416 - Call You Next Week | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

00:00:00

This is exactly right. Audible. Goodbye. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup, Hyundai has its eyes

00:00:36

on the next generation of talent. The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14.

00:00:41

Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation. And Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved

00:00:45

the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. And by

00:00:50

engineering EVs with ultra fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day because

00:00:55

the future isn't some far-off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official

00:01:00

partner of FIFA. Goodbye. Where does summer take you? Maybe it's a coastal road trip or a quiet

00:01:06

morning with the windows wide open. Summer smells like bright citrus, warm sand, and endless

00:01:12

possibilities. With Pura's smart diffusers and the new summer collection, you can restore your

00:01:16

sense of place and bring those unforgettable moments right into your living room. Find your

00:01:21

summer escape today. Visit Pura.com to learn more. Goodbye. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstark.

00:01:50

And that's teeny tiny whisper Karen Kilgara. This is an ASMR podcast. Do you have fingernails to tap anything?

00:01:58

No, that's a big thing. No, I don't. Sorry, Bjork. I just cut them. There. Did that work?

00:02:04

On your skin? Yeah. Tip, tap, tippity tap. On my watch, I bought myself a fucking step counter watch

00:02:10

because I'm trying to like count my steps. Obviously, those things go hand in hand.

00:02:14

But I know it's just counting my many, many hand gestures that I do all day. Yeah.

00:02:19

And it's like, okay, I'm going to put that number down. That's how many steps I took.

00:02:25

It should count because it's also a limb. Arms are the legs of the upper body. And you're moving them all over the place.

00:02:32

You always say that. I've always told you that. Also, isn't it like, that's actually really funny.

00:02:39

They should put step counters on like expressive people. Oh, yeah. People that are like constantly this and be like, do you burn more?

00:02:47

I want like a toe ring step counter. I don't know why I'm so like, it has to be right and perfect.

00:02:53

You can't be proud of yourself and what you've accomplished unless it's correct.

00:02:57

Unless you've got the numbers to prove it, to back you up. And that's why I can't breathe a lot.

00:03:03

Yeah. I think that's a lot of pressure for steps. Maybe we can look at that on some other podcast.

00:03:10

Okay. Let's do it. We don't have to do it today. No. This is the true crime podcast.

00:03:14

Yes. That's right. This is the true crime podcast. Can I address something really quickly and just like casually?

00:03:20

This is a true crime podcast. It's been around for over eight years. What episode number is this?

00:03:25

500 and something or other. We've done 416 episodes. 90% of them have two stories each, one for both of us.

00:03:34

Once in a while, I want everyone to know our stories that we do are going to overlap,

00:03:39

are going to come right before, right after. Some other of the thousands of podcasts that are true crime have done the same story.

00:03:46

and you just have to deal with it. We're not stealing. They're not stealing. Our stories

00:03:52

are picked and researched months and months in advance now that we have really amazing

00:03:57

producers. Yeah. And researchers. Yeah. I just want everyone to know that. I feel like there is a level of make the problem be this because the problems on the outside are so

00:04:11

awful right now. And truly, I think people are justified. There's an escapism element to it,

00:04:18

but it's like, here's the real problem. These two shows overlapped with their stories. If only,

00:04:25

like I support the delusion and I understand the need, but that would be an amazing thing where

00:04:32

people, because you have to think it through. What would be the value add there? What would we get

00:04:36

or what would anyone else get from that? Like we're not breaking these stories. We are taking other people,

00:04:44

journalists and writers, hard, long research and just boiling it down. Yeah. And crediting them.

00:04:51

To make an hour podcast. And it's okay to be looking for problems elsewhere because the problems in front of you

00:04:57

are like a train crashing into your car. So got it. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What else you got?

00:05:03

Let's move on from this topic. I'm shaking. My step counter's gone up so much because I'm just shaking my arms up in my—

00:05:11

Because look, hey, listen. And also, guess what? This isn't Little League Baseball.

00:05:16

We're not competing against other podcasts. It does not work that way. It doesn't.

00:05:22

We listen to all the other true crime podcasts and love them and appreciate them and have them on our podcast network.

00:05:28

Right. And also, they all have to be different. It's all different voices. You like to hang with different hosts.

00:05:34

God bless. Truly. You don't have to pick one true crime podcast. No, you do not.

00:05:39

You can pick many. And I would tell you as a person who uses podcasts as avoidance myself, you have to pick many.

00:05:46

Right. Because you need to fill that library with as many as you can. That library of your head?

00:05:53

Or the library on my phone Oh right That one too But also that one too The library on my phone drowns out the library in my head Amen Of weird random shit people have said

00:06:05

Oh, Jesus. A great example of interaction that we do adore is an email like this one

00:06:11

that we got. Subject line is gushing over Virginia Hall. So if you don't know or weren't here

00:06:16

listening out of order, I recently covered an amazing spy named Virginia Hall. One of the greats of all time.

00:06:24

World War II spy. incredible woman. Basically was an intrinsic part of the Allied victory in World War II.

00:06:31

So this email starts gushing over Virginia Hall and it says, hi ladies. I know this isn't a true

00:06:36

hometown story, but I wanted to send you a quick note about the latest episode on Virginia Hall.

00:06:41

I literally gasped when you started off her intro. She's one of my favorite people in history,

00:06:47

particularly since I worked for a few years at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

00:06:52

Right? I'm so happy that you included the name of her leg, Cuthbert, as it is one of the quirky

00:06:59

factoids that I think makes history and the Spy Museum great. Virginia's niece worked with the

00:07:05

museum to donate objects and to tell Virginia's story. She actually donated Cuthbert, who is

00:07:10

proudly displayed alongside Virginia's ID and radio, among other objects. The radio is shockingly

00:07:18

heavy, which paints the picture of how grueling her hike across the Pyrenees was. Her leg was

00:07:24

seven pounds. So on top of that radio. Once she made it to Spain, Virginia radioed in to let

00:07:30

London know she was okay. She stated that Cuthbert had given her a hard time and the SOE replied that

00:07:36

she should eliminate him, thinking Cuthbert was an informant and not her prosthetic.

00:07:41

Like, eliminate. Wow. Wow. Oh, my God. The museum also features so many important people and their artifacts.

00:07:50

And then it says, with Cuthbert, these objects tell stories about how women, differently abled people, and people we overlook can be so powerful and the best spies.

00:08:01

I've already shared the podcast with the Spy Museum team, and they're excited to listen.

00:08:06

Oh, now I'm nervous. Thanks for all you do, SS and DGM, Julia. Wow. Wow, Julia, what a rad job.

00:08:14

Right? Oh my God. The Spy Museum. The Spy Museum. That's cool. What a great email.

00:08:20

Thanks for writing in. Yes, thank you kindly. Yeah. Oh, real quick before we start, let's talk about true crime.

00:08:26

Did you watch... Oh. He called himself Mostly Harmless, the documentary. No, I have not seen it yet.

00:08:32

Okay, you have to see it. I don't know what station it's on. Tune in to what station it's on.

00:08:36

That's not a thing anymore. Tune in to NBC at 7 p.m. It's about a hiker that was found dead in the woods and no one could identify him, blah, blah, blah.

00:08:46

But it's also about the sleuthing community that ended up finding who his identity was and what the sleuthing community is like.

00:08:56

So it's as big of a story there as it is about who was this guy and what happened with him.

00:09:03

I'm fascinated. I will watch it the second we're done. It's really great. Okay, cool.

00:09:08

And there's a twisty turn at the end of who this guy was. Perfect. I love twisty turns.

00:09:13

Hell yeah. Also, I just feel like this, it's such a cool thing that this genre that we've been interested in for so long, that many people have.

00:09:24

It's almost like, and I is getting turned to it to say, it isn't just the singular stories, but it's this kind of community around it or the stories around it.

00:09:33

The family, the people who go on to do something about it or whatever, where it's not this

00:09:39

boiled down version of, well, this body was found and then identified the end or whatever.

00:09:45

It's like there's so much more to it. Including, and this is in the documentary, the fallout from that.

00:09:52

Yes. Always. Always fallout. The many, many fallouts from that too. When this mystery network gets identified, they owe you $800 for that plug because it

00:10:02

worked on me. Oh, it's on Max. It's on Max, formerly known as the HBO. That's right.

00:10:07

Oh, there's a story that happened. You may have seen it. Did you see that Amber Alert in Los Angeles County?

00:10:14

No. There was an Amber Alert about a stolen car with a child in it. Oh, my God. These two young women, their names are Regan Dunn and Yenny Liu.

00:10:25

And so these two young women got the Amber Alert and were like, that's near here.

