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Default terms at mintmobile.com. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's George Hurtstar.
00:02:28
That's Karen Kilgariff. This is Thanksgiving. This comes out on Thanksgiving 2024.
00:02:34
2024. That's right. That's the year that we're dealing with. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving.
00:02:41
Hey, what are you grateful for this year? I'm grateful for all the decorations that Asia put up in the studio.
00:02:48
If you're watching this on video, you can see that it's super autumnal. It's gorgeous.
00:02:53
It's themed out. It totally is. There's baby gourds. But that also kind of feel like I was looking at this.
00:03:00
I'm like, what if you could turn them like this and there's like secret? It's one of those.
00:03:03
You could put your pot in it type of container. I wanted it to be like a kitchen timer.
00:03:07
Aw. Wouldn't that be cute? Remember those old Tupperware commercials where it would be like something like this,
00:03:12
but then there'd just be a little lock on the front or advertisements? No. And when I was little enough that I used to think that's what Tupperware was.
00:03:20
It's like a lock to lock your leftovers out? It was like a tomato with a lock on the front of it where I'm like, I want a tomato with a lock on it.
00:03:27
How about these turkey glasses? Oh, yeah. You've got a corticopia one. Hey, hey.
00:03:33
I mean, never have you looked better. Why does New Year's get all the fun when Thanksgiving's ready for it?
00:03:42
Guys. I can't. I'm going to go ahead and put these right there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is it what was meant to be on my head?
00:03:48
Yeah. It's like, oh, finally Karen's found her. Her look. Calling. Her look. Did you see there was like a girl who turned her long, beautiful hair, she must be a hair
00:03:56
influencer, turned it into like a cornucopia. Really? It was really cool. with all these braids and then all these like accessories and stuff.
00:04:04
Was there stuff coming out of it? Yeah, she like put a pumpkin in and put this in.
00:04:08
Yes. That's cool. You know, that reminds me of just that much hair. Did you ever see that video where Bob the Drag Queen is doing a live show
00:04:15
and he's got this gigantic wig on? So there's the thing where they like take off the wig
00:04:20
and it reveals like another wig and it's kind of like a thing. No, I love it. That's sometimes in the drag community they do.
00:04:28
I can't remember what the song was, But basically, like, builds, builds, builds, and it goes to do the wig reveal, and there's literally, like, a five-year-old little girl sitting on his head.
00:04:39
It is so funny. And the crowd go—it is just, like, the most epic reveal of all time.
00:04:46
It's like a crowd that's primed and ready for something awesome and epic, and then it fucking outdoes itself.
00:04:51
Then it's just the cutest little girl that's like, mm-hmm. What the fuck? So hilarious.
00:04:56
I'm sure it was an AI. I mean, I can't even picture it. I feel it might have been pre-AI.
00:05:02
I'm not sure. Should we say what we're thankful for? Yes. This year, because there's a theme of what Karen and I are thankful for.
00:05:10
And guess what? It's you, listener. Oh, I thought it was us. Oh. It's us. We're thankful for ourselves.
00:05:16
The theme is us once again. No, like, okay. So the theme is that we're thankful for the Murderino community.
00:05:24
Every day. God, you guys are fucking awesome. And we have a couple cool things going on that we wanted to tell you about regarding you, yourself, the Murderino community.
00:05:33
What the Murderinos have done in the world. That's right. So a listener named Mandy sent us an article that I hadn't seen at all.
00:05:41
Just came out, I think. Just came out in People Magazine by Angela Andaloro. It's called Micro Preemie Mom Didn't Know If She'd Be Writing an Obituary or Birth Announcement When Baby Arrived at 25 Weeks.
00:05:54
Oh, God. And this actually kind of hits me because my dear friend Carrie Sellenbetter just had a preemie at 34 weeks And I met that baby and it was still in a NICU and it was so tiny
00:06:08
And the thought of a 25-week baby, I just cannot even imagine. Must have been so scary.
00:06:14
And so scary and unexpected. And yeah, like Carrie's baby was three pounds, nine ounces.
00:06:20
I mean, little tiny baby. She's doing great. Oh, good. So is Carrie. Great. So basically the mother, Caitlin, gave birth to her daughter prematurely unexpectedly at 25 weeks due to complications.
00:06:31
The baby named Nora was named Nora. Baby Nora. Baby Nora was in the NICU for 118 days.
00:06:37
And in the article, Caitlin said she sought help, didn't know who to talk to about this.
00:06:43
So she said she got support by posting to a subgroup for fans of the true crime podcast, My Favorite Murder, on Facebook.
00:06:51
and she says, quote, I started posting there every week and it kind of became a thing where
00:06:56
I found help that way. Yeah. How fucking beautiful is that? I mean, truly. Yeah.
00:07:04
Because when you have this like many listeners, everyone has the experience that you've had
00:07:08
somewhere in this weird little thing that we've created. And I think it's the thing too of women being given the opportunity to support and help each
00:07:18
other around a thing that, of course, it's like, why? First of all, why do you like that?
00:07:24
Why are you interested in that? True crime. Blah, blah, blah. Then it's like, but it's really not about that.
00:07:29
Right. And here's actually what it is about, where it's like, there's a sisterhood that's actually
00:07:35
real in this way. Yeah, that's a good point. When they're always like, why do women like true crime like you guys do so much?
00:07:40
And it's like, that's not what it's about. It's about so much bigger than that. And this is like a lovely example of that.
00:07:46
It's beautiful. So Nora is now 18 months old, happy and healthy and in a beautiful family.
00:07:53
And we're so, so happy for you, Caitlin. Thank you to Mandy for sending that to us.
00:07:57
Should I read her email? Whose? Mandy's. Okay. Let me read Mandy's email. I thought you meant like her email address.
00:08:04
I was like, sure. Yeah. Is it Mandy at Gmail? Just Mandy Moore at Gmail. Mandy says, hello.
00:08:12
Hopefully this reaches you. I wanted to share an article written about a fan, her micro preemie daughter, and the community that we have all because of your podcast.
00:08:20
The community was built over our love of MFM and spread into worldwide friendships.
00:08:25
I'm in the Facebook subgroup and witnessed Caitlin and Nora's journey from birth until now.
00:08:29
Baby Nora has so many honorary aunties and uncles because of the community. So I just wanted to share this and say thank you.
00:08:37
Thank you for giving us something that we love and the community that has been built around it because of you.
00:08:42
I mean, that's such a beautiful. Thank you. Beautiful thing. Yeah, that's nice. It's so lovely.
00:08:51
And yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's the piece of it that like you and I have just been watching and hearing about.
00:08:57
But we're like, it kind of doesn't have anything to do with us in a lot of ways.
00:09:00
It's like it's a true honor to have done something that is it's essentially, hey, this is what we're interested in.
