yugi,
00:08:57
who's the guy that speaks almost every language. So he walks up and goes, excuse me, where are you from?
00:09:01
And then they say, you wouldn't know where it is. And then he starts speaking the language and you want to cry because it's so touching and beautiful.
00:09:06
And they love it. And it's like, then they're suddenly like, they are best friends.
00:09:10
So good. That and the guy who's like, what's your people's dance? And then he learns their dance, like whatever, you know, customary dance.
00:09:18
Yes. And he does a little dance on the street. And he does it with them. They teach him and we're all friends and there's world peace.
00:09:23
That's right. Through dance. Through dance and language. And language. And streets.
00:09:28
And pastries. And Europe. Do you have some words of wisdom here on your birthday this year?
00:09:33
Oh, oh man. Stop it. I know. Okay. Let me think. Listener, Georgia just started poking the flowers to try to think of.
00:09:42
I guess that your 40s are so much better. Don't be scared of them. It's the chill not give a fuck that comes with aging is incredible.
00:09:53
And also to remember that aging is a privilege and not everyone gets to do it. So shut the fuck up and get in the photo and live your life.
00:10:02
Yeah. No, that was good. I don't know. Now I'll say it again, but go live your life and act like you believed it.
00:10:06
Okay. I'll say Natalian. Not live your life. And I guess live. We have a podcast network.
00:10:14
Here we go. Exactly right. Media. Here are some highlights. Nice. This week on Brief Recess, Michael and Melissa celebrate Pride Month with an important conversation about protecting LGBTQ youth.
00:10:25
They also break down the Supreme Court's recent ruling and what it means for the future of conversion therapy laws.
00:10:31
That's still happening? It's going backwards at a rate that is, of course, alarming for most people.
00:10:37
For most human beings that care about other human beings, it is insane. No. If something was a joke in the 90s, you can't bring it back.
00:10:45
It just doesn't fucking work that way. Then over on Dear Movies I Love You, Millie and Casey continue Junasty with a deep dive into Lucio Fulci's The Beyond from 1981.
00:10:55
Good pronunciation. Thank you. Plus, they present yet another installment of Film Etiquette tackling the proper way to behave during movie previews.
00:11:03
Very specific. Yeah. It's the previews itself. Love it. Where to clap and scream, where not to.
00:11:11
I don't know these things. Okay, then over on Disgraceland, Jake Brennan tells the story of the Hillsborough disaster.
00:11:16
You covered that. This special World Cup episode examines the tragedy, the massive cover-up that followed, and the fight for justice that changed sports forever.
00:11:25
That is one of the most riveting stories I've ever heard. Riveting and horrifying.
00:11:30
Yeah. Over on Ghosted, Roz welcomes drag icon Ginger Minj. They discuss psychic intuition, a haunted community theater, and Ginger's encounter with a ghost hand.
00:11:42
Forehand massage? just a single hand is that scarier or less scary than a full ghost less more yeah just a creepy
00:11:51
hand pick one what if ginger was just on the adams family set and didn know it this week on i said no gifts bridger is joined by both Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney of SNL fame Two for over there They discuss Lamborghini posters
00:12:05
You know, all this stuff boys like. Lamborghini posters, cigar theft, and the best way to park at Disneyland.
00:12:11
Wow. Goofy. And then finally on Trust Me, Lola and Megan sit down with comedian Maria Bamford to chat about her new book.
00:12:19
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult. That's the book. They discussed the cultishness of 12-step programs, the Suzuki method, and how OCD can make people more susceptible to high-control groups.
00:12:31
Interesting. I saw Maria on her way out after she recorded that, and I was like, what are you doing?
00:12:37
Or whatever. She is just the funniest, most fascinating person. I adore her. Everything that comes out of her mouth is just like—
00:12:43
She's so fun. Yeah. Okay. And then also just over in the merch corner, we're celebrating Georgia's birthday by supporting all of her artistic endeavors, including this is what we call the supped mug.
00:12:55
And that's the supped koozie. This is when Georgia went to art school. She came back and she said, I've got a project.
00:13:01
It's so disappointing. Like I can I know that's my handwriting and I can spot it from a million miles away because it's just so like it's like a teenage boy's handwriting.
00:13:10
Yeah. What is the supped reference again? I thought the guy's first name was supped.
00:13:14
the cop, but actually superintendent is what that stands for. So it kind of is like a teenage boy.
00:13:21
Also, I wrote that when we were in a meeting, like joking about what merch we wanted. So I
00:13:26
didn't write that with the handwriting that I like save for public consumption. Right. Which is,
00:13:30
I mean, which is the better way, right? It's like a great trick. So get your supped merch today.
00:13:36
If you are friends with anyone in law enforcement or any teenage boys, this is the merch for them.
00:13:43
Great call. Dads and grads. You can get that on exactlyrightstore.com. And stay tuned after this episode because we will be showing you a brand new honking hooray.
00:13:53
We just made it. Just made a bunch of them and we really like them. Very fun. Yeah.
00:13:57
All right. Because it's my birthday. You go first. Okay. Let me get just a little, a little bit of a...
00:14:03
It's just about your birthday. Nothing worse than a champagne drunk and then you have acid stomach and...
00:14:11
Oh, no. God, it's so fun. That just took you somewhere. It really did. Like you just went away.
00:14:17
Like little Polaroids that drop out of a filing cabinet and I find them inside my mind.
00:14:22
Oh, no. Who dropped those here? Thank God there weren't actual photos taken of the time because we didn't have to deal with that.
00:14:28
Again. So lucky. Whoever's in charge. Yeah. I appreciate you just sliding my timeline back a little bit so that 11-year-old me doesn't go like,
00:14:37
the world needs to see me sing Annie or whatever stupid bullshit I was always doing.
00:14:42
Hence this podcast. Hence this. This is what happens. This is the answer to not posting yourself is then you just make a whole fucking podcast about yourself.
00:14:51
Exactly. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:14:58
The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.
00:15:09
Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.
00:15:15
Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra fast charging capability.
00:15:22
And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game,
00:15:29
the future isn't some far off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA.
00:15:35
Goodbye. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. It's 2026. And if you have an alternative career like food photography or professional mixtape making or witchcraft, you're going to need an online presence.
00:15:48
Whatever your thing is, Squarespace helps you build a website that's as unique as you are.
00:15:52
Squarespace provides you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place.
00:15:57
From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business.
00:16:04
Get paid on time with professional invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools.
00:16:12
With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone can build a beautiful professional online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business.
00:16:19
Head to squarespace.com slash murder for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code MURDER to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
00:16:27
Goodbye. Summer clothes should feel easy and still look polished. Low maintenance, high reward. That's how we live our lives.
00:16:36
For summer clothes you will actually wear, there's Quince. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and toffs with style starting at $32.
00:16:45
Their denim is soft and easy to wear, and their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights.
00:16:51
Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories.
00:16:56
So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has become a destination for elevated essentials across the home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life.
00:17:09
I am a fan of Quince. Yeah, Karen's wardrobe is Quince-centric. I'm a lazy basics person, and the things that I get from them, I always go, oh yeah, now I'm wearing these.
00:17:20
They work, they're cute, they're stylish. And they're classy. Like it doesn't look lazy, it looks classy.
00:17:26
And it's so affordable. Yeah. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash MFM for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
00:17:35
Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com slash MFM for free shipping and 365 day returns.
00:17:42
Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. When you're young, you don't really buy furniture.
00:17:47
You either inherit something from your parents or you just drag something in from the street like you're some kind of hipster raccoon.
00:17:54
When you ready for furniture that you actually like check out Article Article offers the style and durability you want at a price that actually makes sense They take great care in curating their collection focusing on pieces that stand the test of time
00:18:07
There's no filler. Every item is chosen for craftsmanship, design, and lasting value.
00:18:11
And with Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it.
00:18:20
Plus, Article's customer care team is available seven days a week, offering knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to help you get your
00:18:27
home just right. Yes, please. Don't we all kind of need that? Like the eye of an expert? Yeah.
00:18:33
Where should I put this? And also what should I move here and there? And what should I even get?
00:18:37
But Article has it all so you can get whatever there. That's right. You could be like, I have
00:18:40
this thing. Should I get this one or that one? Totally. Am I Scandi or am I mid-century? Help me
00:18:44
be boho chic, please. If you're in the market for a beautiful new sofa, dining table or bed,
00:18:49
head over to article.com. Goodbye. My story begins in the summer of 2004 when you were peaking.
00:18:58
George W. Bush was president. You remember him. Final season of Friends had just wrapped up.
00:19:04
The song This Love by Maroon 5 was the only song they would play on the radio legally.
00:19:09
And the steadily growing popularity of a new concept called online retailers was changing the way people were shopping.
00:19:18
But we were still in the era where big box stores reigned supreme. And for kids in the early 2000s, of course, there was nothing better than a trip to your local Toys R Us.
00:19:27
Hell yeah. And although the Toys R Us in Charlotte, North Carolina, was just like all the other Toys R Uses around the nation,
00:19:33
something weird had been happening at this particular store lately. When staffers would arrive to open up in the morning,
00:19:40
they'd see like bike tire marks on the laminate flooring that were not there when they left the night before.
00:19:46
Alarms would get tripped overnight. But when the police would show up, no one would be there and nothing would have been taken.
00:19:52
So the staff starts to joke they're dealing with a ghost, a ghost hand. But after a few months, an employee notices that near a display, I would love to actually be able to watch how this person actually did this.
00:20:07
There was a display and someone notices a Spider-Man sheet sticking out of the back of the display.
00:20:13
And they're like, what is that? And then they pull on the sheet and they basically expose that there is like a little space behind this display thing, like in the wall.
00:20:24
And so when they look into this space, they find an inflatable pool float that looks like it's being used as a bed.
00:20:32
They find a Spider-Man 2 movie poster from the store's own shelves and they see a couple other personal touches here or there.
00:20:39
this is the moment that the Toys R Us staff realize their store ghost is actually a real man
00:20:45
they assume it's someone homeless and what I love about this store staff they don't call the cops, they don't do anything
00:20:51
they just are like, well, that's none of our business they should have though, because in truth
00:20:55
this man was a fugitive from the law a criminal known for rappelling down from ceilings
00:21:01
into stores to commit his robberies kind of like Spider-Man this is the story of the criminal known as Roofman
00:21:09
Wow. Was this made into a movie recently? Yes, it was, starring none other than Channing Tatum.
