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This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
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Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town
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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
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This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
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or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms.
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Vital Farms. Good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye. Hello. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murderer. That is Georgia Hartstark. And that is Karen Kilgareff.
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And this is podcasting. Hey. It's this. Yes. It's this interesting. Is this the first time
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you ever listen to a podcast? Yes. Doesn't get better. This is it. Welcome to the Wonderful
00:02:20
older podcasting. I mean, listen, we're the pros, so take it from us. Listen is the first word in
00:02:27
that sentence and could have been the last because that's all you got to do. It's all you got to do.
00:02:33
Yeah. Pay attention to the road. Yeah. You're driving on. Keep your eyes open, please. Oh,
00:02:38
yeah. Which is a part of paying attention. Right. But not listening. So yeah, no, you can listen to
00:02:44
us, but keep your eyes on the road. And then if you get the shadow of a large, like a big Ram truck
00:02:51
coming toward the side of your car, gas it. Yeah. Careful. Gas it. Go and then keep listening.
00:02:59
Like, you know, that is the thing that makes me the angriest. Top two in a movie is surprise car
00:03:05
accidents, which is like, it's so infuriating where it's like, that does not need to be realistic.
00:03:10
car accidents are the worst thing to happen to people. Yes. And then when they go in like slow
00:03:15
motion and you're watching the person turn upside down and the shattering of the film. Oh my God.
00:03:22
Surprise car. Yeah. They're very jarring to a point where whenever you see someone driving
00:03:26
in a movie now, you're like, when's a surprise? Even if it's like a romance, you're like,
00:03:31
when's this Hallmark movie surprise car accident? I'm braced. The second I see somebody, an actor
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going back and forth real fast with the steering wheel unrealistically. I'm like,
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something's going to happen. The first time it was a very strange Julianne Moore movie in the
00:03:47
late 90s or early 2000s. I think she was running after a specter or there was a book that was
00:03:55
haunted. I can't remember, but it was the first time I had experienced it. And it was so shocking.
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I like kind of couldn't breathe. I was like, you're not allowed to put me in a car accident.
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Yeah, yeah, because you're witnessing it as if it's happening to you. Yeah, they're trying to make it happen to you.
00:04:11
Can you guess my number one above surprise car accidents? That you hate in a movie?
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Is it a surprise thing also or just something you hate? A surprise thing you hate in movies.
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It's not tornadoes. I don't know why suddenly I'm thinking about the movie Twister.
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Don't ask me why. Go inward instead of outward because the number two is outward in.
00:04:35
something happens inside of you heart attack. I was trying to give you a clue. I don't I didn't
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get it. What is it? Surprise throwing up. When people just turn and throw up and then all of a
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sudden you're like, well, that's a can of Campbell's chunky soup or like you immediately start. I
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immediately start thinking of the prop people having to make fake puke and clean it up time
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and time again. Take next take. You have to clean it up and do it again. You don't you don't mind
00:04:59
it like when they're retching and it's clear they're going to throw up, but you don't want
00:05:02
like surprise throwing up. Right. There's for a little while, I guess this was more on TV shows
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that people would just turn and barf like surprise style. And it bummed me out every time because I
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couldn't look away fast enough. It's so gross. It's so gross. What do you hate in movies besides
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the length and being there? I don't like the crazy camera shakiness. Like I get carsick from a movie
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so quickly that's like trying to be like like actual point of view so they're like of a person
00:05:32
so they're making it all like wobbly and shit like cloverfield yes like i'm watching this because
00:05:38
it's a movie so please get the fucking camera on a tripod and leave it there you know yeah if you
00:05:47
can't do that with the dialogue and the fucking action and everything like that quit it quit yeah
00:05:53
I also don like when they use a really like a Dolby deep bass sound as a scare tactic in like In the movie theaters when you
00:06:06
Yes. When like Will Smith was the in vampire world and it was like just the zombie fast zombie vampire type people and him left in the world.
00:06:16
And he like turns a corner and there's just a pack of them standing there and it goes.
00:06:21
Like that. But like, it literally feels like a car crashed into the building or something.
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Like, it's the craziest. Anyway. Like, that doesn't happen in real life. Maybe that's like the sound of him like shitting his pants or something like that inside.
00:06:36
Yeah. But inside. Yeah. But God forbid something happens to you where a Dolby Atmos level bass hits you.
00:06:44
That's when you know. Yeah. And that's when you know it's peak podcasting. And that's when you know the best podcast is playing.
00:06:52
What do you got? What's going on with you? That's why I just talked for 20 minutes. That's all I got.
00:07:00
That's all you got. That's all I got. I keep trying to watch Shogun and being put asleep by the subtitles
00:07:06
and then going into a Shogun dream state that I don't have a problem with at all,
00:07:12
but I have no idea where I am in the show. I get that. I'm not ready to recommend Manhunt yet because I need to give it a little more time.
00:07:20
the one about you know john wilkes booth and lincoln although i love that they're showing
00:07:26
john wilkes booth like a little bitch like he's such a little like fuck boy bitch in it he's so
00:07:33
dislikable congrats to the actor he's like playing it so like such a little bitch like a true actor
00:07:42
like he's playing an actor playing an actor he is and it's it's going well that time period
00:07:49
It usually bores me, Civil War. But Vince wanted to watch it. But I actually am interested in it.
00:07:54
So that's a good thing. They're bringing it to life. That's the one. I know Patton's in that.
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Patton Hustle is in that, yes. Playing himself, essentially, in the Civil War, which is a good thing.
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Because he's so hilarious. That's funny. Yeah. That's good. I think a midpoint recommendation is kind of very reflective of the times we live in.
00:08:15
Don't you? Because we don't trust anything anymore? Yeah. And because like, it's so hard to only look at one thing. So you have to be absolutely unbelievable in a very perfectly for me way to keep my eyes off of the phone while I'm watching TV. It's that kind of thing.
00:08:33
Right. I heard something that was like they now dumbed down TV shows so that for the people who
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are on their phones while they're watching so they can follow along. Like it can't be that
00:08:44
complicated now because it's like it's for like people on multiple screens or something like that
00:08:50
at the same time. I get that theory. Although do you think they did that with like succession?
00:08:56
I don't. Like I think maybe some people are doing that, but it's like people who are actually good
00:09:01
at making TV are like, that's okay. We'll lose those people. Yeah. We don't want them. I mean,
00:09:07
those are people that can say to the executives, no notes, please. No, we're not taking notes today
00:09:13
from you. No notes. Or if you're in a relationship like me and you see your spouse or your partner
00:09:19
or whatever on their phone while we're watching something and you go, what's wrong? Because you're
00:09:25
like, get off your phone. We're supposed to be watching this together. Like you're not allowed
00:09:28
to be on your phone when you're watching something together. It's like a forced shared experience
00:09:32
that you have to stay in. I thought we were doing this. Otherwise I'd go up and read by myself.