00:09:08
And this thing grew up around it of people being this kind of beautiful to each other.
00:09:14
Inspired by a true story. Yeah. Hey, let's make it about ourselves and make a donation in the name of Murderinos to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
00:09:23
$10,000 were given them. Its mission is to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment.
00:09:31
You can go to stjude.org, S-T-J-U-D-E.org to donate yourself if you'd like to. And yeah, yay.
00:09:38
Beautiful. Thankful for y'all. Yeah. Thanks, you guys, for... I mean, that's just kind of staggering.
00:09:44
It's like, it's really lovely. Well, I also have a really beautiful thing to share about a murderina.
00:09:52
Okay. And TikTok. I know. You've been building this up, and I'm really fucking excited to see it.
00:09:56
Well, I just... Here's the thing. I've already said this already, which is I'm on TikTok, but I'm also middle-aged, so a lot of time I don't know what's going on.
00:10:03
And I don't really want to be in there. I just want to look at stuff and not like normal social media interaction.
00:10:10
But of course, there's people that are interacting with me and I talk about it all the time.
00:10:13
So people are like, hey, did you see this? Hey, you would like this. And they also are saying it to you too, but kind of through me.
00:10:20
So I don't really, I don't even know that that inbox is there. Every once in a while, I'm like, what's this over here?
00:10:26
And then it'll be like 20 things. I'm like, oh God. So a while ago, I did that. and if you don't know i've been doing a thing i started reviewing sinkholes because it's a
00:10:38
true passion of mine yeah and it's we called it sinkhole saturdays and it's just like a little
00:10:42
fun dumb thing so then i opened the tiktok uh inbox one day and there is this tiktok i think
00:10:50
if you look oh my god okay here we go karen long-time listener first time caller i live
00:10:58
next door to a very old house. Our house is very old too. Oh my God. Some flippers came in and there's now a big
00:11:06
sinkhole. This property sold for $630,000. Now listen, I don't have any kind of reference to how deep this is, but I have a banana
00:11:18
for scale. Banana for scale. Banana for scale. That's huge. And I'm on the very edge of the precipice to bring you this breaking news.
00:11:27
Karen, please rate my sinkhole. That looked like a well, like an old well. Right?
00:11:35
It was like you got this house and then suddenly it's like, oh, but now there's a crevasse on the side.
00:11:39
For almost a million dollars. And honestly, it did look bigger once the banana was in it.
00:11:44
Right? Banana for scale, banana for scale. Banana for scale, much needed. So I just want to say I don know that person name but their TikTok handle is jessiebufoot Okay assuming it a person named Bufit And the bio says they an amateur human And I just have a couple questions to Jesse Bufut which is like how did you discover something that close to your neighbor house
00:12:11
Right. Like, you were clearly snooping in between the other person moving out and somebody else moving in.
00:12:15
Yeah, a little sneaky. In my opinion. Suspish. Like, were you literally trespassing?
00:12:19
Please give the full crime details of what you were doing. And then also, how did you get the idea of using a banana for scale?
00:12:27
Is that a reference to our show Bananas? Yeah. And I also love that she had a string around it.
00:12:33
She wasn't going to leave it behind. She's not a litterer. No. She wouldn't litter the banana.
00:12:37
You can leave it there. In 2024, who can throw a banana down into a hole and never have it return?
00:12:42
Those aren't cheap. You've got to pull it back out. It's really thoughtful, actually.
00:12:46
It's so lovely all the way around. the energy with which that was delivered where it's like, please write this.
00:12:52
I'm going to tell Karen about my sinkhole. I love it. Love it so much. Yeah. So I guess if you have a sinkhole in your life, of course,
00:12:59
please send it in because I want to know about it. Do not create a sinkhole just to like have something to create. You know what I mean?
00:13:05
Yeah. Don't be like that lady that was digging the hole in her basement for no reason and then
00:13:09
like truly. Right. You just kept digging. No illegal sinkholes. No, you have to observe them in nature.
00:13:15
But Jessie Booth, I can't thank you enough. It's truly one of my favorite things that I have seen on TikTok.
00:13:21
But because I just don't really interact with it, it seemed like I think I faved it or like said yay.
00:13:26
But it meant much more. And I talked about it much more. And I want that person to know how much it meant.
00:13:32
Because I want people to send us TikToks like that. Totally. Send us TikToks like that.
00:13:38
Okay. Well, speaking of the Bananas podcast and other podcasts that are on our podcast network.
00:13:43
And other fruits and vegetables that we enjoy. Let's get to the Exactly Right Media highlights.
00:13:49
This week on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, Roz is joined by comedian and impressionist James
00:13:53
Adomian to talk about spooky things in other people's voices. And then on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, Cara and Lisa chat about the ballad of Dwight
00:14:05
and Irina from SVU's 22nd season. And comedian Ricky Lindholm joins them to talk about her role in the episode.
00:14:13
Very cool. Yeah. Also over at the MFM store, we now have signed copies of our book, Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered.
00:14:19
If you want to give that book to the super fan in your life for the holidays or yourself, if you're that person, you can head over to www.exactlyrightstore.com to get your copy today.
00:14:33
And for all you Demon Heads, Son of Satan, the latest episode of MFM animated by Nick Terry is now available on YouTube.com slash Exactly Right Media.
00:14:44
Please follow that as well if you feel like it. Also, a little bit of a sad announcement.
00:14:50
After 180 thrilling double features, we are saying goodbye to our beloved movie podcast, I Saw What You Did, is closing its cinema doors.
00:15:00
We want to thank Danielle Henderson and Millie DeCerico for four years of hilarity and hard work.
00:15:07
You guys did such an amazing job on that podcast, and we're really going to miss you.
00:15:12
Definitely. And if you're a listener, please stay tuned because Millie will have exciting news for you in 2025.
00:15:17
And until then, please enjoy their last episode where they cover Alien from 1979 and Faster Pussycat Kill Kill from 1965.
00:15:27
What a great duo to end on. Yeah, that's a really powerful sign-off right there.
00:15:33
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Data accurate as of 2-20-26. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much.
00:16:10
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00:16:22
Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
00:16:38
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait.
00:16:45
That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle.
00:16:53
You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake.
00:16:59
Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor.
00:17:08
It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything.
00:17:13
Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it.
00:17:18
And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it.
00:17:22
People who really care about flavor use it. Never tried it? Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store.
00:17:28
Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kupi, the original Japanese mayonnaise.
00:17:34
Thanksgiving Day is such a weird day. It's like everyone's working really hard. At least in our household, everyone's like in the kitchen, like working really hard.