00:10:29

Let's go drive around. they find the fucking car you didn't see this? no! I'm gonna send it to you

00:10:36

send it to me immediately they find the car they see the little kid he's sitting in it alone

00:10:41

they call the cops the cops come the father comes there's a reunion they didn't go near the car

00:10:47

they didn't try to do anything they did it so perfectly and exactly right and they were on the news

00:10:53

explaining how they did it they look like they're 19 years old like baby girls give them a key to the city immediately

00:11:00

It's a TikTok creator named Dr. Engels, who basically took the footage from ABC7.

00:11:08

And they basically took the description of the car and the first three numbers and letters of

00:11:14

the license plate and drove around for 10 minutes and were like, there's a gray Honda right there

00:11:19

with eight XP. That's incredible. Find the little boy inside, call the cops. The father runs up.

00:11:26

Can you believe that? This is why you should never mind your own business. You know what I mean?

00:11:31

For real. At least in that way where it's like that, they made a gigantic difference.

00:11:37

Yeah. They got it done. It's so cool. That's so rad. Amazing. Love it. Love a positive story like that.

00:11:43

So good. Yeah. And also, I just, when I was watching it, I was like, I was so afraid they were going to get out

00:11:49

and go and like open the car and grab the kid or do something. Yeah. And they were like, nope.

00:11:54

They just sat there called the cops and waited till the cops came So they were like eyes on Yeah These young women do not look like they very young looking And I like you handled this perfectly Beautiful

00:12:05

Beautiful. Hooray. All right. On that, should we go to the Exactly Right highlights and get into

00:12:10

our stories? Yeah. Let's kick it off with some very exciting news. Oh, this is Exactly Right

00:12:15

Network highlights. We have a network and we have podcasts on it. And we're about to tell you some

00:12:19

highlights on the podcast. We have a podcast called Adulting. It's hosted by Michelle Bouteau

00:12:25

and Jordan Carlos and very hilarious, very funny. Michelle Bouteau starred in her own Netflix series.

00:12:32

It kicked off, I think it premiered like three days after the writer's strike started. So we

00:12:38

couldn't talk about it and we couldn't promote it, which was heartbreaking. She'd been working

00:12:44

on it for so long and nobody was allowed to talk about it. It was called Survival of the Thickest.

00:12:49

It's based on Michelle's book that she wrote. So if you want to read that book, get that.

00:12:53

But the amazing news, especially these days, is that she just found out Netflix picked her up for a second season.

00:13:00

Amazing. Which is- That's huge. Incredible these days. And you can check it out.

00:13:05

One of our podcasters, Lisa Traeger from That's Messed Up is on it. And of course, Jordan Carlos himself is on it.

00:13:11

So keep your eye peeled for that. We're very excited. We're very proud of Michelle.

00:13:15

And then over on Parent Footprint with Dr. Dan, my cousin, who's one of the sweetest, most lovely human beings I've ever met, is joined by humorous

00:13:23

author and podcast host, Stephanie Wilder-Taylor. And they speak about Stephanie's new book,

00:13:29

Drunkish, Loving and Leaving Alcohol. I cannot wait to read this book. It's going to be incredible.

00:13:34

And Dr. Dan has a wonderful conversation with her. So make sure you listen to Parent Footprint.

00:13:39

And then comedian Zach Noe Towers, who's also my good friend, is Roz's guest over on Ghosted

00:13:45

by Roz Hernandez this week. He's hilarious. You have to listen to that. And then over in the MFM store,

00:13:50

one of the most popular items of all time is back in stock. It's the Fuck You, I'm Married Joggers.

00:13:56

If that doesn't resonate with you and your life status, then we also have joggers

00:14:01

for those who are single, divorced, or still figuring it out. These make great gifts

00:14:05

for the goth winter bride in your life. So make sure to go to myfavoritemurder.com

00:14:11

and check out the store. Get some sweatpants. Yeah. Whatever your situation. Maybe you can get a pair of sweatpants that don't represent your situation and wear them and you feel like someone new.

00:14:21

Yeah, like a liar. Yeah. If you spend all day waiting to take your bra off, it might be time for Third Love.

00:14:30

If you're looking for breathable, lightweight comfort this summer, you're going to love Third Love.

00:14:34

Third Love is built around getting the fit right instead of expecting you to put up with something that doesn't work.

00:14:38

And Third Love offers a full range of sizes from AA to H, including their exclusive half cup sizes, so you can find a fit that feels just right instead of close enough.

00:14:48

Stop settling for bad bras. Whether you're looking for more lift, back smoothing, or straps that stay put, Third Love can find your fit fast.

00:14:56

Their virtual fitting room gets you in the right size and matches you with the best styles for your shape.

00:15:00

If you've ever been fitted for the right size bra, you are in for a treat. It actually changes the whole game with bras.

00:15:06

I thought I was like a something, something A cup. I'm a something, something B cup.

00:15:11

And it's just changed my bra game. I thought I just hated bras, but I was wearing the wrong size.

00:15:16

And with Third Love, like they're so comfortable that it doesn't even feel like I'm wearing a bra.

00:15:20

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.

00:15:33

The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.

00:15:44

Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.

00:15:50

Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability.

00:15:57

And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far off concept.

00:16:05

It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.

00:16:11

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. It's 2026. And if you have an alternative career like food photography or professional mixtape making or witchcraft, you're going to need an online presence.

00:16:22

Whatever your thing is, Squarespace helps you build a website that's as unique as you are.

00:16:26

Squarespace provides you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place.

00:16:31

From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your offerings with a customizable

00:16:36

website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional

00:16:40

invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling

00:16:45

and email marketing tools. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools,

00:16:50

anyone can build a beautiful professional online presence that perfectly fits their brand or

00:16:54

business. Head to squarespace.com slash murder for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,

00:16:58

use offer code murder to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Goodbye.

00:17:06

All right. I think I'm first this week. Yep. Okay. So Georgia, today I'm going to kick it off

00:17:11

by telling you about what some people would call a fantastical murder that took place in the late

00:17:18

19th century in Ireland. Before we start, I'll just say this. This is ultimately a story of

00:17:26

really horrible domestic violence and murder. Let that be a trigger warning for anybody that

00:17:31

might have a sensitivity to this topic. So there's some stuff you have to know about that time and

00:17:38

place. So all around the Irish countryside, there are remains of the stone and earth ring-shaped

00:17:45

forts that had been built around early medieval settlements as protective barriers, right?

00:17:51

So there would be a settlement and then they would build a wall around it and the whole thing would be in a circle But then and that was in medieval times so over time as settlements are abandoned they overgrown by nature they just end up leaving ring formations in the earth

00:18:08

because of local folklore come to be known as fairy forts or fairy rings. Cool. And how much do you want to go there with a metal detector right now?

00:18:17

Well, Beau, but you couldn't because that'd be disrespectful to the fairies. They don't want you in there.

00:18:22

Okay. Yeah. But yes, you're correct. didn't know how much I would love that. But then you'd be cursed. It's not allowed. Yes, exactly.

00:18:28

And at that time, it was very common, Irish people, especially people who lived out in the country,

00:18:35

they're very superstitious, but they also very much believe in fairies. And this is, I have proof

00:18:41

of this. My grandfather believed in fairies. Like he told my sister all about it growing up and he

00:18:46

wasn't being cute or like telling stories. They believed that they were real and they were in and

00:18:51

around the area that they lived and you had to make sure, you know, it was like the whole thing

00:18:56

of like knocking on wood when you say something. It's because you don't want the fairies in the

00:19:00

wood to hear you because they will go make it happen. So there's lots of things like that.

00:19:05

That's like, it's mythology, it's folklore, it's Irish culture and tradition. And so they believe

00:19:11

fairies are like little human-like creatures. Sometimes people call them the little people

00:19:16

and they can either be very helpful and give you gifts and be really nice, or they can be very hurtful and like kill all your crops and worse.

00:19:25

And it just depends on the way and kind of, it seems to me, the respect with which you interact with them.

00:19:31

So when a young woman named Bridget Cleary falls sick after walking by a fairy fort in March of 1895,

00:19:39

her husband, Michael Cleary, tells family and friends he thinks that the fairies are to blame.

00:19:45

But the story that he then begins to weave about his wife is a supernatural tale of changelings

00:19:52

that begs the question, does this man really believe in fairies or is he an unhappy husband

00:19:58

looking to punish his independent wife? This is the story of the murder of Bridget Cleary.

00:20:04

Shit. Yeah, right? So the main sources used for this story, there's a 2022 article from Atlas Obscura,

00:20:13

one of my favorite websites, and they have a lot of books that they push out. So good.

00:20:17

That they push out. that they put out. It's geography. It's like, it's cultural stuff.