00:09:38
You know, like I'm here with you. We're fucking in this TV show together. I'm going to need you to
00:09:44
like pay attention for both of us. Or he'll be like, do you want me to pause it? So you can text
00:09:49
whoever you're texting and then get back in there. But that is codependency. Well, I don't know,
00:09:55
though, because I think that's, I think a lot of people go through that same thing because the fun
00:10:00
of like, there's not, I think there's nothing more fun than when you are watching something
00:10:06
with your significant other and you're both into it. I will never forget when we binged Battlestar
00:10:11
Galactica literally for a weekend and like weren't sleeping and stuff. Cause we were like,
00:10:15
just keep going, just keep watching. And it was the best. Yes. I love that. So we're all trying
00:10:21
to get that Battlestar Galactica high back, I think. Yeah. Get me to the point of relationship
00:10:26
where we're fucking watching series on a couch like that for me, fuck dating for me. That's like
00:10:32
peak relationship. Who is going to find the trick? Like it's past dating apps, dating anything,
00:10:40
bring in the AI where you just get matched to share a couch with someone. Like you get a spooning,
00:10:46
it's a spooning match. It's much harder. It's harder. I'm not saying this is going to be easy.
00:10:51
But when it gets done, that person that figures it out is going to make a billion dollars.
00:10:56
You have to enjoy spooning. You have to like have this right temperature, body temperature that matches.
00:11:01
Because if one person runs hot and they run cold, then it's like a mess, you know, that kind of thing.
00:11:07
Oh, yep. And you have to like almost exactly the same kind of entertainment. Because if someone goes AWOL and just is suddenly watching like whatever.
00:11:17
I don't want to name something that people love. but the me going you can watch that on your own that's what happens you're it's a any sports
00:11:25
channel and you're like okay that's my you're asking me to leave silently so i will roadhouse
00:11:30
goodbye the new roadhouse not interested i want to see it though i want to see watched it apparently
00:11:36
jake gyllenhaal is cut yeah and i don't know it's not really roadhouse in his mind something like
00:11:43
that oh he's doing something else i don't know it's violent i i said i'm gonna go read enjoy that
00:11:50
goodbye goodbye i feel like jake gyllenhaal been very cut for a while and not really getting the credit that i think he maybe wants or deserves But did you ever watch the movie Nightcrawler Yes because he all it scary cut
00:12:06
You know what I mean? Yes. It's like intensely, it's aggressive. Why are you so cut?
00:12:12
It's scaring people. Yes. You're sharp. You're too sharp. Sharp faced, sharp chested, sharp.
00:12:18
Yes. And he's going to do something bad. It's aggressive. I don't know why. I like it.
00:12:22
Something about it is, you do? Bring it on. Yes. Not into it. Not into it. Here's the thing.
00:12:29
You can imagine this is a person that's going to get things taken care of. That's all.
00:12:34
Why is that so bad to want that all the time? I guess. I guess. But they're also going to want to hike on the weekend, you know?
00:12:42
Yeah. And like hit the gym with you. That's when I go read. That's true. You take what we call now a reading dip and just leave.
00:12:51
This is where we practice being independent. Bye. No, I can't do it. I need to be near you all the time.
00:12:58
What if something happens? All right. Well, we did that. Should we do it? Guys, if you're listening for the first time to any podcast, we just did a thing roughly
00:13:07
10 minutes longer than anyone normally does it. They get upset. We don't care. That's part of the thing.
00:13:13
Welcome. If you didn't like how long that was, most of them are much shorter. Yeah.
00:13:17
And you can skip it. You can go skip, skip, skip. Yeah. We won't be offended. no big deal. We want you to have agency over your own podcasting experience in whatever way,
00:13:27
and however that means to you. That's right. That's right. We're all about that agency over
00:13:31
yourself. Can you fucking imagine? Can you imagine in this country with women having agency over
00:13:37
their own fucking body? The thought it's just too happy and exciting to even. It's too much. It's
00:13:44
To 2006. Yeah, there. And we also make it a little political and then we're done.
00:13:49
Here we go. Yeah. Okay. Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right.
00:13:54
Here are some highlights. That's right. We're going to start this off with a quick announcement.
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For those of you who listen on Apple Podcasts, they're now on Apple Podcasts releasing transcripts.
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So if you're using the latest iOS, you can tap on the quotation mark icon at the bottom of your player,
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and you can follow along with every word of your favorite podcast in transcript form. How awesome
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is that? That's so cool. And in podcast news, musician Nora Jones is Michelle and Jordan's
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guest on Adulting, the live show. Isn't that incredible? That's so cool. Speaking of live
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shows, I recently joined Roz Hernandez on her live show of Ghosted by Roz Hernandez.
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I was joined by the brilliant comedian Chris Fleming and also Oscar Montoya, who's a hilarious comedian, actor.
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He was on The Minx. He plays the haunted doll the entire time. And he was so funny that he deserves credit, too, because he was like another guest on the show.
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But on stage, it was just a doll. So it was pretty hilarious. Then on I Saw What You Did, Millie and Danielle bring us a vintage Christian Slater double feature of Heathers from 1988, a classic, and Untamed Heart from 1993.
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Oh, my God. Christian Slater was so cute. He was a big deal. He was a very big deal.
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Also, the third episode of The Butterfly King is now available. so if you haven't started listening to our newest limited series the butterfly king a world war ii
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murder mystery please go start now and you can listen all the way up to episode three and don't
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forget to follow butterfly king on all of the social media and all and follow it of course on
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is actually charting, which is so freaking cool. So thank you guys for doing that.
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Subscribe, rate, review. That is like the coolest. Yes. And lastly, in February, we told you to fuck you.
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I married joggers. We're back in stock, but you bought all of them. So they were sold out.
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Oh, I know. Hey. Well, this time we restocked the store with plenty. So if you missed out, head to exactlyrightstore.com
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Use code MFM15 for $15 off your first purchase at thirdlove.com. Goodbye. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
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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,
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rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either.
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Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
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Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
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From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game the future isn some far off concept It already here Next starts now Hyundai an official partner of FIFA Goodbye
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There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goodbye. All right. I'm going to tell you a story now. Are you ready for this part to begin?
00:19:13
Let's do it. Okay. Well, this, strangely enough, and this is how our researchers have story ideas,
00:19:21
usually from us, sometimes found by our producers, but they're months in advance. So we have a whole
00:19:28
system. It's really beautiful. So much better than the system we used to have, which is I would write
00:19:33
mine the day of or just not finish it. So this research starts by saying that I found this story
00:19:40
over on Twitter. We'll call it Twitter. And it was a tweet that was posted by at history in memes on Twitter. And basically it told the story of this event. And I had never
00:19:55
heard of this event. And I was like, is this real? Could this be real? So I sent it to Maren and
00:20:00
she's like, it is in fact real. I know about this. And so we decided to do this story. So today I'm
00:20:07
going to tell you about a disaster that took place at the end of World War II in the heart of New
00:20:11
York City and the resilient woman who miraculously survived it. So you may not know this, Georgia,
00:20:18
but when they finished the Empire State Building in 1931, it is the world's tallest building.
00:20:25
It had 102 floors of Art Deco grandeur, standing in midtown Manhattan at a record-breaking
00:20:31
1,250 feet. That doesn't sound high enough for me for how big that building is, but it is.
00:20:40
Yeah. Back then it was, wow, would you look at that? It was, come on, that's more than three.
00:20:46
Hey, say, would you look at that? That's more than three. So this architectural feat becomes New York City's newest source of pride. Here's a little
00:20:56
quote I pulled directly from the Empire State Building Wikipedia page, which is a hoot if you
00:21:01
want to go over there while Vince is watching something you don't want to watch. The building
00:21:06
has been named one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil
00:21:11
Engineers, and it was ranked first on the American Institute of Architects list of America's favorite
00:21:17
architecture in 2007. So Empire State Building has been a hit from the day it was built all the
00:21:24
way through. But on the day it was opened, a New York Fire Department captain at the time
00:21:30
named Patrick Walsh has his concerns. Whoa, we have a friend named Patrick Walsh.
