00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
00:00:33
Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. If audiobooks are your thing, or if you've been meaning to listen to more of them,
00:00:40
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00:00:46
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Sci-fi, comedy, romance, thrillers, and more. With Cal talking to guests who help break down what makes each story worth listening to.
00:00:57
It's a fun, easy way to discover your next great audiobook. Check out Earsay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Goodbye. My favorite murder
00:01:36
Hello. Hello. And welcome. To My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. Hi, that's Karen Kilgariff.
00:01:51
Hello. Hello. Yeah, we're just going to do this podcast for you real quick. and then just move on to other stuff.
00:01:58
In and out, in and out. Right? Yeah. Just like have a chat, touch base, see what's up.
00:02:04
Yeah. In today's busy world, we know that you guys don't want any bullshit. You barely have time for this one hour, 45 minute podcast.
00:02:12
So let's get to it. I want to know how many people listen to this podcast at work on someone else's dime.
00:02:20
Like that to me is like the fucking rebellion of rebellions, you know, like a fuck you to the man.
00:02:26
Also, I have a hard time listening to podcasts, which that's kind of how I spend my morning,
00:02:31
like wiping down surfaces and whatever. And the idea that I would do that and a job seems insane.
00:02:40
I would never, I would be saying what the people in my ear were saying out loud.
00:02:45
Well, as an ex-receptionist who would just sit alone at a desk in front of a computer
00:02:52
for hours at a time, and the only thing I ever had to say was hi or answer the phone
00:02:56
phone, you can get away with it pretty easily. Okay. Yeah. I was just gonna say, maybe not one
00:03:01
of those law firms where it's like 30 lines ringing at one time and you're like, Simon and
00:03:07
Simon and Simon and Schuster or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Simon and Simon and Schuster.
00:03:12
That's my law firm. I don't know. I don't know which one yours is. I once at that job watched
00:03:17
like seven seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at my desk. I told them I need
00:03:24
a privacy screen because like I didn't want anyone seeing my, and it was really just so I could watch
00:03:27
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sweet. I got my friend Jeff Cosgrave. We used to work together.
00:03:34
I got him a t-shirt one time that said I'm, it was a cartoon of a, like a bear sitting at a bar
00:03:40
drinking and underneath it said, I'm rocking on your dime, which made me laugh so hard. I don't
00:03:46
know why. I just thought that was, I don't know if that's like from a band or something, but.
00:03:50
I don't either, but please let us know if that's what your life is like. Kudos to you.
00:03:55
Because we love it. Oh, can I give you an update that just came through on borderline defunct website Twitter?
00:04:01
But I still love the fact that people still communicate with me through there. Yeah.
00:04:06
Even though the Nazis have infiltrated in the most insane way. Like you see such crazy shit on there now, but you also see things like this.
00:04:16
a man named James Barrera, I believe, at Civil Jim B is his handle. He went into, and I know I've told you this story,
00:04:27
my short stint at Sac State in college. There was a girl who walked around. She was legit like punk.
00:04:35
And she had a t-shirt that said, frat boys have no genitals on the front of it. I told you that, right?
00:04:43
No, I don't think I've heard that one before. So it was 1988. Oh my God. The danger level of having this shirt on
00:04:52
and walking around in the world. And Sacramento's conservative as fuck, right? Conservative and filled with frats and sororities.
00:04:59
Like that's what everyone was doing aside from this tiny handful of us who were absolutely not.
00:05:06
And I just remember she was walking down the hall. She kind of had a Molly Ringwald,
00:05:11
if Molly Ringwald had a really fucked up childhood kind of vibe. and she was wearing like that t-shirt
00:05:17
and then like a super cool pleated skirt and huge like creepers. And as she walked by, I was just like,
00:05:24
no way, like she's by herself. What are you doing? Like you're the coolest person of all time.
00:05:30
And so I'm sure I told that story on some podcast at some point. Yeah, it could have been this one
00:05:36
and I don't remember. It's been seven and a half years basically. There have been anecdotes by the thousands
00:05:42
on this fucking thing. Truly. All moderately interesting. So it's not like it's going to stick out in your mind that much.
00:05:49
But this guy James Barrera tweets me and sends a picture of the shirt and says the shirt was a product of the network like a title capital T capital N the network at UC Irvine Ciudad dorm in 1985
00:06:05
artwork by me and Jim Kahn, K-A-N. The Ragsack State punk girl was most likely Annie J or Bonnie.
00:06:14
I still have one. And then there's the picture of the fucking shirt. Oh my God. The original indie artist.
00:06:24
somehow found this. Oh, because you know what it was? Nico Case said, I'm scared of frat boys on Twitter.
00:06:30
And I wrote back basically saying there was a girl who wore this shirt and it was amazing.
00:06:35
And so he, I guess, found it three years later and was like, that was me. How fucking cool.
00:06:40
And then he knew like, it was one of these two girls because that's like how few people own that.
00:06:46
And then it's full circle and the internet brings people together. That's wild. And it's very like,
00:06:52
The thing to me is it's so confrontational. And that's that kind of thing like, yeah, if you have 10,000 like-minded people
00:07:01
behind you on social media and you're going to be ballsy and say that. This girl was by herself in the middle of a state school
00:07:07
just being like, yeah, you want to fight me? I'll fight you. Where is she now running the country?
00:07:12
Why isn't she running the country? She might be. What if it was Nancy Pelosi? Anyway, thanks James for sending that.
00:07:21
You probably don't listen to this podcast, but if you hear about it, thank you. Because how inspiring to be like in the middle of Sacramento going,
00:07:30
oh, there's really these super badass like... Real people. Yeah, like anarchists.
00:07:35
It's awesome. Speaking of the opposite of real people, have you watched the Duggard family fucking documentary?
00:07:45
No, I'm scared. Should I watch it? You, it's scary. It's called Shiny Happy People and it's on Amazon Prime.
00:07:51
It's like four episodes, Vince and I binged it. And just like the amount of times we said,
00:07:56
holy shit or what the fuck, it was just like countless. Yeah. I mean, it's dark.
00:08:02
It's fucked up. And like, you know, fucking DLC just like throws this up. But it's like, it's not, it's propaganda.
00:08:11
It's not fucking shiny, happy people. It's like this dark religious overlord and the religion that they're trying to spread
00:08:18
through America. like the religious right. You know what I mean? It's just, I'm not being eloquent,
00:08:24
but you know what I mean? No, no, I, well, because the presentation is like, this is the American ideal of a family
00:08:29
and an ethical family. And this is how you live ethically and this is how you live whatever.
00:08:35
And it's like, that would be nice. If we could do it that way, wouldn't it be nice to be like,
00:08:40
well, if you go to this church, then you are good. And if you go to this place, then you are bad.
00:08:45
And it's like, that's the kind of discovery with all this stuff, which is, if you're waving that flag of like,
00:08:54
me and Christ in it together, there's a reason people want to be projecting that message.
00:08:59
And it's because they're covering something up a lot of the time. Absolutely. Like the homeschooling that they did,
00:09:05
these poor children got no education. There was like, they tell you about the curriculum
00:09:09
on this documentary. They tell you about like, you know, the like weird things that the young girls had to,
00:09:16
the weird places they had to go with the like leader. And then they tell you about like,
00:09:20
the kids are all very like, what's the word? The kids are all very subdued and behave themselves.
00:09:27
And it's like, well, here's how they did that. There's actually like, it's like teaching from when they're little babies
00:09:32
to like how to behave. It's fucked up. It's fucked up. Abusive, horrible stuff. Yeah, I definitely recommend it.
00:09:39
Watching it. Well, yeah. I kind of, all those things are, feel very satisfying when they,
00:09:45
when they actually play out where it's like, Yeah, we all watched that or we all were kind of forced to know about it.
00:09:52
And knew something was off about it. Yes. For sure. Similar to Jared from Subway.
00:09:58
Yeah. Oh, that was a good documentary too. Did you watch that one? No. We watched that one.
00:10:05
And it turns out there's this like woman who's like a journalist, like news presentation lady, you know, radio DJ and stuff.
00:10:13
And she kind of is the one who took him down. Like, I didn't know that there was this one woman
00:10:17
who started recording her fucking conversations with him. And he just started telling her all this stuff.
00:10:23
And then the FBI got involved and they're like, you have to keep talking to him.
00:10:26
And like made her, basically all the evidence they had against him is because of her.
00:10:31
She's a badass. That's amazing. That's, yeah. Reason number 8 million why we cannot lose journalism.
00:10:38
We can't, this idea of disempowering journalists and getting rid of local newspapers,
00:10:44
all these things that we're seeing happening has to get reversed because that's the only way
00:10:48
this kind of stuff gets broken and learned about is like people who are doing that job
00:10:55
and doing the hard stuff. It's so creepy. He's like, she has young kids and he starts like talking about
00:11:00
what he would do to them. And she has to like play along. Like she's into it. They have the recordings on the documentary.
00:11:07
It's fucking creepy. Now, and then in between these documentaries, You go find some glimmer time.
00:11:14
You go find some, you go, you go take a deep breath outside. I have found one thing that I just bought.
00:11:22
I haven't used it yet, but I've found the thing that's going to solve all my anxiety problems.