00:20:24

It's trip planning. Atlas Obscura, if you've never heard of it, go interact. Yeah.

00:20:30

They're amazing. So they have an article called The Haunting True Story of Bridget Clary's

00:20:34

Changeling Murder by Sarah Dern. Then there's also an article from Mental Floss entitled The Bizarre Death of Bridget Clary,

00:20:41

The Fairy Wife, written by Maria J. Perez Cuervo. And then there's also an article

00:20:47

from the National Archives of Ireland entitled Behind the Scenes, The Murder of Bridget Cleary,

00:20:52

and that is provided by archivist Patricia Fallon. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes.

00:20:59

So this starts March 4th, 1895, 26-year-old Bridget Cleary of Balavedle in County Tipperary.

00:21:08

I can't tell you, I looked up Balavedle, how to pronounce it. I'm positive I'm pronouncing it wrong.

00:21:14

Every little thing that you were supposed to click on and it said, like the computer voice says it,

00:21:19

there were two ones that were completely different. Then I looked up a video and that guy said it a third different way.

00:21:25

And I was like, you know what? I can't be held to these standards anymore of pronouncing things correctly.

00:21:30

Okay, we're in County Tipperary. I know I'm saying that right. So Bridget sets out on a three-mile walk

00:21:37

to a village called Kylanagrana to deliver eggs to her father's cousin, Jack Dunn.

00:21:43

So she's done this walk countless times and it takes her by the fairy fort on Kailanagranagh Hill.

00:21:52

So most people know that you should stay away from fairy forts. They were kind of taboo places.

00:21:58

You had to be very careful in any place where fairies hung around. You didn't want to just be messing around randomly.

00:22:06

And Bridget, being fascinated by fairies and maybe not the biggest believer in that part of the mythology,

00:22:13

she would go and visit fairy forts. And this one, she passed a lot. And so on this trip home,

00:22:20

she went up into it to look around. I'm going to read you a part of Maria J. Perez Cuervo's article from Mental Floss

00:22:28

because this seems needed. In that, Maria says, quote, it was also a society steeped in legends of the supernatural.

00:22:37

Fairy belief in particular was pervasive in Irish rural societies at the time and had long coexisted with Christian doctrine.

00:22:45

Children grew up hearing legends of the little people from their earliest days and learned how to appease them by leaving untasted food on the table, for example,

00:22:54

or saying bless them whenever the fairies were mentioned. The fairies were blamed for everything that went wrong,

00:23:01

lost items, spilled milk, bad crops. As one county Sligo man interviewed at the start of the 20th century told an anthropologist,

00:23:09

quote, nothing is more certain than that there are fairies, end quote. Wow. So it's a real old country belief.

00:23:17

Yeah. So on her way home that evening, Bridget, after she goes up into the ferry fort,

00:23:24

still walking home, she starts getting the chills. They continue through the night.

00:23:28

She wakes up the next morning with a terrible headache. She feels terrible. She's really sick.

00:23:33

She spends the next few days in bed, but her symptoms only get worse, and her fever's rising.

00:23:39

So they wait five days for some reason. And then on Saturday, March 9th, Bridget's father, Patrick Boland,

00:23:47

hikes four miles in the rain to try to go get help from the nearest doctor. But the doctor can't come right then.

00:23:54

He says he'll be by soon. In the next week, Bridget's husband, Michael, goes back to the doctor's house

00:24:00

twice more to ask him to please come and look at Bridget. The doctor finally makes it to the

00:24:05

Clary's house a full week later. God, come on. Yeah. This is one of the problems living in the

00:24:10

country. No services. So he diagnoses Bridget with nervous excitement and slight bronchitis

00:24:16

and prescribes her a little medicine. He says it's nothing too serious. Even still, that night,

00:24:23

Michael calls the local priest to come and give Bridget her last rites. So he's clearly very worried about her, and to him, for some reason, it is a big deal.

00:24:34

Michael then tells cousin Jack Dunn that there could be a supernatural cause behind Bridget's

00:24:41

illness because he claims Bridget looks, quote, too fine, unquote, to be the real Bridget.

00:24:49

And he claims that she is two inches taller somehow than she normally is. Yeah, I know.

00:24:56

Jack's a well-known storyteller in the region. He is well-versed in local folklore.

00:25:01

And he suggests there's a possibility that if those things are true, Bridget isn't Bridget at all,

00:25:07

that there's a good chance the woman lying in her bed is a changeling. So according to the myth, evil fairies who want children but are unable to conceive

00:25:19

will kidnap human women to carry a baby for them and replace the women that they stole with a changeling,

00:25:26

which is basically like a fancy word for an imposter. We'll give you a little background on this family.

00:25:32

Bridget is born Bridget Boland on February 19th, 1869 in Balavedle. And she's bright and beautiful and independent from an early age.

00:25:43

And unlike many children that grew up around her, she actually learns to read and write.

00:25:48

And then when she's 18, her intelligence wins her a very coveted job as a dressmaker's apprentice 15 miles away in Clonmel.

00:25:58

So Bridget's a prime example of the new woman, which is this emerging trend that began to challenge the rigid gender roles

00:26:07

of turn-of-the-century Ireland. And it's in Clonmel that Bridget, who's 18, meets 27-year-old Michael Cleary,

00:26:14

who is a cooper, which is a guy that makes casks and barrels. So they fall in love and they get married on August 6th, 1887 in the Catholic Church.

00:26:25

But soon after, Bridget's mother gets sick. So Bridget moves home to take care of her.

00:26:32

And to help financially, Bridget puts her dressmaking skills to work. So she buys a sewing machine, which is very rare for the average person in that village.

00:26:42

Like it's, you know, really expensive, something that almost no one would have. And she starts making clothing and hats and repairing clothing for people.

00:26:52

She also keeps chickens and sells the eggs, which is what she was doing when she was on that walk before she got sick.

00:26:58

So she is very industrious and she's very, you know, she wants to make money. She wants to contribute to the family.

00:27:07

And Michael, meanwhile, continues to live and work back in Clon Mill for the next year.

00:27:11

and then when Bridget's mother passes away, he moves back to Balavedle and he and Bridget actually move in with her father

00:27:22

into a very nice stone cottage. So her father, Patrick, is a former laborer and he is actually entitled to the old laborer's cottage

00:27:31

and it's the nicest home in the village by far. Most people, you know, you have thatch roofs,

00:27:37

some of the homes are made of stone, don't have windows, And this one looks like this home is really nice, beautiful.

00:27:44

It looks like a two-story house. So they have this beautiful home. They have a double income household.

00:27:50

The fact that both Bridget and Michael are educated, it sets the Clearies apart from the rest of their village.

00:27:58

And on top of that, Bridget's fierce city girl independence sets her apart from most of the local women.

00:28:05

And from the outside, Bridget and Michael's relationship seems to be happy. but the people close to them will say that Michael disapproves of Bridget's independence.

00:28:15

The fact that she has several jobs, including one that causes her to walk alone to make deliveries.

00:28:21

Basically, they say he would prefer a more submissive wife. So when she gets sick and,

00:28:29

you know, the sickness doesn't go away for a while, Michael becomes convinced his wife is a

00:28:34

changeling. So basically Jack Dunn tells him you should go to see a fairy doctor, a local man named

00:28:41

Dennis Ganey. So Dennis tells Michael he needs to boil a special combination of herbs in what's

00:28:48

called new milk, which is the nutrient-rich milk that a cow who's just given birth gives.

00:28:54

I put that in my protein shakes every morning. Yeah, that's right. Just straight out of the teat. He says you need to feed that herb milk

00:29:04

to Bridget. So on the night of Thursday, March 14th, 1895, Michael brews that concoction. And

00:29:11

then with the help of five other men, including three of Bridget's cousin and her own father,

00:29:17

they hold her down and force feed her this milk. I really do put that in my, there is a bovine

00:29:23

colostrum that that's what it's called. And it's actually really good for you. So it's like the

00:29:28

first time I've heard the medicine from back then not being like toxic, you know, and they're like,

00:29:33

bleed them out or whatever. Like feed them, you know, pond water. It's like actually.

00:29:39

Proven. Yeah. Yeah. It's proven. Also, it's like that history actually makes it so it's like one of these things from these days,

00:29:48

which are usually ridiculous in pond water. It's like, oh wait, that also proves that.

00:29:53

Yeah Yeah Sorry vegans but it works Yeah Sometimes you just need that good new milk Okay So as they holding her down it so upsetting this whole idea But Michael yelling things like take it witch or I kill you

00:30:08

Away with you, changeling. Come home, Bridget Bolin. So he's screaming this at her while she's screaming and fighting against the five men that are holding her down.

