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00:01:53
That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. This is the eighth anniversary of my favorite murder.
00:01:59
Holy shit. What a, what a random year. Almost a decade. That's quite a long time for a podcast.
00:02:09
This is, yeah, Vince, Vince and this podcast going neck and neck for my longest relationship.
00:02:15
Hey. How do you feel about eight years? That means I was, I was 35 when we started.
00:02:23
I was a baby. I mean, I think that we were babies. I think true crime as a kind of podcast topic was a baby.
00:02:33
I think the whole idea of all of it was in its much younger phase. Yes. I don't know. I think it's fascinating. At this point, I think we have been through the rain to a degree where it's just like, yeah, we get it.
00:02:52
Like, yeah, it's an amazing thing to be on like this level of a learning journey that's public and totally transparent and at times embarrassing, but very fulfilling.
00:03:05
Ultimately, very, I don't know. How do you feel about it? It's just always surprising to me, you know, a to be successful.
00:03:13
That wasn't in my fucking because I prepared you for total downfall. I just mean up until that point it was like well I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life you
00:03:23
know so I keep having to still remind myself that like you did something so that was nice it's also
00:03:28
weird always to be like you know because I do a lot of inner child work so to go back and be like
00:03:33
you're gonna be fine but then also be like but I can't explain what your career is gonna be because
00:03:37
those words don't exist yet right podcasting and all this stuff so it's like cable television
00:03:43
Exactly. So yeah, I don't know. It's funny that eight years is a small percentage of my life,
00:03:51
but have been the most monumental and extraordinary and life-changing and dynamic
00:03:58
more than the rest combined. It's very humbling. Very, very humbling. Oh, constantly humbling. But also I think we packed a lot into eight years that I think maybe
00:04:10
made it feel, because in some ways it does feel like 20 years. Definitely. What with all the projects, the simultaneous projects we felt the need to do.
00:04:19
Well, eight years of your life and eight years of my life, it's actually been 16 years,
00:04:25
you know, in the same way we both wrote a memoir. We really both wrote half a memoir.
00:04:31
So that means- It would be four years. Yeah. So the memoir took four years to write both of us. Let me do math real quick.
00:04:39
so podcast math podcast we're podcasters of course we're gonna fucking make shit up
00:04:48
you seen those tiktoks so good anyway what's up with you well i think one great way for us to
00:04:56
celebrate our eighth anniversary is by acknowledging the fact that our best friend paul giamatti won a
00:05:01
golden globe which was so great i mean who deserves it more who deserves all the awards
00:05:08
more in terms of acting and performance. But then even better is afterwards, he just went to the
00:05:14
In-N-Out in Westwood and got some food and sat inside. Didn't do the drive-thru, actually went
00:05:19
in there. So then that picture showed up on social media, which is so cute and great.
00:05:24
National treasure and friend of the podcast. FOP. That's right. I know you have a corrections corner. I have a I stand corrected, maybe,
00:05:34
corner. I guess the thing about this podcast is you learn a lot about yourself. We've learned so much about ourselves, right? Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:42
It's taken eight years for me on this podcast to realize that I say the word milk weird.
00:05:49
So I covered Harvey Milk and there was just people going what milk Milk And then now I can stop saying the word milk It milk Right But that the California accent Okay Yeah It a regional thing right Milk You say it that way too Okay
00:06:06
Yes. It's the California A that we put into words that have I's. Yeah. It's M-E-L-K is how I say milk.
00:06:13
Harvey Malk. Harvey Malk. So that's, yeah. My corrections corner is connected to yours. I think that that's input from, it's like,
00:06:23
guess what? We're not Ron Burgundy. We weren't trained news people. We don't do our vocal exercises and warmups before the show.
00:06:33
We have accents. Sorry. Yeah, we're podcasters. We have accents and vocal fry. That's right. Sorry, not sorry.
00:06:39
But also a real corrections corner from that episode is you and I were talking. And actually, I'll just read over on Blue Sky Social. I don't know if anyone in our audience
00:06:50
is over there, but it's the new Twitter. It's the Twitter that has 43% less white supremacy. You
00:06:57
might want to come and join everybody, but someone named M Frederick M, that's their handle at Blue
00:07:04
Sky Social. They wrote to me and said, the person who was in the Briggs debate with Harvey was Dr.
00:07:10
Sally Gearhart, not Anne Cronenberg. So I think when you and I were discussing it, I brought this
00:07:16
person up. I think you were going, oh, I think that's this person. I of course agreed. And then
00:07:22
this person is saying, Ann Cronenberg was the lesbian motorcyclist who worked as Harvey's
00:07:29
campaign manager. Gearheart was a speech professor at San Francisco State. Ah, okay.
00:07:35
And actually, Dr. Sally Gearheart started one of the first women's studies programs
00:07:41
at a university in the country. She was extraordinary. I went and read a Wikipedia
00:07:47
page after M. Frederick M. sent that in, also with the note afterwards that said,
00:07:54
great episode of MFM. So kudos. And I read all about Dr. Sally Gerhardt's life and amazing. Like,
00:08:01
please, anybody that is interested in women's studies, feminism, anything like that, please go
00:08:08
look up and read about Dr. Sally Gerhart. She was doing it early and often. Such a badass.
00:08:14
Really incredible right there at San Francisco State. Blows my mind that like women's studies wasn't just something that was always
00:08:20
taught in school. Like you don't realize how recent that had to be like forced as a subject.
00:08:27
Everything is recent. And the reason we don't know it is because, and I think not to, you know,
00:08:33
get into anything like this that I clearly don't have an education about, but what I observe
00:08:37
is this the whole idea, like the reason they're going after critical race theory in colleges or
00:08:44
any kind of like black studies, that kind of stuff is when you don't know the history,
00:08:49
then you don't know when it's being taken away. You don't know how recent it is. So you don't
00:08:53
appreciate it to go, Hey, this needs to be protected. You don't know the story. So you're
00:08:58
basically taking it for granted. And those kinds of things with either women's bodily autonomy,
00:09:04
any kind of race theory, any kind of teaching of the historical facts of this country.
00:09:10
Like, it's so important to keep it public and available because people need to know
00:09:16
it shouldn't be censored. I mean, it's just so insane that it is being censored.
00:09:21
That it's actually relevant to today. It's not history. It's like current. Well, now more than ever, now that history is once again repeating itself. Anyway,
00:09:31
there's other people that can speak on this and I'm sure there's many podcasts that you should
00:09:35
listen to but it just makes me think of that where yeah it's like that's an important thing
00:09:41
to talk about also my friend Dave Messmer my old one of my oldest friends and truly one of my
00:09:47
favorite people on this planet specifically called me to say how much he loved that episode and how
00:09:52
much it meant to him oh my god yeah so great job on that thank you that means so much to me really
00:09:58
It truly, truly does. Yeah, me too. What do you got? This is our first recording back from winter break.
00:10:06
In some ways, I'm still on winter break because I'm still here with home gym. Yeah.
00:10:10
I'm watching him watch like basketball, golf and football while I actually listen to and watch TikTok myself.
00:10:20
It's very modern setup that we have in the living room. I love you guys. Yeah. And then we make fires and fight about what we're going to have for dinner.
00:10:27
And I just like, I was supposed to come back, obviously, after our Christmas break was over.
00:10:32
But I'm like, no, I need a little more of this. It's actually doing me a world of good.
00:10:36
Oh, good. Yeah. LA is the same. I can tell you that right now. There's nothing. You've seen it all here.
00:10:43
But I hear it's very cold in Los Angeles. I mean, yeah. In a way that would make everyone else.
00:10:49
We say this every winter. It's 60 degrees out. Right. And then they laugh and laugh at us.
00:10:57
Especially the rest of the country. There was an insane snowstorm in Lubbock, Texas.
00:11:02
Did you see that? No. Like a blizzard, I think. This is my TikTok information. Well, I have a show I can recommend for you that I think you, like, your dad won't understand.
00:11:14
But your niece will love, too. Because I think it's made for her. But me, like, more than twice her age, is like, I love this show.
00:11:22
You know, there are shows that, like, are not for me, but I love them. It's on Netflix.
00:11:26
It's called School Spirits. It's basically if my so-called life, if the main chick was a ghost trying to solve her
00:11:33
own murder at school and all takes place at high school. It's like all the spirits that have died at school all band together and try to help her
00:11:41
solve her murder. And this and, you know, it's very charming, but also like dark, obviously.
00:11:48
And I'd like finished it so quickly. I highly recommend it. That sounds great. Yeah.
00:11:53
The kids these days have such good TV that made for them It the kids these days Like it totally made It so smart It like no one being spoken down to as a teenager or 20 something It like we know you with it
00:12:05
We know you're smart. Let's get to it. It's really good. Yeah. School spirits. Well, I think the days of speaking down to quote unquote, like teens has to be over because you just have to admit they're smarter than us.