00:17:45
And there's a kind of almost like it's a holiday, but it's the least holiday-ish of all the holidays
00:17:51
because it a holiday about people just busting ass in the kitchen all day long and trying to time everything out and make it good I rather just go to a Mexican restaurant honestly I mean that my only option
00:18:06
If my dad and my sister didn't cook, I'd just be like, well. Vince, he like has to have the whole thing.
00:18:12
And so he, and he has to have it a certain way. And like, I wouldn't do it that way.
00:18:15
So he's just like, I'll do it myself. And he does it himself. And is it like, is it the like classic Michigan way?
00:18:22
Classic Midwest, the whole casserole thing. all of it. It's great. I'm happy. It's all like a lot of it's canned
00:18:28
stuff and instant that. It's not that complicated. Also, does he do ocean spray cranberry sauce
00:18:36
with the can shape? I love that. You've got to. That's my favorite. You just get your slices as big as the
00:18:42
ripple of the can. Yes, it's perfect. I love Thanksgiving. Today it is. Well, then
00:18:48
let's celebrate with terrible stories. Okay, great. Okay, cool. Because it's what we like.
00:18:54
Okay. So today I'm going to tell you the story behind a federal law that you might not be familiar with.
00:19:00
So it's not really a household name, but it fundamentally changed how colleges and universities across the U.S. handle safety and transparency on campus.
00:19:10
This is the story of the murder of Jean Cleary, whose death exposed gaps in the existing system and sparked a push for real change.
00:19:19
The sources of this story today are several articles that ran in the Morning Call newspaper in the 1980s, a 1989 Los Angeles Times article by journalist Beverly Bayette, a 1990 People magazine article by journalists Ken Gross and Andrea Fine, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:19:39
So Jean Clary is born in 1966 and grows up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, which is just outside of Philadelphia.
00:19:48
She's raised in a loving home with her parents, Howard and Connie, and her two older brothers, Benjamin and Howard III.
00:19:54
Her mom, Connie, would later say that, quote, Jean loved her family with a passion, especially her brothers.
00:20:00
She wanted to be just like her brothers. So she grows up. She's a great kid. She has a reputation for being kind and loyal and brave.
00:20:07
and she's not afraid to stick up for classmates who are getting bullied or being overlooked.
00:20:13
And for a while, Jean proudly rocks a gap in her smile after she lost her front tooth while skating.
00:20:20
She's not afraid to be different and she's not afraid to be herself. She's scrappy.
00:20:24
Yeah. Her dad Howard would later tell People Magazine, quote, she was one of the first little girls on the local Little League team.
00:20:32
That's hard. Yeah. Back then? Like the early 80s. Yeah. You're playing Little League and people are like, what are you doing?
00:20:39
No girls allowed. Go to fucking Helmack and shut up. Yeah. And at that time when you were doing stuff like that, like, I want to play baseball and I'm going to fight for my right to play baseball.
00:20:49
Guess who didn't help you do that? Other little girls. Like, that's the time where people are like, oh, no.
00:20:56
Stay away. Oh, no. But I bet she was really good at baseball because she had two older brothers.
00:21:00
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So later at college, she would reflect on her relationship with her gender and her family in an essay that she called Growing Up in an Androgynous Environment.
00:21:13
And in it, she talks about how her parents treated her the same as her brothers and that she was educated at an all-girls school where she was able to, quote,
00:21:21
hold positions that a male most likely would have held in a public school, such a school president, president of the Athletic Association, and head of the newspaper.
00:21:30
That's so interesting. I would have never thought of that. But yeah, it's all stuff that girls typically didn't do back then.
00:21:37
Right. And then you get this sense of like, of course we can do this. Of course we should be doing this.
00:21:43
Right. And then you graduate from that school and you go out into the world and you're like, oh no, they hate us.
00:21:49
Yeah. But I just love the idea. It's like an early 80s fighter. Yeah. So with that, Jean is also, she seems aware as a young woman that she's vulnerable in ways that aren't always in her control.
00:22:05
So, for example, her first choice to go to college was at Tulane University in New Orleans where her brothers went.
00:22:12
She'd actually already applied and been accepted and planned on going there and joining the school's tennis team.
00:22:18
But in the fall of 1984, the Cleary family learned that an 18-year-old Tulane student named Karen Minkin was raped and murdered in her off-campus apartment by a man who also lived in the building.
00:22:32
Oh, my God. So, of course, this tragedy rattles the Cleary family at Jean's mom.
00:22:37
Connie later says, quote, We were so shocked, Howard and me, we told Jean we couldn't allow her to go to Tulane.
00:22:44
We were too frightened. It was just so far away. So the family decides to take what they believe is the safer path, which is that Jean enrolls at Lehigh University, which is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
00:22:56
It's about 50 miles from her parents' house, about like an hour and a half drive.
00:23:01
It's an excellent school with a picturesque university look, complete with Gothic-style buildings, winding walkways, a beautiful canopy of trees.
00:23:10
It's like, and Connie says, quote, Jean just loved the campus. And I love the fact that it was an hour and 20 minutes away.
00:23:18
Yeah. So several months later, in late March of 1986, Howard and Connie go to pick Jean up from school and take her back to Bryn Mawr for the Easter holiday weekend.
00:23:29
And Connie remembers, quote, she couldn't wait to get back. She loved Lehigh. It was the happiest year of her life.
00:23:36
So she gets back to school. a couple days later on the night of Friday, April 4th, Jean goes to a frat party and she stays there
00:23:44
until around 3 a.m. when she heads back to her residence hall. So Jean's roommate lost her keys.
00:23:51
This is such a like, we've all done this a million times. Jean's roommate loses her keys
00:23:56
and she's still out. So Jean leaves their keys. dorm room door open unlocked for her so she can get in when she comes back just the wrong night
00:24:06
for some fucking reason of all nights just like anything that goes on yeah yeah so so Jean leaves
00:24:14
the door open and goes to sleep so this residence hall you know it's the mid-80s so it's a residence
00:24:21
hall that has the exterior door that you need a key for then there's an two interior doors
00:24:26
at least two, including the actual dorm room door. But on this night, which is a Friday night,
00:24:34
all those doors are jammed open with pizza boxes so that the people in the dorms can have their friends come and go.
00:24:41
Very common, just how it is. So sometime between 4 and 6.30 in the morning, an intruder enters Gene's dorm, heads to the laundry room,
00:24:52
steals a couple odds and ends, and then goes upstairs. eventually stopping on the third floor and that's where Jean's dorm room is.
00:25:00
And then the intruder just starts trying the doors looking for one that's unlocked.
00:25:05
And he finds one when he gets to Jean's door. He enters while she sleeps and he grabs a radio, a camera, some jewelry, some cash.
00:25:15
But then Jean wakes up and finds a man in her dark room. He brutally attacks her and rapes her.