00:11:26
Oh. I got myself a power washer. Holy shit. For like outdoors, like on your house and like your fucking walkway and shit.
00:11:34
Life's about to get better. You're about to, you know, you can, there's a guy that I follow on TikTok
00:11:40
who volunteers to clean up people's front yards. I've seen one of those before. It's amazing.
00:11:46
When he power washes the driveway and you're like, I didn't realize that was dirty.
00:11:50
Yeah. And then he goes, and suddenly it's this beautiful, everything looks beautiful.
00:11:55
Yeah There a Reddit thread of power washing porn and it just so satisfying Except when people are doing it in sandals and their feet are just disgusting and you like why don you put some tennis shoes on Something you just like kicking up dirty water
00:12:07
Yeah, although then they can power wash their feet. Oh, hey. Hey, let's look on the bright side of power washing.
00:12:15
Problem solution. Right there. Should we do exactly right corner? I think we should.
00:12:20
Okay. Okay, this week on I Said No Gifts, Bridger's guest is one of our very favorite comedians
00:12:26
and friend of the network, Tig Notaro. Yay. And Adulting with Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos is off for a summer break,
00:12:33
but don't miss Michelle's new TV show. I'm so excited for this, Survival of the Thickest,
00:12:39
which is available July 13th on Netflix. It looks so freaking good. And Lisa Traeger is on the show as well.
00:12:45
So it's like a double fucking exactly right header. I love that. Yeah. If you haven't seen Michelle Buteau perform IRL, you absolutely should see it.
00:12:57
This TV show is based on her book that she wrote, Survival of the Thickest, which is
00:13:01
basically about her life. And she's one of the greatest. So yeah, definitely support that TV show.
00:13:07
Also, when you go to shop in the MFM merch store, which is something we know you do all
00:13:12
the time, you're going to be getting free shipping on all orders that are over $75.
00:13:17
We've got lots of new merch over there, including we have a new tote bag with artwork.
00:13:21
from Brainflower Designs. We launched it earlier this year as a t-shirt and now there's a tote bag.
00:13:27
Also, there's a fun bananas hat. There's muscle tees for That's Messed Up and this podcast will kill you.
00:13:33
It's like all your summer merch is happening. Yeah, what more do you want? Go to myfavoritemurder.com for all of it.
00:13:41
Please. Woo. Phew. Okay. Phew. I'm first? I'm first. You're first. Okay. All right, we're going to go into some old-timey early 1900s.
00:13:55
Right at the end of World War I, this is a story of a young British starlet. It's got English drug laws being changed.
00:14:04
It's got a racist fallout from the trial of what happens. This is the overdose death of actress Billie Carlton.
00:14:12
The main source of the use in today's story is an article from flashback.com titled Disgraceful Orgies, Unholy Rights,
00:14:19
and the Death of Billy Carlton 100 Years Ago, written by Rob Baker. Wow. And yeah, and all the other sources
00:14:26
are listed in the show notes. Let's start from the very beginning. Billy Carlton is born Florence Lenora Stewart,
00:14:34
which is such, Florence is such a good name. That should happen more. Florence Welch.
00:14:37
Right, Florence and the Machine. Is that her last name? It's a capital A and the Machine.
00:14:45
Yeah. Yeah. Love her. On September 4th, 1896, she's born in Bloomsbury. I'm sure it's pronounced London, England.
00:14:55
She's the daughter of a chorus singer and her father is unknown and her mom isn't in the picture long anyways
00:15:01
because she gets sent off to live with her aunt. So she's raised by her. At age 15, Billy drops out of school
00:15:08
and takes the stage name Billy Carlton. Acting work is hard to come by at first,
00:15:13
so Billy makes some extra cash by modeling for a 37-year-old costume designer named Reggie DeVol.
00:15:21
The two become fast friends, and Billy even moves in with Reggie and his wife, Pauline,
00:15:27
another costume designer for some time as well, as a 15-year-old. I'm sure they were like, let's protect this poor baby.
00:15:33
I hope so. Yeah, me too. In 1914, at age 18, Billy lands a spot on the chorus of Irving Berlin's
00:15:40
Watch Your Step, a musical production put on by theater manager and impresario, C.B. Cochran at the Empire Theater in Leicester Square. Do you know that musical? You love musicals.
00:15:53
I love musicals. Can you tell me the name of it again? Watch your step. Oh, watch your step. Tell me what you're looking for.
00:15:59
Hey, everybody, don't trip on that little, that rug over there. Put a cone there. Watch your step.
00:16:07
Put a cone there. Okay. You have to watch your step and you have to put the cone down.
00:16:14
That's a lot of responsibility. While you're dancing in a chorus line. Like, hard.
00:16:19
Life was harder back then. Everyone knows that. Yeah, it was. Very challenging. The role is minor,
00:16:24
but noting her charm and stage presence, Cochran decides to promote now 19-year-old Billy
00:16:28
to one of his leads, Stella Sparks, in November 1915. So this is her first big break.
00:16:35
As Cochran puts it, quote, despite her inexperience and her tiny voice, she pleased the audiences.
00:16:41
A more beautiful creature has never fluttered upon a stage. She seemed scarcely human.
00:16:48
So fragile was she. Oh, wow. I've been described that way. Scarcely human. Delicate, my tiny voice, scarcely human.
00:17:00
You know. Huge burps. Huge belches. You can shake the room with a burp. Tiny voice, big belches.
00:17:07
That's the key to showbiz. But there's just one problem. And that is, as so many 19-year-olds in any time period,
00:17:18
Billy likes to use drugs. Sure. Specifically cocaine and opium, which I think were pretty rampant back then.
00:17:25
It's 1915, so opium's like pretty big. They were like, this is a vitamin. You should take this for if you're pregnant
00:17:33
or planning to become pregnant. You could buy it over the counter and you should give it to your baby when he's colicky.
00:17:39
Yeah. Her habit starts up as early as the spring of summer of 1915 when she befriends a nightclub manager,
00:17:46
always a red flag, by the name of Jack May. Excuse me. Jack. We should leave that one.
00:17:52
I know. Just like for proof Oh no Okay only that one No no you don have to Leave it Leave it So this dude Jack he an expat from America His given name is Gerald Walter
00:18:06
He's taken over management of a family-owned pub on Beak Street called Murray's Cabaret Club.
00:18:11
And the club, like many of the era, skirts the new alcohol rules of wartime and, of course, becomes a hotbed for illegal activity.
00:18:19
You know? Yeah. Those club managers, nightclub managers. They want to give the people what they want.
00:18:23
Drugs. You know? Yeah. Drugs. Free drugs. Free drugs. So before World War I, pubs in London would open as early as 5.30 a.m.
00:18:32
and stay open until 12.30 a.m. But basically in 1914, just days into England's entering the war,
00:18:40
the government starts to put like this crackdown on what time they can be open. Eventually they can be open from like noon to almost three
00:18:48
and then like 6.30 to 9.30 in the night. So like barely enough time to get fucked up.
00:18:54
Yeah. And this is later referred to as the beauty sleep order. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:19:04
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.
00:19:15
Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.
00:19:21
Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability.
00:19:28
And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game,
00:19:35
the future isn't some far-off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA.
00:19:41
Goodbye. If you're always on the lookout for a great audiobook or just want help figuring out what to listen to next,
00:19:47
there's a podcast you should know about. It's called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, hosted by Cal Penn.
00:19:54
Each episode takes a closer look at some of the most talked about new audiobooks on Audible, spanning a wide range of genres from sci-fi and literary fiction to rom-coms, thrillers, and comedy.
00:20:03
Cal is joined by guests who dig into what these stories are about, what makes them stand out as audiobooks, and why they're connecting with listeners right now.
00:20:10
If you're looking for your next listen, this is a great place to start. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:20:20
Goodbye. Pandora jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
00:20:25
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00:20:31
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00:20:36
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. So this new law forbids customers from buying drinks for anyone but themselves, which is called the no treating order.
00:20:50
Or the cheap man's order. Yeah, exactly. Or the how do I meet someone then order.
00:20:56
Yeah. What am I, get out to make small talk order? Yeah. These laws are pushed through under the name
00:21:03
the Defense of Realm Act, otherwise known as DORA, D-O-R-A. Of course, it's intended to secure public safety
00:21:10
and national morale. But of course, throughout the war, it gets more controversial.
00:21:16
More things are added onto it, including strict censorship. and even goes to outlaw things like starting bonfires
00:21:22
and buying binoculars. Guys. It's just like, guys, just... Just come on. Let people get drunk.
00:21:30
Stop with the over-the-counter opium. These laws don't actually stop anyone from drinking
00:21:34
late into the night, just pushes everything underground. So bars and restaurants disguise their alcohol,
00:21:40
serving booze in coffee mugs and passing champagne off as lemonade, just like, so charming.
00:21:46
And at this time, many of London's men are off to war. So women are left to be more independent than what was
00:21:52
previously socially acceptable. And they start to frequent these nightclubs on their own.