00:21:14
Oh, my God. Okay. So sources for this story are several deep-dive articles from the Charlotte Observer by reporters Theoden Jaynes and Julia Coyne,
00:21:23
and then a 2024 SFGate article by reporter Katie Dowd. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:21:29
So this truly begins in 1998, when a string of robberies are reported basically in a very short amount of time back-to-back,
00:21:36
mostly in Northern California, although crimes with very similar MOs are also reported on the
00:21:42
East Coast too. More than 40 businesses, often a McDonald's, are hit by what investigators will
00:21:48
come to believe is the same person. They have no idea who this guy is. Witnesses describe their
00:21:53
robber as being somewhere between 18 and 30 years old, anywhere from 5'7 to 6'3 and having an
00:22:00
athletic build. So Channing Tatum. Channing Tatum, but real vague. Yeah. These are usually
00:22:05
armed robberies. In some cases, the perp fires his weapon to maintain control. In one case,
00:22:11
he actually did pistol whip someone. Then usually the MO is he locks the employees into the walk-in
00:22:17
cooler. Then he goes and bags up all the cash that he can find and escapes. But witnesses tend
00:22:24
to describe him as very polite, except for those couple examples. Most of the time, the witnesses
00:22:30
say that in all of these crimes. He uses words like please and ma'am. One time while forcing
00:22:35
employees to walk into the walk-in cooler. He told them all to grab their jackets first.
00:22:40
In one robbery fitting this MO at a McDonald's in Belmont, North Carolina in the year 2000,
00:22:46
witnesses say the robber tells the staff, quote, you're the good people. I'm the bad guy. I'm sorry
00:22:51
for doing this to you. Wow. End quote. Aside from all that, one thing that really makes these crimes
00:22:56
feel connected is how the perpetrator breaks in at each scene. He cuts a two-foot by two-foot hole
00:23:04
into the roof, and then he lowers himself through that hole and then repels himself down to the
00:23:11
floor. Hence the nickname roof man that he eventually earns by doing this over and over.
00:23:16
I think we have a picture of one of those. Oh, that's a hole. He's fitting himself through that.
00:23:21
In the roof. Uh-huh. Okay. That's smart. With like climbing guy gear on, Patagonia style.
00:23:26
Cool. Does he have crampons? Can he borrow a crampon from you? He always did it when businesses
00:23:33
were closed. No customers were ever present. He would just ambush the staff as they were either
00:23:37
opening or closing the store, which made me laugh thinking about when we used to work at the Gap
00:23:43
and when we closed the store and we would have to fold everything down and like get the store
00:23:47
together. Me and my friend Don Frazier would sing. So like someone else would be like,
00:23:52
sing a song, Don, or sing a song, Karen. And we so obnoxiously would like, blah, blah, blah. And the idea of that and then a guide,
00:24:00
busts through the roof and like holds a gun on everybody was like how I was picturing that.
00:24:04
We're like, it's the least ready you can be in your 20s working retail. Well, I was thinking like what a bummer it would be if he came at close rather than at opening when you could go home for the rest of the day.
00:24:14
Like I have to work a whole fucking shift and then I have to fucking and I'm not scheduled again until Wednesday.
00:24:19
So I can't be like, I'm traumatized and not come in. True. Like do it in the morning so I can go home.
00:24:24
Now, counterpoint, if you do it at night, the cops come, the firemen maybe come, maybe an ambulance comes, then you could go out with those guys after.
00:24:33
Sure. Everybody's like, is everyone okay? Sure. Blah, blah, blah. Close it down.
00:24:37
We got our report. Win, win. Let's go to TGI Fridays. Okay. Basically, these robberies go on for about a year and a half.
00:24:44
And then in May of the year 2000, he robs the Belmont, North Carolina McDonald's, the one where he tells them he's the bad guy and they're the good ones.
00:24:52
At that one, he grabs several thousand dollars in cash and he flees the scene. Almost as soon as he's gone, the employees break back out of the walk-in cooler and call the police.
00:25:02
I'm like, how many times have you guys gotten stuck in the walk-in cooler? For sure.
00:25:05
They were just like, okay. You know, there's a latch. Wait until he's gone. We always just put the broom in that.
00:25:11
That's why we broke the door on purpose. Right. So they call the police not long after.
00:25:16
A policeman in the area notices a lone car parked in a church parking lot. But it's Saturday.
00:25:21
So, of course, it's not a busy morning for the church, even in the South. So it stands out that this car is just sitting there.
00:25:27
And so he's kind of watching the car and like assessing. And as he does, a man comes sprinting out of the nearby woods towards the car, then sees the cop, turns around, darts over a tall fence, turns and runs and jumps over a fence and runs back into the woods.
00:25:42
No darting when you're trying to avoid the cops. Darting is like a dead giveaway.
00:25:46
You've got to stroll. Yeah. Whistling wouldn't hurt. but no you can't just immediately turn and run somewhere you're not a cat really quick my favorite
00:25:54
story of being at a party and the cops came in san francisco and then how'd you get out wasn't us
00:26:00
the two girls next to us turn and scale a 10 foot fence and we're watching them do it and then a guy
00:26:06
that's standing on our side like we watch them both go over yeah i was like holy shit do they
00:26:10
have fucking warrants or something what's going on and then this guy just reaches up and opens
00:26:15
And it was a fucking door right there. And they could have like killed themselves.
00:26:21
Yeah, that's impressive though. They just parkour over the fence. They drunk. They like panic parkoured themselves over that fucking fence.
00:26:27
That's what drinking does is it makes you think that you can just, I can parkour.
00:26:30
Yes. It's like the confidence, like, oh no, this is real. I'm really in danger. Send us your stories of parkouring out of trouble.
00:26:37
My favorite word of Gmail. Especially if they involve high school parties. Yeah.
00:26:40
A man hunt ensues, of course. They call in a bunch more officers. They quickly track him down.
00:26:46
He's taken into custody, and he's identified as 29-year-old Army Sergeant Jeffrey Manchester.
00:26:51
Oh, he's not a superintendent? No, he's not. He's not. He's in the Army now. He admits to robbing two separate North Carolina McDonald's within the last 24 hours.
00:27:02
Wow. Just hours before he robbed the Belmont location, he had already targeted one in Gastonia, North Carolina.
00:27:08
So the roof man was born Jeffrey Manchester in Sacramento, California in 1971. According to reporter Katie Dowd for SFGate, quote, by all indications, he had a typically sunny California childhood.
00:27:22
End quote. After graduating high school, he gets married. He has kids. He enlists in the military.
00:27:27
He's trained as a paratrooper. And in that training, he is taught how to climb up to and jump from and rappel off of nerve wracking heights.
00:27:37
All right. And from. It's all adding up. Yeah. So by 1999, a year into the Roofman robbery series, Jeffrey and his family are stationed in Concord, California, which is in the Bay Area.
00:27:49
November of that same year, police responded to a domestic disturbance at Jeffrey's home.
00:27:53
We don't know what that involved. What we know is that soon after, his wife files for divorce and gets custody of the kids.
00:28:01
So for the next few months, Jeffrey's life is, the details are spotty. less than a year after the domestic incident,
00:28:08
he's arrested in North Carolina for robbery. Then he tells police the locations are incidental.
00:28:14
He's only been to North Carolina for a couple days, being dispatched here for work, and the work was over.
00:28:20
He's supposed to go back to California, but instead he decided he was going to drive his rental car
00:28:25
west through North Carolina, and as he did, hit one McDonald's after another. So it sounds to me like he's like the man
00:28:33
who's lost everything that mattered to him. Yeah. And now he's just kind of. That's a fuck it move.
00:28:38
A true fuck it move. Coincidentally or not, Jeffrey used to work at a California McDonald's.
00:28:44
Yeah, that makes sense. I think people do that. Like, you have to look at your ex-employees first, right, when something like that happens.
00:28:50
Well, because there's this automatic familiarity. Like, if you drop in, you know where the office is.
00:28:54
What time they do this and what happens here and how to get into. Yeah, exactly.
00:28:59
What you can't get into and it won't matter. Who has keys to what. Yeah. We could go on and on.
00:29:03
And we will on the fan cult. That's what we do. We just list other options. And then he could have kept his uniform and just strolled on in like he fucking worked there.
00:29:13
He could have loved frozen french fries and just ate him out of the bag. Yeah. Okay, so motive-wise, he tells police it was to, quote, pay bills and buy things for my kids, end quote.
00:29:23
He also says, quote, I will do everything I can to fix this situation. I still have a lot to give the community and the army.
00:29:29
I thought it was going to be quick cash, and I ended up scaring people and wasting the police's time as well.
00:29:34
And I am sorry for that little police ass kissing in there at the end. It's nice to hear, in total, the amount stolen in all of these roofman robberies is somewhere around $100,000, which would be—
00:29:48
2004? —birthday style. $100,000 in today's money is $210,000. It You within That means you win a birthday Thank you Would you have changed that number if you had known that 1999 was really the era we were talking about
00:30:05
kind of five years earlier? Definitely. That would have taken it down by. Yeah. Like I would have.
00:30:08
Yeah. Ding, ding, ding. It's kind of on you. Then you win. Yep. It's all my fault. So ultimately
00:30:13
doesn't really matter that amount because he's charged with several felonies and he ends up
00:30:17
being sentenced to thirty five years in prison. Whoa. The police are confident Jeffrey is behind
00:30:21
the 40-plus, almost identical robberies committed across the country. Many of the businesses hit are located in areas
00:30:28
Jeffrey has either lived in or visited because of work. He maintains that it was a different guy.
00:30:35
It's not him. Different paratrooper or whatever the fuck. Yeah, it was a different guy that cut a two-by-two hole in the ceiling,
00:30:40
rappelled down into the store, politely forced employees to walk into the cooler.
00:30:44
At the same restaurant that he used to work at. At his old job. Over and over again.
00:30:48
Both have athletic builds. Yeah. It's a different guy. Could be a copycat. Could be a fan.
00:30:53
I think we have a picture of Jeffrey. There's an arrest picture. Yeah. Oh, that's not a good picture.
00:30:59
Well, I disagree. First of all, if you're going to go to Italy, they all look like this.
00:31:03
He does look like an Italian. He looks like a real. Yeah. Mamma mia. Okay. So how do we get from this to Channing Tatum is my question.
00:31:12
Well, later on, he will say when he is told that they're making this movie and they tell him they cast Channing Tatum, he said, you need to get someone out here.