00:25:23
He mutilates her neck with a broken beer bottle, bites her, he beats her, and then he strangles her to death and then leaves with the valuables he's stolen.
00:25:33
So when another student notices that her door has been left open all night, they enter and discover Jean's brutalized body.
00:25:41
Hours later, Jean's parents get a knock at their door, and when they open it, they find a policeman standing there.
00:25:48
Connie says, quote, most Americans saw the space shuttle Challenger splinter into a billion pieces.
00:25:53
That's what happened to our hearts. Oh, God. Yeah. So it doesn't take long for investigators to identify Gene's killer.
00:26:02
It's another Lehigh student, a 20-year-old sophomore named Joseph Henry. So Joseph had been co-hosting a party that same night at his off-campus apartment with his roommates.
00:26:14
And he got very drunk. and his crush left with another guy and he got really mad.
00:26:22
He kicked down a door in his own apartment. And then later on, when his roommates had gone to sleep,
00:26:29
he walked basically onto campus to Jean's residence hall. Joseph and Jean had never met.
00:26:35
It wasn't like he was going to look for her. So when he gets back home after this attack,
00:26:42
only a couple hours pass and he admits what he did to his roommates. Wow. And they go to police.
00:26:49
He's arrested immediately. So it's important to note Joseph is black. Jean is white.
00:26:55
So you can imagine how this case got treated in 1980s media. It's a total circus.
00:27:01
And it actually has a real effect on the Lehigh campus. The students of color who go to Lehigh are left to process this horrific crime
00:27:09
as well as that instant sensationalism around the interracial element of the crime.
00:27:16
And there's only about 60 black students in a student body of 6,000. One Lehigh alum will later remember, quote,
00:27:25
it was the most horrible crime you can imagine and has also kind of reinforced racial stereotypes.
00:27:30
It was very hostile for the students who were there through that period. We didn't necessarily see it directly targeting us, but it sort of lived on through the stories and the dynamic.
00:27:41
So you're already definitely experiencing standard racism being 60 out of 6,000.
00:27:48
And suddenly now, you know, it's just like people, if they're going to blame you, whether they do it overtly or it's just like the energy.
00:27:59
Yeah. And it's part of the conversation. Yeah. No matter what. Totally. So Joseph has tried. It's basically an open and shut case for the prosecution. Police find missing items from Jean's dorm room inside of Joseph's bedroom. He admitted, of course, to his roommates. The evidence is all there.
00:28:16
His defense tries an insanity plea that hinged on the idea, the theory that Joseph had a rare reaction to alcohol and experienced a personality change while intoxicated, but the jury doesn't buy it and ultimately convicts him.
00:28:32
He's currently now serving a life sentence. He has expressed regret for his actions.
00:28:38
So meanwhile, the Cleary family is, of course, just inundated in this tragedy. And then they learn something that shocks them.
00:28:46
In the three years preceding Jean's murder, there had been 38 reports of violent offenses on Lehigh's campus, including rapes and robberies.
00:28:57
Jesus. And considering the fact that many crimes, especially rape, don't get reported at all, it's a pretty high number for a school with only 6,000 students.
00:29:07
To compare, Penn State has a student body of around 60,000 at that time, and there were 24 offenses reported.
00:29:16
Wow. Okay. That's a really high rate. Yeah. So the Cleries based their decision on what college Gene would go to primarily based on the idea of campus safety.
00:29:28
So having access to that information about Lehigh, of course, would have impacted that decision.
00:29:33
At the time, only 4% of colleges and universities in the U.S. track this type of data.
00:29:41
Connie says, quote, I knew I was going to have to do something to try to prevent other parents, other students from this eternal nightmare that never goes away.
00:29:48
It never goes away. But the Cleries take their grief and channel it into activism our favorite kind of story So they sue Lehigh University for million in damages and that lawsuit settles out of court for an undisclosed amount But then they take that
00:30:08
settlement money and their own money, and the entire family starts a watchdog group called
00:30:14
Security on Campus, including the dad, Howard, who quit his job at a middle order business to join
00:30:21
the family and work on this. That's amazing. Yeah. And they basically, as a family and as this business, start collecting data on campus
00:30:29
crimes. Wow. Right? That's so innovative. Yeah. Instead of just throwing money at it, they're like creating this system that's so necessary.
00:30:41
That's going to help a solution. And it's the 80s. So collecting data. Data is just fucking...
00:30:49
It must have been like, what do you do? You write the government for it or you like call people on the phone?
00:30:54
I have no idea. I can hear the dot matrix printer going right in my head. Right. I don't think we're even too fax machines at this point.
00:31:02
No, no. At the same time, the Clery's launched an aggressive campaign to reform and enhance campus security.
00:31:09
They realized that colleges might not choose to publicize this type of data to protect their reputations.
00:31:14
So the Cleary's first move, which is so smart, is to lobby elected officials to pass legislation mandating it.
00:31:22
The Cleary's, alongside several survivors who joined them in their mission, begin to, quote, pound the halls of Congress.
00:31:29
And Connie adds, quote, you couldn't have paid me a million dollars to get up and speak before, but Jean's death has freed me.
00:31:36
I'm not afraid of anything or anybody anymore. And those efforts pay off. In 1988, Pennsylvania's then-governor Bob Casey signs a bill into law that requires all state colleges and universities to regularly publish three years' worth of campus crime reports.
00:31:55
Shortly after, more than a dozen other states follow suit. Then in 1990, George H.W. Bush signs the Jean Clery Act into law at the national level.
00:32:05
And this is described as a federal consumer protection law, and it requires any university that receives federal funding to track and publicize crime statistics on various offenses, including robbery, sexual assault, hate crimes, stalking, homicides, and more.
00:32:22
That's amazing. And I love the consumer part of it because it's so true. You are paying to go to this institution.
00:32:28
You are, you know, you are a consumer of this institution, especially if they're fucking federally funded.
00:32:35
You wouldn't send your child to a movie theater where you got the information that people punched people randomly in the face.
00:32:41
Right, all the time. So you're like, yep, I won't go ahead and spend my money there.
00:32:45
I'll take it somewhere else where they care about safety. And if you don't care about safety and, you know, don't want to put any effort into it, your numbers will be bad and reflect that.
00:32:54
So they'll put more money into it so they don't have to put those numbers out. Yeah.
00:32:59
That's so smart. It's so smart. You've got to force people to fucking behave a lot.
00:33:03
Yeah. And I think that idea of like as a family making those kinds of really calculated, very smart, strategic decisions that it's like, let's not stand over here and and try to get people to like believe or care.
00:33:18
It just goes straight to get a law passed. Let's not ask them politely. Let's just make it that if they don't do it, their bottom line will be affected because that's really what they give a shit about.
00:33:27
Yeah. Wow. We're all over colleges and universities. Fuck those schools. It's why we didn't go to college.