00:21:57
They're called the Dining Out Girls by the Daily Mail, which would be a rad all-female
00:22:03
punk band name, wouldn't it? Hell yes. So there's these young, liberated women during wartime who go out and, God forbid, eat alone or
00:22:11
with other girlfriends at night, as opposed to when they were strictly escorted out by men,
00:22:16
which was the norm. So they're having this taste of freedom. Yeah. And they're also known as flappers.
00:22:21
You know, we all know about that. So these young women enjoy London's nightlife between 1915 and 1918,
00:22:28
quickly finding that the nightclubs are serving up more illegal substances than just booze.
00:22:33
The secret doesn't stand or wraps long. And in January 1916, the local news outlets reports on the seedy nature
00:22:39
of what they call West End Bohemia, including women suffering from what they call
00:22:45
a soul-wracking cocaine habit. How pure was the cocaine back then? Like too pure.
00:22:50
Oh my, it would rack your soul, I bet. It's so pure. And you would just be wired out of your gore.
00:22:58
I mean, it's such a like, thinking about it, it's like, I like to think it's such this pure time
00:23:02
or this simple time. And it's like, no, everyone was on tons of drugs. Yeah, it just wasn't illegal.
00:23:07
Yeah. You got to get some baby aspirin cut in there. You're just like high as a kite.
00:23:11
Please, take it easy. Don't do drugs. So eventually it leads to criminalizing the possession
00:23:17
or sale of opium or cocaine by anyone besides a licensed chemist, a doctor, or a vet.
00:23:24
Those fucking cats on cocaine back then, man. Screaming all night. What are you treating when you give your cat cocaine?
00:23:32
Talking about opening a restaurant, called the cat's meow. I liked it when this cat slept all day.
00:23:38
Now it's real different. This cat is trying to record an album constantly. She's just smoking so many cigarettes, but they're like catnip cigarettes.
00:23:49
Of course, it stops nobody from using it. Murray's Cabaret Club, in particular, becomes known as a place to easily get cocaine. And Billy Carlton is a frequent
00:24:00
customer. By 1916, her cocaine usage is common knowledge in her work and social circles. So as
00:24:06
word about her drug habit spreads, Cochran is the production and theater manager. And he basically
00:24:13
fires her because he doesn't want like, you know, her to give him a bad reputation. So she's fired
00:24:20
from the show. And during this time, Billy is living with the couple who were clothing designers,
00:24:27
occasionally modeling for them, picking up small theater gigs to get by. But in 1917, Cochran gives Billie another chance,
00:24:35
having her fill in for actress Gertie Miller as the leading lady in the musical Hoopla.
00:24:41
Hoopla, tell me what you're looking for. Hoopla. It's one of my favorites. What are we gonna do about it?
00:24:48
Hoopla. Don't make a big old hoopla, watch your step. That's the other song coming up.
00:24:54
don't make a hoopla when you trip over that step. Don't sue me. That's a hoopla.
00:25:01
Watch your step. Her performance is unremarkable, sadly. And the show does lead to another job, though.
00:25:09
An appearance in Andre Charlotte's show. It's called Some More Samples. That can't be right.
00:25:16
That has to be a misplaced type. It's like a salesman going door to door with like carpeting samples.
00:25:23
I don't know. I don't want to keep making up dumb songs. Every time you do a title, it's kind of hacky after a while.
00:25:29
But you just said some more samples is the show. And so, because of that. I only have two samples.
00:25:39
I need some more. How will I buy cocaine with only these two samples? Door to door.
00:25:51
Door to door. Oh, nice. Thank you. Okay, August 1917. She lands a part as a flapper.
00:26:00
She'll even not tell you the names of these fucking... You can. I swear I won't say anymore.
00:26:04
It's just called The Boy. The Boy. No, I want you to. Which one? That one. That's The Boy.
00:26:12
Who's The Boy? He's The Boy. Okay, and then another one called Fair and Warmer. I don't know what these are.
00:26:21
Your Honor. I immediately set that one in a courtroom. There's a courtroom setting where if somebody falls in love.
00:26:31
You know how they do in courtrooms all the time? They do. There's so much tension.
00:26:35
You're not supposed to. It's people you work with. So sexy. Yeah. One of the oldest and most revered theater markets, the West End.
00:26:42
She gets into a spot there and she's the youngest leading lady in the West End at just 22 years old.
00:26:50
Wow. Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah. So she gets a little bit, a bump in her pay raise,
00:26:55
but not enough to afford where she ends up living, which is a new apartment at the Savoy Court Mansions,
00:27:03
a luxury full-service complex in London. It's high fucking end. Yeah. But she doesn't have enough money to live there.
00:27:11
But it turns out she does have a rich, older playboy friend named John Darlington Marsh
00:27:17
from Bridgerton. You know him from Bridgerton. And it's kind of a common theme in her life,
00:27:23
maintaining relationships with older wealthy men who gift her large sums of money.
00:27:27
She's a sugar baby. Yeah. Good for her. But even though she reached new heights in her young career,
00:27:33
Billie has not given up her drug habit. Her friend, the clothing designer, Reggie,
00:27:37
also uses drugs, so he doesn't help. They end up having this like crazy opium dinner party.
00:27:44
Oh, the idea. It's like, don't you just basically lay down and go to sleep or like seem like you're asleep?
00:27:51
I think it's like heroin. I don't know. I'm just basing it on like opium den style things
00:27:58
I've seen in Victorian British stories. I think it's like that, but it's like in a private house.
00:28:04
So this woman, a Scottish woman by the name of Ada Ping Yu comes over. She's basically the one who brings
00:28:11
and preps the opium and like passes it around. She's like the matriarch of the opium circle.
00:28:17
Okay. They all, including Billie, hang out and do opium. And they're there till like, you know,
00:28:25
three in the afternoon the next day. Like that's how fucking potent this shit is.
00:28:30
Yeah. And that's just kind of like what Billie's life was like at the time. That's just the picture of it.
00:28:34
I'm sure in some ways she thought it was like very, almost glamorous and whatever, but it's just a bit empty.
00:28:41
Absolutely. You're basically inviting people over and then going to sleep in front of them.
00:28:45
Yeah. Just to make it like the fact that you're addicted seem more glamorous and okay.
00:28:49
And yeah, you're not alone doing it. At least there's other people doing it. Right, it's a party.
00:28:54
That's drugs. That's drugs. So then about a month later on November 11th, 1918, the last armistice is signed and yay, hooray,
00:29:01
World War I is officially over. Everyone's going to celebrate what they call the Great Victory Ball
00:29:07
in the Royal Albert Hall to be held on November 27th, 1918. And actually, in addition to celebrating the end of the war,
00:29:14
the ball is also intended to celebrate all the contributions and achievements made by women
00:29:19
to support the war at country time, to support the country at wartime. Leave that in.
00:29:29
At country time, I'm like, uh-huh, I can follow this. That's actually very cool though,
00:29:34
because as we all know, I'm sure World War, you never really hear about it in World War I,
00:29:40
but World War II, it was like women just had to start doing everything. Totally, totally.
00:29:44
Yeah. So that's pretty cool. So way to go, the English. Yep. All the proceeds of the ball
00:29:50
go to the nation's fund for nurses in honor of their care for the wounded soldiers So hooray for that Yeah great But at its core the victory ball is an opportunity for everyone to finally set their cares aside and feel some relief from the years of stress
00:30:06
that they endured and to party very fucking hard. Of course, it's right at Billy Carlton's alley.
00:30:12
She gets this dress and there's a photo of it online. It's like a transparent, black, beautiful,
00:30:19
like, you know, 1920s looking dress, but it's like see-through. So it's super scandalous.
00:30:25
You only like, you can see right through it. It's reported, quote, that it revealed the flesh beneath
00:30:30
to an extreme degree, to the limit, in fact. To the limit. To the wall. Wait, truly, she was just kind of nude
00:30:40
with a little material over the top? Yeah, like you see on the red carpet these days, right?
00:30:43
Where it's just like, I have black underwear on with like basically a sheath over me.
00:30:47
Oh, okay. But it's like a beautiful dress, but it's just transparent. So it's like super scandalous and exciting.
00:30:53
Yeah. So Billy goes, leaves the theater where she had a play that night, goes to dinner with another boyfriend, Dr. Frederick Stewart.
00:31:02
And after dinner, along with her friends, Faye Compton, and her friend's date, Lieutenant Barad,
00:31:08
they hop in a cab, head to the ball. And there, Billy is just like an instant hit.
00:31:13
Everyone's dazzled by her. She's like the belle of the ball, you would say. And so she bumps into Reggie.
00:31:20
And even though the event is dry, he snuck in some cocaine. he shares it with her. The ball ends at 3 a.m. and Billy and her date and her friend and her
00:31:29
friend's date head home. Eventually she gets to her apartment with this other friend, actor Lionel
00:31:34
Belcher, and his mistress, Olive Richardson. And they stay up all night. They eat. They order like
00:31:42
room service because it's like a full service fucking apartment. I didn't know that was a thing,
00:31:47
but wouldn't that be great? According to them later, all they did was just eat and talk all night.
00:31:53
You know, and they left at around 6 a.m. And later Lionel says he leaves Billy, quote,
00:31:59
in bed perfectly well and extremely bright. So nothing amiss. Okay. According to him.