00:31:21
He's got a Jason Biggs. Is that what his name is? Oh, yeah. From Jason Biggs. But also, who's the guy?
00:31:28
I actually went to see this guy live when he was in the Lena Dunham movie a couple years ago.
00:31:34
Molly, who's the guy? Was he on? John Bernthal? Yes. Oh, John Bernthal. John Bernthal.
00:31:39
Totally. I wish I could have pulled that name. That was good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here's the thing.
00:31:43
Jeffrey does not go quietly and just serve his prison time. In January of 2004, which is four years into his sentence, he escapes prison.
00:31:53
Parkour. Total parkour. Shut up. But he does it kind of reverse. He clings to the undercarriage of a delivery truck until it gets outside the gates.
00:32:00
Man, they should have given him that one. I know. I know. I mean, like, well, yeah, dude, we should have caught that.
00:32:05
If you're going to Indiana Jones this thing, very few people can do that. Are bad.
00:32:10
So. I couldn't do it. Yeah, like finders keepers, I guess. So somehow he's able to hang on underneath the goddamn truck until it gets far enough away.
00:32:19
Oh, my God. Then he lets go. I assume he rolls off into a ditch, stands up, dusts himself off, cracks his own neck.
00:32:27
And then he waves down the next car and they pick him up. Don't they have those signs that are like, don't pick up hitchhikers?
00:32:35
It's a fucking prison right there, y'all. And on top of which, the driver turns out to be an employee of the prison.
00:32:42
Friend. And for real, you need to not. And is he wearing like prison fucking garb?
00:32:48
I can't imagine. He must have planned ahead enough because, right, I think that would be a huge giveaway unless this person.
00:32:55
He's got his civvies on is what they call it, right? Yeah, somehow. I wish I knew.
00:32:59
He worked in the laundry. Borrowed some clothes. Told the warden that he had a wonderful way of pressing jackets.
00:33:06
He said, you're wearing that wrong. Let me show you how to wear that correctly. Girl, give me that and sit down.
00:33:11
And then the warden was like, I'm going to let you keep it because it looks so good on you.
00:33:14
You know what? So pretty in that jacket. You keep it. Supped. Keep it. And then cut to that same warden being like, get in this car.
00:33:22
Would that be amazing if it was all the one super stupid employee? Yeah, that was my thing.
00:33:27
And I wrote in all caps, in what world are hitchhikers outside of a prison given the benefit of the doubt?
00:33:33
And then dot, dot, dot by a prison employee. Truly. Maybe this was a situation that then brought us to the signs.
00:33:41
Yeah, maybe. They had to put up signs that say, hey, you're driving by a prison.
00:33:45
Hitchhikers would be a bad direction to take. Hey, you put two and two together.
00:33:50
If you don't mind. But the answer is no. So he then from the gas station finds another ride, hitches about 50 miles down the highway to Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:34:01
And then he sees a Toys R Us store, the one I was talking about in the beginning.
00:34:05
Got it. He sees that in a distance and he starts to get some ideas. Oh, OK. We're back to the beginning.
00:34:10
We've come back. Yes. The roof man knows that any big box store is going to have plenty of nooks and crannies for him to hide in.
00:34:18
So he takes out the building. He goes during normal business hours and walks around.
00:34:22
He spots a small opening behind a store display. And he's like, this is it. This is my big chance.
00:34:30
Zoops right in and waits until the store closes and then zoops back out. Kind of brilliant.
00:34:36
And also, I don't like the fact that he has an athletic build, but he's shimmying in and out of things that are very small.
00:34:43
He's shimmying. He's, what was he doing earlier? Parkouring. Parkouring, but also zooping.
00:34:48
But then what was the other one where he was not whistling and being whatever, never mind?
00:34:53
Darting. Darting. Darting. Yeah, he's got a lot of speeds. Yeah. And they're all effective.
00:34:59
Yeah. It is my nightmare to be like, hey, can you get behind that display really quick?
00:35:03
And be like, I won't be able to. I won't be able to. Don't make me go back there.
00:35:08
He does it. Then when he comes out, when the store is closed, this is all 12-year-old fantasies, which it seemed like he was living in every way.
00:35:17
He raids the candy aisle. Hell yeah. He raids the baby food aisle. That makes sense because he needs some protein.
00:35:23
He needs the protein he needs. And it's like, oh, I love apricots all blended up.
00:35:27
Sure. So organic. That's so smart. Then he starts shooting Nerf basketballs into basketball hoops.
00:35:33
He watches DVDs. He can watch any DVD he wants. They have them all. He plays video games.
00:35:39
He drives remote-controlled cars. Shit. And he, in his version of the story, he's doing it for exercise.
00:35:46
He cruises around on the children's bikes, and that's how they see the tire marks in the morning when the employees come in.
00:35:51
But then it's more diabolical than just a man playing with toys. Yeah. He actually figures out how to turn off certain security cameras and how to access the software that manages the staff schedules He starts to pick and choose who shows up for work when based on like his convenience
00:36:09
So he's like, well, I want to ride my bike till 7 a.m. So Maureen's not coming in till 8.
00:36:13
Oh, my God. Type of thing. Yeah. Is how I imagined it. Poor Maureen. Poor Maureen.
00:36:19
She's like, I just need to manage this fucking Toys R Us. He then rigs a bunch of baby monitors to make his own little security system.
00:36:26
Dude. So he's able to, with these baby monitors, keep tabs on every corner of this store while he's eating baby food in a nook.
00:36:35
I'm sorry, but he would win traders so fucking hard. Like, he would win traders or what's the one where they all live on an island?
00:36:44
Love Island? No, no, no, no. Not that one. Survivor. The one where they survive, not love.
00:36:49
Survivor. He'd win. Yes, because he's going to figure out a way. Let's make this happen.
00:36:53
Come on. Okay. So he lives like this for a while, but then he somehow discovers that Toys R Us shares a wall with the closed circuit city next door.
00:37:02
Fuck. And then he discovers there's the reporting is unclear. It's either a doorway or a tunnel that's connecting the two stores.
00:37:09
Right. So he basically makes a second living area for himself over in the abandoned circuit city in the combination circuit city Toys R Us.
00:37:18
It's abandoned. It's closed. Oh, closed. Okay, got it. Abandoned would be weird for Circuit City.
00:37:23
It's like, just get away. Just run. Yeah, and actually in 2004, I think it'd be really creepy to have seen a closed Circuit City.
00:37:31
Yeah, that's like, give us three years and we'll close everything. That's why when the Bed Bath & Beyond on Ventura closed, it truly I'd stayed in for the day because I was like, this is not good.
00:37:42
Yeah. This is not good. No. So scary. Yeah, all the Bed Bath & Beyonds. Yeah. Okay, so over at Circuit City Stairwell headquarters,
00:37:50
Jeffrey is now upgraded from the old pool float to a children's mattress that he brought over from Toys R Us,
00:37:55
along with another set of Spider-Man sheets, a bunch of assorted— It's so telling that that's what he picks as his sheets.
00:38:02
Yes. He didn't just grab a pair of sheets. No, he shopped. And he also had the poster of Spider-Man 2 on the wall.
00:38:07
Yeah, he's got a complex. There's some—I mean, it would be really fun to live in a toy store.
00:38:12
For sure. We've all agreed that in third grade. There's also Yoda figurines, different ones, and of course a stack of DVDs among them, Spider-Man 2.
00:38:21
So a couple more months pass, and his little setup leads him to get overconfident about his ability to evade detection.
00:38:30
He starts going out in public during the day, not playing it cool. So he literally talks to anyone and everyone he comes across, introducing himself as John Zorn.
00:38:41
He claims to work in a secretive capacity for the government. Which is what you tell everyone when you're working in a secretive capacity for the government.
00:38:49
Yeah. Of course. That you lead with it. Yeah, you can say that, but then you just can't say what it is.
00:38:54
I'm going to start a conversation by telling you I can't talk during this conversation.
00:38:57
I can't talk about this. Yeah. Very normal. Yeah. So a Charlotte police captain tells reporters, quote, if you draw a donut around that circuit city, I bet he'd talk to everyone within a mile.
00:39:09
So here's the other thing. It's like you can go in and ride your bikes and eat your candy all you want.
00:39:13
But if you're alone, you're going to get busted. You can have all of it. And if you're alone, you'll go crazy.
00:39:19
Yeah. You need some people. You need some interaction. Totally. I'm saying this to myself.
00:39:23
Leave the house, Karen. So he joins a gym. Okay. He doesn't just talk to people.
00:39:31
He joins a gym. He goes to the dentist. Police think that was because of all the candy and the baby food.
00:39:36
Oh, no. He gave himself cavities. He also starts attending service at the local Presbyterian church, developing a close relationship with his new pastor and other parishioners.
00:39:47
And in fact, he starts dating one of those parishioners, a woman named Lee. She later describes him as, quote, funny, romantic, the most sensitive man I've ever met, guy that every girl would want.
00:39:59
Okay, except he lives in a Toys R Us. Spider-Man, too. And he's a fucking villain.
00:40:04
Or not villain. He believes himself to be Spider-Man, too. it's me that's real spider-man i'm spider-man too that's right it's a sad lens through which all
00:40:14
women look at everything now where it's just like truly what are you some burglar that drops through
00:40:18
the roof fine the better you seem the more you're like a burglar you don't tell women to smile
00:40:22
fine we can date great take me to circuit city okay so jeffrey goes out every day and
00:40:28
really carpes the dm i wrote that yeah that's funny embarrassed at night he quietly returns
00:40:34
to his lair like the Phantom of the Toys R Us dash Circuit City in half a Spider-Man mask.
00:40:40
So it's been six months now since he's broken out of prison or escaped from. As a fugitive,
00:40:46
it's very hard for him to actually make money. And he has things to pay for. He has his teeth to pay for. He has the gym to pay for.
00:40:52
He has his girlfriend, Lee, who he's literally falling in love with to pay for. I can't imagine part of that is his
00:40:59
alimony that he's paying for and the child support that is probably needed. Yes.
00:41:04
by his wife's wife. While he's fucking around riding bikes. Right. Dating. That's such a great point.
00:41:11
Maybe there is a real mental breakdown that was like, I will get away from everything
00:41:15
and start all over again. Be a child. Yeah. A child who can repel off of walls. Right.
00:41:22
So as these costs are adding up, he's realizing I need money. So he returns to his passion robbery
00:41:29
and on December 26, 2004, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, day after Christmas, when he knows the registers will be filled with cash, he hits the Toys R Us
00:41:38
that he has actually been hiding out next to. He's living in the Circuit City, but still
00:41:44
doing fun stuff at the Toys R Us. He robs that Toys R Us. It's his vacation home.