00:21:37
Yeah, we know some Patrick Walshes in our lives. So the Empire State Building's offices
00:21:41
can hold up to 35,000 people, which is a logistical nightmare in the event of an emergency situation.
00:21:48
And because pilots at that time and now are permitted to fly as low as 1,100 feet over New York City.
00:21:56
Uh-oh, I see the math. The math doesn't add up. Are you bringing it all together? So the building's unprecedented height poses a new sort of threat to air traffic in the area. Yet, despite these concerns, the building passes the fire department's inspection and it opens on May 1st, 1931.
00:22:15
Thousands of New Yorkers file into this building, make themselves at home in their new spectacular workplace.
00:22:20
And among them is 20-year-old elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver. She has taken a job for some extra cash, but by summertime, her fiancé has returned home from the war.
00:22:33
So just a few months on the job, Betty Lou puts in her notice. But as fate would have it, Betty Lou's last day at work is very nearly her last day alive.
00:22:43
This is the story of the 1945 Empire State Building plane crash. Damn. The main sources used in today's story are an article from History Collection entitled
00:22:57
which pretty much lays this story out for you kind of clearly. That's why I've stopped reading the titles of the articles that we use in our show notes.
00:23:07
You know what I mean? Yeah, maybe I should leave that one out. Can we bleep that whole thing out, Alejandra?
00:23:13
Yeah. Entitled that mystery history collection article was written by a writer named Patrick Lynch. Also, the Division 7 Training and Safety Newsletter for July of August 2020 talks about this from the website FDNY's Bravest dot com.
00:23:34
There's a bunch of pictures that they have on that website that are amazing. And the person that I think put those pictures together, I don't think he took them, I think he put them together,
00:23:43
is somebody named Michael Dick. Okay, the rest of the sources are in our show notes if you want to know more about this.
00:23:49
So I take you now to Saturday, July 28th, 1945. It's Betty Oliver's last day as an elevator operator at the Empire State Building.
00:23:58
World War II is inching toward its finalists. moments overseas. And there's a celebratory feeling in and around basically the entire
00:24:05
country. But I bet you kind of being in and around Manhattan was pretty unbelievable.
00:24:12
Although on this day, you wouldn't actually be thinking about anything celebratory. It's dreary
00:24:17
and it's humid outside. And there's a heavy fog that gives the city a quiet kind of sleepy feeling.
00:24:23
But despite the weather and the fact that it's the weekend, for many, it's business as usual
00:24:28
that day. That's the case for 27-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William Smith Jr. He's an
00:24:33
experienced pilot. He's flown many combat missions during the war in both France and Germany.
00:24:38
Today, his assignment is stateside. He will be flying a converted North American B-25 Mitchell
00:24:44
bomber nicknamed Old John Feather Merchant. The fucking longest, worst nickname of all time.
00:24:53
What is that? Old John Feather Merchant. That's elitism in our military. That's the rich guys getting to fly the planes, in my opinion, or something else that I just don't know about.
00:25:06
So basically, the old John Feather merchant was used to transfer military VIPs from an army airfield in Massachusetts down to the Newark airport in good old New Jersey.
00:25:19
Dirty Jerz. This is a medium-sized bomber plane with two propeller engines. It has all of its guns removed, obviously.
00:25:26
and it weighs around 12 tons. So it's like an old timey plane like you'd see in World War II.
00:25:33
Yeah, I think it's like, you know those ones that can turn on their back and they pivot around
00:25:38
because there's two things in the front. It's like, it's one of those. Okay. So on board is 31 year old staff sergeant,
00:25:45
Krister Dmitrovich. He's an experienced pilot in his own right. He is actually the guy who converted
00:25:51
this specific aircraft from a warplane to one used in civilian airspace. And although Sergeant Dimitrovich is not the co-pilot on today's flight,
00:26:01
he is sitting in the co-pilot seat. Also on the flight is 19-year-old Albert Perna.
00:26:07
He is an aviation machinist's mate for the Navy. He recently lost his brother Anthony in the war,
00:26:13
so he is catching this flight home to see his bereaved parents who live in Brooklyn.
00:26:18
Albert isn't actually supposed to be on this flight. He asked to hop on just before takeoff,
00:26:23
And Lieutenant Colonel Smith, who, of course, didn't want any more passengers, felt sorry for Albert, understood that he needed to be with his family and let him on board.
00:26:33
Damn it. Then on the return trip to Massachusetts, they're planning to pick up one Colonel Harris Rogner, who will join them from Newark.
00:26:42
So at 8.52 a.m., with Lieutenant Colonel Smith at the helm, flight 0577 takes off from Bedford, Massachusetts, heading to Newark, New Jersey.
00:26:51
So up and down the East Coast now, there's heavy cloud coverage, there's fog, and there's rain.
00:26:57
But even though the weather's bad, Smith is flying by what are called visual flight rules.
00:27:02
He's relying on his own eyesight and visual cues like buildings, the placement of the sun, specific terrain to navigate the plane.
00:27:11
Usually in that low of visibility, a pilot would fly by instrument, which means they're relying on the equipment in the flight deck like GPS or altimeters.
00:27:20
But according to a write-up by the FDNY, this is not an option because Lieutenant Smith's superiors think that the instruments will be bombarded with civilian air traffic correspondence once they get, you know, close to Manhattan.
00:27:34
So they're basically saying, don't do any of that and keep it all clear and just do it by sight.
00:27:40
Which is, you know, strange. In a bunch of fog and rain. Yeah, yeah. So as Lieutenant Colonel Smith flies over Long Island, he starts losing visibility, but he presses on until he reaches LaGuardia airspace in Queens.
00:27:54
But the scene at LaGuardia is kind of chaotic. It's very crowded and Smith's flight isn't actually scheduled to land there.
00:28:01
And it so happens that another radio plane is buzzing around in the airspace and it's lost contact with the controllers.
00:28:09
So understandably, the LaGuardia flight controllers aren't happy about having to coordinate with this unexpected flight 0577.
00:28:18
So they assign Lieutenant Colonel Smith a holding pattern over the Bronx. And after some time passes, they give him the green light to head into Newark.
00:28:27
But he's given a warning because of all the fog. The top of the Empire State Building is not currently visible.
00:28:34
Oh, dear. So it is not totally clear what happens next. But most onlookers think that Smith, as he was flying from LaGuardia toward Newark, he gets confused about where he is because the plan was to cut across Manhattan, then head south when he passes over the Hudson River into New Jersey.
00:28:53
But according to one PBS correspondent, Smith isn't familiar with the geography of New York City.
00:28:59
He seems to mistake the East River, which is east of Manhattan, for the Hudson River, which is west of Manhattan.
00:29:06
So basically he didn't realize there were two bodies of water on either side of the island.
00:29:11
Oh dear, you think you'd know that. Yeah. You're flying. I mean, or that's just, I think that's a theory though, because no one really knows what happened.
00:29:19
Yeah. So that causes him to turn the plane south before he cuts across. So then either to get underneath the fog or because he thinks it's time to descend into Newark's airport's airspace,
00:29:33
Lieutenant Colonel Smith drops down to an elevation of around 650 feet. But then once they get underneath the fog, he suddenly realizes his miscalculation.