00:32:05
It'd be interesting that this is the first night where she's not doing major drugs.
00:32:11
Right. Class A drugs. Right. But suddenly she decided like, in the middle of just being on a five-year cocaine binge,
00:32:19
I'm just into food tonight. Right. I've been to food and going to bed tonight. Yeah.
00:32:24
Yeah. Who knows? That doesn't check out. The next morning at about 11.30, it's November 28th, 1918,
00:32:31
Billy's maid tries to, you know, open her door, but she hears loud snoring. So she allows Billy to sleep.
00:32:37
And then around 3.30, she goes back, knocks on the door, tries to wake Billy up,
00:32:41
but Billy doesn't respond. And she finds Billy lying in bed on her side. And there's clothes scattered everywhere.
00:32:48
Billy's face is pale. and there's a stain in the corner of her mouth. It's some kind of liquid, maybe bile or saliva.
00:32:55
And she doesn't appear to be breathing. So May tries to wake her, but she can't.
00:32:59
So she calls the doctor. And this Dr. Stewart rushes over, tries to resuscitate Billy, but he's unable to do so.
00:33:06
To try to get her to resuscitate, he gives her a shot of brandy and strychnine, hoping to jolt her awake.
00:33:13
That's, I guess, what they did back then. But Billy has actually died in her sleep.
00:33:17
So the police and medical examiner arrive to inspect her body and they find that her pupils are dilated
00:33:23
and the skin beneath her left-hand fingernails is blue. And there's a sleeping drug called viranol, it's a barbiturate,
00:33:31
that's on Billy's nightstand and that Dr. Stewart admits having removed before the police got there.
00:33:39
But then the hotel manager's like, I'm pretty sure she had a bottle of pills there.
00:33:42
And so he's like, oh, this one? Because he had prescribed it to her and didn't want them to know about it, you know?
00:33:48
Yeah, sure. But the medical examiner does rule her cause of death to be a cocaine overdose.
00:33:54
So this is like, becomes a high profile case, you know, huge in the news and they want someone to blame for her death.
00:34:02
And London officials use this as a chance to expose the underbelly of London's illicit drug scene
00:34:07
and just be like, look how bad this is. This is why you should follow our rules, you know?
00:34:12
Right. So they go overboard too. So over the course of five sessions at the Westminster Coroner Court
00:34:18
on December 1918 through January 1919, Coroner Samuel Engolby Odey questions every single friend,
00:34:25
coworker, family member, and acquaintance of Billy's that she came into contact with
00:34:30
the months leading up to her ultimate death. And I think they're doing that to like exploit each and every one of those
00:34:36
and make them, you know, embarrassed in the news. Right, yeah. It generates so much buzz
00:34:41
that spectators line up outside the courthouse as early as 7 a.m. to sit in on the sessions that don't begin till 2.30.
00:34:48
So when people are like, why are people into true crime now? You know, and it's like, well, it's not new.
00:34:54
No. They were into it back then too. Always. Yeah. There's all these questions about who gave her cocaine
00:35:01
and eventually the people who had given it to her. So Reggie tells the court that he got the cocaine
00:35:07
that he gave Billy from a man living in, living on the Limehouse Causeway in Chinatown
00:35:13
named Lu Ping Yu, who's the Chinese husband of Ada Ping Yu, the one who had done the opium party.
00:35:22
And so the first charge in the inquest comes on December 20th, 1918, and is levied against Ada
00:35:28
Ping Yu, the woman with the opium, for possessing and supplying cocaine and opium to Billy,
00:35:34
which is a crime under the DORA Act. And prosecutors refer to the party at the Davool's as a disgraceful orgy and calls Ada the high priestess at these unholy rites.
00:35:46
So they're just like fucking shaming everyone. I mean, logistically, it probably couldn't be an orgy if everybody's on opium, right?
00:35:55
Right That doesn sound very sexy It sounds like maybe people could flop their arm over across your body at some point but that probably as sexy as it would get I would guess
00:36:05
Definitely. She's found guilty and sentenced to five months of hard labor, and she dies of tuberculosis shortly after serving her sentence in 1920.
00:36:15
So totally tragic. Her husband, Lo Ping Yu, is also charged with possession of opium,
00:36:20
but his only penalty is a 10-pound fine. And Reggie's charged with supplying cocaine to Billy,
00:36:24
and manslaughter for her death, but that gets dropped. And he gets an eight-month prison sentence.
00:36:31
At the mention of this Chinese man, Lo Ping Yu, during the inquest, the press fucking goes crazy with it.
00:36:37
You know, the racist press unfairly generating fear and animosity toward London's Chinese population
00:36:43
and blaming them for the influx of these illicit drugs. It's called the Yellow Peril Scare.
00:36:50
And it runs in full force for the next several years prompting racist stories, movies, and books
00:36:57
that target the Chinese people living on the Limehouse Causeway in Chinatown. And they're painting this like harmless community
00:37:04
as savage predators threatening the safety of London's white women. Yeah. You know, like they don't have any idea
00:37:12
what opium and cocaine is going to do for them. Unfortunately, the influence of these stories
00:37:16
spreads internationally. And it's a lot of what we see in America. You know, it serves as fodder for racist movies
00:37:24
TV series and more all the way through the 1970s. Yeah. So it's like a big part of that is this trial.
00:37:31
Yeah. Another unfortunate consequence of the inquest is that it becomes more of a practice
00:37:36
in digging up dirt on the witnesses than it does about bringing any sort of justice
00:37:40
to Billy's death. Reggie gets the most criticism. Newspapers describe him as, quote,
00:37:46
a strange, sallow, very well-dressed, effeminate little man. And in court, he's just like harassed
00:37:53
about his sexuality for some fucking reason that has nothing to do with the trial.
00:37:58
And it's revealed that he had years ago been hired as a, quote, gentleman secretary,
00:38:04
which I think it was like the term that everyone knew meant like you're intimate,
00:38:08
with this William Cronshaw, who was actually just paying Reggie to have sex with him.
00:38:13
So that comes out as well in the press. So like it basically fucks up his career as well.
00:38:19
Right. In hindsight, considering like the full context of the night of Billie's death,
00:38:23
it's more likely that she didn't die from a cocaine overdose, which was cocaine's a stimulant,
00:38:28
but from the barbiturates on her nightstand. So all along, it had nothing to do with all these people.
00:38:34
Author Merrick Cohn argues in his book, Dope Girls, that there's a chance after a night
00:38:39
of taking a lot of stimulants, she wanted a downer. It's like classic story to help her fall asleep.
00:38:45
And the combination of those drugs in her system could have made her fall into a coma
00:38:49
and then choked on her own vomit. and dying that way, which is so tragic. Yeah. No matter the exact cause,
00:38:57
Billie's death was a tragic one, cutting her life way too short. And that is the controversial overdose death
00:39:06
of Billie Carlton. Wow. Never heard anything about any of that. But it is really interesting,
00:39:14
that idea when if you're taking up this cause under quote unquote morality, then basically anything
00:39:21
that you present as being immoral gets to be included. Right. It has nothing to do with the case at all. And all these lives are ruined around you.
00:39:32
And then you're just kind of like, did you, were you a gentleman secretary? And it's like,
00:39:36
are we talking about this overdose death or what's happening? Totally. Totally. Wow. Good job.
00:39:42
Thank you. Please don't do drugs, kids. Yes. Don't do drugs. That's why Georgia told you that story.
00:39:47
Okay, so to follow up that story, I have my own that was suggested by at Elise underscore Pearson on Twitter.
00:40:01
And they wrote to me and said, oh my God, please do the story of Leonardo Cianciulli.
00:40:06
If you get a chance, I just heard the story and my mouth is on the floor and I'm not usually bothered by anything, LOL.
00:40:13
Oh no. Hilarious, yes. just to give you a tiny bit of background. And this is interesting because it's not,
00:40:20
it's something I didn't know. This story takes place in Italy, my new hobby. And there's somebody,
00:40:27
after the time I told you about going on vacation to Italy and I was like, it's just amazing.
00:40:32
Everything's great there. Somebody literally tweeted at me and was like, actually not everything's great in Italy.
00:40:37
Oh dear. Normally when- Wait, what? They don't have political, they have political problems like everyone else?
00:40:44
Sorry, are you saying that everything is not completely great in a country? Is your political statement that everything is fine in Italy, Karen?
00:40:52
Because... I must be completely misunderstanding the situation in Italy because I thought only good things happened there.
00:40:59
I can't believe you lied to us, Karen. I'm going to change that now. And my apologies, because here's something absolutely hideous that happened in Italy.
00:41:09
Great. Right your wrongs, Karen. Aside from the fascist takeover in the era of World War II, 1800s and prior to that, it was a bunch of different kingdoms and states that all had their own distinctive identity and culture.
00:41:26
Which is very, if you watch like Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy, it's all like, if you go to Tuscany, they have a very specific kind of food and they're very proud of it where they're like, we're the steak and potatoes people.
00:41:37
we'll make you insanely delicious pasta, but first you're gonna eat our steak and you're gonna go insane.
00:41:43
And like, it's all different areas. That's how, that's identifying because they were these individual kingdoms back in the day.