00:41:48
Yes But it so clear So you rob the Toys R Us The cops come We don know how much he actually stole Cops come and then thoroughly search the Toys R Us And then of course find the connection to the Circuit City Yeah they find all of it
00:42:05
Okay. They find the stairwell living area. They take fingerprints there. And then those fingerprints trace right back to our own Jeffrey Manchester, who is the fugitive.
00:42:15
Got it. And the roof man. So they circulate Jeffrey's mugshot on the news and in newspapers.
00:42:20
And it spooks him. He goes to the dentist's office and sets it on fire. What? That's not the next step I was assuming.
00:42:28
Yeah. He'll keep you guessing. He's a true paratrooper that way. The police theorized he was trying to destroy any record of John Zorn existing.
00:42:37
But the dentist's office does not burn down. Yeah. They rarely do. Yeah. They can't.
00:42:43
It's all like porcelain. Yeah. Cement and pain. But now parishioners are coming forward from his new church.
00:42:50
They always fucking do that, man. They are such fucking narcs. Why, we know John.
00:42:55
Why, John? He's in Concord, California, and I'm giving him that accent. When police talk to his girlfriend, Lee, she is, of course, shell-shocked, but agrees to help lure him out of hiding by asking him to hang out.
00:43:07
All right. Because she mad. Yeah. Like, you told me that you were a children's baby food salesman.
00:43:13
That's why your breath always smelled like baby food. A children's baby food salesman.
00:43:19
Children's baby food. Well, I bet there is adult baby food. I'm sure there is. Same when there's adult diapers.
00:43:24
Yeah. Yes. Put that away for now. Okay, gone. So on January 5th, 2005, Jeffrey shows up at Lee's apartment with a bouquet of flowers.
00:43:34
He is promptly arrested by police. Yeah, he is. So sad. And also, sadder still, it all happens on Lee's 40th birthday.
00:43:41
Oh, Lee. Lee? She needs to listen to me. It's just going to get better. This episode is dedicated to you, Lee.
00:43:47
She's like, ladies, it's 20 years from now. I'm doing fine. Right. Jeffrey Manchester is incarcerated in Raleigh, North Carolina.
00:43:55
As far as we know, he is still in jail there to the day of this podcast recording.
00:43:59
Oh, really? He's still, okay. He isn't set to be released until 2036 when he is 65 years old.
00:44:04
Oh, man. Yeah. Reporter Katie Dowd notes the irony here. Even though Jeffrey is California born and raised, this means he'll have, quote,
00:44:13
accidentally spent over half his life in North Carolina. Wow. It's a beautiful place.
00:44:17
Asheville. Have you seen it? Charlotte. Gorgeous. Yes, very gorgeous. And very close to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where Dollywood is.
00:44:24
Oh, that's why he went there, probably. He's like, I'm getting there. But first, some toys.
00:44:30
Of course, he has been given the full cura treatment over the years because of the kind of wackiness of his crimes.
00:44:36
And then I told you the story about him telling the director of that movie that Channing Tatum is in from last year.
00:44:41
His name is Derek C. in France. And he says that you need to cast someone uglier.
00:44:47
But he says, then he started talking to Channing. And he was like, you know, Channing and I have a lot in common.
00:44:53
We both have a very high motor. We both played defensive end and we're both extremely good looking.
00:44:59
So maybe this guy contains every possible multitude there can be. So many people, of course, point out the very important fact that Jeffrey's crimes were not victimless.
00:45:10
Politeness aside, he traumatized innocent people showing up with guns at their work when they are just trying to close or open.
00:45:18
This podcast has actually taught me that from comments we've gotten way in the past of like, don't, what's the word when you?
00:45:26
Idealize. Idealize this, even though nobody, you know, was hurt. That's a fucking lasting wound to be held up at gunpoint.
00:45:35
Oh, absolutely. I remember when we had like four guys shoplifted at the same time and ran out and pushed our security guard up against the wall as they ran out.
00:45:44
Oh, my God. And there's nothing directly threatening or violent about it at all.
00:45:48
they just grabbed bags and ran. And it still was like, we were all for days, like freaked out.
00:45:53
So yes, introducing the idea that I could die over like Gap jeans. Insane. Yeah.
00:46:01
Especially at a toy store. Where everyone's having fun. Except the guy in the Jeffrey costume.
00:46:07
Oh, I didn't even think about that. Jeffrey the roof man has the same name as the giraffe from Toys R Us.
00:46:13
Wow. Let's get into that costume. Okay. What if he had hidden in plain sight in that costume?
00:46:18
Hi. And he's just pickpocketing. But children, stop giving children wallets. Okay, so.
00:46:27
That's Karen's platform. I'm so sick of it. I was going to say, we don't know. Stop, yeah.
00:46:31
And we maybe can't know if Jeffrey has learned his lesson from any of this. Sure.
00:46:36
It's been reported he's tried to break out of prison two more times since being rearrested in 2004, though.
00:46:41
Wow. He attempted an escape in 2009 and again in 2017. So there may come a day when we have to give an update to the Roofman saga.
00:46:50
But until that time, that's the story of the Roofman, Jeffrey Manchester. Wow. This is part of the segment we should call We Don't Need Another Hero, where we just tell the story of some fucking dude who fucking does all these things.
00:47:04
He doesn't have to be terrible and we don't have to love him. Yeah. But Channing Tatum has to play him.
00:47:08
But Channing Tatum has to play every dude we talk about from here on out, including Paul Giamatti.
00:47:14
oh yeah that's perfect incredible um that was great for your birthday thank you and everyone
00:47:22
crossed my mind to do that one i that's yeah wow i had no idea and i will say this i did it without
00:47:28
watching the channing tatum movie because sometimes then i'm like just retelling the movie
00:47:33
yeah i gotta say we i made vince stop playing it because of the that whole you're holding people up
00:47:38
at gunpoint and we're making this guy this fucking hot you know he's hot and great hot and great and
00:47:43
just down on his luck and it's like well well so i made him turn it off i'm sure i'm so much fun
00:47:49
to be married to well listen there's other things to watch truly he doesn't give a shit
00:47:54
he watched it alone he's like dying yeah uh that was great Thank you. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,
00:48:05
Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14.
00:48:11
Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense,
00:48:15
rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either.
00:48:21
Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
00:48:27
Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
00:48:33
From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far-off concept. It's already here.
00:48:41
Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. Summer is fun, but it can also completely destroy your routine.
00:48:49
Between days at the beach, recovering from days at the beach, and then remembering you don't even like the beach, it can really mess up your day.
00:48:55
That's why it's helpful to have something like cachava that makes it easy to stick to one healthy habit.
00:49:00
Cachava is an all-in-one nutrition shake, and now it comes in new travel packs. Every packet gives you a simple shake with protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, greens, probiotics, omegas, electrolytes, and more.
00:49:13
They're easy to toss into a bag, easy to take on the road, and a simple way to stick with your normal wellness habits even when your schedule changes.
00:49:20
Cachava is a clean, simple option for staying fueled when life gets busy. I am so excited about this because Vince is the crazy person who packs all his vitamins
00:49:28
whenever we go somewhere. And I'm like, I don't have room for that. And I also will just ignore them the entire trip.
00:49:34
So this is like how I'm going to get it all in. And then you have a satisfying shake.
00:49:38
So you have a breakfast or an emergency lunch. Like they're making it so convenient.
00:49:42
Oh my God, I'm so excited. Take your daily ritual with you. Go to cachava.com and use code MFM for 15% off your first order.
00:49:50
That's Kachava, K-A-C-H-A-V-A dot com, code MFM. Goodbye. Building better financial habits usually starts with a few small steps.
00:50:00
Start that journey with Acorns and give your money a chance to grow. Acorns is easy to use.
00:50:04
You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing, even if it's your spare change.
00:50:09
The Acorns Potential screen shows you the power of compounding and how your money could grow over time.
00:50:14
You can quickly adjust how much you're investing every day, week, or month to make sure that you're always building towards your goals.
00:50:21
Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment. Join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns.
00:50:32
Head to acorns.com slash MFM or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement, compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.
00:50:40
Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers' accounts, age, and investment settings.
00:50:46
Does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk.
00:50:55
Acorns Advisors, LLC, and SEC Registered Investment Advisor view important disclosures at acorns.com slash mfm.
00:51:02
Goodbye. Allergy season does not slow down when you're on the move. That's why Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues are ready whenever sneezes strike.
00:51:11
Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues are allergist approved and silky soft for up to 100% irritation-free skin.
00:51:17
And now with the new Kleenex Snap and Go, you get that same gentle care made for life on the go.
00:51:21
Get the Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues you love in a new compact, durable package. New Kleenex Snap and Go.
00:51:27
Snap shut for a clean tissue anytime, anywhere. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex Snap and Go.
00:51:32
Goodbye. Do you want to do one? I'll do one. I have a fun special birthday one. It's my birthday.
00:51:40
I can do what I want to. Go shorty. Let's do this. Okay. It's early 2016. Sorry.
00:51:52
Sip. Pinkies out. It's early 2016. Yes. We're in New York City. Yeah. Manhattan.
00:52:02
Oh, the main one? A Vanity Fair photo editor in her mid-20s named Rachel Williams is out at a small basement club on the Lower East Side.
00:52:11
It's called Happy Ending. Oh, okay. Casual, clever. Yeah. She was with a group of young people.
00:52:17
They're all kind of adjacent to the fashion industry, you know, friends, the kind you go out after work with in New York City.
00:52:24
Your Coke friends. Yeah, exactly, that you never speak to after. That's right. You get a good job.
00:52:28
You said it all. Right. When a girl about her age materializes at their table and with her is the waitstaff bringing along bottle service.
00:52:36
So an immediate, wow, who's she? Yes. Who's that girl? Rachel has seen this girl a distance before.
00:52:43
They go to the same parties. They run in the same circles. She's seen her on Instagram.
00:52:47
This girl, woman, speaks with a vague European accent. And Rachel gets the sense that she's some kind of heiress.
00:52:55
But Rachel will soon find out she's not. And more than that, Rachel's taken on a wild ride along with several major financial institutions and New York luxury hotels.
00:53:05
This is the story of scam artist Anna Delvey. Can I just tell you? Always. The reason I'm so excited about this is because I heard about that happening, but I've never read an article.