00:29:46
He can see that he is flying a B-25 bomber at 250 miles an hour right down the heart of Manhattan.
00:29:55
So according to FDNY Bravest the website they say quote Lieutenant Colonel smith narrowly missed the grand central office building near park avenue at the 22nd floor flight 0577 banked and narrowly missed the building and then narrowly missed 505th
00:30:13
avenue the b-25 mitchell bomber was flying so close to the buildings that occupants in the
00:30:18
buildings surrounding the plane could see the faces of the people in the cockpit the loud roar
00:30:23
and the vibration shook items off of shelves and tables. Holy shit, how terrifying.
00:30:30
Yeah. So they were in it. Suddenly in it. Suddenly in it. Oh my God. Lieutenant Colonel Smith tries his best
00:30:36
to retract the landing gear and steer the aircraft upwards. But as old John Feather merchant
00:30:41
sharply ascends back upwards toward the clouds, an unmistakable sight appears ahead,
00:30:47
rushing toward them fast. The Empire State Building. Lieutenant Colonel Smith tries to clear the building
00:30:53
as he steers old John Feather Merchant sharply toward the sky, but it is too late. At 9.40 a.m.,
00:30:59
the old war plane crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. Holy shit.
00:31:05
Have you ever heard of this disaster? I've seen photos of it. Have you? Okay. Sorry. Yes.
00:31:11
I never had. I was like... It's crazy. I mean, it's not a story that's told very often.
00:31:16
I just feel like if I lived in New York City, I would tell everybody the second I saw or met them.
00:31:22
Yeah. Like, did you know this? You point up and be like, see that building? Okay, so because the plane is loaded with around 800 gallons of fuel,
00:31:33
a huge fireball erupts on impact, reaching nearly 100 feet high. Windows explode, including a few all the way up on the observation deck, which is 30 floors up.
00:31:45
Smoke envelops the entire top of the building as it rocks back and forth like it's being hit with extreme winds.
00:31:51
If there's one bright spot in this story is that it is a Saturday. So fewer people than normal are inside of the Empire State Building on this day, but it is not a quiet morning. There are office workers. There's a handful of elevator operators. And even though it's foggy outside, there's multiple people on the observation deck, including a U.S. Army lieutenant named Alan Amon, who is there with his wife.
00:32:17
he is one of the first people to see the plane emerge from the clouds can you imagine oh my god
00:32:23
the terror you're 102 stories in the air and all of a sudden they're i'm sure they heard it first
00:32:29
but then you see he was having like a flashback or something if he was in a fucking war yeah
00:32:34
that's right so he sees this plane he immediately throws his wife to the ground and like jumps on
00:32:41
top of her trying to protect her. And from the ground, they feel the impact, of course. And then
00:32:47
they feel the heat from the explosion. And then they feel the building sway beneath them. And they
00:32:53
described it as like a tree in a tropical storm kind of feeling, like crazy. But somehow they're
00:32:59
kept safe up on the observation deck. So it doesn't like the explosion doesn't just go upward
00:33:05
and take off the top of the building or anything. Yeah. Lieutenant Colonel William Smith Jr.,
00:33:11
Sergeant Dmitrovich and Albert Perna die instantly. On the 79th floor, 18 people are working at the offices of Catholic War Relief Services, and 10 of them are killed.
00:33:24
Whoa. One man is actually shot out of the building and lands on a sort of overhang a few floors below and dies on impact.
00:33:33
Oh, my God. Which must have been just shocking. But those who aren't killed are, of course, absolutely panicked.
00:33:40
this scene is horrifying. There's people who are injured, who are burned. They're desperately
00:33:45
trying to find the safest route down to the ground level. As they do, debris from the plane blasts
00:33:51
through the opposite exterior wall of the floor it crashed into the 79th floor. So basically,
00:33:58
it's obviously big enough where it took a second, it hit, and then it all had to push through.
00:34:04
Wow. And came out the other side and crashes down onto 33rd Street and onto the nearby buildings.
00:34:11
Okay. Yeah. The people on the ground, I'm like, what's happening to them? Oh, yeah. Hopefully they're running.
00:34:18
Yeah. Horrifically, the plane's nose and engine continue moving throughout the floor.
00:34:23
So pieces of the nose smash through a nearby elevator bank and a reception area,
00:34:28
killing more people, throwing several elevator operators out of their elevators.
00:34:32
and there's Betty Lou Oliver in her elevator. She is thrown from her post on the 80th floor.
00:34:40
So she's above it. She's the floor above. And this violent action breaks her back,
00:34:47
her neck and her pelvis and she's burnt in the flames. Oh my God. But she actually survives.
00:34:55
The blast is so loud that several nearby fire stations dispatch to the Empire State Building
00:34:59
before alarms even come in for them to do so. They're like, yep, we got to go. So at least two fires are raging simultaneously, one on the 78th and 79th floors, and then another.
00:35:11
So that's just one big fire. And then another in the Astoria building next door on the 33rd Street side where the plane blasted through.
00:35:20
So the Astoria building caught on fire. And inside the Empire State Building, firefighters use the few operational service elevators they can to get up to the 67th floor.
00:35:31
that's as high as they can go. So from there, they have to get off the elevator,
00:35:37
take all their gear and walk up 11 floors to get to where the fire is on the 78th floor.
00:35:43
As they put that out, dozens of doctors, nurses and EMTs begin to filter in and rescue as many people as they can.
00:35:51
So people just started going up there, which is so New York City so beautiful New York City I love that place So people moving around go like you get out of the way Are you okay Are you okay
00:36:05
I heard a lady say that on the street one time. This girl dropped her mirror. She clearly just bought this huge mirror at HomeGoods.
00:36:11
And it's a super busy, we're at 7th Avenue walking up like a human highway. And she drops this mirror and everybody is just like, and like backs up and freezes.
00:36:22
And then she looks around at everyone and goes, oh, my God, are you okay? And this old lady busts through the crowd and then, like, throws her arm forward, pointing at the girl and goes, no, are you okay?
00:36:38
Oh, my God. I want that woman around in an emergency. Right? That's like, she's actually going to get shit taken care of.
00:36:45
Yeah. So let's pretend that she also went up to the 78th floor. Okay. So the first responders are able to find Betty Oliver among the rubble.
00:36:55
They put her on a stretcher. They're like, if she's going to survive all of this, I mean, she's horribly, horribly harmed.
00:37:03
She has to get to the hospital immediately. They take her down to the 75th floor and take her on the one elevator that they can still use, elevator six, and they load her up onto it.
00:37:15
What they don't realize is that there's a third fire raging inside of the building in the subseller in the Empire State Building.
00:37:23
So one of the plane's engines went into an elevator shaft and fell downward and spread flames as it went.
00:37:32
What? That's like a movie. Yes. So in the process, the cables connecting some of the elevator cars to the shaft are frayed.
00:37:40
And as soon as EMTs slide Betty's stretcher onto the elevator, the cable snap and an already badly wounded Betty plummets a staggering 75 floors down to the bottom of the Empire State Building.
00:37:56
It is a 1,000 foot drop. Holy shit. Horrifying. So meanwhile, down at street level, there's a 17-year-old pharmacist mate from the Coast Guard named Donald Maloney.