00:41:52
Like not that many generations ago really Yeah they first started unifying as the kingdom of Italy in the 1860s Oh wow Yeah So kind of comparatively recently Yeah And then basically they became the Italian Republic that we know today
00:42:08
So in Southern Italy, there's a very longstanding tradition of folk magic. Basically, a town or a village would have their own local seer or healer.
00:42:17
Some people called them witches. And these people would prescribe oils or herbs or tell people to say certain prayers
00:42:24
or give them specific hand gestures to ward off bad luck or promote good health or protect against curses.
00:42:31
And that's super common. That was just kind of like part of the culture going along with the spread of Catholicism that was, of course, everywhere.
00:42:39
And then as Italy modernizes, the visibility of folk magic lessens, but it does not go anywhere.
00:42:47
And it basically becomes intertwined with Catholicism. So a folk magic expert named Dr. Angela Pucca notes, quote,
00:42:55
the old tradition of witches, they would not even call themselves witches. They would just be Catholics, good Catholics that happened to cast the evil eye.
00:43:03
Oh, shit. End quote. So that's just to kind of give you that sense of how much kind of the occult was practiced in Italy.
00:43:13
And especially, I guess, in Southern Italy. That makes sense. Just know that as we go into me telling you the story of Italian serial killer,
00:43:21
Leonardo Cianciulli, or the soap maker of Corrigio. Is he like one of the worst serial killers of all time?
00:43:29
No, it's a woman. What? Okay, that's not what I thought it was. Yeah, Leonardo. Oh my God, Leonardo. Oh, shit.
00:43:37
Leonardo, yeah. Okay. Yeah, and the main source used in the story today is a book called The Deadly Soap Maker of Corrigio.
00:43:45
the true story of Leonardo Cianciulli. And that was written by Genoviva Ortiz and the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:43:54
So in 1893, when Leonardo was born in the Southern town of Montella, Italy, it's not a good situation.
00:44:01
She doesn't have a happy childhood. Her mother, Amelia, basically got pregnant as the result of a brutal rape.
00:44:08
And when Amelia's parents find that out, they force her to marry her rapist. Oh, no.
00:44:15
And it's the idea of like, that's going to maintain your dignity. It's like as if that.
00:44:20
So this young, beautiful, well-educated woman who's from a great family and who was expected to marry well,
00:44:26
now basically has to live with a drunk, abusive man who terrifies her and who terrorizes her.
00:44:34
And so her promising future disappears before her eyes. Oh my God. Yeah. Horrible situation.
00:44:41
And it's not a surprise that when Amelia gives birth to her daughter, Leonardo, she's openly resentful, if not abusive, toward her own child.
00:44:51
So a little later, when Leonardo's father, that biological father-rapist monster, dies from alcoholism, Amelia is able to remarry.
00:45:01
But even though her domestic life is finally improving, at this point, it's too late to save her relationship with Leonardo.
00:45:08
and that relationship gets worse after Leonardo, who is now a young woman, falls in love with an older man named Raffaele Pensardi.
00:45:17
He is a clerk in a local registry office and he's very poor. The problem is Amelia had already pre-selected
00:45:26
a husband for Leonardo. So when she announces that she's going to marry Raffaele,
00:45:33
Amelia considers it a slap in her face. Yeah. And basically, you know, this is a time where your daughter marrying like a richer man
00:45:43
is your chance to approve your lot in life. Totally. Women are just kind of used as chattel that way.
00:45:51
Mm-hmm. Leonardo doesn't care. She is in love with Raphael. She marries him. And Amelia's anger turns to fury.
00:45:59
So before their wedding, Amelia goes to Leonardo and says that she has placed a curse on the marriage.
00:46:05
quote, for ruining her life a second time, end quote. Yikes. Pretty rough. So basically, and then after that,
00:46:13
Leonardo never sees her mother again. Oh, wow. So like most Italian people at the time,
00:46:19
Leonardo believes in the power of curses and spells and she is incredibly shaken by her mother's threat.
00:46:24
Aside from the fact that it's your own mother basically blaming you for her life.
00:46:30
It's just so horrible. But then the mental manipulation of saying, I curse you as a mother to a child is horrifying.
00:46:39
So it becomes an extreme and immediate source of anxiety for Leonardo. And she constantly worries about when and how this curse is going to play out in her life.
00:46:48
So by the early 1920s, just a few years into her marriage, Leonardo's mental health begins to deteriorate rapidly because of this constant threat hanging over her.
00:46:59
So she comes up with a plan. And she goes to visit the Romani fortune tellers who are traveling through her town at the time
00:47:06
so that she can find out what this curse means for her future. And at this reading, the first thing that Leonardo asks is if her mother's curse means that she's going to die.
00:47:17
And the fortune teller shakes her head and says, no, quote, you're not going to die for a long time, end quote.
00:47:24
But before Leonardo can breathe a sigh of relief, the fortune teller adds. Uh-oh.
00:47:29
Mm-hmm. Leave it at that. Leave it at that. But there's more. No. Watch your step.
00:47:36
Quote, you're going to live a long life full of sadness and you're going to outlive
00:47:42
every one of your children. End quote. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. So, and you're like, I paid how many lira for that?
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00:49:33
Goodbye. So this is horrible to hear because Leonardo, not getting very much love as a child,
00:49:40
had always dreamed of having a big, happy family and a house full of children. So hearing this news leaves her completely distraught.
00:49:49
She runs home to tell Rafael and he tries to reassure her everything's going to be okay.
00:49:54
But then when the couple tries to start having kids, Leonardo believes that her mother's curse is finally coming true
00:50:00
because they're having trouble conceiving. And this belief only gets stronger after Leonardo finally becomes pregnant,
00:50:07
only to suffer a miscarriage a few months after she finds out. But then in 1922, Leonardo gets pregnant again.
00:50:14
And this time she delivers a healthy baby boy. And the couple name him Giuseppe and he brings them endless joy.
00:50:23
But she and Raphael want to have more kids. Tragically, Leonardo's next pregnancy also ends in a miscarriage.
00:50:30
Of course, she believes it's the curse. But then the couple has three healthy babies over the next few years, two girls and a boy.
00:50:37
So now they have four children. Leonardo's over the moon about being a mother. She believes like it's her destiny.
00:50:44
But the happiness doesn't last long because the three youngest children, all under the age of three years old, get sick.
00:50:51
And because Leonardo and Rafael are so poor, they can't afford to take them to the doctor and they all end up dying of their illness.
00:50:59
Oh my God. Yeah. And over the next several years, Leonardo and Rafael have five more children.
00:51:07
Each of them die in infancy. Oy vey. Yeah. Leonardo would later look back on this horrible chapter of her life and say, quote,
00:51:15
almost every night I dreamed of small white coffins. Oh. So just tragic, like horrible.
00:51:22
Of course, this would be like the confirmation of her mother's curse. She can't help but believe that.
00:51:28
Meanwhile, she clings to her son that is alive and healthy, Giuseppe, and she's so worried that he's going to die next.
00:51:36
So the Pensardi family, they're not just dealing with the trauma and grief of losing so many children,
00:51:42
but they also are so broke like they can't keep food on the table. Mm-hmm. So, Leonardo being worried about her son's health,
00:51:50
making sure that he is provided for and that he doesn't get sick, Giuseppe, she goes out and gets a job.
00:51:56
That's a tough thing to do as a woman in 1920s Italy. She doesn't have a ton of options,
00:52:02
but eventually she finds work cleaning a bank after hours. The only problem is she's supposed to bring her own cleaning supplies,
00:52:09
and those aren't cheap. But fortunately, Leonardo knows how to make soap. And so after some trial and error, she figures out the perfect recipe for the soap to get the job done.
00:52:22
And she starts cleaning this bank. And so everything's smooth sailing for a little while.
00:52:27
She's earning that money. She's adding to the household finances. In 1927, she lets temptation get the best of her.
00:52:35
And during one of her overnight shifts at the bank, she decides to rummage around in the bank books.
00:52:41
And it gives her this idea. So she sets up in the bank books, she writes up a fake account for herself and adds in a bunch of cash, which maybe seemed like a good idea in the moment.
00:52:54
But she's caught the very next morning, arrested on fraud charges, brought to trial and sentenced to a year in a Catholic reformatory.
00:53:02
Oh, man. Yeah. It's reported that around the time of her conviction, she also loses another child.
00:53:10
Oy. The specifics on that death aren't clear. But what we do know is this is the 10th child that the Pansardis have lost.
00:53:18
Oh my God. So just horrible. So about a year later, Leonardo's released from that reformatory.
00:53:25
And now, of course, her reputation is in shambles. So the family decides to move to a small town about 50 miles away and get a fresh start.
00:53:32
This is where Leonardo gives birth to three more children who will all survive. In addition to now Giuseppe, they have a daughter named Norma and two younger sons named Bernardo
00:53:44
and Biagio. So even in Leonardo's happiest moments with this family that she does have, of course,
00:53:51
her mother's curse is always clouding the back of her mind. She been pregnant 17 times and only has four children Holy shit Yeah It easy to see why she would agonize over her children health and safety So basically Leonardo around this time
00:54:07
decides to have her fortune read again because she wants to know what the future will hold for her children
00:54:12
and how she might be able to basically get some sort of control over her mother's curse.
00:54:17
Yeah. So this time she goes to a palm reader. During their session, they share horrible news.
00:54:22
And this time it's about Leonardo herself. The palm reader inspects Leonardo's hands
00:54:27
and she says, quote, in one hand, I can see a prison, in the other, an insane asylum.
00:54:33
End quote. Cool. These really positive fortune tellers are just... So you'd just be sitting there with a weird smile like,
00:54:41
does anyone like me? Do you think that any fortune they read back then was positive?
00:54:47
I bet they were all doom and gloom like this. I mean, the infant mortality rate was such
00:54:52
that I feel like doom and gloom would just be the most realistic. Like if you were there being like,
00:54:57
everything's going to be great, people would be like, you're so full of shit. Like you don't know what you're talking about.
00:55:03
Of course, this is a palm reading that totally rattles Leonardo. She becomes even more terrified about her future.
00:55:10
And then of course, in turn, she becomes more dependent on psychics and palm readers.
00:55:15
So she starts going to see them anytime she can afford it. Basically it becomes every week.
00:55:22
And then she starts dabbling in folk magic herself. So she, in addition to reading every book on the occult that she can find,
00:55:29
Leonardo takes lessons from Romani fortune tellers. For a while, it soothes her anxiety.
00:55:34
But then in 1930, in Italy, there was a 6.6 magnitude earthquake. Oh, shit. And it devastates the town that they live in.
00:55:44
And it destroys everything that Leonardo and their family own, including their house.
00:55:49
Oh, my God. Horrifying. Fortunately, everyone in the family is safe and lives through it.
00:55:55
But Leonardo again is convinced this is the result of her mother's curse. Yeah. That's really the power of a mother's words to her children.
00:56:04
Yeah. That's a very good point where it's like, which mom do you want to be today?
00:56:10
Right. You're the primary like person. Influence. Yeah. Authority on like the world and how it works.
00:56:18
Okay. So now the Pansardi family are refugees. And so they moved to the northern town of Corrigio and their luck turns around.
00:56:27
Corrigio is filled with sympathetic townspeople. They know that this family are refugees from this horrible earthquake.
00:56:35
They welcome them with open arms. Almost immediately, Rafael and Leonardo both get decent paying jobs.
00:56:41
And they're leased a big home that's attached to a shuttered storefront. and basically the Pansardis start making more money
00:56:47
than they've ever had before. Wow. But whatever progress Leonardo has made with her mental health
00:56:53
becomes reversed by this trauma of losing her home. Because of that, the occult now becomes like a passion
00:57:00
and very central in her life. Yeah. She basically uses this folk magic as a security blanket against this,
00:57:07
what seems like constant harm in her life and vulnerability. and basically she just now throws herself
00:57:16
into her own occult studies and decides to start putting her knowledge to use. So she cleans up that storefront
00:57:23
that's attached to the house that they have. And out of that shop, she starts giving palm readings,
00:57:29
selling charms and herbs and even rare books that are on magic, which I'd kill to be able to look at those.
00:57:36
Can you imagine what those look like and smell like? in 1930, a rare book on magic.
00:57:44
Yeah, a rare Italian book. Come on. Okay. She also begins to offer matchmaking and career services.
00:57:53
She's going for it. That's positive. I like that. I mean, that is, it's kind of fun.
00:57:58
Yeah. And then she sells homemade soaps using that same recipe that she perfected
00:58:03
before she tried to rob the bank. This new business venture of hers winds up being a huge success.
00:58:10
And before long, everyone in town wants to meet with Leonardo. She is it. Her calendar becomes booked up with appointments
00:58:17
like things are going well. Hell yeah. So the Pansardes are finally able to live comfortably and safely.
00:58:26
But of course, what Leonardo's been through, she just is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
00:58:30
She knows. You get comfortable, that's when the 6.6 earthquake hits. Right. So convinced that something horrible
00:58:38
could happen to her children at any moment, She tries to maintain control by being the world's first helicopter parent.
00:58:45
And especially when it comes to Giuseppe, who is far and away, and I think probably very publicly, her favorite child.
00:58:54
Man, Leonardo needed a fucking pressure washer to get some of that anxiety out. You know what I mean?
00:59:00
Yep. And maybe like two therapists. Like she could be going to two different times.
00:59:05
Like you can get your palm read, but then you have to go talk to that lady who actually can help you walk through
00:59:09
what that really is about. Right, yeah. I love the idea of a pressure washer in 1930s Italy.
00:59:16
It's got a pump and you're just making your children pump it the whole time. So author Genevieve Ortiz writes the quote,
00:59:24
while other children were free to go out and play, Leonardo kept Giuseppe at home as much as she could,
00:59:29
all but forbidding him to socialize with others. Yeah. So not great for the child.
00:59:36
Now it's the late 30s. Giuseppe isn't a little boy anymore. He's grown into a young man and he's coming of age in fascist
00:59:43
Italy. He's been swept up in all the hyper-nationalist fervor that's going on around him
00:59:48
and he decides he wants to join Mussolini's army. Leonardo, of course, is horrified at the
00:59:54
thought of her golden child being shipped off to war She realizes she has no recourse because like her Giuseppe is going to do as he pleases The more you try to control your children
01:00:06
the more they give you the double bird in Italian and walk away. She's kind of like faced with that fact,
01:00:12
but she cannot sit idly by while her son is shipped off to war. And so she turns to the occult.
01:00:19
So Leonardo knows that protecting her favorite son's life is going to take much more than a spell or a tonic.
01:00:26
She needs magic that's stronger. And basically she's trying to ensure the safety of the person
01:00:32
she loves more than life itself. And so we just have to say this right now, the path that Leonardo decides to take here
01:00:39
is in no way representative of normal Italian folk magic, Romani folk magic, witchcraft.
01:00:46
Like, yeah, she goes off the rails in a serious way. Leonardo is convinced that to protect Giuseppe's life,
01:00:54
she'll need to take a life as a sacrifice. When did she come to that conclusion?
01:00:59
Man. Here's the thing. She seems to be the kind of person that would get a quote unquote good idea
01:01:04
and then go for it without ever checking with one other person. Or like a vision.
01:01:10
And then that's fact. I'll write my name into the bank book and then I'll have money.
01:01:14
No, you won't. It takes one friend to go, Leonardo, no, you're being insane. Don't do that.
01:01:21
Nothing is that easy. So basically, part of why Leonardo gets this plan is because remember,
01:01:27
she was offering matchmaking services. Well, she has clients and it is a woman named Faustina Seti,
01:01:35
who is a 76-year-old, unmarried, childless spinster, as they used to call us back in the day.
01:01:41
And Leonardo basically pities her. She's like, well, she doesn't have anything. She's the worst thing in the world,
01:01:47
not married, the worst thing in the world. But she's still like wanting to hook up and shit and like matchmake.
01:01:52
She's still looking for love at age 76. Oh, man. Gets, what's especially kind of cruel and ironic is that Leonardo targets her
01:02:03
because she knows that she knows how vulnerable she is, essentially. So the next time Faustina shows up to her appointment,
01:02:14
Leonardo excitedly tells her that a man in Sardinia saw Faustina's picture and fell in love
01:02:21
with her at first sight. This is so dark. We talk about horrible shit people do all the time. And
01:02:26
it's like, this is awful. Yeah. To tell someone someone is in love with you. Yeah. When you've
01:02:33
been looking for it for probably fucking decades. Yeah. Your whole life. And someone's like,
01:02:39
it's finally happening. And you're like, no way. And you basically entirely put yourself in there.
01:02:44
hands. Oh, it's a nightmare. So basically, Leonardo says, okay, so now you need to write
01:02:50
him a letter. Faustina happily writes him a letter. They exchange a few messages and the
01:02:56
man in Sardinia finally proposes marriage and Faustina happily accepts. The thing I don't have
01:03:02
to tell you, there is no man in Sardinia and Leonardo is the one writing all the letters.
01:03:07
Horrifying. Yeah. Faustina trusts Leonardo. She has no idea what's going on. She is over
01:03:14
joyed of finally finding love and absolutely wants to move to Sardinia to meet this man.
01:03:20
It literally makes me stick to my stomach. It's so sad. It also just reminds me of something like an evil girl would do in junior high.
01:03:29
Oh, so-and-so has a crush on you. So-and-so likes you. And then you go humiliate yourself in front of everyone because of it.
01:03:37
Yes. God, it should totally be. It's like, yeah, there's all kinds of areas in the world that are
01:03:42
like off limits. This is the most off limits thing, in my opinion, that you could do.
01:03:48
What exactly? Get someone's hopes up around love. Okay. Horrifying. Yeah. Yeah. It's a special fucked up-edness.
01:03:58
Yeah. Yeah. Because you're just kind of driving right down to the nerve inside of every human being,
01:04:05
which is to be seen and loved. Right. And accepted. Yeah. None of this is written on the page.