00:53:18
You didn't watch the biopic? I tried to watch the beginning and whatever was going on, this has been the story of me and entertainment for the past five years.
00:53:27
It has to turn my brain off entirely or I can't get involved. Did the accent bother you?
00:53:33
I felt like I'd already missed the train. So it seemed like a thing that everyone already knew what the story was.
00:53:38
And I was like, huh? And I hate that feeling. So then I just go, I'll revisit this later.
00:53:43
It's good. That day is today. Yeah, I'm going to tell you everything. Okay, good.
00:53:47
Okay, the main sources for this story are an article in New York Magazine and Vanity Fair.
00:53:53
I don't know why I want to do that. Georgia loves these flowers I do The rest of the sources can be found in the show notes So I so glad you don know about this Do you mind if I have a hot flash really quick before you start this Sure I had one first
00:54:05
Now it's your turn. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep it in. It's real. So shortly after that fateful night at Happy Ending, Rachel goes out to dinner with this
00:54:19
chick, Anna, and a group of other people. They go to a steakhouse in the financial district called Harry's.
00:54:25
It's real high end. And so in this biopic called Inventing Anna, Anna is played by Julia Garner from what was
00:54:32
that amazing show she was on that she's so good at? Ozark. Oh, yes. Ozark. She's such a terrific actress.
00:54:39
The accent in it is annoying, but it's real. So she's not bad at it. She's accurately portraying this woman's accent.
00:54:47
Well, and also, I guess I'll say this. It wasn't about the acting for me. It was the idea that I had to go into a world with this person who in real life, if I was around that person, I would immediately confront and insult and then have a problem with a scammer.
00:55:03
Right. And that's what's so hard to like wrap your head around these kinds of stories is you're like, you don't really feel bad for the victim in it because you're like, how did you not know?
00:55:13
So we'll get into that. Which we love to do. That's kind of, I think, most people who follow true crime, you're always like, oh, I'm the wise person.
00:55:20
Right. That could never happen to me. But here's the thing. Maybe you just don't know yet.
00:55:24
The scammers are so good and you're so dumb that you haven't figured out what scammers are in your life.
00:55:28
Absolutely. I'm sure. There's got to be one. There's absolutely. This hasn't been recording the whole time.
00:55:36
Just slowly but surely money is falling out of my purse for some reason. It's all fake money.
00:55:41
This hasn't been recording. The scam is that we've never recorded a podcast. You've somehow tricked me into all of this.
00:55:48
That's right. Okay, well, what are you going to get out of that? Well, over oysters and espresso martinis.
00:55:53
Your favorite. Yeah. Rachel learns that Anna had first come to New York to intern for the French fashion magazine Purple after having worked in their Paris office.
00:56:01
But she quit and now she's focusing on creating the Anna Delvey Foundation, which she describes as a, quote, dynamic visual arts center dedicated to contemporary art.
00:56:11
art, end quote. So she has these big dreams of opening this. It's a young person who dreams of
00:56:16
opening her own museum. Art gallery, museum, slash Soho house, like members only club for
00:56:21
rich as fuck people. Sure. She often alludes to having significant family money, which would
00:56:26
generally track for someone in their early 20s who's an intern at a fashion magazine. That's not
00:56:31
something that you just do for fun. You don't wait tables and then switch over to that.
00:56:35
Right. But while the name the Anna Delvey Foundation suggests that she's trying to
00:56:40
establish some sort of nonprofit. It actually is looking more like she's trying to start a social
00:56:44
club. Over the course of that winter, 2016 to 2017, Anna and Rachel hang out a lot, sometimes in
00:56:51
groups and sometimes one-on-one. They get really close really fast, which is always, we know, a red
00:56:56
flag. But that's what girls do in their 20s and 30s. Like, you bond in 40s and 50s. You, like,
00:57:01
bond quickly. Especially if you have, like, those similar interests, similar, like, I've seen you at
00:57:07
other clubs. That happens all the time. People know you or I'm alone in this big city and it's
00:57:11
kind of scary and isn't this so exciting and cool. Yeah. Yeah. In Vanity Fair, Rachel says about Anna,
00:57:17
quote, Anna was a character. Her default setting was haughty, but she didn't take herself too
00:57:22
seriously. She was quirky and erratic. She acted with the entitlement and impulsivity of a once
00:57:28
spoiled, seldom disciplined child. So her personality fit this thing she was selling,
00:57:34
that she was an heiress and came from money. So kind of like if you're just willing to act like an asshole,
00:57:39
people will believe you are rich or used to be rich. 100%. Yeah. Rachel has seen Anna around for a while,
00:57:45
but what she doesn't know is that other friends Anna has made in the past couple of years have quietly distanced themselves from her.
00:57:51
So there's kind of like rumors going on. A year or two earlier, Anna had struck up a friendship
00:57:56
with a UPenn student, socialite, and art collector named Michael Sufu Wong. And Anna had suggested that they go together to the Venice Biennale.
00:58:07
What the fuck is that? What is that? Biennale? Well, you better learn to say it because it's in Venice.
00:58:13
What is it? Like the biannual, it sounds like, something? That's it. It's a festival?
00:58:18
Yeah. But so she asked that he booked the flights and hotel on his credit card because she had some minor issues with her bank.
00:58:24
And so he did. They go on the trip and Michael notices that Anna pays for everything in cash.
00:58:30
And then when they get home, it seems like Anna forgets to pay him back and kind of ghosts him a little on that.
00:58:35
But Michael's family is actually extremely wealthy. And the amount in question is, quote, only $3,000, which to Michael is not a lot of money.
00:58:43
So he kind of just forgets about it. Must be. Nice. Yeah. He's like, she's flaky.
00:58:48
I don't want to, like, chase her for three grand. That's all I wanted is to find a person like that in my 20s.
00:58:54
I was always just like, where are the high rollers that I'm like, I will be the personality member.
00:58:59
Absolutely. Sixth member at the table. I'll just bring this. I'll spend your money.
00:59:03
I'll gesture it up. Yeah. I'll keep it cracking here for everybody. You can be weird and walk away in the middle of a conversation.
00:59:08
I don't care. Because you're rich and you do that. Pay for me. So that's kind of what happens to Rachel.
00:59:14
Anna is vague about her background, but she explains to Rachel that she's originally from
00:59:17
Germany and she doesn't have a permanent residence in New York because she isn't able to stay
00:59:22
long periods of time. So she stays at hotels, nice hotels. Because there's so many biennales she has to go to.
00:59:27
Exactly. Okay. In February 2017, Anna checks into a boutique luxury hotel in Soho called Eleven Howard, where you'd love to stay.
00:59:36
I go there sometimes, seasonally. And what's super fancy about this hotel, Eleven Howard, is that it celebrated an eye-wateringly expensive French restaurant on the ground floor called Le Cuckoo.
00:59:49
Have you ever been to Le Cuckoo? No. Did I get that right? I don't know. Let's see what we would order.
00:59:53
Wouldn't you go? Absolutely. Can we look at their menu really quick I don know why I didn do this before It just basic research I think everyone knows this but Georgia is a foodie She obsessed with going to restaurants
01:00:05
She's obsessed with looking at the menu. I am. Okay, let's see. They'll probably have French onion soup, so let's guess how much it is.
01:00:11
$29. Okay. That's not eye-wateringly expensive, but it is soup. It is for soup. Soup.
01:00:17
Okay, hold on. Lots of tiny food. Menus, lunch, dinner. $32. I can't read any of this.
01:00:24
It's all in French. Hold on. I took French one and two, so hand me the phone. I refuse.
01:00:31
They're so fancy they don't even have French onion soup. What? What do they have?
01:00:35
Let's see. Let me just see if I can find them. Diamond soup. So the tartare is $98.
01:00:40
Whoa. That's an appetizer? Yeah. The asparagus, grilled asparagus, is $28. Does it have salt and pepper on it?
01:00:49
It has crab. Oh, it does? Yeah. Oh. And then let's just go here. Well, this is actually a bargain.
01:00:55
They must have. I don't know what any of this is. Well, apologies. Can I just see it from one second?
01:01:01
So French. Full on French. Invite us, Le Cuckoo. Please, we're believers. We'll record from your restaurant.
01:01:11
We'll edit out all those prices. They go there a lot. And guests of Howard, like Anna, can charge their meals to the room.
01:01:19
So it's kind of a win-win for her. My dream life. So Anna quickly becomes known around the hotel for being a very generous tipper.
01:01:26
Anytime anyone does anything for her, they're going to get a hundred bucks. Wow.
01:01:30
Yeah. That's two tartars. No, it's not. It's one tartar. It's just one. Whenever a package arrives for Anna, and it seems like she does a lot of online shopping,
01:01:39
the staff fight over who gets to take it up to her room because they're going to get a
01:01:42
fucking hundred bucks. She's a really good tipper and really generous with the regular workers, not management.
01:01:48
Perfect Ponzi scheme. They love her. Yeah. Anna quickly develops another intense friendship with the hotel's concierge, a 25-year-old filmmaker named Neffatari Davis, who everyone calls Neff.
01:02:00
And she's played by Alexis Floyd in the biopic. So Anna starts doing the same thing, taking Neff out to fancy dinners, sometimes one-on-one, sometimes in groups, always paying, being like, I'm going to pay for everything.
01:02:13
And Anna sometimes seems to rally groups of investors and actual celebrities for dinner.
01:02:17
Like, she does enough little things to seem legit to everyone. And they often go to Le Cuckoo for dinner.
01:02:23
Oh, that's their spot? Yeah. And on one occasion, Neff is seated directly next to Macaulay Culkin.
01:02:29
So she's like, this woman has to be legit. This is a whole world I don't know. It's exciting.
01:02:35
You have to think of it from terms of like, if you were in your 20s again, you could barely pay rent.
01:02:39
This woman comes along and starts taking you to fancy dinners, you know, paying for things.
01:02:44
And it's just exciting. Yes. And it's like a more adult version of being a scene stirrer.
01:02:49
Because when you're younger, you do go to clubs and bars or whatever. But then, yeah, as you get older, if you have the money, there's other worlds available.
01:02:56
Right. Like beautiful food. So and then why would these women question her? Be like, this isn't real.
01:03:03
But like. He's paying for that beef tartare. Exactly. Sitting next to Macaulay. Macaulay's in on the scam.
01:03:09
No, he's not. Just kidding. He was just sitting at the restaurant one time. Yeah.