00:30:18

then when that isn't working then he decides he's going to try another treatment for expelling

00:30:24

fairy spirits which is taking a hot poker to her forehead and then throwing urine on her

00:30:31

no that's not no that's what i was just mentioning is the yeah the pond water right holy shit the

00:30:42

hey where did this come from hey has this ever worked before so then why are you doing it

00:30:48

What man came up with this to tell a man to do to a woman? When Bridget continues to fight, they hold her over the fireplace grate because they believe or they're told the heat is meant to drive the fairy spirits out.

00:31:02

And they ask her three times, are you Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God?

00:31:07

And she is answering. So just to know, she has a cousin there named Johanna. There are witnesses that are there.

00:31:14

and she is the whole time saying, I am, what are you, like, yes, what are you talking about?

00:31:20

And trying to fight them, but also say, it's me, it's me. I mean, it's like an old timey exorcism.

00:31:26

Bad. Holy shit. So this is when, at this point, Bridget's Aunt Mary Kennedy, who just lives up the road,

00:31:33

walks into the cottage and she's horrified at what she's seeing. And she goes over to Bridget's cousin,

00:31:40

Johanna Burke, who's been there the whole time witnessing this chaos. And Johanna would later describe Bridget as acting wild and deranged.

00:31:50

But she never specifies if she thinks that's because it's of the fairy possession or the fact

00:31:55

that she's being held down and assaulted in horrible ways. So finally around midnight,

00:32:01

Bridget stops fighting. Michael seems to be satisfied that he has successfully driven out

00:32:06

the evil spirits. But just to be safe, he has the priest come back to the cottage the next morning

00:32:12

to perform mass and make sure that the evil spirits are gone. So after that morning mass, Bridget gets out of bed for the first time

00:32:21

since she got sick 11 days prior. She puts on some of her nicest clothes, which her cousin Johanna later puts it,

00:32:30

gave Bridget courage when she goes among the people. So apparently, Bridget felt better,

00:32:37

and she was getting all her stuff done. Everything appears to be back to normal.

00:32:42

But later that evening, Michael and Bridget are having family over for tea. When Bridget makes a fatal mistake, she asks for milk for her tea.

00:32:50

And according to folklore, fairies love fresh milk. So it sets Michael off. He immediately suspects that the evil changeling spirits have kept their grip over Bridget.

00:33:03

And he starts hammering her with questions again, making her answer three times that she is indeed the real Bridget.

00:33:10

But now Bridget's fed up with everything. She only answers him the first two times he asks.

00:33:15

And the third time she fires back saying, your mother used to go with the fairies

00:33:20

and that's why you think I am going with them. Now, real quick, I believe, but I could be wrong about this,

00:33:27

but I believe the idea of quote unquote going with the fairies is what people of old time Ireland

00:33:32

used to call going insane or having mental illness. Oh. Which is very common in that culture.

00:33:38

so the idea of going off with the fairies was almost like the nice way to put it so she basically

00:33:45

took a probably a very painful traumatic element of his life threw it in his face

00:33:50

and was like this is why you're doing this to me yeah also partly could be your mother had mental

00:33:57

illness and there's a chance you have mental illness because what are you doing yeah so of

00:34:03

course, her basically standing up to him and saying that, slapping him in the face with that,

00:34:09

sends him into a fit of rage. He then, or this is weird, but he orders Bridget to eat three pieces

00:34:15

of bread with jam. That has nothing to do with superstition or fairy folklore. It's just him

00:34:21

asserting control over her. She senses this. She eats the first two pizzas. She hesitates on the

00:34:27

third. And as she does, Michael throws her to the ground and says, if you won't take it down,

00:34:33

you will go. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah. So he forces the third piece of bread into her mouth,

00:34:40

holding her down with his knee on her chest and stripping her down to her underwear. So it's

00:34:48

turned. It's no longer about the fairies. This is a person who clearly there's, this is an old story.

00:34:54

So I don't know what kind of things were happening in there. What I believe is like a seven, six-year marriage where he is having none of it from her anymore, it seems like, to the point of violence, to the point of feeling like he's justified in violence against his wife.

00:35:13

She's struggling against him. He takes her head and slams it onto the ground. Then he grabs a candle and sets her, basically, her clothes on fire.

00:35:22

and some of the family members that are there, they beg Michael to stop. Instead, he takes a lamp,

00:35:29

he pours the paraffin oil all over her and in an instant, she's enveloped in flames.

00:35:34

Fuck. And he tells the horrified onlookers not to mourn for her because, quote, she's not my wife.

00:35:42

She's an old deceiver sent in place of my wife. Holy shit. Yes. So he murders his wife in front of her family members.

00:35:53

And then he picks up her charred lifeless body wraps it in a sheet slips it into a bag and then he locks the family inside the cottage with her corpse

00:36:05

while he goes out and digs a shallow grave in a bog about a quarter mile uphill from their home.

00:36:11

So he comes back an hour later wielding a knife. He uses it to threaten Bridget's cousin,

00:36:17

Patrick Kennedy, and says, you have to come and help me bury her body. So then they do that.

00:36:23

They come back to the cottage and then Michael makes everyone that's there swear not to tell a soul what happened.

00:36:31

Unfortunately, Bridget is known about town, probably well-liked around town because the next day when they don't see her,

00:36:40

they notice that she's missing and they go report it to the police. And they have no idea what happened in that cottage.

00:36:46

And at the same time, Jack Dunn, the cousin, who also wasn't there and doesn't know what has happened,

00:36:52

he finds Michael, who is very upset, and takes him to a nearby church. Michael's acting so

00:37:01

strangely and crazily that he takes him to a church. He has him kneel at the altar so he can

00:37:07

take the sacrament, but his behavior is erratic. He's sobbing. He's tearing his hair out, saying he

00:37:13

needs to go to confession. But when the priest comes out, he pulls Jack aside and says, what's

00:37:19

going on, Jack, who was not there for Bridget's murder, explains Michael is claiming to have

00:37:25

burned his wife to death. And Jack has asked Michael to dig her up so that they can give her

00:37:31

a proper burial. Like, if that's true, we have to go find her so we can bury her properly.

00:37:38

Michael refuses. Of course, the priest is like, what is going on? He's totally overwhelmed. He

00:37:44

thinks both of these men have lost it. So he goes to the police to report them. And when he does,

00:37:50

he actually ends up giving the police their first meaningful lead in Bridget Clary's disappearance.

00:37:56

So they go and begin questioning Bridget's family and friends, asking about Michael and his behavior

00:38:02

of late. And eventually the details of the previous night emerge. And some of the family even tell

00:38:09

police that in the wake of Bridget's murder, Michael contemplated either fleeing to another

00:38:14

country or taking his own life to avoid prosecution. They also say allegedly he suggested

00:38:22

the idea of claiming insanity so he would get off for her murder. So is he crazy like Jack

00:38:30

thinks he is? Or according to the family's story, it's a lot more sinister than that.

00:38:37

So that same night, March 16th, Michael walks back up to Kalanagrana Hill, and he waits by the ferry fort for the real Bridget to return.

00:38:49

He's gotten rid of what he believes the fake Bridget, and so then he's saying he's convinced that the fairies will now release the real Bridget by tying her to a white horse and sending her back through the ferry fort.

00:39:02

and he apparently stays up there for the next three nights watching the horizon for the coming of the white horse

00:39:08

that will bring his real wife back home. I think this guy's lost the plot. I think he believes this stuff.

00:39:15

It seems like he does. It's those other parts where it's like there's some planning

00:39:19

where it's like it could be because it's very common to believe it. It's common to believe all this.

00:39:26

So he could be believing it or he could be taking advantage of the fact that everybody else believes it.

00:39:31

Yeah, the fact that other men were involved in her quote-unquote exorcism shows that, yeah, it's not just him at all.

00:39:40

Right. It's not a weird thing for five men to hold a woman down and make her drink milk.

00:39:44

Yeah. So, of course, the white horse never comes. And then on March 20th, just four days later, the Royal Irish Constables find Michael Clary at the Ferry Fort.

00:39:54

They place him under arrest. They also arrest the eight other people connected to Bridget's murder, most of them her own family members.

00:40:01

Wow. So two days later, the police find the shallow grave that Michael dug in the bog, and they dig Bridget's body up.

00:40:10

The burns on the lower half of her body leave her bones exposed, and the only clothing left on her is a stocking and one gold earring.

00:40:20

Oh, my gosh. So the police place her body in a storage facility to use as evidence for the upcoming trial.

00:40:28

A grand jury is held from April 1st to 6th in 1895. And in the end, five of the nine defendants are indicted for murder.