01:04:12
I hope not. I just hate this part so much that I have to keep talking about it. Okay, so before Faustina moves,
01:04:21
Leonardo asks kind of an odd request of her. She says, look, people around town are going to talk about you
01:04:27
because this happened so quickly. So what you need to do to kind of sidestep all that gossip
01:04:34
is you need to write some letters to people explaining that you're in Sardinia. This guy's amazing.
01:04:41
You love him. Leave these letters with me. I'll send them around town. And then basically you can leave and go have your time.
01:04:48
And then I'll make sure no one talks shit about you, essentially. She wants her to include in those letters
01:04:54
that she probably is not going to be coming back to Corigio anytime soon. Jesus.
01:04:59
Yeah. So Festina's like, this is the best plan I've ever heard. Yeah. No questions.
01:05:04
Plus, I'm in love. I'm in love with a picture that held up in front of me. Right.
01:05:08
So now it's the day of Festina's trip to meet her new love in Sardinia. But before she leaves, she stops by Leonardo's shop for a celebratory glass of wine.
01:05:18
Before Festina can even finish her drink, she feels her limbs start to feel heavy.
01:05:24
Her speech is slurring. A few more minutes pass, and now Festina is unable to move.
01:05:30
She's suddenly paralyzed. Leonardo gets up, she walks out of the shop, and she returns carrying an axe.
01:05:38
An axe. An axe. No. She looks at Fastina and says, I'm sorry, and then whacks her with the axe.
01:05:48
So she was still conscious when that happened. Yep. Still conscious. And worse than this Fastina doesn die on the first hit Aye Leonardo of course has never done this before She ends up having to hit her again and again So violent so horrible
01:06:07
But murdering Fastina is only step one of Leonardo's plan. She believes that to be fully protected,
01:06:14
Giuseppe will have to consume some of Fastina's body for this magic to work. She thinks this can be accomplished in two ways.
01:06:22
First of all, by making tea cakes with Faustina's blood so that Giuseppe eats them and has protection internally.
01:06:31
And then by taking the fat from Faustina's body and making soap that Giuseppe then can wash with
01:06:38
and be protected externally. Girl, sit down for a minute. Let us talk to you. Like this plan is the sign of an unwell mind,
01:06:51
in obviously. Right. I mean, obviously. But like double time, kind of. Do I have to tell you?
01:06:57
Yeah, but just beyond. Yeah. And the truth is, this is all this bizarre plan that she has no idea what she's doing.
01:07:06
She's never done any of this before. Yeah. And what's terrible about it is she botched the axe murder
01:07:12
and that caused most of Faustina's blood to end up on the floor of the shop. So she's able to collect some.
01:07:19
she's able to make a few tea cakes with it. Then when she goes to find the fat on Festina's body to make the soap,
01:07:27
Festina's really skinny and there is almost none to make it with. How would you even know where to find that?
01:07:34
I wouldn't even know where to start. That's wild. I would have planned that part a little better
01:07:39
where it's like you have to pick somebody that has some fat on their body. Sure.
01:07:44
What are you doing? All of this is the gory, horrible way of saying that Leonardo realizes that she's going to have to kill again
01:07:52
to be able to make these things that she's so convinced will protect her son. Basically, Leonardo quietly resumes her quote-unquote normal life.
01:08:03
She meticulously cleans up the shop. She disposes of all the evidence in the neighborhood septic tank.
01:08:08
She does feed the bloody tea cakes to her unsuspecting son, which in and of itself is so wild
01:08:16
because you love this person the most on the planet and this is what you're doing to them.
01:08:20
It's so unhinged. I can't believe, like, does her husband ask her how your day was
01:08:25
at the end of the day? Or like, do they have any conversations about like... Maybe they'd been through so much at that point.
01:08:31
It was a lot of like, you sit over there and read your newspaper. I'm going to be here doing all kinds of fucked up shit.
01:08:38
So meanwhile, rumors start swirling and Corrigio that Faustina has run off to find love in Sardinia.
01:08:45
And even though Leonardo seems to be in the clear, she continues to obsess that Giuseppe will be sent off to war
01:08:52
and that her mother's curse is going to come true. So she starts looking for a new sacrifice.
01:08:59
Months pass, now it's 1940. Leonardo has her sights set on another one of her clients.
01:09:04
This woman's name is Francesca Suave. And she's younger than Fastina was. She has a much higher standing in the community
01:09:13
because apparently Leonardo has gotten the idea that sacrificing a more quote-unquote worthy person
01:09:20
will somehow maximize the protection that she's trying to invoke. So Leonardo knows Francesca is in a very vulnerable place.
01:09:29
She recently left her job as a school teacher to care for her sick husband. And then once her husband passed away,
01:09:35
she became destitute. So when Francesca asks Leonardo about job opportunities, which is why she was there,
01:09:42
Leonardo basically says there's an exciting job opening at a girls' school up north,
01:09:48
but she says they need this teacher as soon as possible. And it has to be filled right away.
01:09:54
So you have to go pack your things right away and move immediately. And Francesca is like, absolutely, I'll do whatever it takes.
01:10:01
So Leonardo gets Francesca to write a bunch of letters to her friends and family
01:10:06
and says, don't worry, I'll drop them in the mail for you. Yeah. So Francesca's packed up her stuff,
01:10:11
booked a train ticket. She stops by Leonardo's to say goodbye. While she's there,
01:10:15
Leonardo offers her a celebratory glass of wine. And basically the exact same horrible scene plays out.
01:10:23
Francesca drinks the poison wine, loses the ability to move or speak. She's slipping in and out of consciousness
01:10:29
as she sees Leonardo enter the room holding an ax. This time, Leonardo is able to kill Francesca
01:10:36
with one blow to the neck. She grabs wash basins to collect Francesca's blood and then dismembers her.
01:10:43
It is just the most horrible thing. Again, Leonardo's attempt at soap making using human fat doesn't work.
01:10:51
She winds up with a horrible, awful smelling goop. She just ends up dumping it in the septic tank
01:10:57
along with the rest of Francesca's remains. But she does manage to make another batch
01:11:03
of bloody tea cakes and she feeds them to Giuseppe the same night. Gross. But again, in Leonardo's mind, this is still not enough to beat her mother's curse.
01:11:14
So she starts to plan round three. And this time, Leonardo aims even higher. She chooses a widow named Virginia Cacioppo. And Virginia is a very big deal in their town.
01:11:28
She is a former opera singer. She toured in big cities like Milan. She's talented. She's beautiful.
01:11:34
She's rich. And she's also one of Leonardo's best friends. Oh, no. Oh, no. But since they've been friends, Leonardo has soured on Virginia because she recently announced
01:11:47
that she's ready to leave Corrigio and move back to a big city. And Leonardo feels very betrayed by this.
01:11:55
And so she's like, well, now it's you and you deserve it. Come on. She never lets Virginia know that she's pissed.
01:12:03
And Virginia ends up really asking her friend to help her as she plans this big move.
01:12:08
So it's September of 1940. And Leonardo shares good news with Virginia. She says she knows of an excellent job opportunity in Florence.
01:12:16
And the job comes with this beautiful apartment. And Leonardo claims that it's overseen by an artist who organizes operas.
01:12:24
So Virginia, of course, is thrilled by this. It's like it's the perfect situation.
01:12:30
It almost sounds too perfect, but she, of course, enthusiastically tells Leonardo,
01:12:34
yes, I'm interested. And at Leonardo's suggestion, Virginia starts writing letters to her friends and family
01:12:40
as if she's already moved and is thriving in Florence. So before long, it's time for Virginia to hit the road.
01:12:47
So she stops by Leonardo's store to say goodbye. And for a third time, Leonardo, yep, offers a glass of wine.
01:12:55
Virginia's poisoned. Leonardo murders her with an ax, cuts up her best friend, and attempts to turn her into soap and tea cakes.
01:13:03
Jesus. And this time, she also rummages through her friend's things and pockets her jewelry, cash, and clothing.
01:13:11
Fuck. So this time, Leonardo is able to make soap from Virginia's body. And once it's ready to use, she brings it home.
01:13:19
And she instructs her now 18-year-old son, Giuseppe, to take off his clothes and allow her to give him a bath.
01:13:26
Yay. And he's like, no, thank you. But she basically is like, no, I have to. And she washes him head to toe with this soap.
01:13:36
And along with those tea cakes that Giuseppe eats, Leonardo is finally convinced
01:13:42
that she has successfully ensured her son's safety. It only took three innocent people.
01:13:47
Oh, the madness of it. Yeah. So, Maren makes a great point. Even though Leonardo claims that she murdered these women to protect her son,
01:13:56
her actions overall seem to suggest full-blown psychopathy. Yeah. Which, yes, absolutely.
01:14:03
And in addition to knowingly engaging in cannibalism herself, she also hands out her tea cakes and bars of soap to many other people in the community.
01:14:12
Oh. Yes. And when she does this, she almost seems giddy about it. She would later say, quote,
01:14:19
I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances, the tea cakes too. That woman was really sweet, end quote.
01:14:26
Imagine going to the farmer's market. Do-do-do. There's the soap stand. Oh. So evil.
01:14:34
Just that thing. My friend Danny told me a story of there's kids in his neighborhood
01:14:38
that would all play together all the time. And one time, some kid's older brother tricked him into taking up.
01:14:44
He thought it was chocolate pie and it was dog shit. Oh. This kid, he compulsively spit for like years afterward.
01:14:50
He just kept constantly turning his head and spitting. That's evil. It's that kind of thing where it's like,
01:14:56
I feel like nowadays, we all are starting to understand the profound psychological effect people can have on other people.
01:15:06
Right. Totally. It's like, that's why we talk about triggers. That's why we talk about all these things.
01:15:10
It's like, it's not no big deal. There's no get over it. It's a huge deal. Yeah.
01:15:16
No, no, there's no get over it. Okay, so for a while, Leonardo believes she's gotten away with three murders.
01:15:23
But then, luckily, Virginia's sister-in-law, a woman named Albertina, stops by Leonardo's shop.
01:15:29
Albertina and Virginia were very close, so something about this whole situation of Virginia just kind of leaving town
01:15:35
and like, I'm in Florence, does not sit right with her. When she asks Leonardo about it,
01:15:42
Leonardo claims total ignorance, and that makes Albertina even more worried. She has a feeling Leonardo does know something and she not saying it So Albertina goes to the police and begs them to investigate And as the Corrigio investigators start building a case they learn about both Faustina
01:15:59
and Francesca's disappearances. And they learn that both women were last seen at Leonardo's shop
01:16:06
before they supposedly left town. So before long, the police have collected the letters sent to the friends and families
01:16:13
of the missing women from all around town. Oh, wow. And that's when they start smelling a rat
01:16:20
because according to the postmarks, each woman mailed their letters on the exact same day,
01:16:25
even though they left town at different times. Oops. Yeah. And more suspiciously,
01:16:31
eyewitnesses report that the same person always dropped off this bundle of letters
01:16:35
at the post office, Giuseppe Pensardi. The son? The son. Uh-oh. Yes. Mm-hmm. So now the police begin building their case
01:16:46
against Giuseppe. They are convinced he's murdered these women. So they bring in his mother, Leonardo, for questioning,
01:16:53
basically to, you know, find out what he's been up to. But when Leonardo learns that her son's being targeted for these murders,
01:17:00
she's terrified. There is no way she's going to let her precious, precious boy go down for these crimes.
01:17:06
So finally, Leonardo confesses. But these claims that she makes, that she's the murderer,
01:17:12
she orchestrated the letters, and that basically her son was just being sent to the post office on an errand,
01:17:18
the police are not convinced. They basically think this very well-liked doting mother
01:17:24
and this woman who's like a real fixture in this town, they just think she's protecting her homicidal son.
01:17:31
Right. And so Leonardo basically has to convince them by spilling the gory, gory details of these murders.
01:17:39
So Leonardo is swiftly arrested and sent to prison. And the news of her murder shakes, of course, the entire community as well,
01:17:49
and probably a thousand times more so every member of the Pansardi family. Arguably no one more than her son, Giuseppe.
01:17:58
So, of course, he distances himself from her for the rest of his life, ironically.
01:18:04
Yeah. In the early 40s, when he is finally sent to World War II, he doesn't even tell his mother.
01:18:10
He doesn't speak to her at all. She's just gone. Sure. Meanwhile, Leonardo is sitting in her prison cell,
01:18:17
satisfied with all of her life's decisions. According to writer Genevieve Ortiz,
01:18:24
quote, she did what she needed to do. She had no regrets, no remorse. Her mission in life was complete.
01:18:31
What did she care if Giuseppe did not love her so long as he survived the war? Wow.
01:18:37
End quote. So as World War II rages on, Leonardo waits six years for her trial to take place. She basically just has to sit in jail
01:18:46
until a world war wraps up. Right, right. And in an eerie callback to the Romani fortune teller's
01:18:53
words long ago, in one hand, I see a prison and in another, an insane asylum, Leonardo,
01:18:59
when she finally does go to trial, is sentenced to 30 years behind bars and an additional three
01:19:04
years in an asylum. She dies in October 1970 at the age of 77. And as far as we know, her children,
01:19:14
including Giuseppe, all outlive their mother. And that is the story of Leonardo Cianciulli,
01:19:22
the soap maker of Corigio. Holy shit. I have never heard of that before in my life.
01:19:29
I know. Same. That is twisted. You did. Crazy. So crazy. Oh my God. Great job. Thank you.
01:19:36
See, all is not well in Italy, turns out. Finally I convinced everything isn great there Oh And also everything isn really great here I know I hate this We getting to this part I know Stephen Ray Morris as everyone knows has been our engineer since basically the beginning
01:19:54
of this podcast. I think he came in two months after we started. Before that, Georgia was the sound man for a couple recordings.
01:20:04
I was great at it. I was an absentee co-host working at other jobs and being like, I can't do anything.
01:20:11
Is that going to be okay? And George was like, yeah, I guess so. Like, what are we going to do?
01:20:15
Just show up. And here comes Stephen. Thank the Lord to record with us and to slowly begin to take on every other thing
01:20:25
that we couldn't handle. That pile. Yeah. At one point, Stephen booked airline tickets for me.
01:20:32
Oh my God. Wasn't very good at it, but you know, I was able to do it. You did it.
01:20:37
Thinking back to like what you did, Stephen, And like now there's a team of like five people
01:20:43
that don't work that do those jobs. It's insane. And that, yeah, you just... You were the moderator on the Facebook page
01:20:53
for fuck's sake. Like you went to the front lines for this podcast. Above and beyond, above and beyond.
01:20:59
And so you're making this choice, which is so, we're so proud of you for taking care of yourself
01:21:06
and making this choice to take a break from stuff. But when I saw that email that you sent
01:21:13
that you were like, hey, I'm gonna do some other stuff and take a break and do what's best for me.
01:21:20
I just didn't, I was like, I just didn't know what to say. I was just like, I wanna cry.
01:21:26
I'm really proud of you. I think it's great. It makes me go like, that's the fact that like,
01:21:31
it's foundational to this podcast. And the fact that you would be gone, And I just don't know what that's going to be like.
01:21:38
But I hope you understand that we truly could never have done this without you. Definitely, Stephen, this would not exist.
01:21:49
We are just, I'm heartbroken, but I'm so excited for you and your next chapter and what your beautiful life will look like.
01:21:59
Yeah, you're such a talented, generous person. and you were so over, I always like back in the day, I was always like, why is he doing this for
01:22:10
us? Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't be doing this for us. And you did, you just like, you were just
01:22:17
committed and you were with us and it, it was help we needed so badly. And you gave, you showed up
01:22:24
every week without question. You just like, you really, you really did give us like, give us your
01:22:31
all. And we'll never be able to thank you enough for that. I mean, well, I'm going to cut this part
01:22:39
out. No, I just, you know, it's a lot to accomplish. I mean, seven years is a long time.
01:22:47
And yeah, I mean, I honestly couldn't imagine this day coming. But at the same time, you guys
01:22:52
have taught me so much. And there's so many things. My life is so much better. And you've
01:22:57
given me the tools that I think are so valuable. And I think the thing we've done with the show,
01:23:03
which is like, we can look after ourselves and each other. And that's really what's important
01:23:08
in life. And a lot of times people go in life and they don't ever think about how to take care of
01:23:13
themselves in a way that's meaningful, that can not only make their life better, but the people
01:23:18
around them better. And I'm so grateful for that. I just feel like I'm such a better person.
01:23:25
And, you know, and again, it's that the thing goes both ways. You know, I really believe in you both and you guys really believed in me, you know, believe in me.
01:23:33
And I don't know. That's yeah. Thank you Thank you Oh thank you I can wait to see your next chapter Stephen You just But you always have a home Of course You always have a home here
01:23:45
I hope you know that. Like whatever your adventure, wherever your adventures take you,
01:23:49
you know, you can always come back and you have more than earned an open door policy for me and Georgia
01:23:57
and anything that we make because truly like you're the glue. Thank you. Yeah, no, I'm...
01:24:03
Yeah, I'm... Yeah, we're going to... We're going to be hanging out still. It's going to be great.
01:24:08
Yes. Yeah. It's not a goodbye. It's a see you soon. So. Good. Thank you. Let's yell it one time.
01:24:15
Karen, ready? Steven! Oh, I got to cry. I know. I love you guys. Love you, Steven.
01:24:26
We love you, Steven. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Well. Well. Now that we're all crying.
01:24:32
What if the sound just goes off? and then just like, you just leave. There's just a tiny violin playing.
01:24:41
Oh my God. Wow. Well, thanks you guys for listening and for being a part of this too.
01:24:47
We're just, I feel like we're just a family. Yeah. It's kind of weird. It's a true crime podcast.
01:24:53
Yeah. It's very strange. It is. But yeah, I feel very lucky and yeah, we should title this one,
01:25:02
this one's for Steven. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. All right. Stay sexy, Stephen.
01:25:09
And don't get murdered, Stephen. We love you. We love you. Say it with us. Goodbye.
01:25:17
We nailed it. Oh my God. I'm going to cry. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:25:32
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:25:40
Our researcher is Maren McClashen. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:25:47
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
01:25:52
Goodbye. Bye. hens live by visiting vitalfarms.com slash farm. Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and
01:26:28
visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye.
01:26:35
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