01:03:13
In the Vanity Fair article, it says, quote, the world was charmed when she was around.
01:03:17
The normal rules didn't seem to apply. Her lifestyle was full of convenience, and it's easy materialism was seductive.
01:03:26
Man. I mean, and I do credit the kind of personalities that can actually keep that whole scam train moving forward.
01:03:33
Yeah. Like, the energy and the kind of—the real charisma it takes to do that is valid.
01:03:38
It's—you're dazzling. Yeah. Really. One day, Anna asked Neff to come along with her for a session with a celebrity personal trainer and life coach—
01:03:46
One in one. Named Casey Duke, who's played by Laverne Cox. She's so great. At the end of the session, Anna buys a package of, you know, coach training sessions and pays $4,500 in cash.
01:03:59
So some money is there and they're seeing it. So it's believable. Yes, except for that no one pays anything in cash.
01:04:06
For thousands and thousands of dollars. So did it take a while for her to count out 20s or does she carry around $1,000 bills?
01:04:14
Or just like pays in beef tartare. from her family. You want five pounds? That's her.
01:04:20
Got my Birkin full of beef tartare. Full of raw meat to trade and barter at will.
01:04:26
That's right. So Neff sees Anna all the time on calls and taking meetings with finance types.
01:04:31
She's fucking busy. And, you know, she's a business lady. Anna has told Neff that she's fundraising
01:04:36
to open that art-focused social club. And she implies that she may be buying the property
01:04:40
from the 11 Howard owner, a New York real estate mogul named Abby Rosen. and that's why she's staying there.
01:04:47
And like, that's why it's kind of being comped and she knows the owner. I know the owner is like what you say.
01:04:53
Sure. But there are red flags. One night, Neff and Anna go out to dinner and Anna's credit card is declined.
01:05:00
In fact, all of Anna's credit cards are declined. Have you ever had a credit card declined?
01:05:05
This just happened to me. What? We went to... Smokehouse. We were going to go to a party.
01:05:10
So Allison and I went to JAR first. Oh. It's that beautiful steakhouse on Beverly.
01:05:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just lost my wallet that day. So I went into my junk drawer and there's like a divider in there.
01:05:21
And one of the sections is all credit cards. Yeah. Old and new. But this fucking credit card thing, I just went in and grabbed four credit cards because I was like, one of these has to not be canceled or one of these has to not be whatever.
01:05:34
Right. And so when it came time to pay the bill, I gave the first one and the guy came back.
01:05:38
He's I'm really sorry. I go, no, no, no, that's OK. Here, this one will work. And then he comes back and goes, I'm really sorry.
01:05:43
This was. And then I go, okay, I swear to God, this one. And I give him the third one.
01:05:47
And then he walks the machine out and he goes, maybe there's something wrong with the machine.
01:05:51
And then I had to tell him this story. I was like, I'm so sorry. It sounds like bullshit It sounds and also as he walking back out Allison looks at me and goes we going to prison Yeah It was so funny So imagine that was happening right
01:06:05
And it's legit. And then you said, Alison, can you just put it on your card and I'll get you back by the morning?
01:06:10
You'll have it in your account. Yes. And she knows you. Like, you guys are good friends.
01:06:15
And so she'll do it. Yes. And the restaurant where she's talking about, and Delphi's bringing people to, that's probably two grand, right?
01:06:22
Right. Like a crazy bill. Well, wait about it. I'll tell you. Neff has to foot the bill, which comes to around $350.
01:06:31
But Neff is a concierge at a boutique hotel in New York City where everything is a million dollars.
01:06:38
She does not. And I remember this. Like, that was half my rent. I did not. I went on a date once and he said, let's split the bill.
01:06:45
He invited me. He ordered everything. He picked the restaurant. He definitely wanted to fuck me.
01:06:50
And he said, let's split the bill. And I was overdrawn because of that. because of the like $60 that I paid half of.
01:06:58
And when this happens to you next time, this is what you do. You go, yeah, totally.
01:07:01
Oh my God. Hold on one second. Hey, hi, hi. Hi yourself right the fuck out of that restaurant.
01:07:06
I always split the bill. And I am not married to this man to this day. That'd be amazing.
01:07:12
The reveal is, that's how I met Vince. No, but especially in New York City, money goes so fast.
01:07:19
And you have to be so tactical about eating out. That was probably cocktails. the $350.
01:07:24
That wasn't even dinner. So much money. So we know where her head's at. It is a huge deal for her.
01:07:28
It makes her panic. But the next day, Anna pays her back in triple in cash. Yeah.
01:07:34
So everything's cool. Right. But then Neff's managers tell her there's a situation.
01:07:40
That reminds me I have to pay Elle. Shut the fuck up. Are you serious? I got to jump on that Venmo the second this recorded.
01:07:47
And then Neff's managers come forward. They say when Anna had first checked in, at this point more than a month earlier.
01:07:53
Can you imagine staying in a hotel in a month? That's bananas. Love it. She had never provided a working credit card.
01:07:59
Instead, she had gotten the hotel to agree to a wire transfer in the amount of $30,000.
01:08:04
And they had extended this courtesy to her because she was supposedly a potential client of the hotel's owner.
01:08:10
So a $30,000 wire transfer does really arrive from Citibank. But then Anna leaves New York to go to Omaha
01:08:17
to go to Warren Buffett's annual investor summit. Okay. So there's just a bunch of just the douchebags that are circling with their fucking, what do they have?
01:08:28
Vapes and their canapes. And their fleece vests. Their beef tartare. It's like straight out of succession, I'm sure.
01:08:35
There's a whole basement in the parking structure where they're just passing illegal beef tartare back and forth.
01:08:42
Snorting beef tartare. I truly I keep seeing it on TikTok where people are like we went to this restaurant in Washington with me and beef tartare is always at the beginning of it like suddenly everyone's cool with eating raw meat.
01:08:58
Yeah, that's crazy. Observation. It's your birthday. I can say anything I want. That's my gift on your birthday.
01:09:05
Thank you. So she goes to she goes to Omaha, the most beautiful place on the planet.
01:09:11
I don't know what it's like. No, we've been. Yes. Oh, it's actually really fun. Yeah.
01:09:15
And while she's there, she fails repeatedly to provide a working credit card to the 11 Howard Hotel for the balance of her bill and reoccurring charges.
01:09:22
And they put her stuff in storage and tell her that they're kicking her out. Wow.
01:09:26
Because she had never put a credit card down. Okay. And never paid. When Anna returns—
01:09:30
Wait, can I ask a question? Yeah, yeah. The wire transfer for $30,000— Didn't cover her total expenses because, again, she's charging all those le cuckoo to her room.
01:09:38
Oh, right, right, right. Probably charging so much shit to her room, $30,000 for a month is not going to cover it.
01:09:43
They're kicking her out. They put her stuff in storage. When Anna returns to New York, she makes all kinds of furious threats at the staff of the
01:09:50
Lovenhaber, like, how dare you? Do you know who I am? Do you know who my father is?
01:09:54
She collects her things and drops them at the Mercer Hotel, another high-end hotel.
01:09:59
My favorite. Really? I swear to God. We used to stay there for work back in the day.
01:10:04
And it is the greatest. It's so lovely. It's in Soho, right? And they dice their eggs instead of scrambling.
01:10:13
They're minced, like tiny, tiny, chopped up tiny. Like Coke. Karen, I think that was Coke.
01:10:19
Oh my God, I love Coke. You were doing Coke for breakfast. I just, it was the kind of place where it was the first job I ever had where I got to stay at a place like that.
01:10:26
So I was everywhere I looked, I was like, everything. Memorize this. It's not coming back.
01:10:30
This is how people live. Yes. It's very charming. That's why I fell in love with staying in hotels and eating breakfast in hotels.
01:10:37
Yeah, I hear you. So she's moving to the Mercer next. She drops her stuff off and then embarks on a planned eight-day trip to Morocco in early May 2017.
01:10:47
Okay. So on this trip to Morocco are Anna herself, Rachel, the friend, Casey, who's the trainer slash life coach, and also a friend of Rachel's who's a filmmaker who will be recording the entire trip.
01:11:00
So this is Anna's idea because she's thinking about making a documentary about founding her social club and she wants to practice having a camera around all the time.
01:11:08
So she's just like, I want to take all these people to Morocco. I'm footing the whole bill.
01:11:13
Well, knowing the end, this is especially bold. Yeah. Where it's a mental state of I'm so in this that I'm believing myself.
01:11:22
I think that's what I think at some point that's what happens is she believes it herself.
01:11:26
She thinks she's not hurting anyone in her mind. She clearly is. but I think she's just
01:11:31
Delulu a bit. Yeah, well, she seems like she's hopped up on, like, clout, it sounds like.
01:11:37
Yeah. Or ambition. Yeah. Maybe she thought she would eventually get to that anyways,
01:11:43
so she's just, like, living on a borrowed dime. Anna had selected the legendary five-star resort
01:11:51
La Mamunia, where villas run about seven grand a night. And she got, like, the fanciest place.
01:11:59
Rachel had, been very upfront that she could not afford this trip, and Anna had made it clear that she would
01:12:03
be paying. But there's already been an issue with Anna's credit card. So Rachel had to put the
01:12:08
flights before they even left on her own credit card. And Rachel makes 60 grand a year.
01:12:14
Rachel, girl, no. Yeah. Anna says she's going to reimburse her. Rachel has no reason not to believe her. Just
01:12:20
like Neff, for months she's been eating at Le Cuckoo and working out with the celebrity trainer
01:12:24
all on Anna's dime. She thinks she's good for it. Yeah. And you don't want to be the buzzkill, you know, like.
01:12:30
Yeah. And you don't want to cut off a potential friend connection. Everybody wants to be in the world of people at La Cuckoo.
01:12:38
Right. Long story short, two days into their trip to Morocco, two big security guards are waiting in the hotel lobby with the concierge for Anna.
01:12:45
The concierge explains that a hotel staff member has already been fired because he didn't get a credit card upon booking for the hotel room.
01:12:54
She scammed him. Scammed him. She dazzled him. He agreed. The guys follow the group back to the villa while Anna makes phone calls, sends text messages like, I need to get a hold of my father.
01:13:03
I need to get a hold of my father's, you know, trustees of the bank, of the company.
01:13:07
Like, I'll get it. This is going to be fine. But ultimately, they leave empty handed.
01:13:11
The next morning, Casey, who's the trainer who had gotten sick in Morocco, was just like, fuck this shit.