00:40:38

Michael Clary, Patrick Boland, who is Bridget's father, Mary Kennedy, Bridget's aunt, James

00:40:45

Kennedy, Bridget's cousin, and Patrick Kennedy, Bridget's other cousin. So this highly publicized trial begins July 3rd, 1895.

00:40:54

and over the course of two days, the jury hears the eyewitness accounts as well as the testimony from Michael himself

00:41:00

stating that he truly believed and seems to still believe that his wife has been taken by the fairies.

00:41:07

The jury are shown Bridget's corpse, which not only confirms her identity, but gives them a full understanding

00:41:13

of the horrific pain that she endured leading up to her death. On July 5th, the jury delivers the verdicts

00:41:20

and this whole case makes international headlines. This was big at the time. And of all those charged nine total people,

00:41:28

they're all found guilty of wounding Bridget. As for the five defendants charged with her murder,

00:41:34

the judge removes the murder charge altogether, given their apparent true belief in fairies.

00:41:40

And instead, Bridget's cousin, Patrick Kennedy, is sentenced to five years of penal servitude,

00:41:45

which is forced manual labor, for helping bury her body, which he was threatened with a next...

00:41:51

I don't know why that ended up that way, And then his brothers the other Kennedy boys are sentenced to 18 months of hard labor for restraining Bridget Bridget dad Patrick Boland is sentenced to six months of hard labor for his part in the exorcism

00:42:07

Mary Kennedy is let off the hook considering her age and the overall weak state of her physical health.

00:42:13

So the bulk of the blame falls on Bridget's husband, Michael Cleary. So even though the murder charge itself is thrown out, he's convicted of manslaughter,

00:42:21

and he's sentenced to 20 years penal servitude. He ends up serving 15. He's granted release on April 28th, 1910.

00:42:31

And he like immediately moves to Liverpool and then emigrates to Canada. Wow. So by October of that same year,

00:42:41

Michael Cleary has begun a new life for himself in Montreal and he's never heard from him again.

00:42:47

Oh my God. And he died in 1965. Okay. So he had a full life over there. Everyone's great grandpa who is from Montreal, check your records.

00:42:57

Yeah. Do you know this Irishman? Oh my God, I hate that. It's awful in every way.

00:43:04

So is it kind of extreme beliefs gone unchecked? It's definitely a horrible story of marital violence and not being able to handle your rage and the problems you're having in your household.

00:43:17

But at the same time, this is really crazy. This case broke right in the middle of a national debate about self-governance.

00:43:27

The UK's Liberal Party had been pushing for Irish home rule, which would have been a policy letting the citizens of a colony govern themselves.

00:43:34

So Ireland being a quote-unquote colony of England, it was like home rule, let's turn it back over.

00:43:43

the opposition, they use this crime as proof that the Irish can't govern themselves.

00:43:52

Oh, wow. And they need a centralized body of government to look after them. Which we all know what that led to.

00:43:58

Well, and also it's that thing where this is a one-off bizarre case of very strict,

00:44:05

like it's a combination of things. It's not easy to explain, but it isn't what's happening all the time.

00:44:10

Right. Of course. And it is that kind of colonizer justification where you just take one bad example and then go,

00:44:17

this is why we should do whatever we want. Yeah, totally. Also, you know, obviously another underlying issue here is that this story is a parallel

00:44:25

to all the historical accounts of smart, educated, independent, fiery women around the world

00:44:31

who then are found guilty of witchcraft and burned at the stake. It's very similar.

00:44:38

Right, totally. There are psychologists today who would suspect that Michael could have been the victim of a thing called Capgras syndrome, which is a state of psychosis in which a person thinks their loved one has been replaced by an imposter.

00:44:51

That's a real thing. Really? I guess so. but if the claims around Michael's comments

00:44:58

suggesting he pretend to be insane to get off a reel, then it's possible that he was just playing on local beliefs

00:45:06

to cover his true intentions, which were to punish, control, and ultimately kill a woman who would not submit to him.

00:45:12

Right, totally. So we'll never know Michael's true motives for the killing of his wife, Bridget Cleary,

00:45:19

but her death does point to the dangers of unchecked belief systems, whether they're based in folklore or hard-lined gender roles or a third thing that applies to you

00:45:31

in modern life and that is the story of the murder of Bridget Clary oh my god wow good job thank you

00:45:40

while the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer Hyundai has its eyes on

00:45:47

the next generation of talent the future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14

00:45:51

Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.

00:45:59

Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.

00:46:05

Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability.

00:46:12

And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far-off concept.

00:46:20

It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.

00:46:26

Summer clothes should feel easy and still look polished. Low maintenance, high reward, that's how we live our lives.

00:46:33

For summer clothes you will actually wear, there's Quince. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and toffs with styles starting at $32.

00:46:42

Their denim is soft and easy to wear, and their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights.

00:46:48

Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories.

00:46:53

So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has become a destination for elevated essentials across the home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life.

00:47:06

I am a fan of Quince. Yeah, Karen's wardrobe is Quince. I'm a lazy basics person.

00:47:13

And the things that I get from them, I always go, oh, yeah, now I'm wearing these.

00:47:17

They work. They're cute. They're stylish. And they're classy. Yeah. Like, it doesn't look lazy.

00:47:22

It looks classy. And it's so affordable. Yeah. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash MFM for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

00:47:32

Now available in Canada, too. That's quince.com slash MFM for free shipping and 365-day returns.

00:47:39

Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. great care in curating their collection, focusing on pieces that stand the test of time.

00:48:04

There's no filler. Every item is chosen for craftsmanship, design, and lasting value.

00:48:08

And with Articles 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it.

00:48:17

Plus, Articles' customer care team is available seven days a week, offering knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to help you get your

00:48:24

home just right. Yes, please. Don't we all kind of need that? Like the eye of an expert?

00:48:29

Yeah. Where should I put this? And also, what should I move here and there? And what should I even get?

00:48:34

But Article has it all, so you can get whatever there. That's right. You could be like, I have this thing.

00:48:38

Should I get this one or that one? Totally. Am I Scandi or am I mid-century? Help me be boho chic, please.

00:48:42

If you're in the market for a beautiful new sofa, dining table, or bed, head over to article.com.

00:48:48

Goodbye. Great job telling that awful story. Yeah. Thank you. Well, this too is about a strong independent woman, but she uses her powers for evil.

00:49:05

Oh. And it's a little known story of the origin of one of the most popular scam techniques in modern history.

00:49:13

Oh. However, the name of the scheme isn't given until much later. However, I'm going to tell you about what's thought to be originator of the scheme.

00:49:23

This is the invention and history of the Ponzi scheme. Yes, my favorite. So the main sources I used in today's story include an article from longreads.com by Rose Ebeleth,

00:49:38

a Medium article by Ryan Phan, a piece from Smithsonian Magazine by Mary Darby, and all the other sources are listed in our show notes.

00:49:48

So Karen, what is a Ponzi scheme? Don't answer. Let me tell you. Wait, that's part of my story.

00:49:58

Wait, wait, don't tell me. Let me tell you, since you just said, I don't know. I don't know.

00:50:05

Thank you. It's an investment scheme where the scammer promises to invest their victims' money and give them big returns, of course.

00:50:12

But instead of investing the money, the scammer just uses the money from new investors to pay the old investors.

00:50:17

There is no investments. The money never actually grows. the scammer just attracts new investors by pointing to the old investor's return as proof

00:50:26

that their investments work. A.K.A. crypto. That does come up a lot. But eventually the scammer

00:50:33

hits a plateau and when they can no longer attract new investors, the whole thing implodes.

00:50:38

Signs of a Ponzi scheme, everyone, check your life right now, include outrageous profit promises,

00:50:44

sometimes as high as 50 to 100% return on investments, while keeping their investment

00:50:50

strategies vague, as well as being encouraged to recruit more investors. So this is the scheme

00:50:57

fraudster Bernie Madoff used to swindle a whopping $64.8 billion from his victims in the early 2000s.

00:51:06

Jesus. The largest Ponzi scheme pulled off to date. And I highly recommend the documentary on

00:51:11

Netflix. It's called Madoff, The Monster of Wall Street. And they interview people who worked in

00:51:17

his office for years and years and had no idea. He was just really good at what he did. I mean,

00:51:23

it's an incredible documentary. So today Ponzi schemes exist in the form of pyramid schemes

00:51:28

and multi-level marketing schemes, MLM, Facebook's favorite, where victims are convinced to buy

00:51:35

inventory of a wonder product, sell it to their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and then

00:51:39

recruit more salespeople to buy out more of that inventory and peddle the product, which if you

00:51:45

think about it, it doesn't make any fucking sense for you to like have your friends sell to other

00:51:49

people because then your sales are going to be shit, right? Well, especially if you all live in

00:51:54

the same town, but you're all out there like, buy my crazy leggings. And it's like, no, we all have

00:51:59

plenty. Like the LuLaRoe company documentary, LuLaRiche. A great one. A great doc.