00:38:09
and he runs into a Walgreens, which is like, this is 1945. And Walgreens were such a part of my life
00:38:18
when I lived in New York City. And the idea that it's like, oh yeah, they've always been, that is
00:38:23
like third star of the show is Walgreens in Manhattan. Okay. So Donald is visiting New York.
00:38:30
He planned actually on going up to the Empire State Building observation deck that morning.
00:38:36
He's changing his plan now. He goes into triage mode. He runs into the pharmacy.
00:38:41
He has them give him morphine, syringes, needles, first aid kits, bandages, rubbing alcohol, any other supplies that he can hold.
00:38:50
And he runs into the Empire State Building and just tries to, his plan is he's just going to go wherever anybody needs him and thinking that he's going to maybe take an elevator and go up.
00:39:01
But now none of the elevators are operational. but then Donald notices a downed elevator, elevator six,
00:39:07
and he convinces a team of firefighters to come with him and help him check it out.
00:39:12
So he was just kind of like a do-gooder from the street who, it was like luckily all of these military men who had all this training,
00:39:19
and women I'm sure, were just like there on hand. Yeah. And not scared of a horrifying thing because they'd just been living through horrifying things.
00:39:28
I mean the idea of running into a disaster is so heroic and like, that's how I'd hope I would react in a situation.
00:39:37
I know. I know. I know I wouldn't. Okay. So the impact from the 75 floor drop has jammed the elevator doors.
00:39:47
So the firemen cut a hole in the side of the elevator to try to access the car. And when they do,
00:39:55
they find Betty trapped under fallen debris. And so now on top of all of her other horrible injuries,
00:40:02
She's got two broken legs, but by some miracle, she is alive. So Maloney is the only one small enough who can fit through the opening that they cut.
00:40:12
So he climbs inside the elevator and helps get Betty out. And because of her injuries and because of how small the opening was that they cut in the elevator,
00:40:22
it takes them an hour to get her out of this elevator car. Yeah. And then she's rushed in an ambulance to the hospital.
00:40:30
so 24 people are hurt in the crash of flight 0577 but the injuries betty sustains are by far the
00:40:39
worst of anyone oh my god but in just eight months time she makes a full recovery whoa of course
00:40:47
our whole flight crew that we said already and 11 other people die inside the empire state building
00:40:56
that day, bringing the death toll to 14. And along with 14 lives lost, about a million dollars in
00:41:03
damage is done to the building, which would be the equivalent of? A million dollars in 1945 is
00:41:10
6.8 million. 17 million. Whoa. I know. I thought I was going too high. Damn. No,
00:41:18
you have to go high, high. But on Monday, July 30th, 1945, less than 48 hours after the crash,
00:41:26
Most of the offices in the building are open for business again. What? No, thank you.
00:41:32
I'll work from home. Did they have that back then? I'll work from home. They're like, nope.
00:41:36
That was back when they were really against work from home. It takes them three months for all of the repairs to be completed.
00:41:44
And all that remains of the crash afterwards is a piece of charred limestone, which has been kept in memory of the lives lost in the disaster.
00:41:53
So in very Manhattan business style they were like okay and now we fix it and now we keep going One of the reasons most of us do not know about this shocking disaster is because one week after
00:42:08
it, the U.S. bombs Hiroshima, bringing World War II to an end. That makes sense. Yeah. As for the
00:42:17
miracle of Betty Lou Oliver's survival, inspection of Elevator 6's crash site leads experts to
00:42:23
believe that two things helped protect her from meeting an untimely end in that elevator.
00:42:30
First of all, I have had so many dreams of a snapped elevator cable and just like falling
00:42:36
in an elevator. Have you ever had that dream? No, but it's a nightmare. Yeah. It's such a horrible idea. It's such a scary, scary thing. But here's the upside to think about
00:42:46
it. The snapped elevator cable fell and then coiled at the bottom of the elevator shaft. So
00:42:52
it actually ended up providing a little bit of a cushion. Okay, that makes sense, yeah.
00:42:57
Then the rapid drop of the elevator in a space as tightly enclosed as the elevator shaft
00:43:02
created a pillar of compressed air that actually slowed the elevator's drop just enough to prevent total devastation.
00:43:10
So it wasn't the free fall that you would think it would be. Some kind of hydraulic thing happened.
00:43:18
Some sort of science happened that we don't need to worry about. Hey, engineers, let us know what that's called.
00:43:25
Hey, engineers, can you just make it so that when that happens in the future, that pillar of air is stronger than the force of gravity,
00:43:33
and it just gets sent back up to the floor it needs to go to? It's a big request.
00:43:37
We'll work on it later after the fascists are gone. While it takes Betty eight months to make a full recovery,
00:43:44
she returns to the Empire State Building just five months later on a pair of crutches.
00:43:49
Why, honey, no. Because she wants to ride the elevator to the top of the building.
00:43:56
That's right. Betty. Betty Oliver gets into an elevator and goes to the top. Bad luck Betty is brave, it turns out.
00:44:05
She is like, I will make my own luck. Thank you. I will take this whole story back.
00:44:11
Also, I remember the elevator ride in the Empire State Building. It's a pretty smallish elevator.
00:44:18
Feels small, like many things do in New York City. Yeah. And I started getting a little panicky in that elevator. So the idea that that woman
00:44:27
went through what she went through and was like, I'm doing it anyway, is so badass. Like,
00:44:33
I love her so much for that. Like, I can't, she's like, I can't be afraid of this my whole life.
00:44:38
I'm going to do it again. She must have, right? Because that would be so, so scary.
00:44:45
I know. I know. Okay. Amazing. Amazing. The good news is Betty Oliver, She heals completely.
00:44:53
She moves to Fort Smith, Arizona with her husband. She has three kids. She has seven grandkids.
00:44:59
She has a healthy, fulfilling life for the next 54 years. And she passes away on November 24th, 1999 at the age of 74.
00:45:08
And to this day, she is still in the Guinness Book of World Records for tallest elevator crash survival.
00:45:16
Wow. Wow. And that is the story of the 1945 Empire State Building plane crash. Damn.
00:45:24
Betty. That's great. I didn't know the story. I'd seen the photos. A vague description, but that is terrifying.
00:45:31
Horrifying. Terrifying. Horrifying. She broke her back, her hip, her both legs. Her pelvis.
00:45:37
Her pelvis. Ah, man. Did anyone else survive in the elevator? Do you know? They put her stretcher on and the elevator broke.
00:45:45
She was alone. I didn't know that. I thought she was like with other people. Oh, what a bummer.
00:45:53
Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Oh, man. Fuck that. Fuck that. Yes, for sure. For sure. Yeah.
00:46:02
Her original horrible injuries were from the explosion. Yeah. So and then it's like, OK, we got you.
00:46:08
We're going to get you to the hospital. Finally, I'm on a stretcher. We're going.
00:46:11
Let's do this. Let's get this going. And bye. Fucking goodbye. Oh, my God. And months later, she's like, hi.
00:46:18
I'm back, bitches. I'm back, bitches, for real. Her and the Mothman walk in. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,
00:46:31
Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14.
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Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense,
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rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either.
00:46:48
Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
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Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
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From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far off concept.
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It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
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Terms and conditions apply. See Pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Oh, falling alone.
00:48:36
Her shitty job that she didn't even want to be at anymore. Her last day. She's about to.
00:48:43
That's like a from Lethal Weapon where it's like, I'm about to retire, but here's one more call.
00:48:49
Also, I was just saying to Alejandra, I was like, I'm doing this story, but I'm like, what's coming up next if that's the first story?
00:48:57
Right. Well, what's interesting about my story, so you don't have to use too much brainpower and imagination, we're staying in Manhattan.
00:49:06
Yes. I love it there. We're going to stay there. We're going to go to when the Empire State Building was being built in the 30s.
00:49:12
Yes. So don't even worry about it. Don't even get up from the couch right now. Close your eyes.
00:49:20
Now I wouldn't let you close your eyes and listen to this podcast. Yeah. This is great. And you can just tell we have great producers and everything on the podcast
00:49:28
because these stories go together. Yes. Nice. So today I'm covering a story about an attorney who led a massive prostitution racketeering
00:49:37
investigation. And I'm going to be using the word prostitution as it is in the legal sense
00:49:42
a few times in the story. All right. To take down mafioso kingpin, everyone's favorite, Charles Lucky Luciano.
00:49:50
Oh, shit. In the 1930s. By showing compassion to the city's sex worker community, this attorney is able to set herself, yes, herself, apart from her colleagues as a person these women could trust enough to talk to openly.
00:50:04
At the same time, she fended off corrupt police to build her case against the notorious mobster.
00:50:09
And she did it all as one of New York's first female African-American lawyers. Whoa.
00:50:16
Yeah. This is the story of New York Assistant District Attorney Eunice Carter. Eunice.
00:50:23
Eunice. Great name. This is one of those stories where like, why don't we have like a national holiday every
00:50:29
year for this woman? She's incredible. We should talk about her more. What about us?
00:50:34
Here we go. The main sources used in today's story include an essay from the Mob Museum website with
00:50:41
no author listed and an article on Medium provided by the National District Attorneys
00:50:46
Association, all other sources are listed in the show notes. And there's a book I'm going to tell
00:50:51
you to read at the end. So get your pencils ready. Do people use pencils anymore? I mean,
00:50:57
you know me and my number two Dixon Dixon Ticonderoga. That's right. And I have a vintage
00:51:02
pencil sharpener on my wall, but I don't use it. It just looks cool. Did you mount it?
00:51:07
Nice. I'm going to send you some unsharpened pencils. Okay. So first I'm going to tell you about Eunice Carter. She's born in Atlanta, Georgia on July 16th, 1899. She comes from a prominent, accomplished Black family. Before the Civil War, her paternal grandfather, Stanton Huddinton, convinced his plantation owner to let him buy his own freedom.
00:51:31
He managed to purchase his brother Ben's Freedom from a plantation in Mississippi, and the two fled to Chatham, Ontario, Canada, where Stanton helped abolitionist John Brown organize the 1859 slave revolt on Harper's Ferry.
00:51:47
So this is all manhunt time. Yeah. Stanton's son, Eunice's father, William Alpheus Hunton, got a college education while living in Canada and went on to found the Black Division of the YMCA.
00:52:00
Okay. Eunice's mother, Addie Waits-Hunton, is impressive in her own right, having been the first Black graduate at Spencerian College of Commerce in Philadelphia. So, like, I'm lazy. That's it.
00:52:13
Look, compare and despair. We can't be looking at people that we are reading stories about and be like I should be like them. It's not over for us yet.
00:52:23
That's true. Her mother works as a teacher, a social worker, and even sails to France to serve in World War I in 1918 as one of just three Black women in an all-Black American unit.
00:52:34
Wow. I wonder if Bessie Coleman was over there with her. Oh, my God. Being the daughter of two prominent college-educated Black parents in the early 1900s, of course, puts Eunice in a truly unique elite family.
00:52:47
Even as they thrive, the family is still no stranger to racism and are vocal against bigotry
00:52:52
in both their work lives and their personal lives. But when the Atlanta race massacre of September 1906 leaves dozens of innocent Black people
00:53:00
injured or dead, the Hutton family decides to leave Atlanta and move up north to Brooklyn,
00:53:07
New York. Eunice is a product of her tough ancestry, and so she never lets the threat of hate get
00:53:14
in her way. She excels in school and earns two degrees from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
00:53:21
She earns the two degrees at the same time. So she's just like, you know what? I'm here.
00:53:28
I might as well make the most of it. So she earns a bachelor's and a master's of social work in 1921 at the same time.
00:53:36
I literally couldn't go to class and half of my classes were theater classes and I couldn't
00:53:42
bother. don't compare nope comparing despair we're not you love it we're not her husband lyle carter
00:53:51
another unison lyle can you even like that the best the best grandparents name ever so she who she marries in 1924 he no slouch either He one of the most prominent dentists in New York working in Harlem They have a son together named
00:54:06
Lyle Carter Jr. in November of 1925. Okay, so here we are. Eunice follows in her mother's footsteps
00:54:12
and serves as a social worker in New York and New Jersey for 11 years. She also serves alongside
00:54:19
her mother in the 1927 Pan-African Congress, one of a series of eight meetings where Black
00:54:26
leaders and thinkers joined together for the cause of peace and decolonization in Africa
00:54:31
and the West Indies. And as rewarding as the Pan-African Congress experience is for Eunice, she doesn't find
00:54:37
social work that's stimulating. She thought it would be a lot more interesting. So she starts taking night classes at Fordham Law School.
00:54:46
She's the first African-American woman to graduate from Fordham, and she does it in just two years, graduating in 1932.
00:54:55
Like, come on. Graduating from law school in two years? While still working full-time as a supervisor in the Harlem Division
00:55:03
of the Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee. Wow. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. She passes the New York bar exam, of course she does, in 1933,
00:55:13
and immediately starts making a name for herself in both legal and political circles.
00:55:18
She's hand-selected to join what's called the National Council of Negro Women, which is a nonprofit that helps improve the lives of African-American women.
00:55:27
She's chosen by the organization's founder, Mary McLeod Bethune. But it's the recognition she gets from New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
00:55:37
What's up? Hey. LaGuardia. And the state special prosecutor, Thomas E. Dewey. That will come to define her career as she's named New York's first black female assistant district attorney in 1935.
00:55:52
Wow. I know. Great. Like fucking, that's historic. That's historic. It's huge. And it's 30 years before people started fighting for their civil rights.
00:56:03
Right. Just like an accomplishment in an era and a time where the racism was just like coming from every direction.
00:56:14
Yeah. A given. Rampant. Like, oh, God. So with organized crime on the rise, Special Prosecutor Dewey has been instructed to build a team of lawyers to try and dismantle these crime syndicates.
00:56:28
So organized crime is like a big fucking deal at the time. Prohibition had just ended in 1933.
00:56:34
But at that point, I mean, the mobsters had taken over everything, you know, in the city.
00:56:40
And so Dewey wants to dismantle the crime syndicates. 20 lawyers are picked for this job, a team nicknamed the 20 against the underworld.
00:56:50
And all of them, save for Eunice, are white men. Wow. Yeah. Although I feel like if she was a lawyer, that probably was how everything was anyway for her.
00:57:00
Yeah, totally. She's like, yep, it's just another day. Yeah, this is what I expected.
00:57:06
So as impressive as Eunice is, her brilliance, talent and hard work are still undervalued because she's a black woman, of course.
00:57:14
So while the rest of her colleagues are focused on dismantling organized crime syndicates, Eunice is left fielding general complaints from New York residents about organized crime issues.
00:57:25
So it's thankless work, but Eunice rolls up her sleeves and handedly does her job.
00:57:30
Among the cheap complaints she hears from citizens is about the uptick in the number of sex workers around the city.
00:57:36
They seem to be present on almost every street corner. There's tons of brothels.
00:57:41
And because sex work carried even more stigma at this time than it does now, the outcry on supposed, quote, moral grounds is too much for Eunice to ignore.
00:57:51
So she has to go after it. So she unfortunately prosecutes many women for the crime of prostitution.
00:57:58
And for a while, these trials make up the bulk of her caseload. But in interviewing and cross-examining dozens of sex workers, as well as other witnesses for her cases, Eunice quickly realizes something no one else sees.
00:58:11
These women aren't working independently. They're being trafficked. And the man at the top of the trafficking scheme is none other than mob boss Charles Lucky Luciano.
00:58:23
So she's like in it, still in the fucking mob scene. Yeah. So let's talk about Charles Lucky Luciano for a minute.
00:58:30
After immigrating from Sicily to the Lower East Side of Manhattan at eight years old in 1906, Charles Lucky Luciano quickly found gambling and learned that he could make more money for his family on the streets than he could by any legal means.
00:58:44
At just 14 years old, he drops out of school and starts his own gang. Yeah. Hey, you know what I'm going to do?
00:58:51
He's an entrepreneur. And his gang gets looped in with the infamous Five Points gang, which is comprised mostly of Irish American immigrants.
00:59:01
And so Luciano and his gang make their money by charging local Jewish kids 10 cents per week for protection from the other Irish and Italian gangs.
00:59:10
Which is like, it's just mind boggling. It's always about oppressing the lesser, the people who have less, the people who are socially seen as less.
00:59:23
Making a dime off of some oppression is the name of the game in this country. That's right.
00:59:29
By 1920, at the age of 22, Luciano is recruited as a gunman and bootlegger by the Genovese family, which is, of course, one of the biggest Italian mobs in New York.
00:59:39
You know, Karen, you love. I love to talk about the Genovese crime family. Mm-hmm. And he's recruited by their leader at the time, Joe Masseria. So when another one of
00:59:50
Masseria recruits leaves to work for another crime family I going to say this name wrong the Castellamarice There you go Castellamarice Yeah you had to get your hand way up in the air I really did it Castellamarise clan
01:00:06
Masseria has Luciano arrange the revenge kill. So this triggers a mafia war that lasts from February 1930 through April 1931.
01:00:17
And the war leaves several mob bosses dead, which gives the now 33-year-old Luciano the
01:00:23
opportunity he needs to take over as what's called the boss of bosses in New York's organized crime
01:00:29
network. Hey, hey, it's me, the boss of bosses. That was from my one woman show. Lucky Luciano.
01:00:38
He's finally home. Mama, I'm coming home. Luciano uses his newfound power to establish a central governing body that all American crime
01:00:50
Families Must Answer To, which he calls the commission in 1931. So this really is like the
01:00:55
height of the mafia takeover. They take over every facet of businesses, you know, that they can,
01:01:02
essentially drug running and prostitution and what other ones? I don't know. Being rude on the street, spitting.
01:01:09
Spitting, yeah. Spitting, littering. As the head of the commission, he sets up streamlined operations for crimes ranging from,
01:01:17
Oh, here it is. Drug dealing to illegal gambling. Forgot about that one. Oh, yeah. Gambling.
01:01:22
To loan sharking. There's another good one. Extortion. That's another one. And much more.
01:01:27
Today, he's considered the father of modern American organized crime. Yeah. So, like, he kind of took it to the next level, you know?
01:01:35
Yeah. Well, he was so organized that lucky. He was. And he was lucky. And he was so lucky. And he was just fun.
01:01:44
Yeah. Everyone loved lucky. Everyone loved him and was not scared of him at all.
01:01:50
So between 1960 to 1936, Luciano is arrested a total of 25 times for various charges, including
01:01:56
insult, insult? Nope, not insult. No. Assault. That other one. Yeah. Blackmail, robbery, but none of them ever stick.
01:02:05
He always walks free. But thanks to the diligent work and keen observations of Assistant District Attorney Eunice Carter,
01:02:12
that's all about to change. Okay. So as Eunice works the small-time prostitution cases that have been shoved onto her, you know, like without a second thought, she's already thinking beyond, you know?
01:02:25
Yeah. And she notices some similarities between the defendants. First, their defenses all seem to be the same, even if the cases are unrelated.
01:02:34
She thinks it's as if these women, whether they know each other or not, have been coached by the same person on what to say.
01:02:40
Mm-hmm. Second, many of the sex workers arrested in brothels, raids, or on street corners have the same lawyer.
01:02:47
And whenever this lawyer is involved, none of their charges seem to stick and they're released quickly.
01:02:53
So the pimps, or as they're called, bookers, they use the same lawyer as well. And they too seem to always evade serving any jail time.
01:03:01
So she's like putting it together. And third, many of these sex workers use the same bondsman for their prompt releases.
01:03:07
So it's like kind of obvious to her. But the most remarkable thing Eunice does is something no one else was willing to do or even thought about doing.
01:03:17
She talks to the sex workers like they're people. Interesting. Imagine that. Where everyone else looks down on these women as discardable sinners, Eunice listens intently to their stories about being forced into sex work and needing to pay their mobster bosses 50% of their earnings if they want to be, quote, protected.
01:03:37
She sympathizes with their struggles and she earns their trust. And as the women divulge more information regarding who they work for, the easier it is for Eunice to put together a clear picture of what has really been going on.
01:03:51
These aren't just women trying to earn a buck. This is a prostitution racket run amok.
01:03:57
There's enough evidence to warrant a raid on dozens of brothels across Manhattan, Brooklyn, thanks to Eunice.
01:04:03
but before they execute the warrant, Eunice is like, hold on a second. Here's one other problem
01:04:09
that we face. That is that many of the vice cops who are the cops who typically handle crime related
01:04:16
to sex work, they've been corrupted and paid off by the mobsters. So there, she's like, you can't
01:04:22
trust those guys. Don't send those guys in. Like she fucking basically plans the whole outing.
01:04:27
probably because she always had to be, is always 10 steps ahead. Right. So it just benefits her because she's super smart, but she's also a black woman in a white man's world.
01:04:40
And being like, all right, well, I have to think this through about 16 different ways.
01:04:44
So here we go. Watch this. It's not enough to be good like everyone else is. You have to be extraordinary.
01:04:49
Yeah. So Dewey heeds Eunice's advice, which is rad. And on February 2nd, 1936, he has 160 police officers outside of the vice squad conduct raids on somewhere between 80 to 200 brothels.
01:05:04
The numbers are conflicting. That's still a lot of brothels. This leads to the arrest of more than 100 sex workers and madams.
01:05:11
Unfortunately, these women have all been coached so well by their bookers and bosses that most of them refuse to talk.
01:05:17
Like the point is to arrest them to get after the higher ups, you know. But Eunice, having earned the trust of many of these women already, manages to get three
01:05:26
of them to talk more openly on the record by mid-March of 1936. And so these three women all point to the Italian mafia as the ones being responsible
01:05:37
for the prostitution racket. And they all name Luciano as the head of operations.
01:05:42
But even more importantly, because of Eunice, they all agree to testify against Luciano
01:05:47
in court. I mean that really is She must have been so good Because how scary It like would you like to testify against essentially the devil The head of the devil The Sicilian devil that lives in the Bronx or wherever you said God Yeah who knows who you are Oh my God seriously
01:06:06
So all that Eunice Dewey and the prosecution team need now is Luciano in custody.
01:06:11
But essentially in late March of 1936, just days after Eunice secures her critical witness
01:06:16
testimonies, Luciano gets tipped off about his impending arrest. He flees to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
01:06:22
Oh. Have you been there? No, is that the place where during the pandemic, all those people went and got into that pool?
01:06:28
There was like a picture going around. I'm almost positive. Oh, my God. But I could be.
01:06:35
I'm so sorry, Arkansas, if I'm if I'm wrong. But I think that was like, no, we're doing it.
01:06:41
We don't care. We're hanging out in the pool, which is gross enough when there's not a fucking pandemic going on.
01:06:47
So he stays successfully hidden for about a week. But then, and this is where I think he needs to stop going by the moniker Lucky, because it's like not true.
01:06:57
Okay. Because a New York detective with no relation to the case is in Hot Springs working a case of his own.
01:07:04
And he sees Luciano and just like hanging out. Just by chance. Yeah, just by chance.
01:07:11
So he notifies Dewey. They issue a criminal warrant. And on April 3rd, 1936, Arkansas police find and arrest Charles, not so lucky, Luciano.
01:07:21
And he's extradited back to New York where he's arraigned on 90 counts of compulsory prostitution, basically meaning forcing people into sex work.
01:07:31
So his trial begins in May 1936. And even though Dewey is wildly impressed with Eunice's investigation work, he still passes her over for the job of actually trying Luciano in court.
01:07:42
Instead, he selects three white men from his team to take the case. He does, however, appoint Eunice as a handler of sorts for the witnesses, since the women
01:07:50
testifying only trust her. While Luciano has skilled lawyers and an endless swell of confidence, he's ultimately no match
01:07:57
for the evidence laid out against him. Dewey and his team grill the mob boss about phone calls and other monetary ties between
01:08:04
him and the sex work operation he built, tripping him up and catching him in lies on the stand.
01:08:10
They also expose him as a criminal by pointing out the fact that he manages to wear expensive clothes, eat at fancy restaurants, and have all the trappings of wealth while only claiming $22,000 of yearly income on his taxes.
01:08:24
Aww. He's spendthrift. He's just spendthrift. Yeah, he's saving. He's like fast fashion, you guys. It's just fast fashion.
01:08:33
All of this, coupled with the damning testimonies delivered by the key witnesses Eunice secured, leads to Luciano's conviction.
01:08:42
So on June 7th, 1936, he's found guilty on 62 of the 90 counts of compulsory prostitution against him, and he's sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison.
01:08:53
However, when World War II breaks out in 1942, Luciano does get a lucky break. the U.S. Navy intelligence team has a growing concern that Italian and or German troops might
01:09:06
try and attack America by entering New York's waterfront. And that area is largely controlled
01:09:12
by the Italian mob. So in exchange for providing information to the U.S. Navy about the inner
01:09:19
workings of that waterfront, Luciano gets the sentence commuted, like for the good of America,
01:09:25
I guess. And he's released on January 3rd, 1946, after serving about 10 years in prison.
01:09:30
But they're like, you can get out, you can help us, but you don't get to stay in America. And so
01:09:34
a judge rules for Luciano to be deported. And so in 1946, he boards a ship back to Naples, Italy.
01:09:41
That's that. Back to Eunice. Luciano's conviction propels Dewey's popularity enough to win him the
01:09:49
governorship of New York from 1943 to 1954. So even though Eunice is the one who made the
01:09:56
conviction of reality, but despite never getting quite the credit she deserves, she continues on
01:10:01
to have an illustrious career of her own. Dewey does thank her by appointing her as the chief of
01:10:06
the Special Sessions Bureau of the New York County Criminal Justice System in 1937, a job that tasks
01:10:14
her with overseeing more than 14,000 misdemeanor cases a year and makes her one of the highest paid
01:10:20
Black lawyers in the country during this time. Good. Yes. In 1945, Eunice expands her talents
01:10:27
to the global stage as she participates in the founding meetings of the United Nations. Wow.
01:10:33
I know. She takes on even media roles as the UN gains traction, serving as chair for several
01:10:40
committees that promoted advancements for women internationally through the 1950s and 60s. She's
01:10:45
huge champion of Black women and women in general. That's not enough. She also serves on the
01:10:50
International Council of Women, the National Association of Women Lawyers, the New York
01:10:55
Women's Bar Association, the YWCA, and the Harlem Lawyers Association. She's busy. She's so busy.
01:11:03
She's doing it. She spends the rest of her life upholding her family's fierce tenacity for Black
01:11:07
progress and success before passing away on January 25th, 1970 in New York at just 70 years old.
01:11:16
Today, her legacy is kept alive by her grandson, Yale professor Stephen L. Carter. He's written a
01:11:23
book detailing Eunice's triumphs called Invisible, the forgotten story of the Black woman lawyer
01:11:29
who took down America's most powerful mobster, which was published in 2018. And that is the story
01:11:36
of New York assistant district attorney, Eunice Carter. Incredible. Okay, so I am now remembering,
01:11:43
someone sent me that book, Stephen L. Carter's book, Invisible, because I have talked about,
01:11:50
I don't know if I talked about Eunice in relation to a different case. Right, yes.
01:11:56
From one of the cases that we did maybe at a live show in New York. Yeah. Yeah. I'm remembering this now.
01:12:02
But it's truly like pre-COVID. Please forgive me. Somebody sent me this book with a letter in it
01:12:11
talking about they were related to Eunice. Yeah. I totally remember this. I don't think it was Stephen Carter, though. At first I was like, I think the person that wrote
01:12:19
the book or the relative or whatever, but I don't think it was. And also, I feel like if I looked
01:12:26
around my house, I could find the book because I think it's in my front room. I'm looking on my bookshelf right now.
01:12:31
I bet I have it too. Yes. We've talked about Eunice on this show before, I believe.
01:12:35
For sure. But I love the focus being on her entirely. How incredible is that? Like mobsters.
01:12:43
Like no one fucks with the mob. That's like, you don't do that. And she was like, hold my purse.
01:12:48
She's like, I'm smarter than everybody. I'm going to do something. And why not go up against the people?
01:12:54
Because there's part of it where it's like, well, I better do it because there's so many
01:12:58
these people on the take that it won't work if like I'm on the outside, I'm using being on the
01:13:04
outside to make this happen. Right. Wild. Amazing. That felt like a short episode, but it wasn't,
01:13:12
it turns out. It just went by so fast. Great job. That was a great story. Thank you. And thank you
01:13:18
guys for listening and for listening to your first podcast. You're so brave. We're proud of you.
01:13:23
How was it? Most of them are not this long. No, or this good. Or this like swear based.
01:13:32
But, you know, there's a bunch of other ones. So you should listen to those too.
01:13:37
Absolutely. Get on it. Yeah, do it. Download, rate, review, subscribe. And also oh this is really important Stay sexy And don get murdered Goodbye Elvis do you want a cookie This has been an Exactly Right production Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck
01:14:03
Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
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This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin.
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