01:13:17
And she goes home. The security guys come back and they refuse to leave the room.
01:13:22
Anna finally turns to Rachel and says that she needs to put down a credit card just for the security hold the hotel wants to put on before Anna moves things over with her bank.
01:13:33
So I'm dealing with this, but just to get them off our back and get them out of our room, put down that, you know, hold that you always get when you go to a hotel room.
01:13:40
And again, Rachel is being told this is just for the hold and that the 60 grand bill will not be charged to her room.
01:13:48
The bill is 60 grand right now. That's so crazy. This is what I made it two years in my 20.
01:13:54
Yeah. 60 grand. This is more than Rachel's annual salary as a photo editor at Vanity Fair.
01:13:59
The two big guys also start urging her to put her card down. So finally she does it, knowing that she only has about $400 in her checking account.
01:14:06
God. Also, this is a time in my life where they'd touch my credit card and be like,
01:14:11
declined. Right. The idea that people even have the option to do this. Yeah. I'm so glad all my friends were broke as fuck.
01:14:17
No one was expecting anything from anyone else. Taco Bell, everybody? Yeah. That's right.
01:14:22
They have steak tartar there, too. Not on purpose. We love you, Taco Bell. Rachel leaves Morocco a day before Anna and the filmmaker friend.
01:14:31
And once she lands, she gets a text from Anna saying she will wire her 70 grand in the next day or so.
01:14:38
So that whole wasn't true. The whole thing went through for 60 grand on her fucking credit card, which she doesn't have.
01:14:44
And Anna's like, I'll give you 70 grand. Like, don't worry about this. Back in New York, Rachel texts Anna daily and can't get the money.
01:14:52
She spends the next month in a pure panic texting Anna and getting deflections. Anna moves from hotel to hotel.
01:14:58
Eventually, towards the end of the summer, she tells Rachel that she has a cashier's check for her, but neither the check or Anna materializes.
01:15:05
And she's fucking freaking out. Rachel spends the summer digging around and dodging Anna's request to crash at her apartment.
01:15:12
Anna's like now like... Yeah. At the same time, Anna is sometimes crashing with Casey, the trainer, and then she and Rachel try to have an intervention with Anna in early August.
01:15:22
The day before, the New York Post had run a story about the so-called heiress who has been running up hotel bills all over downtown.
01:15:30
And even with this evidence, Anna keeps deflecting, saying the money is there and she's making the same excuses.
01:15:35
Here's a photo of Anna from the New York Post article. Mm-hmm. The next day, Rachel goes to the police precinct and the civil court and then finally calls the New York attorney general's office saying she believes Anna is a con artist and they call her right back because they've already been investigating her.
01:15:53
Oh, shit. When it all starts to unravel, this is the story that emerges. Basically, she goes to City National Bank and a private investment company and asks for a $22 million loan for her social club.
01:16:06
She asks this other investment company for $35 million, and she tells both financial institutions that she can secure the loans with substantial family assets that are held in Swiss banks.
01:16:16
Citi National turns her down, and Fortress says they will do it if she can give them a $100,000 deposit while they do their due diligence.
01:16:24
And she does this because she somehow convinced Citi National Bank, who denied that $25 million loan, to lend her that money.
01:16:31
Halfway through the process with this company, Anna says she's withdrawing and she doesn't want to work with them anymore and withdraws the remaining amount of money, about $55,000.
01:16:40
And so she puts that money into a Citibank account. That's where she wired the money to the Eleven Howard.
01:16:46
So she actually had that $30,000 and uses the rest. She, like, takes it all out in cash and uses it to fund her lifestyle.
01:16:52
It doesn't go very far. And she had also opened various other accounts with bad checks.
01:16:57
So she'd like deposit this big check and take out as much as she could before it cleared or not cleared.
01:17:02
Yeah. Before it bounced. Yeah. And that's what the money she was paying everything with.
01:17:07
Anna, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, is arrested in October of 2017 outside of Passages, Malibu.
01:17:15
Oh, no. Which, as everyone knows, is a rehab facility in Malibu for rich people, right?
01:17:22
And their kids. Was she trying to go there? I think she was trying to go there. It seems like that's where she had been receiving treatment.
01:17:27
which is such a great escape to be like what I saying is is it the perfect cover is it it is we can say we can say it all alleged we can say what her deal was but that what happened Okay And she extradited to New York
01:17:41
Can you imagine you're in passages trying to get sober? You're in group therapy talking about how
01:17:47
mean your dad was. Tearing your fingernails off as you chew them down. Wait a second,
01:17:52
what's going on? I bet she also thought she'd meet some new marks there. Yes, of course. Right?
01:17:56
It's people at their most vulnerable telling secrets. It's so-and-so's daughter who's on drugs and they're famous and rich.
01:18:03
And can I come stay with you after? We can be sober together. Yeah. Brilliant. Let's do that.
01:18:08
Let's make a movie about that. Let's do it. Let's go see who we can meet at rehab.
01:18:13
Okay. At this point, information finally begins to trickle out about who Anna really is.
01:18:17
She'd been actually born in Russia in 1991 and her family had moved to Germany. So the accent isn't fake.
01:18:23
Okay. Maybe she puts it on a little bit. Who knows? Her father has a heating and cooling business, and it seems like her family does have some money, but certainly nowhere near the level that people believed.
01:18:33
Anna starts college in London in 2011, drops out, moves to Berlin, works at a PR firm, then moves to Paris for the Purple Magazine internship, and then asks to work out of their New York office.
01:18:44
And that's how she ends up in New York. In New York, Anna had stayed at some other hotels, crashed with new friends, and it seems like she was being somewhat supported by her parents, even though they're not wealthy, but they do enough to support their daughter while she builds a career.
01:18:59
The problem is that living modestly had not been in Anna's plans. I think she just had this like these grandiose ideas.
01:19:06
Also, I feel like somewhere along the way, she spent time with a scammer herself because you wouldn't know to do this.
01:19:14
manipulate people that way. Yeah, and take out loans and I'm going to take this money
01:19:18
and put it over here and then bring it back over here. And then shamelessly taking money
01:19:21
from people who don't have it is not the thing, you know? Like, it's gross. But also the idea of like
01:19:28
papering the staff, the low level face-to-face people so that you've got these kind of like people
01:19:35
allies unknowingly defending you and saying, no, I know her. I mean, that's very wily.
01:19:40
Diabolical even. Who did she learn this from? Yeah, that's a really good point. After a trip back home in Europe in 2016 is when she comes back and checks into the Eleven Howard and sets up this elaborate scheme, this new one in motion. So Rachel, her friend from Vanity Fair, writes her first person account of the story for Vanity Fair.
01:19:58
Yeah. Good job, girl. For her. Get yours. And then Jessica Pressler, remember her? She is a journalist. She's reported many big stories, including the one that became the basis for the movie Hustlers.
01:20:09
Oh, yeah. You know her. Yeah. She writes a big story for New York Magazine. That story is adapted into a Shonda Rhimes series.
01:20:17
That's what the Inventing Anna series is. In it, Jessica herself is played by Anna Klumsky.
01:20:23
Oh, yeah. Which is so fun. In 2019, Anna is sentenced to four to 12 years in prison.
01:20:28
And here's a photo of her at her trial. Legendary. I love that picture. Yeah. That's me showing up for work where it's like,
01:20:37
Karen, we were supposed to be recording 15 minutes ago. And I'm like, can I just please put on some contour?
01:20:44
Do you know what? I bet she was fun in prison. Fuck yes. I bet she made so many fucking friends in prison.
01:20:50
We'll all judge away. Judge away. Here's the thing. That's a creative, inventive mind that's got an engine behind it.
01:20:56
Yeah. There was always a girl like this. It's for evil. That these are the girls that are like, let's go down to the 7-Eleven.
01:21:03
We've all grown up with these people. I'm going to pretend to have a seizure. Yeah.
01:21:06
And you put some shit in your pocket. You go steal the Snickers. It'll be great.
01:21:10
Now you're in an alley giggling your ass off and being like, this is what life can be like.
01:21:14
Or even worse, hey, I stole some pills from my sick aunt. Let's do them. Let's fucking snort them.
01:21:20
Which is so fun. That's what your 20s are for. It's like there's an exploratory, like, here's the thing.
01:21:25
There's a lot when you're a young woman growing up, especially in America, there's a lot that you're told to be afraid of.
01:21:32
Right. This is a person who's clearly fearless. Yeah. And then also able to put on the character of, no, fuck you, I'm rich, when she's actually not truly that.
01:21:42
That's incredible. Yeah. And I bet she can cry in command. Easily. Easy. Okay. So she's actually paroled.
01:21:50
She goes into 2019, and she's actually been paroled since 2021. Rachel never gets all of her money back from Anna.
01:21:56
Anna does PayPal her five grand, which Rachel finds so odd because she says, quote, this gesture tugged at me.
01:22:05
Knowing what I know, which is that she really didn't have the money, why would she give me anything at all?
01:22:10
Surely she would have paid me the full amount if she could have. Right. So I think Rachel's like me where she's like, I don't know.
01:22:17
She's giving her the benefit of the doubt still. She's trying to go. I didn't get fucked over. I didn't get scammed.
01:22:22
She's actually a good person. This whole thing is misunderstanding. But why did she give her that money?
01:22:27
Because that's the thing that keeps the fucking channel open. Good gesture, which means good faith.
01:22:33
No, it fucking doesn't. That's money. And it's like, what do you like? Do you like money?
01:22:38
Here, I'll push this towards you. What do you like? Do you need to be loved? Oh, okay.
01:22:41
Well, I won't stop staring at you. Like the plays are the plays. It's just different material.
01:22:47
Gaslighting is gaslighting. American Express does forgive the rest of Rachel's debt.
01:22:53
Whew. Thank God. I know. In 2020— Once they saw the Netflix show. They're like, Shonda Rhimes.
01:22:59
Okay, that's fine. And they probably tweeted about it. Okay, in 2024, Anna appears on Dancing with the Stars.
01:23:04
Did you know that? No Hold up What Wearing a bedazzled ankle monitor She got let out of prison but she still has an ankle monitor Can we see that picture again please I can show you the Dancing with the Star picture with her ankle monitor on
01:23:17
Let's see it. What? Which so reminds me. This is magic from the last season of Euphoria wearing a neck brace that's bedazzled.
01:23:27
It's just the most fucking iconic thing I've ever seen. I bet it's a reference, don't you think?
01:23:31
Oh, maybe. Oh, I don't know. Look how cute she is. Okay, is she? Yeah, she's. No, she's bad.
01:23:36
Yes, no, she is. People get upset about the fact that there's a contestant with an ankle monitor.
01:23:43
You shouldn't do that. She gets voted off the second week. So boo to those people.
01:23:48
She recently demonstrated to her one million plus Instagram followers how she puts tights on under said ankle monitor.
01:23:56
Still? Like, get ready with me. Yeah, she still wears it. And she does this like, so her Instagram now is like glamorous.
01:24:04
and she's fucking gorgeous. She really is really beautiful now. She could be played by...
01:24:10
By Claire Danes. Claire Danes, Ariana Maddox. Who else? Who's that? She's my girl.
01:24:16
She's from Vanderpump Rules. So look, she's fucking beautiful. She's an actress.
01:24:22
You're casting a reality star to play. No, she's an actress. We love her. So she just kind of like...
01:24:29
Her whole Instagram, I was just scrolling, It's this, like, tongue-in-cheek, glamorous NYC lifestyle.
01:24:36
It is cheeky. It is a little, like, winky of, like, fuck yeah, I'm that girl. Like, the songs she plays are, like, scammy.
01:24:43
Like, she knows what people want from her. Yes. And she's delivering it. She did fuck people over for sure.
01:24:49
So let's not forget there are victims, obviously. Also, let's not forget the feeling of, like, being in debt where, yeah, that feeling of just, like, pushing debt upon other people who have said no 15 times.
01:25:00
Yeah. And now you're just fucked until you can prove in the courts that you didn't do it.
01:25:06
Right. Crazy. According to her, she's writing a memoir and making a documentary, chronicling her life.
01:25:11
It was up to her. She wants Jennifer Lawrence to play her. Maybe. Yeah. And that is the story of Anna Delvey, the fake Soho heiress, who was punished more severely
01:25:20
than any of the men who were in the Epstein files, including the pedophiles. Yep.
01:25:27
Because God forbid a young woman be smart and tricky. She didn't smile enough to send her to prison.
01:25:32
She had a weird accent. We don't like her. Great job. Thank you. What a great comprehensive way to learn about her.
01:25:38
Yeah. It's a question you can never answer in scam stories, which is like, how did they get away with that for so long?
01:25:44
Right. And the answer is like, you had to be there, I think. Yeah, I think so. I definitely think I would have been swept up back then.
01:25:51
Hell yes. You know? Coucou. Coucou. Coucou. Bonjour. Coucou. All right. Well, that was my birthday episode.
01:25:59
How do you feel? I feel like a birthday. I feel good. I feel like we did it. Yeah, we did.
01:26:06
Join the fan cult if you want to see me take you through my modeling, my childhood modeling
01:26:10
photos. Georgia's Barbizon days are going to be up for your eyeballs to grab in the fan cult.
01:26:16
In the fan cult video. Myfavoritemurder.com. Thank you guys so much for listening.
01:26:21
Do you have a scam story? We want to hear it. We love it. My Favorite Murder, Gmail.
01:26:25
Did you ever get scammed? I'm sure there's listeners who got scammed. Here's how it happened.
01:26:29
Everyone's been scammed in some way. Or they're the scammer. Big or little. Yes.
01:26:33
If you're the scammer and you have the guts, if you're Anna Delvey-level brave with your own scams...
01:26:38
Tell us. Go ahead. Come and admit it. Yeah. Well, we're about to do a batch of honking hoorays, and it's presented by Hyundai.
01:26:55
Let's get into it. Let's do it. This one starts off strong, and it's in all caps.
01:27:00
It's from Kelly B., who wrote in on the fan cult and said, I finished an entire Aquaphor lip balm without losing it.
01:27:05
I've never ever finished a lip balm in my life. Never finished a lip balm or even the lipstick I love the most.
01:27:12
Yeah. I get down that far and it disappears. Right. So Kelly B., congratulations and hooray.
01:27:18
You're the first person in history who has ever finished a lip balm. This one is from Check It Before You Wreck It on Instagram.
01:27:25
Sure. While searching for something that was just for me after raising my kids up to be self-sufficient, I ended up joining a roller derby league.
01:27:33
Can you imagine? Well, the kids are out of the house. At the age of 39. Hell yes.
01:27:38
I have found my people and a little bit of myself in the process. My derby name is Shreddy Vedder.
01:27:46
Have you ever been on a roller derby team? No, I've fallen on roller skates before and I'm not, I'm still broken.
01:27:53
I think the reason I thought you had been on a roller derby team was because of that picture you took during COVID with your helmet and your knee pads on.
01:28:00
Yes. Cut to picture. That was one and done. I got so scared I never did it again.
01:28:06
This one is from Jennifer M. from the Fan Cult. And it says, I got laid off 227 days ago.
01:28:14
After over 122 applications, 108 of which never responded. This is what everyone is going through these days.
01:28:21
15 interviews, first, second, and third interviews, and more tears than I'd like to specifically count.
01:28:27
I finally got a wonderful job. I can't wait to start using my brain again. Oh my god.
01:28:32
Congratulations, Jennifer, um, hooray for you. Hooray, that feeling of like needing a job
01:28:37
and then finally getting one. Morrissey wrote about it. He was right He said literally exactly those words There a reason it a Morrissey song It legendary Okay here one from Evangeletti I planned my besties medieval bachelorette party
01:28:53
And it went perfectly. Wow. So no one drank too much meat and threw up a turkey leg?
01:28:58
No, they did, and that's why it went perfectly. Oh, because that was the theme. I think more weird-themed bachelorette parties need to start trending.
01:29:05
Let's pitch some now. Okay, let's dolphin-themed. All clowns. Clown-themed. Axe clowns.
01:29:11
Divorce theme? Axe clowns? Axe clowns and the paperwork you go through to fill out to make a divorce happen.
01:29:18
And then the final theme. Hot dog. I think we've seen those ones before. This one's from Mira.
01:29:26
And then in parentheses it says, like mirror, but with a Boston accent. We're already getting directed in this email.
01:29:32
Mira. The subject line of this one is, my mom's promotion made history. Oh my God.
01:29:36
It says, hi all, love the podcast, been listening for years, love all that you do to support communities.
01:29:41
Let's get into it. My hooray is that after working in the FDNY, the New York Fire Department,
01:29:46
four years and studying her ass off, my mom, Michelle Fitzsimmons, was promoted to deputy chief.
01:29:53
Not only is this a huge personal victory for her because she literally had to study for months for the test
01:29:57
and put in all the hours to be eligible, but she is the first woman to be promoted
01:30:01
to deputy chief in the FDNY. With all the interviews she did for TV and newspapers,
01:30:06
she just kept talking about how excited she was to show little girls that they can do and be anything they want.
01:30:12
Oh, yeah. She loves her job and being a first responder, she is the reason I always correct people.
01:30:16
When they say fireman, it's firefighter. Stay sexy and break the glass ceiling, Mira.
01:30:22
Like, what a hero mom to grow up with. Also, that mom has to deal with living in the firehouse
01:30:27
for three or four days of the week. But she's brave just because of the smell. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman.
01:30:33
All right, well, thank you to Hyundai for sponsoring these Honking Hoorays. We love doing them. We love hearing them. Please write them in.
01:30:40
Yes. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
01:30:46
This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
01:30:58
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.
01:31:05
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.
01:31:10
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:31:15
And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix. And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons.
01:31:21
That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye. Cheap Caribbean Summer Savings Event is here.
01:31:30
Right now, get $100 instant savings on vacation packages to Cancun, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic.
01:31:36
Whether you're chasing poolside drinks, white sand beaches, or endless all-inclusive fun, Cheap Caribbean helps you get more beach for less money.
01:31:44
Book your summer vacay today at CheapCaribbean.com. Goodbye. Clothes shopping, not as easy or fun as it sounds.
01:31:52
You just want to feel confident in your clothes. You can spend hours scrolling, zooming in, reading reviews, only to end up with a cart full of nothing that feels or fits right and a bunch of returns to do.
01:32:02
Stitch Fix makes it so much easier. A personal stylist sends pieces that match your size, style, and everything's in your budget.
01:32:09
No guesswork, no stress, and your guaranteed compliments. Here's how Stitch Fix works.
01:32:13
Take a quick style quiz, share your size, style, and budget, and get matched with a real human stylist who gets your vibe.
01:32:20
It's no risk, all style. Get a personalized fix box straight to your door. And try it all on in the comfort of your home.
01:32:26
Shipping and returns are always free and there's no subscription required. Plus, get a free try-on for your first fix.
01:32:32
Get started today at stitchfix.com slash murder to get $20 off your first order.
01:32:37
That's stitchfix.com slash murder. Goodbye. Georgia, you know that moment in the afternoon when your brain stops working and then you start looking for a little treat?
01:32:46
Yeah, I guess it's less of a moment for me and more of an all-day thing, honestly.
01:32:49
Okay, well, if you're looking for a little treat that also fuels you, there's cachava.
01:32:54
Cachava is an all-in-one nutrition shake made with high-quality ingredients. Cachava is a full plant-based meal that supports your whole body and actually tastes good.
01:33:03
Cachava provides clean nutrition to fuel wherever your day takes you. No fillers, no nonsense.
01:33:07
Just two scoops provide 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens, and so much more.
01:33:14
It's available in seven great flavors, including their brand new coffee flavor made with premium decaffeinated Brazilian beans.
01:33:20
I got to tell you that I am a cachava user and believer. Because it just gets it done for me in the morning.
01:33:27
Yeah. I get a baseline of nutrition and sustenance. You just have this drink that kind of coats your stomach.
01:33:33
Yeah. Before I start drinking a bunch of coffee. It's like this will take care of it.
01:33:37
Yeah. One and done. Treat yourself to the flavor and nutrition your body craves.
01:33:41
Go to Kachava.com and use code MFM for 15% off. That's Kachava, K-A-C-H-A-D-A dot com, code MFM.
01:33:49
Goodbye. If audiobooks are your thing, or if you've been meaning to listen to more of them,
01:33:53
you should check out a podcast called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, hosted by Cal Penn.
01:34:00
Each episode spotlights standout audiobooks on Audible across all kinds of genres,
01:34:04
sci-fi, comedy, romance, thrillers, and more, with Cal talking to guests who help break down what makes each story worth listening to.
01:34:11
It's a fun, easy way to discover your next great audiobook. Check out Earsay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:34:19
Goodbye!