00:52:06

But the most infamous example of a Ponzi scheme comes from the scheme's namesake,

00:52:11

Charles Ponzi. It's an actual person. Yeah. Just like the guy that invented the jacuzzi is a guy named Chuck Jacuzzi. I swear to God. Shut up. I swear to God.

00:52:21

Oh my God. I love that. Are there still jacuzzis out there of Mr. and Mrs. Jacuzzi?

00:52:26

Heirs to the jacuzzi fortune? I bet there are. There gotta be. I love their work. Okay. So I'm not going to, this is a long story. I'm not going to get that

00:52:35

into it. There are so many books you can read about it, but essentially this dude,

00:52:40

Charles Ponzi is a get-rich-quick junkie. He's born on March 3rd, 1882 in Lugo, which is a town

00:52:47

in North Italy. He comes from wealthy ancestors, but his family had fallen on hard times. So his

00:52:54

immediate family, him as a child, they're actually broke. After failing out of college, his parents

00:52:59

noticed that some of Charles' childhood friends, who didn't grow up rich, are going to America and

00:53:04

making a good living there and then returning home to Italy with a lot of money. So they tell

00:53:09

Charles to move to America and see if he can turn his life around there and help his family

00:53:14

rise back up to their former wealthy status. He set sail for America in 1903 with his entire life

00:53:21

savings, but, and this is just a clue to what kind of person he is with money, he gambles most of his

00:53:27

life savings away during the journey. He's like playing cards, you know, backgammon. We've seen it

00:53:34

on the Titanic movie. Yeah, for real. Also, that's the first time I ever went to Las Vegas with my

00:53:40

friends when I first moved to LA. Oh, no. We drove out to Las Vegas. I immediately lost $350

00:53:47

that I didn't really have. I needed to make rent later. And then I was just done. And I was like,

00:53:53

this was a terrible choice for me I can handle this No You lose your money immediately I remember going once and had to spend and it was gone within minutes Minutes And then I was like what am I going to

00:54:05

do the rest of the time here? Exactly. And I'm like depressed because I'm broke.

00:54:12

Not good. Yeah. So that's the kind of person he was. I mean, yeah, he was a teenager or like he

00:54:16

was very young too. So, so then he lands in Boston on November 15th, 1903. He's got just $2.50

00:54:23

to his name. Do you want to guess how much that is in today's money? In today's money, I guess that that would be...

00:54:29

1903. He's got $2.50. Is that $200? $81. Oh. Yeah, but shit costs so much less then, right?

00:54:39

True. A quarter for a fucking hotel room. Everything was a quarter. Everything's a nickel.

00:54:44

A nickel. He spends the next four years traveling up and down the East Coast, working odd jobs,

00:54:50

seeing no real success. So then he goes to Montreal. Quebec. Oh, Montreal again. Canada.

00:54:55

Oh, that's right. Tries his luck there, but he's in and out of jail for schemes, both in Canada and America.

00:55:01

Finally, he settles on the perfect scheme in August of 1919. I'm not going to get into that either because it's complicated and I don't totally understand it and it's a little boring.

00:55:11

But basically it involves purchasing postage from other countries that have a weak currency and then selling them in the U.S. where the U.S. dollar is stronger.

00:55:22

So you can get more from them. It's still a job. That's the thing I always think is so funny about some of these scams, where it's like,

00:55:28

if you were trying this hard to do stuff at a regular job, you would just be a successful

00:55:32

citizen. Right. But you're working really hard to rip people. You're working really hard to go to jail.

00:55:39

Right. Right. Like, work just as hard to not go to jail is what you're saying. Okay.

00:55:44

Give it a whirl. I don't know. He can't hear me. By June 1920, by promising investors 50% interest in 45 days, which is like run,

00:55:54

his investments total $2.5 million. You want to guess how much that is in 1920? Oh, that isn't the modern day thing.

00:56:03

No, he has collected from investors, meaning like other poor Italians and their friends and their friends.

00:56:07

I think the stamp scam was originally an actual thing, but now it's just taking money from people.

00:56:14

So 2.5 million by June of 1920, like a year after he started. Is it like a hundred million?

00:56:24

37 million. God damn it. I'm way off on my numbers these days. I think you have one more chance.

00:56:30

You have a couple more chances. So, you know, sharpen your... I'm going to do the exact same mistake the same way every time.

00:56:36

It's just, it's like I want it to be more money. And I kind of thinking like, it's going to be my money somehow if I get it right.

00:56:41

Well, when someone says to you, like, guess how much that is in today's money? You have to think, you think the biggest number is possible.

00:56:47

Right. It's not a time to be reasonable. Not on this podcast. This is The Price is Right, baby.

00:56:52

It's fun times. That's right. So by July 1920, his fake company called the Securities Exchange Company is receiving about a million dollars a day in investments.

00:57:03

So he's doing really well, but eventually he gets caught when the Boston Post runs several articles exposing Charles as a fraudster.

00:57:10

which makes everyone withdraw their investments. The investors only receive about 30 cents on the dollar back,

00:57:17

which is like devastating. With their combined losses totaling about $20 million.

00:57:23

He scammed people up $20 million, which in today's money- $150 million? $207 million.

00:57:30

I went under that time. I know. $207 million. From people that he like just figured out on his own.

00:57:38

Dang. No internet, nothing. Charles surrenders himself to police before he can be arrested.

00:57:44

And in all, they charge him with 86 counts of mail fraud for lying to his victims about earning interest.

00:57:51

So there's a bunch of books about Charles Ponzi if you want the whole story. But even though it bears his name, Charles Ponzi is not actually the first person to pull off such a scheme.

00:58:01

That credit, at least in America, goes to a woman by the name of Sarah Howe. So now I'm going to tell you about Sarah Howe.

00:58:09

Okay. That's what the story's about. Having successfully flown under the radar for many years,

00:58:14

very little is actually known about Sarah Howe's personal life. There's no existing photographs or

00:58:20

sketches of her. Her parents' name are speculative at best. And while most articles report her having

00:58:27

been 53 years old at the time of her establishing her company, which is called the Lady's Depot,

00:58:34

the Lady's Deposit. Nope, the Lady's Deposit. The lady's deposit. Yeah. Her birth year is debated anywhere from 1820 to 1827.

00:58:43

According to the Boston Herald, Sarah was born in Providence, Rhode Island. But again, we don't know for sure.

00:58:49

What we do know is that she had three failed marriages. And by 1877 is living on her own and posing as a fortune teller to earn a living.

00:58:59

Which is like a scheme in itself, you could say, maybe, to some people. Absolutely.

00:59:04

Do you believe in people who, like, any fortune tellers? I think there are people who have it.

00:59:08

I think there's way more people who make a business out of it that are just good at bullshitting.

00:59:12

I told you the story of my sister going to—it was like a friend. They were bringing in a psychic just into the house, and it was like 10 people.

00:59:23

There was like a certain amount of people invited. It couldn't be any more than that.

00:59:26

And somebody dropped out at the last minute, so the friend invited my sister, who is the biggest no thanks of, like, human no thanks.

00:59:34

And immediately the person goes, does anybody here know someone named Kathleen? And my aunt Kathleen had just died.

00:59:42

So everyone looks at my sister because they know that. So my sister's like, me. And she's like, she needs you to know.

00:59:50

She's saying something about gluten. She's just saying, be careful of gluten. And my niece turned out to have celiac disease Jesus that wild And it was like diagnosed eight years later

01:00:06

And I always like, it stuck in my head because I was like, I think I should stop eating gluten.

01:00:09

Like, that seems like it would be on point for us. And then it's like my aunt who was so like that

01:00:15

coming through the ether being like, don't feed that baby anymore. She got to heaven and was all knowing

01:00:21

and was like, I know you have to. Oh my God, be careful. It was just the funniest. So like, to me, I feel like there's things like

01:00:28

that where like, if that guy just randomly picked that, what an amazing coincidence that's

01:00:34

astronomical. But I don't think it was random. I think there's people who are definitely tapped in.

01:00:39

Intuitive, tapped in. My cousin, Dr. Wendy Hex, she's a grief counselor, but she also used to do

01:00:44

past life readings and hypnotism. She did it to me and she can sense otherworldly. I promise she's

01:00:52

not bullshitting. She's like amazing. Anyway, yeah. I'm open to all of it. I mean, obviously,

01:00:57

you don't want to be like, go into the world of conspiracy and then start living your life by it.

01:01:02

But at the same time, you're like, it's possible that we're not paying attention fully. Sure.