00:12:17
There's just no, there's no arguing that. There's so much knowledge that you have access to now.
00:12:22
It's no wonder none of us can sleep. Yeah, for real. For real. All right. Do you want to get into the exactly right corner?
00:12:30
The exactly right of it all? Sure. Hey guys, we have a podcast network called Exactly Right.
00:12:35
We're real proud of it. Here's some updates about it from this week. And this is our first one of the year. So hey, happy new year.
00:12:43
Over on I Saw What You Did, Millie and Danielle are back in 2024 filling our weekends with brand new cinematic double features.
00:12:52
This week's includes the double feature Good Will Hunting from 1997 and the Boondock Saints from 1999.
00:13:00
Wow. What's the through line for those two movies? That living in the late 90s was pure hell and a man's world like you wouldn't believe.
00:13:09
Did you watch? There's a documentary about Y2K somewhere that just came out. And it's so, oh, it's like, oh, wow.
00:13:17
It's so dated and you feel so dated. It's really, you should watch it for sure. but it is like, oh yeah, time and place, hardcore.
00:13:25
Like everyone who wasn't there should watch it to know what we were fucking dealing with all the time.
00:13:29
I want to see that. You definitely should see it. And then, oh my God, drag superstar
00:13:33
and someone we're fans of over here at Exactly Right, Jackie Beat joins Roz on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez
00:13:41
to chat about all kinds of spooky stuff. Please check that out. You'll fall in love with Jackie Beat like we have.
00:13:47
I mean, I've told so many stories about my first writing job was with Jackie Beat
00:13:51
And it was one of the best experiences. And then if you just go see Jackie perform in real life, because whether she's doing her own indie show or whether she's in the original Golden Girls with all our friends, Jackie is a true visionary, a genius.
00:14:11
And then over on Buried Bones, Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, they're going to cover the murder of Maria Bickford in a Boston boarding house in 1845.
00:14:21
and we're working to get the merch store restocked after the holidays but it's still got lots of cozy
00:14:26
sweatshirts from mfm this podcast will kill you and bananas and more so go to my favorite murder
00:14:32
dot com and check that out my sister said the she got the mfm in the heart sweatshirt she said it's
00:14:38
the softest sweatshirt she's ever owned she loves it and then lastly and this is you know this is
00:14:43
sad news but it's what was meant to be steven and sarah have decided to end the purcast after nine
00:14:49
years of purr casting together. And their last guest was Georgia Hartstark. They chatted about
00:14:55
Dottie, Mimi, Mo, cat ownership, all of it. That's true. Oh, it was heartbreaking. It was
00:15:02
like so bittersweet to record that, you know, wishing them well. Purr cast! While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,
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Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. The future soccer stars who are already
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Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering
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EVs with ultra fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics
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that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far
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off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
00:15:55
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00:18:06
Is it you that first this week? Okay. So yeah, I go first this week and I'm going to tell you, it's a pretty wild story of someone
00:18:16
who wanted their life to be a little more interesting, a little less ordinary. and so picked a, we'll say, career path or hobby
00:18:25
that isn't something you hear about every day and did it in a very special way and broke the law a lot while they did it.
00:18:35
This is the story of one of the most prolific serial bank robbers in recent history.
00:18:40
It's a story about a man with dreams of being extraordinary and how falling short of his goals caused him to unravel.
00:18:47
This is the story of Tom Justice, the bicycle bank robber. Wow. And yes, Tom Justice is his real name, if you can believe it. So the main source I used in
00:18:57
today's story is a 2019 article from Chicago Magazine titled The Bicycle Thief, written by
00:19:04
Stephen Leckart, who I think we've mentioned in the past for sources. And all other sources are
00:19:09
listed in the show notes. Ready for a fucking bank robber? So much. Okay. And yes, he's kind
00:19:15
of hot. So like that adds, you know, there's not a lot of photos of him out there. So it's hard to
00:19:22
exactly tell, but you can tell he's like got something going on. He's like, he's got a hot
00:19:26
spirit as he robs banks. Exactly. Okay. So Tom Justice is born in 1970. He's raised in the
00:19:33
Chicago suburb of Libertyville. He's got a sister. His mom and dad are like married throughout his
00:19:39
whole childhood. Like everything's normal. Happy, normal childhood. Tom's dad, Jay Justice, is an
00:19:44
athletic Navy veteran who wants his son to follow in his footsteps and be like a jock,
00:19:50
essentially. But Tom tries every sport from basketball, baseball, all the things, and he
00:19:56
is not great at any of them. And so, you know, he's 13 in the summer of 1983, thinking that
00:20:02
sports just aren't for him. But then this girl he has a crush on invites him to go see a bike race
00:20:10
at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook. And I guess Velodrome, it's an arena for track cycling and they're banked.
00:20:18
So they like, you know, are on a curve. You've seen that like in roller derby. Okay.
00:20:23
So he goes just because he has a crush on this girl. And then to his surprise, when he sees the cyclists whipping around that banked track
00:20:32
and those crazy curves, they're elbowing each other, you know, on the straightways at 50 miles per hour
00:20:38
fighting for first place. and he's like, what is this? I'm obsessed. I need to do this.
00:20:43
Yeah. So a week later, the velodrome holds a race for kids age 12 to 14, which to me is just like asking for broken bones, especially in the 80s.
00:20:53
Although I feel like in the 80s, that's where you're basically putting in time all day long to be like to race professionally.
00:21:02
Riding your bike was kind of what you did. Oh, yeah. That's all there was, guys, back then is riding your bike.
00:21:08
No one drove you around in a big SUV. No, it was. Yeah. Like Stranger Things is not joking about how much those kids are on their fucking bikes.
00:21:16
Yeah. OK. What if Stranger Things was joking this whole time? They're not. All right.
00:21:23
So he shows up in full professional gear. He already sets himself apart from the other kids who are on like, you know, tiny shorts and T-shirts.
00:21:31
But then he really sets himself apart when, as the race begins, he completely crushes his competition.
00:21:38
Tom has finally found a sport he can excel at. And both he and his dad are super excited about it.
00:21:43
So he's finally found a sport he loves. That's great. Also, just as a person who lived through this era, I felt very bad for boys and knew many
00:21:52
boys who weren't good at basketball, football, or baseball. And it was devastating.
00:21:58
Oh, yeah. You only had those three things to choose from. And if you were medium to not great at them, it was not easy for boys.
00:22:06
Definitely. Definitely. So from this point on, Tom trains relentlessly. He races every Thursday.
00:22:14
His free time is spent either at school or biking around town and becomes like part of his identity,
00:22:19
which happens when you're really into a sport at that age. The classmates even state in their
00:22:24
school yearbook that in the future, they expect to see Tom like, you know, where do you think he'll
00:22:28
be in the future? And it says, quote, on the cover of a Wheaties box with his bike. So like he was a
00:22:35
cycling guy. In 1987, when 17-year-old Tom is a junior in high school, he's selected for the
00:22:40
Olympic training camp in Colorado Springs, and he spends his summer riding and training with the U.S.
00:22:45
Olympic cycling team, performs really well. His future is looking very bright for Olympic gold.
00:22:52
When he heads back to school that fall for his senior year, 1987, his confidence is high. He's
00:22:58
super popular because he's cute. He's got this swoopy bangs of the late 80s that were so hot.
00:23:03
Also, that's when all the late 80s is when jocks were kind of going out of favor.
00:23:09
Right. And then it was like, could you be in a band? Could you be from France? Like, then it was like, are you interesting and exotic as opposed to just being standard?
00:23:17
Right. Right. Exactly. He played it perfectly. He did. So all the girls have crushes on him.
00:23:22
He's elected senior class president. It's like one of those, like, you know, when you peak in high school kind of things, which
00:23:28
I wouldn't know anything about. But you hear the stories. So Tom gets accepted to Southern Illinois University,
00:23:35
where he plans to study philosophy, train really hard and hopefully reach the Olympics,
00:23:40
which back then, or I don't know if it's still this way, but cycling for the Olympic for men,
00:23:45
you didn't get accepted and go until you're in your late twenties. So it's not like, I feel like a lot of the sports now,
00:23:51
it's like you're 18, you're very young, but I think it's like, you have to be so freaking good
00:23:56
that you have to practice until you're like late twenties to be Olympic good. So he goes to college, but when he gets to college, everything changes.
00:24:03
And remember, so this is, you know, 1990-ish. This is like peak Gen X. So what happens to him?
00:24:10
He stops giving a shit. And he attempts to be cool and fit in with his new classmates by blowing off classes to drink and party.
00:24:17
He switches his major three times, falls off his training regimen. So he kind of becomes, you know, what is the word?
00:24:26
A college student? just a standard college student it's like maybe I don't want to live my life for this one
00:24:33
specific hobby yeah like he loses focus and he's just like over it also I think it's like if the
00:24:39
dad was kind of pressuring him or this was some sort of if you don't do this then that then that's
00:24:45
one of those things where it's like now I'm going to go to college smoke some weed and suddenly be
00:24:49
like oh I could have been doing this the whole time yeah totally yeah a little taste of freedom
00:24:53
him and then you're like, goodbye. But he does start a cycling club at his own, but he's better
00:24:59
than everyone. So he doesn't really get a lot of like practice. It's not as fun. It's like,
00:25:04
geez, everyone has a tricycle over here. I mean, he also assumes he's talented enough to coast
00:25:08
because he does think eventually he'll make it to the Olympic team. So he kind of just doesn't
00:25:13
try very hard. So it takes him six years to graduate, but he finally dies in 1994
00:25:17
and promptly moves to LA to once again, train with the US Olympic cycling team. His girlfriend that he met, Laura, comes with him, but he kind of falls short of everyone's
00:25:28
expectations. So he's sent back to Chicago and he like kind of just didn't apply himself, obviously, but
00:25:34
he still wanted it. He can't have both. Also peak Gen X. Like that is truly, you weren't supposed to try.
00:25:41
Everything had to be effortless. And if you dedicated yourself to something, you were worse than a nerd.
00:25:47
Totally. It was a real catch 22 back then. That's interesting. That's a good point.
00:25:51
So back in Chicago, Tom and his girlfriend Laura get an apartment. His Olympic dreams are dead or at least on hold.
00:26:00
So he gets a job as a social worker caring for unhoused people grappling with mental health issues, which is fucking admirable as hell.
00:26:07
Yes. But he wants something bigger and it doesn't provide him with the same thrill, obviously, and not the same praise either that being a star athlete gave him when he was biking.
00:26:19
So he goes looking for his next big thing. He considers some out-of-the-box professions like being a priest.
00:26:25
Okay. I guess God is the biggest, like, you know, cheerleader for that. It is a bit in the box, though.
00:26:34
It is a bit in the box. It's literally and figuratively. But he also thinks about working for the DEA, being a helicopter pilot, an underwater welder.
00:26:43
So he's just like hallucinating jobs. He's just kind of like, what's the weirdest thing I can think of?
00:26:48
I'll do that. Yeah. Like, what's something that if I go to a party and someone says, what do you do?
00:26:51
they'll be like, whoa, and think it's really cool. Yeah. You know, a lock picker, but he doesn't know.
00:26:58
Did you make that one up? No. A lock picker would be pretty sweet. Right? I think it's called a locksmith.
00:27:06
I don't know. Yeah, or a burglar. Either way. Right. So in 1998, Tom has yet to plan himself firmly in any one career path.
00:27:14
So he goes from one job to another. Laura wants to settle down with Tom, maybe have some kids.
00:27:20
He's just like super not into that, like that idea of that, you know, suburban, boring, normal life that most people have.
00:27:28
He wants to be special and he wants to stand out. So that's when he gets his most out of the box idea yet to become a bank robber.
00:27:35
Like it's not even like, should I need money? It's like I need to do something that makes me feel alive and defines me and makes me interesting.
00:27:43
Interesting job. Some people are like, I want to be a baker or a chef. Or some people are like, I, you know, want to work in an office.
00:27:50
And he is like, I want to be a bank robber. It checks a lot of boxes. It does. It does.
00:27:56
So on October 20th, 1998, Tom goes to a wig shop, buys himself a $50 wig. It's got black braids and bangs.
00:28:04
And then three days later, on October 23rd, he goes to his parents' house, grabs his bike and the bike messenger bag.
00:28:11
He pedals to the nearby American National Bank, finds a little hiding spot and puts on a button down T-shirt tie and khakis over his biking spandex to kind of, you know, give himself a normal look.
00:28:23
Yeah. Puts on his wig, a baseball cap and sunglasses and a blazer. And then he leaves his bike by the fence and heads to a nearby payphone and calls the police.
00:28:32
And he tells them that there's a man with a rifle walking around in this area in the woods across town.
00:28:38
And that way he ties up one of the few cops that are on duty that evening. Not the worst idea.
00:28:43
It's malevolent and brilliant at the same time. Like kind of evil, but good criminally.
00:28:49
Right. He found something he's good at. Then he makes his way inside the bank and up to the counter.
00:28:55
He pulls an index card from his wallet, shows it to the teller so she can read it, but doesn't
00:28:58
give it to her, which is smart because it's got his fingerprints and stuff on it.
00:29:01
And he had written on it, this is a robbery. Put all of your money in the bag. slides a grocery bag across the counter and the teller loads it up with the cash in her drawer
00:29:10
all of it five thousand five hundred and eighty bucks which in today's money is i don't know
00:29:15
because i didn't look it up but i'll check georgia probably a lot right five thousand in the it's the
00:29:21
early 90s now 98 98 five thousand dollars in 1998 would be maybe fifty thousand dollars today
00:29:27
this is a big reveal do you want to do a guess yeah i'm gonna go closer to like 22. Okay. It's $10,590. Jesus. Never have I been so wrong. We were wrong. All right. That's a lot
00:29:44
of money. He walks out casually, finds his bike, gets back into his spandex, steps the cash in his
00:29:51
disguise into his messenger bag and then rides off on his bicycle That his getaway car So he is using something He did train a lot for this job if you think about it And also I think that idea like that turn of like going from a person with weird braids and a khaki outfit on into a like a bike looking guy is such a switch that like I think that kind of genius
00:30:16
Because bike looking guys do stand out when you're in the full spandex and the clip on shoes and the aerodynamic helmet.
00:30:23
You know, right. People go, look at that guy. Look at that guy. And that guy's doing his hobby.
00:30:27
That guy isn't getting away from anything, even if he's going fast. It's like, it's a good mind trick.
00:30:34
Right. Also, like, look at that guy. Cycling seems like a very expensive hobby. That guy doesn't need to rob a bank, right?
00:30:40
Right. So he goes to his childhood home and hides the cash inside a gym bag in his childhood
00:30:46
bedroom closet. This is the most satisfying adrenaline rush Tom has felt in ages.
00:30:51
And it's made all more satisfying by the fact that his parents' new next door neighbor, Pat Carey, is Libertyville's chief of police.
00:30:59
Oh. So he's like, what's up? After he like robs a bank to his neighbor. He's hitting levels of dopamine that some of us will only read about in our lives.
00:31:09
Very true. So several months go by, but Tom's too afraid to spend the money. He's afraid to be traced back to him, which is, I don't know if that's true, but probably.
00:31:18
So he decides just to give it away. He takes two 20s for himself, just kind of as a souvenir, and then puts the rest into different brown paper bags and throws them in various dumpsters and trash cans around the city so that the unhoused people rummaging for recyclables will find it.
00:31:33
Yeah. So like, OK, he's just doing it for the thrill. Kind of. I wish that money would go somewhere else more directly.
00:31:41
It's in the garbage is not. But remember, he worked with the social services for unhoused.
00:31:46
I think he knows spots around town where it's definitely going to be found. Oh, got it.
00:31:50
Okay. I think he's putting it in places to be found, not to be thrown away. Right, right.
00:31:54
I'm just saying it's a big chance and he better have that schedule. That is true.
00:31:59
At his apartment somehow. I think the plan is for it to be found. That's his point.
00:32:04
So hopefully it did get all found and it's not in a landfill somewhere. It does help him justify his actions a little, you know, and the robberies were really never
00:32:12
about the money anyways. He didn't need the money. he needed a thrill, and that thrill sustains him for the next year. But by October 27th, 1999,
00:32:21
the thrills weren't off. Tom needs his next fix. So following the same strategy, biking to a hiding
00:32:27
spot and putting on a disguise, showing the teller the note card, making off of the cash,
00:32:32
Tom steals $3,247 from the Northern Trust in Lake Forest. Like last time, he steps brown bags full
00:32:40
of 20s and hundreds and scatters them in alleys around the city for the unhoused to find again.
00:32:45
So, you know, he's tightening it up. Yeah. This hall, however, also has a lot of $2 bills in it.
00:32:52
So knowing that his superintendent of his apartment building has two kids who like to
00:32:56
play in the courtyard, Tom hides all the $2 bills in the surrounding bushes and watches
00:33:01
as the kids discover the money. They're laughing. They're making a game out of it. And he's just
00:33:08
thrilled to watch like that's what he gets out of it that's amazing i know right yeah so tom's
00:33:14
regular life meanwhile drags on it's really boring for him of course as it is for all of us
00:33:19
sorry i don't want to be like it's boring for him because it's like it's not like he's smarter than
00:33:28
us like we fucking know it's well he's lived this life where right i mean lives are boring we all
00:33:36
know that no he's lived this life where he's had a lot of kind of almost moments right he was almost
00:33:42
on the olympic biking team so there's a level of shame there but there's also that level of like i
00:33:49
was so close yeah you tasted it yeah yeah so then regular life would be a little plainer and grayer
00:33:56
in the day-to-day because you're comparing it to these kind of peak moments and experiences you had
00:34:01
when you were young. Yeah. It can't all be podcasting and fucking velodomes and shit. I
00:34:09
don't know. Yeah. I'm talking about myself now. Okay. So Tom's depression actually grows deeper.
00:34:16
He has one thing to keep him going, which is the quiet satisfaction of having pulled off two
00:34:20
successful bank heists. He got away with, like, I think a lot of people would be like, I'm good
00:34:25
on that for 50 years. Let's coast. I got away with it. Who the fuck? That's insane. That's huge.
00:34:31
You're so right. And then you're keeping this secret about yourself that is the ultimate cocktail party drop in.
00:34:38
You can't tell anyone, not even your girlfriend. It would drive me insane. I would tell on myself and be in jail so quickly. I would have to.
00:34:46
Yeah. Yeah. That's the biggest feat of this entire story is that he didn't tell on himself.
00:34:52
Man, he should have gone to the Olympics for that. Because how? How do you do that?
00:34:57
So he's 29 at this point and nothing else in his life gives him that feeling. So on January 14th, the year 2000, the millennium, Tom hits his third bank, stealing $2,599 from LaSalle Bank in Evanston.
00:35:14
This would be his last heist of the season because icy roads settled in so he couldn't ride his bike anywhere, which is like, oh, it's seasonal.
00:35:22
Bank robbing is seasonal. Bicycle bank robbing is seasonal. Yes. If he was a snowplow bank robber, it would be a totally different story.
00:35:29
It'd still be seasonal, then. So this kind of just leaves him stewing in his depression.
00:35:35
He really does take a hit. He gets the idea that maybe he hasn't lost his chance at the Olympics.
00:35:39
He still has his Category 1 standing in cycling, which I guess automatically qualifies him for the Olympic trial races in California.
00:35:47
So he still is like trying to chase that dream. If he can place, he'll be right back on track.
00:35:52
Laura his girlfriend isn totally keen on it but Tom mind is made up She loans him her mom car and he drives off to Southern California promising himself he will buckle down focus on cycling and try not to rob any more banks
00:36:06
I so relate to that. That's what I say to myself every week. Come on. No more. Get serious about
00:36:13
cycling. I mean, is there anyone we know that has robbed a bank in their life and we'll just never
00:36:17
know? Or anything similar? What secrets are you just standing around keeping? Yeah. Like if you
00:36:23
got to think of which of your friends has robbed a bank you know like who would be the highest on
00:36:28
that list and is that offensive or is that like a compliment i have the answer it's scotty landis
00:36:32
of the podcast bananas don't you think because he's slick and he's a mastermind and he's like
00:36:38
my god it would be a great cover like you could see him having the perfect cover that way he uses
00:36:43
a banana instead of a gun for sure oh my god scotty the bank robber okay so he moves into a
00:36:51
house in encinitas california with an old cycling buddy and a bunch of military roommate guys and a
00:36:58
three-legged dog named foxtrot which seems like an important detail yeah and he dives right back
00:37:02
into training he basically he trains his fucking ass off gets super strong like he's on it he's
00:37:08
actually applying himself now however the routine gets routine and boring and so on february 15th
00:37:15
2000, Tom breaks his thieving fast and robs a bank in Encinitas. It'll be the first of a fast
00:37:22
and furious run on Southern California as he hits another bank in Solano Beach on February 29th,
00:37:28
a third in Encinitas on March 1st, a fourth in San Diego on March 15th, and then a fifth and
00:37:34
sixth. That's two in one day on March 25th in Encinitas and Carlsbad. So he is making up for
00:37:42
lost time. Yeah. There's no winter break in California, Southern California. No, you can do
00:37:47
it all year round in your shorts. Enjoy. Like all the Rob movies before, he just keeps the pocket
00:37:53
changed for himself, hides the rest in alleys and dumpsters and porta potties by the beach.
00:37:58
So the unhoused people will find it. He's just doing it to do it. Yeah, it's great. Like that's
00:38:04
a lot of doing it to do it. Banks. So Rob. Yes, it is. Like he's really dedicated to a thing that
00:38:10
he doesn't seem to give that much of a shit about ultimately. Yeah. Yeah. The robberies help break up the monotony of his training, but soon everything crashes
00:38:19
down around him because he wakes up one morning with back pain so bad he can't move.
00:38:24
He's basically over-trained himself to the point of severe injury. It takes him weeks to recover, which means he has to miss the Olympic trials.
00:38:32
And it's just the nail in the coffin of his longest held dream. So it's over now.
00:38:38
There's no like fallback cycling for him anymore. Which, you know, that could be devastating.
00:38:44
But at least he has bank robbing to fall back on. So when he heads back to Chicago in the spring of 2000, he feels like he's a total failure.
00:38:52
Laura finally dumps him because she's like, you're not the same person anymore. I'm just I'm done with this.
00:38:57
And then he moves out of their apartment and into a room in an apartment in the Ukrainian
00:39:02
village in Chicago. and his roommate, a burly 230-pound man named George, is a cop.
00:39:09
So he kind of gets off on that too. Sure. He needs it closer than just next door.
00:39:15
He needs it in the house. Yeah. So Tom is now single, unemployed. The Olympics are not happening for him.
00:39:21
So over the course of the next three months, Tom robs another six banks in and around Chicago,
00:39:27
bringing his total tally at this point to 14 banks. during Halloween of 2000 Tom picks up another addiction when he tries cocaine for the first time
00:39:37
yeah not as thrilling as bank robbing he's obsessed with the high he tries ecstasy at a
00:39:44
club a few months later and from that point on he's doing ecstasy every weekend and on top of
00:39:49
robbing banks and bouncing from one high to another all under his cop roommate's nose which
00:39:54
I think gives him a little thrill the next year 2001 Tom gets an opportunity to buy one of the
00:39:59
most coveted bikes in the cycling world, which is a Steelman. And it's made in Redwood City,
00:40:06
right by you, right? Hey, I mean, not really, but in the Bay Area. Yeah. Okay. So there's this
00:40:11
expert named Brent Steelman who works at his garage and he makes just 50 bikes a year. The
00:40:19
waitlist to get one is a mile long. They're like the best in the biz. And the shop manager at Tom's
00:40:26
local cycling club called Higher Gear tells Tom that someone is selling their used steelman. Like
00:40:33
it's really hard to get a new one. So Tom jumps at the chance to get one, but it is a bright orange
00:40:39
color, which is like not great for a getaway vehicle, you know? No. So he buys it. And so from
00:40:47
the outside, it seems like Tom is living a normal life. He cycles recreationally. He goes back to
00:40:52
school at DePaul University for his master's in education. But behind closed doors, Tom's drag use
00:40:57
is getting totally out of control. His frequent ecstasy and cocaine use is leading to higher and
00:41:02
higher doses to achieve the same high. Oh my God. Which leads to him going into deeper and deeper
00:41:08
depression. And it isn't long before he either backs out or fails out of grad school. And by
00:41:13
Halloween 2001, he's resorted to smoking crack. So things are not going well. I know. So his sister,
00:41:20
Jennifer assumes that he's dealing drugs since he always has cash and cocaine on hand. And he
00:41:26
wants to assure her he isn't a drug dealer. So he brings her into his bedroom, closes the door,
00:41:31
and finally is able to admit to someone he's been robbing banks. Sorry, how long had it been thus far?
00:41:39
This is like 2001 and he started in 1998. So. Oh, yeah. Like a couple of years. It's like a four year secret, three year secret.
00:41:47
Yeah. Yeah. She, of course, can't believe that her brother is a bank robber. I would be very shocked as well.
00:41:54
But then he asked her if she wants in and if she could help him And she like no way It you know I can believe you asked me and walks out So he feels really guilty about it
00:42:05
And then he's like, I feel bad. I need to rob another bank. That'll solve it. Yeah.
00:42:10
He hits the Northview Bank and Trust in Mundoline the next day. And at this point, he's robbed a total of 20 banks and has stolen a total of $93,903,
00:42:23
dollars, which at the end of this, when we see how much he totally takes, we'll guess how much
00:42:28
it is in today's money. But instead of giving it away like he used to, he's using more and more of
00:42:32
the cash to buy drugs. So there's still a part of Tom deep down the inside that knows what he's
00:42:38
doing is wrong. And so he declares he's moving back to California to try grad school again.
00:42:44
He wants to become a teacher, he says. But of course, when he does, he moves to Walnut Creek
00:42:48
in Northern California in early 2002, he just keeps robbing banks and getting away with it.
00:42:54
But on March 7th, 2002, Tom hits his first snag. It's crazy that it took this long for him
00:43:01
to like have a close call. He robs the Union Bank on Main Street in Walnut Creek,
00:43:06
usual tactic. But when he's fleeing, an 18-year veteran officer, Greg Thompson, sees the Spike Messenger, the Spike guy in spandex,
00:43:16
peddling away on his orange steelman and he has like a, you know, a gut instinct.
00:43:22
And so he pulls the bicyclist over and it's obviously Tom. He never says his name to the officer.
00:43:29
He stops, he complies. When Officer Thompson says like, hey, can I just look in your bag?
00:43:34
Tom's like, sure, I just have to unclip. So he like tells him something about the pedals needing to be balanced.
00:43:39
So he clicks, it's like, I need to click my other foot in onto the pedal, which isn't true.
00:43:44
He ends up just fucking bolting onto his bike. Yeah. Officer Thompson hops back into a squad car and follows, alerts other officers.
00:43:52
Another cop sees the same biker, follows him to a parking lot lined by a fence that separates it from a steep bank that delves into a dense thicket below.
00:44:01
But by the time they get to that fence, Tom is nowhere to be found. Once backup arrives, they pass through the fence down into the brush where there's a creek at the bottom.
00:44:09
They walk along it with canines like everyone's searching for him. They search for him for six hours until dark, but no one finds Tom.
00:44:17
However, they do find the bicycle. So finally, Tom comes out of his hiding place, which had been a small two foot wide, 11 foot
00:44:27
deep hole beneath a bridge upstream that an animal had burrowed. So he'd been fucking shivering in his spandex down there for six hours, hoping he wouldn't
00:44:37
get caught by a canine. Fuck. I mean, I don't know. I respect this guy's dedication, but getting into a hole that was already there would never,
00:44:48
that's not an option when I'm trying to get away from the cops from robbing a bank.
00:44:53
I hope whoever made this isn't taking a nap in it right now. I mean, and then just the spiders.
00:44:59
It's like. The spiders. Just the desperation. It's like the same thing. There's movies and stuff where people get into a log and I'm like, absolutely not.
00:45:08
But I would rather be in a jail cell with no bugs and spiders than like something like that.
00:45:14
Well, didn't someone tell us that when we were in Hawaii doing our show that the leis all had like spiders in them?
00:45:20
Because spiders are really... Spiders. Anyways, I'd rather go to prison for a bank robbery than meet a spider face to face.
00:45:30
Yeah. No, thanks. No, thank you. So he comes out. He had taken a bad fall down the embankment.
00:45:36
He lost his bicycle because they in the process, but he's safer now. But knowing the police have probably found his bike, he knows it's just a matter of time
00:45:44
until they find him because it is a rare bicycle. So Tom packs up his belongings and heads back home to Chicago.
00:45:51
So meanwhile, even though he's not a detective, this bank robbery case drives one of the officers,
00:45:56
Detective Sean Dexter, crazy. I think they all maybe feel a little foolish for letting him get away.
00:46:02
So he follows every possible link he can find starting first with the bike. So he's doing this on his own time.
00:46:08
And he's like, I'm going to fucking track this guy down. He has it checked for prints, but gets no hits.
00:46:14
He traces the make of the bike, discovers it's rare. But the original seller doesn't hang on to the records for very long.
00:46:19
So they have no way of finding out who it was originally sold to. You know what?
00:46:23
Steelman is not a narc. And that's great news. He's like, I don't hold on to my records.
00:46:29
Yes, you do. You have to. He's just like, oh, sorry, I burn everything. Yeah. Good job, Steelman.
00:46:37
Yeah. No snitches in the fucking cycling world. But the people at Steelman's, though,
00:46:41
they do agree to post a photo and notice about the robbery on their website in case someone else
00:46:47
wants to come forward and snitch. We shouldn't be defaming Steelman. They might be great people
00:46:51
who cooperate with every law. Oh, yeah. Steelman, if you're offended, we have no idea what we're
00:46:56
doing. It's been eight years and we just are talking off the top of our head about stories
00:47:01
we're telling each other. Yeah. We're true crime podcasters. We're going to allege everything.
00:47:05
We're true crime podcasters. We're not going to say allege. But what Officer Dexter doesn't know is that the FBI is already investigating a series of
00:47:15
bank robberies in the Midwest that all seem to have been committed by the same person.
00:47:20
And here's the thing about bank robbers and the law. They have to give them these names and they're
00:47:25
all a little ridiculous, like based on some silly thing about your MO, they'll call you
00:47:31
whatever bank robbery name you are. So because Tom, when he goes into rob a bank, kind of puts
00:47:39
his hands in like a bit of a namaste hand gesture, they call him the choir boy. So that's his bank
00:47:46
robbing name is the choir boy to the FBI. That April of 2002, a month after the robbery in
00:47:53
The Walnut Creek police get a call from the manager of Higher Gear, the Chicago police.
00:48:00
I'll go bike shop where Tom cycling club was based. He knows who last bought the bike.
00:48:05
It was Tom justice. Oh, so there are some narcs in the biking, bicycling community.
00:48:12
Yeah. So meanwhile, Tom is sensing that something is about to go down. The walls were closing in on him.
00:48:18
So he flies down to Tijuana, Mexico long story, but he has a weird run in with the cartel when he tries to get a fake
00:48:24
passport. Oh yeah. So then he books it and flies up to Oakland where his old roommate and friend Marty lives.
00:48:33
This isn't the cop, though. He just confesses everything to Marty like he needs to fucking tell someone.
00:48:39
Marty provides him some comfort. But ultimately, what Tom wants to do before the cops close in on him is have one more dinner with his parents.
00:48:46
He's like, I know it's going down. I'm just going to go home and like have a normal dinner with my parents and see what happens.
00:48:53
I know. So he flies back to Chicago, returns to his parents' house, and waits for the inevitable.
00:48:59
At about 5 p.m. on a workday in May of 2002, Libertyville police chief and neighbor to the
00:49:06
justices, Pat Carey, gets a call from the FBI asking about his neighbor's kid, Tom Justice.
00:49:13
Pat can't believe it that a serial bank robber the FBI is looking for grew up right next door to him.
00:49:19
He goes home that evening to find Tom's car because the FBI were like, hey, have you seen him lately?
00:49:24
Have you seen his car? And he's like, no. Goes home that evening and Tom's car is in his parents' driveway.
00:49:30
So this cop obviously is a narc. It's kind of part of the job and tells the FBI.
00:49:35
So that evening, as Tom drives off from his parents' house with his Tupperware of leftovers, several cop cars follow him, pull him over, and the officers pull Tom out of his car at gunpoint and arrest him.
00:49:47
It doesn't take much time in the interrogation room for Tom to give a full confession.
00:49:51
It seems like it's almost a relief for him. He owns up to 26 bank robberies in all, which is even more than the FBI had pegged him for.
00:50:00
It's across Illinois, Wisconsin, and California. His total loot amounts to, okay, and this is a four-year, 26-bank, 16-city spree.
00:50:12
It was only four years that he did fucking 26 banks. That's crazy, right? Yeah. And his total loot amounts to $129,338.
00:50:23
So the year is 2002. So $129,338 in today's money. That's fucking 20 years, 21 years ago.
00:50:33
Yes, it is. It's 23 years ago. Yep. There you go. So let me. You were subtracting for the COVID blank out.
00:50:45
Yes, I was. Thank you very much. So how much are you going to go in for that? Because inflation has really exploded.
00:50:53
And also greedflation. So let's add all of that together. I'll say $350,000. Okay.
00:50:59
I'm going to go $400,000. Alejandra? $224,000. God damn it. We keep going over. Same mistake again.
00:51:09
We're rusty. We cannot go on prices, right? We can't. We can't. All right. So Tom, he's now 31 years old.
00:51:18
He pleads guilty and is sentenced to 11 years in prison. His parents ask him why he did it.
00:51:23
And he doesn't have a good answer for them. He tells them he just quote, doesn't know why.
00:51:28
And it's just something I did. Which I get that. There's things in my life that I just did.
00:51:33
Sure. And also how about I'm a dopamine addict. I'm an adrenaline addict. I need certain levels of stimulation that maybe other people don't need.
00:51:43
Definitely. Yeah. That's got to be a thing, right? I think it is. Yeah. Your brain produces something.
00:51:49
He didn't know about bungee jumping. So sad. He serves nine years and it was released in 2011.
00:51:56
He goes back to cycling, but only around town and at the Velodrome track now. Instead of robbing banks, he gets a job at a local donut shop.
00:52:04
It's a boring existence for Tom, but he gets to go on knowing that for a while. His four-year, 26-bank, 16-city spree was one of the slickest and most prolific bank robbery sprees in recent American history.
00:52:18
And that is the story of the bicycle bank robber, Tom Justice. I'm pretty pissed off that the bicycle bank robber has served more time than many of the rapists and murderers that we talk about on this show.
00:52:32
That is a great point. That is really something that should be looked into. God forbid you touch their money.
00:52:39
Right. Or humiliate them. Yeah. Wow. That was great. Thank you. I've never heard of that in any way.
00:52:48
Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. He needs like a cartoon or something. Yeah. You know, like on Adult Swim.
00:52:55
Tom Justice. The Bicycle Bank Robber. Bicycle Bank Robber. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,
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Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye. Well, I'm going to tell you now a story that I feel like is a parallel.
00:55:34
It's probably why Alejandra and Hannah paired these stories up, because this is another person who lived large in their time.
00:55:41
And I got the idea for this because, of course, I was on TikTok and there is a creator named Mind of Marissa.
00:55:49
and they just tell you kind of like it's like a two minute covering something fascinating.
00:55:55
And some of the subjects are fashion history, Titanic, the Gilded Age, museums, whatever, interesting stories. So Marissa was doing a TikTok that came across my For You page
00:56:07
that was about this person I'm going to tell you about. And I had just recently done the baker from
00:56:14
the Titanic. And so when this one came up, I was like, oh, wait, this gives me the idea to also
00:56:19
cover this person because I love talking about the people who survived the Titanic. And there
00:56:25
are many myths about this woman I'm going to tell you about today. Legend has it she was born two
00:56:30
months early during a tornado in Missouri. It's said that she was an aggressive, uneducated,
00:56:35
wild child who grew up to be an even wilder West showgirl. They say she accidentally burned her
00:56:42
family's fortune in the kitchen stove, that she was once saved from drowning by Mark Twain himself,
00:56:47
and that she saved herself from the sinking Titanic with only a fur coat, a corset, and a
00:56:54
colt revolver. Her legend is so big and persistent, you may already know who I'm talking about. It's
00:57:00
the unsinkable Molly Brown. And while all of these stories about her are extremely embellished,
00:57:06
if not completely untrue, there is some truth to some of these claims, except for the one
00:57:12
her name wasn't Molly. Her name was Margaret. Molly wasn't her nickname. It wasn't her given
00:57:18
name. She never went by Molly at any point in her life. The twisting of the facts about her
00:57:23
are oddly unnecessary because the truth about her real life is arguably just as amazing as her
00:57:30
mythical one. So I'm going to tell you today the unbelievable life story of the unsinkable Margaret
00:57:35
Brown. Love it. So the sources in this story are Molly Brown Unraveling the Myth by Kristen Iverson
00:57:43
and also from the Molly Brown House Museum's website. There's all kinds of articles on there
00:57:50
and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So we start in 1867 in Hannibal, Missouri,
00:57:57
where Margaret Tobin is born. And at the time, Hannibal's a noteworthy town because
00:58:02
it sits on the Mississippi River. It's an important trade and transportation hub.
00:58:08
It's not a huge town, but it's also not an isolated town either. It feels very connected
00:58:14
to the rest of the country. And it's also Mark Twain's hometown, which is probably how that
00:58:21
other kind of mythical fact about her started. Historians don't think Margaret ever crossed paths
00:58:27
with Mark Twain in any meaningful way. It's possible that their extended families may be
00:58:32
interacted at some point. But Mark Twain was 30 years older than Margaret. So it's pretty unlikely.
00:58:41
Margaret's parents, John and Johanna, are both Irish immigrants. John works for the Hannibal
00:58:46
Gas Works, which is one of the largest employers in Hannibal. And Johanna stays home and raises
00:58:52
her and John's seven children in a very modest cottage where the family keeps a cow, several
00:58:59
chickens in a small garden. The Tobins don't have much, but Margaret's childhood appears to have
00:59:04
been happy. She and her siblings play in the nearby woods. They watch riverboats float by on
00:59:09
the Mississippi. The Tobins are very plugged in with a like-minded group of progressive and
00:59:14
politically active Irish immigrants. They're abolitionists. And it's even rumored that when
00:59:20
he lived in Pennsylvania, John worked for the Underground Railroad. They also have a progressive
00:59:25
a view on education. So Margaret goes to school until she's 13 years old, which is at that time,
00:59:32
the late 1800s, excellent for a working class girl. But then of course she has to start helping
00:59:39
out financially for this gigantic Irish family. So she starts working in a local tobacco factory.
00:59:44
We don't know what her job duties are there, but it likely involves stripping tobacco leaves
00:59:50
for hours on end Unsurprisingly Margaret doesn like this job It hot The work is grueling She barely makes any money And Margaret ambitious She smart and she ambitious And she has big dreams for herself that involve getting out of
01:00:06
Hannibal. So when she's 18 years old, she moves with her brother Daniel to Leadville, Colorado,
01:00:13
which has a booming mining industry at the time. Do they collect lead? I bet they collect lead.
01:00:18
No, gold, actually. They love gold. She finds work in a department store. And although she's finally doing what she wants, she does get terribly homesick. But Margaret dreams of reaching a level of success that would change the Tobin's lives for the better. And she would later write, quote,
01:00:39
I long to be rich enough to give father a home so that he would not have to work. I used to think
01:00:45
that the zenith of happiness would be to have my father come to his home after a pleasant day and
01:00:51
find his slippers warmed and waiting for him. It was a little thing to want, I thought. Of course,
01:00:56
we could have had his slippers waiting for him in those days, you will say, but father was too tired
01:01:01
when his work was done to enjoy any comfort. His life was bound by working and sleeping.
01:01:07
So she just wants her parents to be happy, whatever that means. So in the 1880s, the easiest way for a woman to transcend her social class, of course, was to marry up.
01:01:19
Margaret's not going to do that. Instead, not long after moving to Leadville, 19-year-old Margaret meets 31-year-old minor James Joseph Brown.
01:01:28
People call him JJ. They meet at a church picnic. And like Margaret, JJ is the son of Irish immigrants.
01:01:35
He is tall, charismatic, very intelligent, and he's particularly fascinated by engineering.
01:01:42
He wants to understand how minds actually function, but despite his ambition, he has no money.
01:01:49
Margaret would later say, quote, I wanted a rich man, but I loved Jim Brown. She and JJ eventually marry.
01:01:58
They have two children together, Larry and Helen, and the Browns spend their first years
01:02:04
of marriage struggling to get by. But J.J.'s intelligence is recognized by his bosses in the
01:02:10
mining industry. So he's promoted up the ladder. Then they slowly begin to live more comfortably.
01:02:16
And then in 1893, J.J. becomes the superintendent of a mining company called Ibex. And he uses his
01:02:24
engineering skills to access a very hard to reach area in one of Ibex's mines. And it nets Ibex
01:02:32
a mother load of gold. In fact, one Colorado professor examines this mine and is reported as
01:02:39
saying, quote, it is practically a lake of ore. So, yeah. So basically they strike it rich in every
01:02:48
way. And Ibex rewards JJ handsomely. He is given 12,500 shares of stock in the company and a seat
01:02:56
on the company's board. Wow. Yeah. So now the Browns have finally made it. They celebrate by
01:03:02
traveling the country. They tour the American South. They travel up the East Coast. They enjoy
01:03:08
a stopover for a month in Chicago. By the time they return to Leadville around Christmas of 1893,
01:03:15
they have become local celebrities. And then in 1894, when Margaret's in her late 20s,
01:03:21
they move to a mansion in a wealthy Denver neighborhood. And that's when Margaret gets
01:03:26
to move her parents in. So she's finally achieved that goal of giving her parents a life that
01:03:32
doesn't revolve around working their asses off. While Margaret's doing that, JJ is accumulating
01:03:38
serious wealth as a major stakeholder in Ibex and eventually as the operator of the mine himself.
01:03:44
So he really does make it big. But despite the Browns' shift in circumstances, Margaret,
01:03:50
who has always been politically progressive, is becoming frustrated with the world around her.
01:03:55
She is deeply disturbed by how her fellow man in town around her, how little they have.
01:04:02
She continues to empathize with working class people because, of course, she was married to a minor herself.
01:04:08
Like, she knows what that is. And if her husband didn't, like, look into engineering and basically discover this motherlode, then she would be in the exact same position.
01:04:18
She knows it. It makes her feel helpless. She wants to enact real change in the community.
01:04:22
but as a woman, she doesn't even have the right to vote at the time. But she doesn't sit idly by.
01:04:28
She takes her family's new wealth and sets up soup kitchens for minors' families. She gets
01:04:33
involved in the women's suffrage movement. She advocates for children's rights and literacy.
01:04:37
She raises money to build a local hospital and eventually a Catholic cathedral. She's also
01:04:44
credited with being behind many important firsts, including Denver's first ever animal shelter,
01:04:50
as well as the city's first preservation project after she advocates for saving local journalist
01:04:57
and writer Eugene Fields' house from demolition. So she's all about it. She's in the community, making it better for everybody else.
01:05:06
And she also works with a Colorado judge named Ben B. Lindsay to establish the first juvenile court in the country.
01:05:13
So basically making sure that kids are represented and protected. There was a man named Thomas Cahill
01:05:19
who knew Margaret personally, who wrote that, quote, her wealth never seemed to change her one iota.
01:05:25
She was always democratic and kind. This was the keynote of her personality. So in 1909, Margaret's in her early 40s,
01:05:35
and she and JJ decide to separate after 23 years of marriage. Oh, no, don't do that.
01:05:41
I know. Well, they don't divorce. According to author Kristen Iverson, quote, their children, complicated financial affairs,
01:05:48
and strong Catholic faith kept them closely connected. So you kind of I think back then couldn divorce really without being super scandalous Still their separation becomes front page news and there rumors about J infidelities Yet the San Francisco Examiner directly implicates Margaret in the failure of the Browns marriage
01:06:09
Sure you do. Right? I mean, who else's fault would it be? They write, quote, The prime cause of the trouble has been that J.J. Brown dislikes society.
01:06:20
Perhaps no woman in society has ever spent more money or time in becoming cultivated.
01:06:25
then has Mrs. Brown. So right there, how dare you better yourself or your circumstances?
01:06:31
How dare you work to better other people's circumstances? And it's your fault what your
01:06:36
husband does. But the end of Margaret's marriage does jumpstart an exciting new chapter in her life.
01:06:42
She receives a $700 monthly allowance per her separation agreement with JJ. And that's worth, do you want to guess? Okay, $719.09?
01:06:53
Yeah. I'm going to say 2,600. 25,000. Yeah. Did I mean that? Did you mean 26,000? Probably.
01:07:05
Probably now that I know the answer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Look how close I was. Holy shit.
01:07:10
So she's getting the equivalent of 25 grand a month. A month. That's too much money. It's so
01:07:17
much money. So she begins to travel the world. She eventually becomes well-versed in French,
01:07:23
German, and Russian. And this is also when she embarks on her most infamous trip across the
01:07:29
Atlantic Ocean, the thing she's known best for. So the story begins like this. In 1912,
01:07:36
44-year-old Margaret is in Europe when she gets word that one of her grandchildren is very sick.
01:07:41
So she goes and books a first-class ticket on the ship that would get her back home the fastest.
01:07:47
and that ship is the RMS Titanic. Did you see that thing that was like, here's how much
01:07:52
each room would have cost on the Titanic? Like it's more than a first class airplane ticket,
01:07:57
I'll tell you that right now. It's like 50 grand in today's money. Yeah, I bet. It was just so
01:08:04
luxurious back then. It was just pure insanity. Totally. So Margaret Brown boards the ship alone,
01:08:10
which was very unusual for women at the turn of the century. She is apparently very happy with her
01:08:16
accommodations. She has a luxurious room. She enjoys great meals. And according to an article
01:08:22
from Mental Floss, quote, she used the ship's gymnasium and favored the punching bag as she
01:08:28
enjoyed boxing as a form of exercise. Hell yeah. We fucking love this woman. I mean, clearly. She is
01:08:34
a true hero. So, of course, we know this is all leading to the night of April 15th, 1912,
01:08:41
when the Titanic collides with an iceberg and begins to sink into the freezing waters of the
01:08:47
North Atlantic. Margaret will later tell a reporter, quote, the whole thing was so formal that it was
01:08:53
difficult for anyone to realize that it was a tragedy. Men and women stood in little groups and
01:08:58
talked. Some laughed as the first boats went over the side. All the time, the band was playing.
01:09:04
After a little while, I helped put some women into a boat. I remember the last woman. She was French.
01:09:10
She was very excited. I spoke to her in French and helped to put her into the boat.
01:09:15
Somehow, I did not seem to care about the thing of being saved. We thought that the ship was so big that it could not go down for a day at any rate.
01:09:25
A first-person account of what that was actually like for the first class. Right. Passengers.
01:09:32
I was going to say citizens, but thank you, passengers. Very different than what it was like for the people down below, as we know.
01:09:39
Yeah. But it's so, so wild. I'm just thinking about that of like, nobody's panicking.
01:09:45
So you don't think it's a big deal. And we're like, you're about to die. And then like, no, they don't know that.
01:09:51
They think it's going to be a day. So yeah, they could just hang out on deck the whole time.
01:09:54
Yeah. And also I think probably it was very uncouth to panic or scream or, you know, right.
01:10:00
It would be in a society pages type of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Margaret ends up spending so much time either loading other women onto the lifeboats or also this was the one where I said that there were 5,000 lifeboats and it was like 500 or something.
01:10:19
I got that number so crazy wrong. Anyway, so she's actually spending her time helping women get onto those boats, either that or just standing there like staring and trying to take in what was going on, that she almost misses her opportunity to evacuate on her assigned lifeboat, which was lifeboat number six.
01:10:37
It's only when she's off the Titanic that the gravity of the entire situation begins to set in.
01:10:43
And she would later say, quote, I knew how cold the water was, and I felt that if I were to be drowned, I wanted it over quickly.
01:10:50
end quote. So Margaret removes her life jacket. It's actually called a life belt because I,
01:10:56
it may have been something different, but I changed it to life jacket because I didn't know
01:11:01
what was going on when I first read their research, but she basically takes it off to go like, well,
01:11:07
this is where we're at. Like trying to accept her fate. Yeah. Oh dear. Which I think is probably all
01:11:13
the stages of grief, right? Or just, you know, just going through it or shock or whatever. But
01:11:18
Then she quickly shifts into crisis mode and realizes that if she rows that lifeboat, it'll keep her warm.
01:11:26
So she starts rowing the lifeboat and she starts telling everybody else, we all have to row this thing so that we stay warm.
01:11:33
And she says, quote, I rowed because I would have frozen to death. I made them all row.
01:11:38
I saved their lives. End quote. Yeah. So, Margaret becomes the spirit of Lifeboat Six when the man who is technically supposed
01:11:46
to be in charge of Lifeboat Six starts to freak out, basically, as anyone would, but
01:11:52
she's forced to take action knowing that morale has to stay high in that situation.
01:11:57
And she would later explain, saying that the man who is in charge of Lifeboat Six starts
01:12:00
quote, began to complain that we had no chance. After he told us that we had no chance, told us
01:12:05
many times, and he explained that we had no food, no water, no compass, I told him to be still,
01:12:11
or he would go overboard. Then he was quiet. You want to see no chance, buddy? Seriously,
01:12:18
shut the fuck up. What are you doing? But like, everyone has their different reaction.
01:12:22
So that guy gets to have that reaction. But then you got to get checked because Not in lifeboat six, no.
01:12:29
So eventually lifeboat six and many others in the water that night are saved by a boat called the Carpathia.
01:12:36
As this ship heads toward New York with hundreds of Titanic survivors aboard, Margaret gets to work.
01:12:42
And before the Carpathia even arrives at the port, Margaret has raised $10,000, which is over $315,000 in today's money for these survivors of the Titanic who've lost everything.
01:12:56
Holy shit. She's just doing fucking crowdfunding on the boat that saved them. Yeah.
01:13:00
And also it's like, this is a coping mechanism that is like the part of humanity that keeps
01:13:06
us all alive, which is there are people that go into those situations and they're like,
01:13:10
we need to get some stuff done. We can't stand and stare. We can't talk about how bad it is.
01:13:15
We got to do something. God bless. God bless. Thank you, Margaret Brown. So she uses her foreign language skills to communicate with the survivors who don't speak
01:13:24
English, but need, you know, help getting medical services or that need to connect with their family
01:13:30
somehow. And as soon as the Carpathia arrives in New York City, reporters go look for Margaret Brown
01:13:36
to get her firsthand account of the disaster because they know there's a bunch of rich people
01:13:41
and she's like a society maven or whatever. So they go find her. And when a New York Times
01:13:47
reporter asks if she slept the night before, Margaret says, quote, no, why should I? There
01:13:52
was work to do. I left the Carpathia at three o'clock this morning. There were many women there
01:13:57
whom I had to look out for. Yeah. So in the years to come, Margaret holds her experience aboard the
01:14:03
Titanic closely alongside her grief for those who died. I mean, the trauma of that. She basically
01:14:10
uses all of that energy though, to chair something called the Titanic Survivors Committee.
01:14:17
and according to the Encyclopedia Titanica website, she, quote, presented a silver cup to the captain of the Carpathia
01:14:25
and a medal to each Carpathia crew member. And in later years, Margaret helped erect the Titanic memorial
01:14:32
that stands in Washington, D.C. She visited the cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia
01:14:37
to place wreaths on the graves of victims and continue to serve on the survivors committee.
01:14:42
She was particularly upset that as a woman, she was not allowed to testify at the Titanic hearings. In response, she wrote her own version
01:14:51
of the event, which was published in newspapers in Denver, New York, and Paris. Wow. She couldn't
01:14:58
testify. So they're getting maybe half the people's testimony because they just don't want
01:15:05
women to... Oh my God. And everyone is human. So everyone's going to go through a completely
01:15:11
horrifying accident and traumatic event like that differently. But that idea that like just her
01:15:17
experience on her own lifeboat where the guy, so we absolutely will hear from the guy that shut down
01:15:22
and told everybody let's give up now. Right. Which is like, who knows what your reaction is going to
01:15:28
be if you're on a gigantic boat that sinks in frozen water. However, you wouldn't be called
01:15:33
number one or two at the feckin' to give your testimony. Yeah. After surviving the Titanic
01:15:40
disaster, Margaret's profile continues to rise. She stays devoted to humanitarian causes and
01:15:46
political work And in 1914 she runs for a seat in the U House of Representatives before women have the right to vote That amazing So badass But then World War I breaks out
01:16:00
So she withdraws from the race and she heads over to France to help serve and work with the Red Cross.
01:16:07
She helps set up an ambulance system staffed with American volunteers. and for her service and for many of the things that she does at that time,
01:16:17
she'll later be awarded the French Legion of Honor. In fact, 1914 proves to be a particularly busy year for Margaret Brown.
01:16:25
According to the Molly Brown House Museum website, she had, quote, been in the news for her offer to lead a regiment of fighting women
01:16:33
in the impending war with Mexico. What? Oh, man. She's solidly middle-aged at this point, but she's like, you know what, I'll go. Fine, I'll take care of it. End quote.
01:16:45
And then in April, she redirects her focus after learning about a worker strike at a mine in Ludlow, Colorado, that has turned deadly.
01:16:54
20 people will die in what's now known as the Ludlow Massacre, and hundreds more will lose their livelihoods.
01:17:02
The Ludlow Massacre is considered a watershed moment in the history of U.S. labor rights.
01:17:06
And in its immediate aftermath, Margaret steps in to help workers and their families. She not only negotiates the workers' rights with the mine's biggest shareholder, J.D. Rockefeller Jr., but according to the Molly Brown House Museum website, she also, quote, established a Blue Cross nurse corps at the site of the massacre, donated a considerable amount of her own money, and partnered with the Garment Workers Union and the Women's Relief Association to provide necessary resources.
01:17:35
resources such as shoes and clothing. She's just like getting it done for her people, for her
01:17:42
community. And it's amazing. The original do-gooder influencer. The original helicopter mom, but for
01:17:49
everybody in town. For society. Well, and also it's kind of like for her past. It's like she
01:17:56
knows that would have been her future had this luck, this ingenuity of her husband not taken it
01:18:03
a different way. And the idea that she stays connected to that as opposed to like turning
01:18:09
away from it and pretending she's always been rich and she has no, you know, responsibility
01:18:14
is a thing to consider. Huge. Admirable. So in 1922, Margaret's estranged husband, J.J. Brown, dies after a heart attack. He was in his
01:18:25
late 60s. And despite their separation, the two always maintained a level of respect for one
01:18:30
another. And Margaret would say of him, quote, I've never met a finer, bigger, more worthwhile
01:18:35
man than J.J. Brown. Oh, my God. Yeah. She never remarries. There are, of course, rumors,
01:18:43
like when people said that she was romantically involved with a very wealthy French duke,
01:18:47
20 years her senior, but she would deny those claims saying, quote, me marry that old geezer?
01:18:53
Never. Give me every time the rugged men of the West. Get it. End quote. Yes. That's it.
01:19:01
Margaret, her life never slows down. In 1925, when she's around 58 years old, she's a guest at the exclusive Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida,
01:19:12
and a fire breaks out. And during the evacuation, she plays the role of heroine and escorts people to safety.
01:19:19
She'll later tell the Denver Post, quote, I was born under a lucky star, I suppose.
01:19:24
She's like, this is just a hotel fire. I survived the Titanic. Follow me. Yeah. The exit signs right here.
01:19:31
I'm following her. I'm following her. For real. When Margaret's in her early 60s, she decides to pursue the theater.
01:19:38
She starts taking acting classes in Paris. I know. She just living She just living and loving doing it She starts taking acting classes in Paris and then in New York City while she living at the iconic Upper East Side Women Hotel the Barbizon And the Barbizon was this women hotel known for residents like Grace Kelly Sylvia Plath Joan Didion Liza Minnelli
01:20:02
God, take me there. Right. On October 25th, 1932, Margaret Brown is struck down by complications from an undiagnosed brain tumor. She dies at only 65 years old. She is buried alongside her estranged husband, JJ, in Long Island, New York.
01:20:21
Wow. And ironically, the myth of Molly Brown began before her death, because in late 1930, Fortune Magazine runs an article about her incredible life.
01:20:32
This is two years before she died. And the reporter called her, quote, as legendary as Paul Bunyan, but as real as Pike's Peak.
01:20:40
Wow. Such a compliment. And then not long after that article came out, a writer named Gene Fowler learns Margaret's story. And he's so inspired by her that he includes a chapter on her life in his book Timberline. But he takes a ton of creative license. And when the rights to Fowler's less than factual chapter are purchased by MGM and a radio show on his embellished Margaret Brown story hits the airwaves, like suddenly it is like biographical.
01:21:11
but actually it was more she was a character in his book but got it and then from the radio show
01:21:17
a broadway musical the unsinkable molly brown is born and this show repeats the same myths about
01:21:24
margaret even changing her name to molly because it was easier to say according to the show's
01:21:29
writers so it's a little catchier i guess yeah so this stage production is followed up in 1964
01:21:35
by a movie of the same name starring Debbie Reynolds. And this fully cemented Margaret Brown's transformation
01:21:42
into the mythical Molly Brown. But Molly's over-the-top exploits don't hold a candle to the passion,
01:21:49
the empathy, and the dedication that the real Margaret Brown demonstrated throughout her incredibly eventful life.
01:21:56
And this is a final thought from the Molly Brown House Museum's website. It says, quote,
01:22:03
the life of Margaret Brown spanned one of the greatest periods of change in American history.
01:22:08
From her birth in a Mississippi river town to the Colorado mines and the stages of New York and
01:22:13
Paris, she had a starring role as a progressive reformer and a strong voice for human rights.
01:22:19
Her actual significance was obscured by Hollywood and its manufactured moniker, Molly.
01:22:25
But the true Margaret Brown story eclipses the movie mythology, revealing the rhythms of life
01:22:30
in a rapidly changing nation. While the Molly Brown myth exposes the stereotype of the Western woman,
01:22:37
the true story of how she navigated a changing nation reveals an American story of great depth.
01:22:43
And that was the true story of the unsinkable Margaret Brown. Mm, damn. Yeah. So inspiring.
01:22:52
So good. And if you want to get all the details, because obviously that was the most
01:22:57
CliffsNotes version of Margaret Brown's life story, read Kristen Iverson's book,
01:23:03
Molly Brown, Unraveling the Myth. And she has a website, KristenIverson.com, I-V-E-R-S-E-N.
01:23:10
You can go get the book on there. Cool. Yeah. Wow. Great job. Thank you. What an amazing story. Maybe I'll try to be a little more like Margaret.
01:23:22
You know what? It's like, don't freak out. Just start rowing. Yeah. Keep yourself warm.
01:23:28
What would Margaret do? Yeah. What would Margaret do? That's going to be a new thing.
01:23:32
I'm like, in this moment, look around. What action can you take Right What anything can you do when you faced with hard shit which everyone is facing right now I mean it is hard out there Everyone going through the shit And I think the Margaret
01:23:51
Brown mindset, if you can pick yourself up and do a little something for someone else might help.
01:23:56
Definitely. Definitely. And in the meantime, thank you for listening. For those of you who
01:24:02
been here eight years or one episode. We appreciate you so much. It's kind of been the same. Eight
01:24:08
years, one episode. I don't know. I don't think we've changed it that much. It's been one long
01:24:14
eight year episode. Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us for whatever length of time you
01:24:25
claim and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Give me. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
01:24:32
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Goodbye.