00:33:35
It's why they kicked us out. Ring, ring. Sac State, yes? What? Listen, City College, loved it.
00:33:43
I did. It was a good time. It was a great time. This law also requires schools to publish a report explaining their plans for handling emergencies,
00:33:51
from national disasters to mass shootings, as well as measures taken to secure on-campus buildings.
00:33:57
Wow. So it's just like, what you got, put it together and turn it in. You're going to offer this place and you need to also offer, you know, some kind of level of safety.
00:34:06
Yeah. The Clery Act goes beyond physical violence. Students can file Clery complaints for anything that threatens their safety on campus and that includes threats to their personal health.
00:34:16
And universities that don't comply with the Clery Act are fined by the Department of Education.
00:34:22
And there have been several high-profile examples of those violations. One infamous one is the $2.4 million fine levied against Penn State for not publicly reporting incidents involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky ahead of his 2012 conviction for serial sexual abuse, as well as the $4.5 million fine on Michigan State University for its failure to protect students from Dr. Larry Nassar.
00:34:53
Right, right. Who sexually abused hundreds of female gymnasts before being convicted in 2017.
00:34:59
It's just, yeah. So the stats that universities are required to collect under the Clery Act are imperfect, of course.
00:35:07
For example, it's well established that sexual assault remains seriously underreported.
00:35:12
The website of the American Association of University Women notes that, quote, despite numerous studies showing that rape is common on campuses,
00:35:22
89% of colleges and universities reported zero incidence of rape. 77% of campuses reported zero incidence of sexual assault,
00:35:32
including rape and fondling, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. Zero percent. Can you imagine that world?
00:35:40
As fucking if. I would go move there immediately. As if. If you get zero percent you need to be fucking worried because that means you in a culture that is scaring women and scaring survivors into not reporting That all that it means Yes that right It doesn mean it safe Right That almost scarier Yes I have a big cup of coffee before we start
00:36:07
A shocking statistic that speaks to the inadequacy of reporting structures rather than the frequency of events.
00:36:14
I should have let you finish. No, no, no. I think your wording was much clearer and more understandable.
00:36:20
But, I mean, it is that kind of thing. I feel like that if that isn't a thing that's threatening to you, then that isn't a thing that's it's very easy to brush that off.
00:36:29
If you're some college dean and you're just like, it's fine. And see, it's zero.
00:36:34
Yeah, it's zero. So now the Clery Act has been amended multiple times. It's far more extensive than it was in the mid 80s.
00:36:42
Like many significant laws, including Title IX, which deals with sex based discrimination on campus and overlaps with the Clery Act.
00:36:49
It has faced some criticism for becoming overly complex and bogged down by bureaucracy.
00:36:56
Yeah. So have they all. Yeah. I'd rather have that than the alternative. Yeah, than nothing.
00:37:01
Can we just have something that's complicated rather than nothing that's nothing?
00:37:05
Something that's this horrible is going to have complicated solutions. I'm really on my high horse on this one.
00:37:14
It's almost like saying it's like, so it's complicated, so just don't do it. Yeah, it's too complicated.
00:37:19
No. It's too complicated. Sorry. Then stop fucking sexually assaulting and raping, fuckers.
00:37:25
While it's not perfect, the Clery's Crusade is an undeniable huge step towards greater transparency from academic institutions.
00:37:34
Meanwhile, their original organization, Security on Campus, is now the Clery Center.
00:37:40
And it continues to advocate for safer campuses by raising awareness around things like hazing and binge drinking.
00:37:46
In 2015, on the 25th anniversary of the Jean Cleary acts passing, Jean's mother Connie says, quote, it took an army and it took my life.
00:37:56
It was worth every single bit. Oh, my God. I can't imagine. I know. So November 23rd, which is this week, would have been Jean Cleary's 58th birthday.
00:38:09
And here's her as a teenager. Oh, what a bright, beautiful smile. She truly looks like every girl I knew in the 80s.
00:38:17
Totally. Outside of her old residence hall at Lehigh, there's a plaque honoring her, and it says, quote,
00:38:26
Lest we forget the meaning of her death, we must protect one another so that her life will not have been in vain.
00:38:32
And that is the story of Jean Cleary and the federal law named in her honor. Oh, my God.
00:38:38
I did not know about that at all. Me either. That's incredible. I had no idea. Wow, that was amazing.
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I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
00:39:55
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try on new food and suddenly it's like, wait.
00:40:02
That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle.
00:40:10
You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake.
00:40:16
Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor.
00:40:25
It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything.
00:40:30
Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it.
00:40:34
And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it.
00:40:39
People who really care about flavor use it. Never tried it? Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store.
00:40:45
Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise.
00:40:51
All right, well, let's take a fucking, what, 180, 360, fucking. Let's go from, you know, eating the salad and having our vegetables straight into dessert.
00:41:04
It's dessert time. It's dessert time. Okay. I'm going to tell you a very desert-y story.
00:41:10
It's about a tween and teen cousins getting into mischief together. And in doing so, accidentally creating one of the UK's most endearing debates on fantastical, unexplained creatures in the vein of like what you love, fucking Loch Ness or Bigfoot.
00:41:29
But this one, this is the story of the Cottingley Fairies. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So excited.
00:41:40
I love this story and I love how far it went. Yeah, it went really far. And we're going to have to talk about why, because it's so confounding.
00:41:50
OK. Because I'll show you the photos, too. I'm sure you've seen them. The main sources for this story are two articles from BBC News and the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes All right Well let start in one of your favorite times and places the late 1800s
00:42:05
early 1900s. Picture it. The Industrial Revolution is starting to take over the world. All these
00:42:12
rural communities are coming into big cities and this is how people are now living and making money
00:42:17
And just this is how society is sadly headed. Yeah. Right. And so this means that our once reliance and connection with nature and traditional lifestyles that relied upon nature is starting to fracture.
00:42:32
And it's during this time then, of course, that people start to romanticize that connection that we supposedly had, thinking of it as an innocent time and using it kind of as magical escapism.
00:42:44
So it's in this vein that the fairy aesthetic becomes a huge trend in the UK, even being nicknamed fairy fever.
00:42:54
And this is for everyone. I don't know. It's these little, it's like Tinkerbell, essentially.
00:42:58
Yeah. That's the fairy idea we're talking about. And actually got huge in Victorian children's literature.
00:43:05
So children grew up with fairy art and stories, of course, particularly in the wildly popular Peter Pan, which debuted in 1907.
00:43:15
And then it was a massive sensation. And then it was performed as a play consistently for about 25 years.
00:43:22
So people were obsessed with this. Every child went and saw the play. I mean, clapping if you believe in fairies, that kind of thing.
00:43:30
Bring Tinkerbell back. I know. Yeah, remember? She was kind of cunty and I loved it.
00:43:35
Yeah. Tinkerbell's like, it's my way or the highway. But also in Irish culture, like my grandpa grew up believing in fairies and telling us about like, no, they're real.
00:43:44
Really? Like they're on our property. Oh, yeah, completely. Because it's part of that living with nature.
00:43:49
Totally. Where you're like, you know, a circle of mushrooms is a fairy ring. Yeah.
00:43:54
That kind of stuff where it's like, oh, it's the way people explain what nature's doing and, you know.
00:43:59
Makes sense of it. Yeah. Yeah. Or they're real. Or they're real and they planted those mushrooms perfectly with a compass.
00:44:06
More than 350 books about fairies are published in the UK between 1920 and 1925.
00:44:12
Wow. That's a fucking lot. And adults are into fairy stuff. But for them, the fascination, it kind of overlaps with spiritualism, which I know you love.
00:44:22
This is the same time period when seances are becoming very popular and people attribute this to the grief that adults, of course, felt in the aftermath of World War II.
00:44:31
one. They wanted that connection with the afterlife so that all of their sons who died
00:44:36
didn't die in vain and they can still connect with them. And, you know, that's understandable.
00:44:40
Yeah. And also just a little, the idea of like, this isn't just how life is. There's more,
00:44:45
there's magic out there. Totally. And so people see proof of the existence of fairies as
00:44:51
a corroboration for other fantastical ideas that they would like to approach with the seriousness of science.
00:44:59
A lot of people who are really into the afterlife are pissed off that fairies are lumped in
00:45:04
to what they're into, you know, saying like, they don't believe in that and you're making this seem less legit,
00:45:09
but other people like see them all as kind of this like fairy tale that is true.
00:45:14
I like to just put them all on one shirt and then that's what decides. What do you mean?
00:45:19
You just like, if you want a sweatshirt, you can have some spiritual stuff over,
00:45:23
spiritualism stuff over here and some fairies. Okay. And then you're like, I've been reincarnated.
00:45:28
I thought you were going to say like when it's like spiritualism and reincarnation and fairies and when it's just all the names.
00:45:33
Yeah, like the John Ringo Paul and Judy. It's just the fourth Beatle. I can't remember.
00:45:39
Judy, Judy. Judy, Judy. Okay. So here we are in this headspace. And now we're going to travel to the north of England in the summer of 1917.
00:45:50
Wars just ended. and we're near Leeds in the village of Cottingly, which is part of the city of Bradford.
00:45:58
Got it? Sure. We're in the home of the Wright family, which backs up to a little wooded valley.
00:46:04
At the bottom of that valley is a small body of water. I mean, it's a fucking novel.
00:46:08
You just get it. You're like, I'm going to just go walk out into the woods. Yeah.
00:46:11
And it writes itself. There's like a stream and it's called the Cottingly Beck. And a Beck is a regional term for a brook.
00:46:18
Okay. So the Wright family is made up of a married couple named Polly and Arthur and their 16-year-old daughter, Elsie.
00:46:26
Elsie loves to draw. She's a skilled artist. Her father is an amateur photographer with his own darkroom, and Elsie has learned a lot about photography from him, which is, oh my God, so cute.
00:46:37
Also living with the family is Elsie's aunt and her nine-year-old cousin, Francis, who recently moved back to England from South Africa, where, of course, colonization was rampant.
00:46:49
So even though Elsie is a lot older than her cousin, you know, 16 and 9, you wouldn't think they'd be best of friends.
00:46:57
But the two girls get along and they love playing together. And in particular, they like to hang out by that beck where they typically get into trouble for getting their clothes and shoes wet and for tracking mud into the house.
00:47:08
Sounds like a fucking great childhood. The dream. We got to hang out near a creek growing up.
00:47:13
That sounds amazing. Just like there was a creek in our backyard. Wow. You just went down there and it just like hung out.
00:47:19
We hung out by the, like, L.A. River and drank under bridges and, like... And raced with the pink ladies.
00:47:26
Yeah. Honestly. Smoked cigarettes and... Yeah. Takes all kinds. Yeah, it does. So when the moms yell at them for getting wet, Elsie and Francis...
00:47:37
Takes all kinds. It's my new favorite thing. I say it a lot lately. It's really true.
00:47:43
Okay, sorry. So when their moms yell at the girls for getting wet, Elsie and Francis like to reply that they were, quote,
00:47:49
off to see the fairies. Like that's their excuse, we're off to see the fairies. It sounds like this is mostly Francis,
00:47:55
the nine year old's excuse, and it's looked at by the family as like the equivalent
00:48:00
of a dog ate my homework kind of a jokey thing. But Elsie always backs her up, agreeing that there are fairies in the Beck.
00:48:06
Of course, no one takes them seriously. It's just a cute little thing the girls say
00:48:10
when they get in trouble. Until one day in July of 1917, the girls tromp into the Wright's kitchen
00:48:16
after fucking around in the Beck and the mothers are fed up. This time, Elsie says that they really had seen fairies
00:48:23
and that she was going to prove it. She borrows one of her father's cameras and she and Francis head back down.
00:48:30
And they come back to the house less than an hour later saying that they have irrefutable proof that the fairies are real.
00:48:39
Arthur helps Elsie develop the photo. And sure enough, clear as day, there's a photograph of Francis surrounded by several dainty dancing fairies.
00:48:48
This beautiful Victorian photograph, which I'll show you in a minute. But let me keep let's keep going for a second.
00:48:55
Arthur is suspicious. The dad is like super suspicious. He also knows his daughter does have the artistic chops to fake this, first of all.
00:49:04
In fact, Elsie has a job at a photo studio in Bradford retouching photographic plates.
00:49:09
But the image does look incredibly lifelike. And he knows that Elsie didn't tamper with the photo plate, which is basically the negative, because he helped her develop it.
00:49:20
He would have seen it when he was developing it. So he's like, I can't explain this.
00:49:25
Right. The only other option is that Elsie drew an extremely lifelike fairy, cut it out, and posed it in the picture.
00:49:32
And listen, let me tell you, that's what she did. Spoiler alert. That's exactly what she did.
00:49:37
I hate to spoil it, but, like, you got to know the whole time. Yeah. If you know the story, you kind of know the ending of the story.
00:49:43
So that's exactly what they did. She copied pictures from a book of children's stories, added wings, cut out the drawings, and stuck them into hat pins to stand them up.
00:49:51
That's why they look real and three-dimensional, and the girls are adamant that the photo isn't faked.
00:49:57
And they're committed to their story, at least when it's just their immediate family.
00:50:02
Yeah. They're just playing along. Right. They are so committed in the fact that they take another picture a few months later in September.
00:50:10
This one shows Elsie sitting next to a little winged creature, which the girls claim is a gnome.
00:50:14
So let me show you the two photos that we have, and you tell me what you think. photography is pretty early at this time so you and i look at this and we're like that's so stupid
00:50:25
you can tell it's fake but you know i mean yeah right these days yeah it would be retouched to
00:50:33
high hell whatever but and if you really want to believe it then you'll believe it right let's
00:50:40
see the other one so that's lc i know i mean it's ethereal looking and very pretty hold on let me
00:50:47
oh yes yes there it is you see it it's so pretty oh my god also i just kind of love it's like
00:50:55
you've got a weird older cousin oh yeah super arty she's the coolest and then you're like a
00:51:00
little nine-year-old that probably has a big imagination yourself yeah and so you're kind of
00:51:05
like it's the and else he's like playing along even though adults are so fucking boring and shit
00:51:10
right or she's like maybe she's the one that's like what if fairies weren't real like who knows
00:51:16
Or like, hey, Frances, let's play a trick on our family. Yeah. These are like an arty thing.
00:51:21
These girls are bros. Love it. However, I don't think they expected this to go as far as it went.
00:51:27
Because in 1919, Elsie's mother, even though she doesn't seem to believe in it, brings the prints of the girls' photos to a lecture on fairies being held at Bradford's Theosophical Society,
00:51:41
which is a group devoted to a New Age religious movement that's popular at the time.
00:51:46
So it's all the kind of spiritualism stuff. And the photos are so impressive that the society's president brings them to a meeting in London
00:51:54
and gives a series of lectures about them in 1920. As if they're real? Like he believes it, it seems like.
00:52:02
It's kind of like, finally, the thing we've been talking about and theorizing about,
00:52:07
There's actually like photographs themselves are relatively new. So then it's like they're like proof.
00:52:13
We have proof. Finally. Proof. It's all anyone wants. All these fucking just little girls fucking around.
00:52:20
In London, the photos catch the attention of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
00:52:27
So he is already a famous author and he'd been working on an article about fairies because he had been obsessed and fascinated with spiritualism.
00:52:35
ever since his own son died in World War I. So it seems like he really wanted to believe this with his whole being We all really want to believe something We really do And so he viewed the photos as if they were real
00:52:51
and as if they were proof of the legitimacy of not just fairies, but spiritualism in general.
00:52:56
Wow. Yeah. Also, it's Arthur Conan Doyle who, like, when you watch Sherlock Holmes stuff,
00:53:01
it's like everything is deduction and logic and fact and all that stuff. So it's kind of very powerful.
00:53:07
It's sad. It makes you think he must have been really heartbroken if he were able,
00:53:10
if you just so easily believe these things. Yeah, or if it's like he lived that life of logic only for so long,
00:53:19
and then it's like, but what is that going to get me? Right, right. More like if I'm brokenhearted, that logic isn't going to help me.
00:53:25
Yeah, if that logic is true, then I'm just, I have nothing. It's me here. Yeah, sad.
00:53:31
Yeah. So Conan Doyle writes an article about the fairy photos and says that he has gone through every possible explanation
00:53:38
for how they could have been faked and can only come to the conclusion that they're real and that
00:53:42
fairies exist. He even gets opinions from several experts in photography, including one from the
00:53:49
Kodak company. The experts all come back with mixed reviews, but Conan Doyle concludes that
00:53:55
the results of these opinions show two out of three experts agree that the photos are real,
00:54:01
which is Kim kind of, you know what, like I'm taking this and I'm making it sound like this.
00:54:06
Yes. He's not lying, but it's not, you know, it's just like that thing where dentists recommend toothpaste. It's like, that's not real. No, they don't. It's not. They don't even like toothpaste. Also, it's just I think it's also the piece of you take something up and you're like, I believe in this. And then it's like, well, then well, then fight for it. And it's like, now suddenly there's something there is a fight or like a I'm on this side kind of thing.
00:54:31
What is it, that confirmation bias, where it's like, if you already believe in something, you're only going to see the stuff that supports what you believe in.
00:54:38
Absolutely. And the other stuff seems like bullshit to you. There's magic in the world.
00:54:42
Bullshit. There is. There is. And I don't want to fight someone and be like, no, there isn't.
00:54:47
You know, it's like, because if you need that, fucking, I mean, same with religion.
00:54:49
Like, if you need that, have it. And also, who the fuck knows? Yeah. I think there is a very beautiful thing of, like, you got to keep open to it.
00:54:58
Yeah. There's no point in being like, there's nothing ever anywhere. Right. It's just like, that's not good.
00:55:02
But you also have to be open to the point where other people's opinions are just as fucking legitimate as yours.
00:55:09
Why? Because there's no such thing as... Is this new for you? You can't prove a negative.
00:55:13
I'm sorry. Prove a negative. There's debate, Georgia. I've never met her before.
00:55:20
Oh, yeah. It's really gashy. She's good. She's ready for Thanksgiving dinner table.
00:55:24
Prove a negative. I fucking dare you. So Conan Doyle asks Elsie's father for permission to print the photos in the article.
00:55:33
And Arthur, the father, is so impressed by this famous author who's like paying attention to this little family all of a sudden that he agrees to letting the photos be published, although he refuses payment for the photos that Conan Doyle wants to give him.
00:55:48
And it sounds like he says it's because he doesn't want to tarnish their genuineness.
00:55:53
But it sounds like he maybe knows they're fake and doesn't want to scam the author out of money, which is thoughtful.
00:55:59
He's like, I can kind of go along with this a little bit. I can't go that far. If I take money, then I'm complicit.
00:56:04
Yeah. So Conan Doyle's article is published in The Strand magazine in the UK, Australia and America in the 1920s.
00:56:12
The girls are referred to in the article by pseudonyms. And the article causes a huge sensation, not because everyone believes the photos are real.
00:56:22
In fact, most people probably believe they're fake. But the debate over whether or not they are completely real, it's like goes viral, essentially.
00:56:30
Yeah. It's like, like, what color is this dress? Yeah. Remember that? Yes. And it's fun to land on a side.
00:56:36
Exactly. And to like find one person to argue the other side is just like what you do at a pub.
00:56:43
Yeah. Like, what else are you going to do at a pub? But also that dress was so clearly blue that I don't understand.
00:56:49
Like, what were people seeing? Is it something like in your retina or something?
00:56:53
Must be. Anyway, you should cover that story. Gripping drama. The gripping drama of being on Twitter in like 2011 or whenever it was.
00:57:04
So no one can figure out how the photos have been faked. So that's kind of part of the whole thing.
00:57:09
And they don't think two young girls would have the skills necessary to create this kind of illusion.
00:57:13
So it's like, fuck you, sexist. Yeah, exactly. So after the article comes out, Arthur Conan Doyle buys Francis and Elsie new cameras so that they can try and capture more photos of the fairies.
00:57:24
By this point it 1921 and the girls are 13 and 20 years old and they really don know what to do because it fucking fake And they never believed that anyone would really fall for it
00:57:37
You know, they didn't expect, I guess maybe they didn't know their mom would take them
00:57:40
to this lecture and people would take it seriously. But everyone is so starstruck
00:57:45
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that they're just like, let's just go with it. Yeah. You know, and he's like put a lot,
00:57:51
there's a lot at stake at like his reputation at this point. So they don't want to tell him
00:57:56
Right. For that reason as well. It's like, sir, we're big liars. Yeah. I don't know why you believe in us so much.
00:58:02
You gotta keep lying. Yeah. So not knowing what to do, I'm feeling kind of sorry for Conan Doyle.
00:58:07
The girls accept the cameras. He also pays them around 20 pounds each, which in today's U.S. dollars.
00:58:15
$500? $1,150. He just fucking hands them a fucking 20 quid or whatever. They produce two more photos, one of Frances and one of Elsie.
00:58:25
and there's a fairy in each photo. These photos are also published along with a fifth photo,
00:58:31
which just shows the fairies and neither of the girls. And this last photo is called the fairies and their sunbath.
00:58:38
And the fairies do look a little different in this photo, more transparent and ethereal.
00:58:44
Those are the real ones. The idea is that they are dematerializing in front of the camera.
00:58:49
And actually to this day, no one's quite sure how they achieved that effect. Because they're the real ones.
00:58:53
Right. So the fairy craze peaks in about 1923 and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies in 1930.
00:59:03
But the debate about whether or not the Conningly fairies in those photos are real rages on for decades with many people believing rightly that the fairies are a hoax.
00:59:12
Others insisting that they are real. Like how fun and harmless except for his heart.
00:59:18
I know. I mean, but it didn't affect him. I think he probably really enjoyed it all the way through.
00:59:23
Yeah. I mean, it's like a fun thing in the middle of a bunch of fucking horrible shit happening.
00:59:30
It's like a fun debate. The sky is filled with ash and smoke. Everybody is like in the workhouse.
00:59:37
The poverty is abundant. When television becomes mainstream, there are programs devoted to the tale and lots of people do investigative deep dives into the subject.
00:59:46
But no one officially solves a mystery until the 1980s. I wonder if you watched this.
00:59:51
that's when Francis and Elsie who are now in their late 70s and 80s come clean in an interview
00:59:59
on a show about the paranormal called Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers
01:00:04
do you remember it? no but it was British it's like somebody can someone order it for me right now
01:00:12
how do I you need the Time Life series I need to turn away from my job and start watching it immediately
01:00:17
you do it's like the Spock one yes Oh, is that one? In Search Of? Yeah. So Elsie, the older one, finally admits that the whole thing got out of hand when Conan
01:00:28
Doyle got a hold of the story and the girls just decided to go along with it. She says, quote, two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle.
01:00:36
Well, we could only keep quiet, end quote. The girls, now women, say they want to tell the truth.
01:00:42
Now old women. Now old women. They say they want to tell the truth before they die.
01:00:46
They don't want their grandkids wondering, which I love it. It's us always saying, don't leave anything secret.
01:00:52
Yeah, clear it up. Why not? Deathbed confessions for everyone. Yeah. Even if you can make something up.
01:00:58
So for her part, Frances, the younger of the two, has always insisted that that last photo,
01:01:04
the one of the fairies in their sunbath is real. It's like, why would she do that if they're coming clean?
01:01:10
Right. And it is like really, it's like spider webby looking and the do, you know, kind of a thing.
01:01:16
Because they're real. You think so? Uh-huh. You do? Uh-huh. why i just think there's things going on we have we have no idea but also it's like it's almost the
01:01:27
thing of like whether or not that exact thing is here's what's magical two girls in a creek in this
01:01:34
tiny town get the inventor of sherlock holmes yeah to come and hang out with them and give them
01:01:40
money that's a book like that doesn't happen in real life it's all like it's almost like the thing
01:01:45
everyone's focusing on isn't the magic. It's the girls and what they're doing and how they do it is the magic.
01:01:51
It's a beautiful story and the story's about them. And the mom maybe knew that? Like, look what my brilliant daughter
01:01:57
and my brilliant niece did. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And in 2019, the daughter of Frances Griffiths put up a
01:02:07
series of prints from the original negatives at auction. Okay guess how many pounds they sell for Is it in the millions No I don want to make you guess because it not as much as It should have got way more than that I know But still
01:02:23
I know. Maybe I'll get you that for your birthday. Next year for Thanksgiving I'll get you. You can make it a
01:02:29
lithograph. It doesn't have to be the original. I'm having you. And that is the story
01:02:33
of the Cottingley Fairies. Perfection. I mean yeah I really love that. also it's just like
01:02:42
Charles R. Conan Doyle a man who has seen a bunch of shit gone through a bunch of shit
01:02:47
like it's suddenly like later in life or maybe end of life he's like wait a second
01:02:53
one last chance to actually experience like I he wanted it so bad because fear of his own death
01:02:59
fear of his son's passing needing there to be more to life than this the basics right
01:03:08
which is like so human so human and also kind of like that's a... You don't think it's bad that they tricked him?
01:03:15
Well, no, because it wasn't their intent. It wasn't like they were like, if we make these fairies,
01:03:19
we can get $1,000 or whatever. It's like they were just having fun and being artistic.
01:03:25
Yeah. And then a little thing they were doing with their family of like for either attention or just whatever.
01:03:31
Or maybe because they were down there and there's like, they say that in Ireland,
01:03:35
bogs would release gases that would do this weird sparkling thing. And that's why people were like,
01:03:40
oh my god what's that over there like there's all kinds of shit that's been going on for a long time
01:03:46
that we have no explanation for yeah so he's kind of coming and going wait a second is it
01:03:51
you know yeah do i finally have something true or do i have something provable yeah to for this
01:04:00
feeling that won't go away i love that well we have something true and provable and that is
01:04:06
the listeners here that we're so thankful for. And thank you for spending your Thanksgiving with us
01:04:13
or not if you're not listening to it. Yeah, true. It's fine. Or later if it's 4th of July and you're
01:04:19
like, oh, I never caught this one. Also, thank you for creating that kind of human magic with your
01:04:25
good vibes and your community and your community building because, man, we've seen it. We've seen
01:04:32
it in action and it is truly the definition of magic. Totally. So thank you guys. Thanks
01:04:36
for listening. Happy Thanksgiving. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a
01:04:45
cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our
01:04:57
managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was
01:05:03
mixed by Liana Scolacci. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin. Email your
01:05:08
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