01:01:07

Like be open to the idea. Yeah, I like that. But don't give anybody in your money. No,

01:01:12

don't give anyone your money. The 1870s are a period of rapid growth in America, as you,

01:01:17

Karen, a historian now. Turn of the century. As the country tries to rebuild itself,

01:01:22

after the war. Industrial developments are creating lots of wealth and opportunity,

01:01:27

mostly for white men, of course. Yeah. So then the country attracts more immigrants,

01:01:32

which then prompts rapid city growth and urbanization. Landmark inventions at this time

01:01:38

include Alexander Graham Bell's telephone in 1876 and Thomas Edison's light bulb in 1879. So just

01:01:44

like shit is happening. It's like the late 90s with tech is happening here with life.

01:01:49

But light bulbs. Yeah, exactly. The increased cash flow in America leads to a boom in banking.

01:01:56

And such a boom, in fact, that proper regulations haven't even been set yet. So it's the Wild West of banking.

01:02:03

It's the perfect storm conditions for a savvy, single working woman like Sarah Howe to take advantage of and open her own, quote, banking operation.

01:02:14

So Sarah, being a very astute observer, sees that the banks are underserving a key demographic,

01:02:20

her own community of what are called unprotected females. And we talked about this recently, how women couldn't get a bank account without their

01:02:28

father or husband's okay until like recently. Yes. So back then, of course, there are these single women who having no husband, father, or other

01:02:36

male figure to look after them have to make their own money because these women don't

01:02:41

typically make that much money and don't have that much money, most banks won't even waste their time

01:02:44

accepting their cash deposits. So they get turned away because of that. And that's where Sarah comes

01:02:50

in with her new business. It's the Ladies Deposit Company, which she opens in March or April of 1879.

01:02:58

And here's how it works. Catering solely to unprotected women, these clients can come in

01:03:03

with any size deposit. No deposit is too small. And Sarah guarantees them an 8% interest rate per

01:03:10

month. Again, if you hear that from someone, run. That is a lot of interest. Too good to be true is

01:03:17

too good to be true. That's very true. So any woman depositing $100, Sarah says, will earn another

01:03:23

$96 in interest over one year's time. Imagine that. How is she able to promise such high interest

01:03:29

rates? Well, according to her business pitch, the lady's deposit isn't a regular bank. It's a charity

01:03:34

backed by Quaker philanthropists. Oh, wow. She's pulling the Quakers into it? Yeah.

01:03:42

Not cool. Her goal, she claims, is not just to make money, but to provide charitable boosts to women in need

01:03:49

so that they can comfortably stand on their own two feet. She's only good. How could you ever even look into this

01:03:55

and the percentage rate? Because she's so great. She is great. She wants to serve what she calls her, quote,

01:04:01

overworked, ill-paid sisterhood, Which like in theory, great. Even the office decor makes it feel like the perfect atmosphere for its target market,

01:04:11

complete with silk furniture, warm, inviting, carpeting, and classy, delicate touches.

01:04:16

The whole place feels like an exclusive yet welcoming ladies-only club. To add to the insiders-only vibes, her wastes no time and energy on advertising.

01:04:27

She's like, fuck that shit. Instead, knowledge of her bank is spread by word of mouth only.

01:04:32

Meaning people are like, have you heard of this? No, I haven't heard of it. Which is, you trust your friend who's telling you about it, right?

01:04:37

Right. And they say that was the thing that made Bernie Madoff so successful. Right.

01:04:41

Is that it was like one rich person letting another rich person in on a secret. Yeah.

01:04:46

It's like friends and family only. Yeah. Totally. Which of course you'd trust, right?

01:04:50

Yeah. It's crazy. And as more and more women who are like teachers, widows, and maids,

01:04:58

so like, you know, just regular working class women, As they learn about ladies deposit, the cash starts really rolling in so much so that Sarah

01:05:06

decides to make depositing even more worth her new customers while act now, she says,

01:05:12

and you can get your first three months of interest in advance. So you're getting that 8%.

01:05:17

Wow. Yeah. First three months and that's interest $96 a year. That's a good chunk of money that

01:05:25

she's promising upfront. So it's 8% of whatever you deposit upfront, which you're probably just

01:05:29

going to put back into the bank anyways, because you don't want to have that cash laying around at

01:05:32

home. So it's just even bigger scam. Yeah. Soon, Sarah rakes in as much as $500,000 from over

01:05:40

1,200 investors. $500,000 in the late 1870s, early 80s, $500,000. $2 million? $500,000.

01:05:52

No no I mean is the number That was my guess 15 million It 15 million She got million in the beginning Her investors come from all over

01:06:07

and she opens a second bank in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with plans to expand even further.

01:06:13

As word spreads, the public is left dumbfounded that someone from such meager means could build an empire of wealth,

01:06:19

especially a woman, they think. A woman? That's crazy. She doesn't even understand money.

01:06:25

Right, math. So all the local Boston papers are, of course, eager to cover the story.

01:06:30

So they come to visit Sarah's bank. But because all the reporters are men, they're turned away before even getting to come into the lobby.

01:06:38

Like, no men are allowed, which is fucking great. No men are allowed or able to investigate what's happening here.

01:06:46

So they're skeptical about being barred entry. and determined to get to the bottom of Sarah's operations,

01:06:52

one reporter from the Boston Herald dresses up as a woman. And it must be convincing because he gains entry as a woman.

01:07:00

It was like Dave Foley in The Kids in the Hall where you're like, that is a woman.

01:07:03

Yeah, I buy it. Posing as a prospective investor, the reporter is surprised to find that the bank, quote,

01:07:10

never discloses the methods by which we do business. So they don't fucking tell anyone anything.

01:07:15

And this sets off alarm bells for the reporter. He publishes his article in the Boston Herald

01:07:22

accusing Sarah Howe of defrauding her customers on January 8th, 1880. And see, this is where it bothers me

01:07:29

because Charles Ponzi originally had an article written about him in the Post lauding him about how amazing he was

01:07:35

and like what a great investor he was, which made him get more investors until someone wrote a negative article about him

01:07:40

because they realized what he was doing. Like they sussed him out. But this person doesn't even know if she's and what she's doing wrong and immediately writes a negative article that she must be frauding people because, listen, she did end up being a fraudster, but he didn't know that then.

01:07:57

And that bothers him, you know, because this is what brought it all down. Crashing down is this one uninformed article that she's fucking everyone over.

01:08:07

Yeah. So he says that she gets a chance to defend herself. So for like eight more months, she's allowed to continue until September 25th, 1880.

01:08:17

Another publication called the Boston Daily Advertiser picks up where the Herald left off

01:08:22

and again puts out several stories explaining Sarah's schemes in greater detail.

01:08:27

So not only did the Daily Advertiser attack Sarah's business, but it attacked Sarah too,

01:08:32

figuring it'd be hard to paint a woman as anything other than a victim because ladies at the time are just seen as frail and helpless.

01:08:39

the reporters at the Daily Advertisers conclude that they also have to paint Sarah as a vulgar,

01:08:44

ugly woman to make people believe she could be villainous because they wouldn't believe she was

01:08:49

a bad person if she also wasn't like a witch. You know what I mean? Yeah, you have two choices.

01:08:54

You can be pretty and useless or you're ugly and the worst. Right. What a time. Sadly,

01:09:02

their strategy is effective. Reporters make up lies about Sarah being cross-eyed and quote,

01:09:08

deaf as a post, or as an article in Banker's Magazine describes her, quote, short, fat,

01:09:15

very ugly, and so illiterate as to be unable to write an English sentence or to speak without

01:09:20

making shameful blunders. With that, the public quickly turns on her. Investors show up to the

01:09:27

lady's deposit, demanding their money back. Of course, Sarah doesn't have enough to pay out their

01:09:32

full principal interest, let alone the interest they should have accrued. So women who invested

01:09:36

did their entire life savings go bankrupt? Yeah. So when I was defending her earlier,

01:09:42

she actually was a bad person, but. Well, it's nuanced. It's nuanced because there was sexism that's fucked up.

01:09:49

And then also it worked on one lady that may have deserved it. Right. Some even describe having taken mortgages out

01:09:57

on their furniture, causing them to lose their beds, their chairs, and couches. They're all their furniture because of Sarah's scheme.

01:10:04

The press shows some sympathy for these women, but their ultimate takeaway, of course,

01:10:08

is that this is why women can't be trusted with money and shouldn't be on their own.

01:10:13

Yeah. The empowering message that Sarah fed her victims about uplifting her sisterhood

01:10:17

turns out to be nothing but a fraudulent line that completely backfires on the women who trusted her.

01:10:23

On October 14th, 1880, two weeks and five days after the release of the Boston Daily Advertiser's first piece

01:10:30

on the lady's deposit, that Sarah is arrested. She stands trial and somehow dodges conviction

01:10:36

on the fraud charges, but is found guilty of soliciting money under false pretenses

01:10:41

since she lied and said the Quaker philanthropists, them again, were funding the interest payments

01:10:47

because the Quakers were like, we've never, we don't know who this person is. This is not our bag at all.

01:10:52

She's sentenced to three years in prison and serves all of it and it was released in 1884.

01:10:58

But as soon as Sarah is out of prison, this chick can't stop scheming. Yeah. She rolls up her sleeves and tries running the same scam again.

01:11:07

Oh, same. Same thing. Same. Under the new moniker, the Women's Bank, Sarah promises a still high interest rate to her investors, though not 8%.

01:11:18

That was too high. So now it's 7%. Oh, okay. Yeah. Much more reasonable. She collects about $50,000 in investments before being caught and shut down in April 1887.

01:11:30

But she manages to run away to Chicago. before she can be indicted. So something's working for her.

01:11:35

Yeah. She's a step ahead. And people keep wanting to give her money, which makes me wonder what she was like in person.

01:11:41

Like probably charismatic sociopath. She's one of those people that's like, I got to win. It's all me. Let's do this thing. I'll take down my fellow woman.

01:11:50

She believes her on bullshit probably too, right? Yeah. I think you'd have to, right? In a way. But then also there's that kind of,

01:11:56

I know I've told you this story multiple times. There was a time one time when I was a

01:12:00

in an office building. And a guy, just a random guy walked into my office and was like, hey,

01:12:06

and started selling me. I believe it was like, it was a subscription to like spa appointments.

01:12:12

Yes. I know those subscriptions. He was cute. And he leaned down by my desk and started talking.

01:12:17

And I literally was writing a check within two minutes and like, great, amazing. And then he

01:12:24

walked out of the room and I turned and called my bank and said, I don't know what just happened,

01:12:28

but I just wrote a check to a stranger. Like the weird, I just did the weirdest thing and you have

01:12:34

to cancel this check. I don't know what I was doing. And it was like, it felt like being caught

01:12:38

up in a, in a wave. It was like his personality, the way we were immediately interacting. It was

01:12:45

wild. It was like totally insane. Did they cancel the check? Can you do that? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:12:51

Wow. Did you get the spa services at least? No. I mean, it was such a weird, I think it was the

01:12:58

beginning of internet stuff. I remember that. Like Third Street Promenade, you'd walk around

01:13:03

and there'd be these like cute girls with clipboards that'd be like, the spa down the

01:13:06

street is having this great offer. And I totally remember that. Yeah. Like sign up for 10, give us

01:13:11

the money now and you can get those later where it's like, what, wait, are you sure? Like, will

01:13:16

the spa still be in business? Right. Does it exist now? Oh my God. But I think those people, I think

01:13:22

there's like really something to be said for when you meet a standout person like that, that's like

01:13:27

locked eyes with you and is convincing you of all these things, all the things you've ever wanted to

01:13:32

believe. Like you're going to get money. You're going to get spa treatments, whatever it is.

01:13:37

Like it's easy to believe people like that. Well, I think there's something you said once

01:13:41

that really stuck with me that I like to think of it, which is just to slow down when someone's

01:13:46

coming at you full force with their emergency or their great idea or with this plan or this deal like you get caught up in that fast talking that fast pace too and you not thinking straight Like you allowed to not respond right away You allowed to sit back

01:14:01

and have a moment to think about it. Let your brain catch up with what their brain is trying

01:14:05

to do to you. Yes. There's no schedule. There's no real schedule that you have to adhere to

01:14:11

with a stranger walking up to you or like a person that's got you on the phone. That's the

01:14:16

way they keep getting old people with this AI voice generated tricks on the phone where it's

01:14:21

like, they're like, oh no, no, you have to do it right now because you need to bail them out of

01:14:24

jail. And like people are like, oh no, it's an emergency. And it's like any emergency you can

01:14:30

hang up and call back or vice versa. Call your bank. Yeah, exactly. You can take three minutes.

01:14:35

Someone else's emergency is not your emergency unless there's a fire. And also it shouldn't be assumed that it's your emergency. Make them prove it is an emergency.

01:14:44

Totally, totally. Unless you can see flames, and then it is an emergency. Right, right.

01:14:49

Okay, she tries the same scam in Chicago, this time calling it Ladies Provident Aid.

01:14:55

This goes under much quicker, and with nowhere else to go, Sarah returns to Boston, where

01:15:00

she's promptly arrested in December of 1888 for that other scheme. However, because her victims do not want to testify in court, I'm sure they're embarrassed,

01:15:08

Yeah. The case against her has dropped and she's released just a few months later in March 1889.

01:15:15

And with that, Sarah Howe finally gives up the bank fraud game altogether and goes back to telling fortunes on the street.

01:15:22

Maybe it's still a scam, maybe not. Who knows? What if she was like legitimately psychic this whole time?

01:15:28

And denying it? Denying her true self? And like just was like, I want to try something else

01:15:32

where she could have made a lot of money off of that. If she was a real psychic,

01:15:35

it would have helped her in scheming people and she would have a little more vision about it

01:15:39

instead of like, 8% everybody. So she keeps this up until her dying day, January 26th 1892 That the story of scammers Charles Ponzi and Sarah Howe Amazing I love scamming stories I love origin like criminal origin name stories

01:15:59

You know what I mean? Yes. Well, and also it's like, it is kind of to Charles Ponzi and Sarah Howe's credit,

01:16:06

where it's like, this is a thing that's going on to this day. It's a hundred at least, how many hundred of years in the future?

01:16:15

Let's see. 150? Yeah, around that. 150, let's say, in today's years. They thought of something that stuck.

01:16:23

Yeah. And it worked for both of them for a while. They just got too caught up in it.

01:16:29

It's worked for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a system. Which is why you got to keep your eyes out for those schemes.

01:16:38

Yes, for sure. Yeah. Well, great job. Thank you. Thank you for keeping your eyes out for this podcast.

01:16:45

and listening with your ears. Oh yeah, the ears are crucial. We love you. And we'll call you next week.

01:16:56

Sincerely, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

01:17:11

This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

01:17:16

Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

01:17:21

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin.

01:17:26

Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritemurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.

01:17:34

Goodbye. Cheap Caribbean Summer Savings Event is here Right now get instant savings on vacation packages to Cancun Jamaica and the Dominican Republic Whether you chasing poolside drinks white sand beaches or endless all fun Cheap Caribbean helps you get more beach for less money

01:17:55

Book your summer vacay today at CheapCaribbean.com. Goodbye. Clothes shopping, not as easy or fun as it sounds. You just want to feel confident in your clothes.

01:18:06

You can spend hours scrolling, zooming in, reading reviews, only to end up with a cart full of nothing that feels or fits right and a bunch of returns to do.

01:18:14

Stitch Fix makes it so much easier. A personal stylist sends pieces that match your size, style, and everything's in your budget.

01:18:20

No guesswork, no stress, and your guaranteed compliments. Here's how Stitch Fix works.

01:18:25

Take a quick style quiz, share your size, style, and budget, and get matched with a real human stylist who gets your vibe.

01:18:31

It's no risk. All style. Get a personalized fix box straight to your door. And try it all on in the comfort of your home.

01:18:38

Shipping and returns are always free and there's no subscription required. Plus, get a free try-on for your first fix.

01:18:44

Get started today at stitchfix.com slash murder to get $20 off your first order.

01:18:49

That's stitchfix.com slash murder. Goodbye. There's always a point in the day when your feet decide they've had enough.

01:18:56

Especially if you've been running errands, traveling, or my favorite, just standing around.

01:19:01

And that's where Reef comes in. Reef has been known for comfort since the 1980s.

01:19:05

While many people think of their sandals first, they now make comfortable everyday shoes as well.

01:19:09

Like women's Neptune, a lightweight everyday slip-on shoe with a crushed back heel so you can wear it traditionally or step on the heel and wear it like a slide.

01:19:16

It's lightweight and breathable, which makes a noticeable difference if you're on your feet for long stretches.

01:19:21

You know, we got some of these shoes. I know, they're so cute. They're super cute, but they are really lightweight.

01:19:26

You don't think about that. Sometimes when I'm wearing like those heavy running shoes, they weigh your feet down.

01:19:32

And these reef ones are like super kicky and comfortable. Check out the Neptune on Reef.com.

01:19:37

That's R-E-E-F and redeem 15% off your first purchase. Goodbye.

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

416 - Call You Next Week

TLDR

Episode

Episode

Badges

Episode Highlights

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown