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Hello. And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And
00:01:54
we're here again to tell you horrible, horrible things. Can you handle it? Can you handle it?
00:01:59
It's the ultimate question of life, universe, everything. And this podcast. And this podcast,
00:02:06
definitely. It's time to start handling it. You've had a lot of time. Yeah. You've been
00:02:11
passive, a passive listener this whole time. It's time to get active with your handling.
00:02:16
That's right. We're asking you to step up, step out, and, you know. You really give it to us.
00:02:24
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We need it. We need it. Clearly. What are we doing? Are we asking for money?
00:02:33
Is that what we're doing? No. It feels like we're starting a scam. It does seem like an MLM a little bit, doesn't it?
00:02:40
Just a hint. Yeah. I mean, I'm not against it because it feels like... Here's what I do appreciate about multi-level marketing schemes.
00:02:50
They take a thing you don't care about. leggings, essential oils, what have you.
00:02:55
And they kind of present them back to you in that like, have you ever thought about,
00:03:01
say it's just like a certain kind of apple. And then we just go all in on it where it's just like, think about apples.
00:03:07
They solve every problem. They keep the doctor away. Apples have been around for centuries,
00:03:11
but this apple and this time, it's gonna take over the world. It's gonna cleanse your colon.
00:03:18
That's right. It's gonna act as lunch. Yeah. Like leggings have been around forever,
00:03:23
but this time, now is the dawning of the age of leggings. Have you ever worn leggings
00:03:29
that actually dismantle CCTV because they're so ugly? Their pattern is so upsetting.
00:03:37
They cause seizures. Look, do you want to show, you want to see through and show your underwear all the time
00:03:43
when you're walking around? We got leggings for you. Do you want to support that one girl in high school
00:03:50
that was actively angry at you constantly and now is kind of begging for money through leggings,
00:03:56
get on board. Get on it and fill your house with boxes of leggings. MLM time. That's right.
00:04:05
What's going on with you? I actually watched the Oscars last night. I tried to and I had to step out.
00:04:12
You just stepped right into the hallway. Yeah, I was just like, at one point I really was like,
00:04:16
I can't do this. And I just left and went in the kitchen and like did the dishes.
00:04:20
I can't fucking watch award shows. They make me so uncomfortable. Here's, I would love to run a private class
00:04:27
for $1,500 a head. Okay, I'm not bored so far. Okay, but you can join it too. If you're ever nominated for an Oscar,
00:04:35
I will teach you how to give a speech correctly. Yes. And in a way that makes people not hate you
00:04:41
by the end of the speech. Did someone do a hate you at the end of the speech? I'm not gonna be the hater myself
00:04:48
and I'm not going to go into those feelings that come to me so naturally. But I just want to say,
00:04:54
it's like, think about it ahead and think about like, you have to be a gracious winner.
00:04:59
Okay. You have to understand that like you just won. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You beat everyone, essentially.
00:05:05
You beat everyone that's staring at you. You beat everyone in the room. So the vibe is off already.
00:05:09
Yeah, yeah. And I understand that like, there's some people in show business, their whole thing is just to not
00:05:14
be reading the room at all. Oh, yeah. You kind of can't read the room really, especially if you're an actor, that's very difficult
00:05:21
to always actually be in tune with how much people aren't into what you're doing.
00:05:28
And present you on many levels. Yeah, like you can't be feeling that and be a successful performer or really kind of salesperson
00:05:38
in any way. But then it's just that thing where it's like, when people go up, you're like, oh, I loved
00:05:44
that movie or I loved that performance. and then three minutes later, you're like, get off,
00:05:48
like truly get off the stage. Please stop. Oh God. I'm sweating thinking about it, honestly.
00:05:55
I don know what it is Like late night interviews and award shows I can fucking watch I can do it It a lot of pressure And there a lot of examples of people failing under that pressure
00:06:07
Yeah, for sure. I think. Yeah. And you have mirror neurons. So you actually have empathy for that.
00:06:12
Oh, yeah. Particular brand of flopping. Okay. I need less mirror neurons then. I need to hang a cloth over some of the mirror neurons in my brain.
00:06:23
Sit shiva for your mirror neurons. Oh, no. What about you? What have you been not up to,
00:06:30
like not watching the Oscars, dipping out of the Oscars? I've been watching a lot of documentaries.
00:06:35
Vincent and I have been watching a lot of the true crime documentaries lately because there's so many and they're so good,
00:06:40
like the Murdaugh one. Oh, that was amazing. Man, those kids. Yes, it was so good.
00:06:45
Yes. I was really blown away at all of those. Well, I guess they're not kids anymore,
00:06:51
but the victims on the boat. Yes. Who then had to talk about their friend dying and then basically people trying to scam them
00:07:01
and get certain statements out of them. And like them sitting there presenting themselves,
00:07:06
I was just so impressed by them. This is the Netflix one we're talking about. So you should check that out.
00:07:13
Then also we're watching them. There's a Malaysia Flight 370 Netflix series as well
00:07:17
that we just started. It's good, right? I like, we just covered it. And I was still like, I got to watch this
00:07:22
because they present it in such a different way And then obviously I do a lot less swearing.
00:07:26
So that's a lot. True. But I started it, I think I was watching something else and it may have rolled on in
00:07:35
or like it gave me a teaser. And I was like, oh, it's like such an amazingly compelling idea
00:07:42
because the way they present, it could have been the pilot. And then there's all these people who knew the pilot
00:07:48
who were like, absolutely not. Yeah. Like he would not have done that. Yeah. But then all the other theories,
00:07:55
like don't tie it in a bow as well as that one does, but you hate to like speak ill of this person
00:08:01
who could have had nothing to do with it at all. And you're just tarn it. Like his family probably couldn't grieve
00:08:07
because they were being targeted, you know? Correct. And also they're thinking they have to,
00:08:13
I mean, imagine if that's like suddenly either of our dads were like, they intentionally killed a plane full of people
00:08:19
where it's like, totally. I'm sorry. If that person was like one of the best pilots there was.
00:08:24
Yeah. I just don't see that as the way they would go. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't.
00:08:32
I also watched, did you watch The 12th Victim? Which one is that? It's the Starkweather one,
00:08:39
but I didn't know we were both like anti-Starkweather. Hold on. So it's on Showtime.
00:08:44
I'm totally like, I know this story. He's a piece of shit. Why do I need to watch it?
00:08:47
But the whole thing, it's based on the book, the 12th victim. And the whole thing is about how Carol Ann Fugate, the supposed mastermind and
00:08:58
co-conspirator, the 14-year-old, she was kidnapped. She was a fucking innocent victim.
00:09:05
And it shows you step-by-step through her arrest and through the sham trial and then through
00:09:11
prison to her 20s, how awful she was treated. Oh, wow. So it's very eye-opening if you think you know the Starkweather, Charles Starkweather case.
00:09:23
Okay. It's really interesting. It's awful. I feel like that is this, I feel like that's the era we're in and I really love it, which is,
00:09:32
you used to think this, but that's because basically we used to have, I believe Dave
00:09:38
Holmes calls it the monoculture, where we all read the same five newspapers and watch the same three TV channels. And so once you saw something like, quote unquote, on the news,
00:09:49
that was fact. And that was it. So a story like that, like people being like, we're doing the
00:09:55
deep, deep dive research. We're actually trying to get the truth at the bottom of this. I'm so
00:10:02
ready for all those things to be like blown apart. Oh, I just listened to one of my favorite
00:10:08
podcasts is Spooked. It's Glenn Washington's podcast, who he hosted that amazing cult podcast.
00:10:16
I think it's back when we started. Like, it's pretty old. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so it's people firsthand telling their different experiences. The episode is Girls and
00:10:27
Ghosts, because there's two stories on that one. Normally, it's usually one long one,
00:10:33
but this one is... And it's about haunting or people... Yes, people basically telling creepy, ghosty, unexplained stories that happened to them firsthand.
00:10:41
I'm in. Or something they witnessed. And this is by a storyteller and an author in Kentucky named Roberta Simpson Brown.
00:10:48
She's known in Kentucky as the queen of the cold-blooded tales. And she has a book called Haunted Holidays that's from the University Press of Kentucky.
00:10:58
Roberta tells this story. The title of it is Silver Dollar. I won't, I won't, but it involves a sinkhole.
00:11:05
which you knew it hooked me immediately. And it is one of the loveliest and just most delightful stories.
00:11:14
Like you can tell she's a storyteller and that's what she does. And it's so good.
00:11:18
If you don't listen to Spooked or you haven't heard it in a while or something, go back because there's new episodes now
00:11:25
and that one, Girls and Ghosts is so good. Okay, I'm in, I'm in. Oh, can I just do one mention?
00:11:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I believe, and I can't remember which I think it was the last podcast or the one before,
00:11:40
I talked about watching a TikTok where a woman talked about the loud and wrong phase that we
00:11:45
all go through in our 20s. So I just wanted to say, because I do that thing all the time where
00:11:50
I talking to you off the top of my head like we at a bar and conversation when in fact we on a national some would argue international podcast It easy to forget It just I in my sweats just talking to you on a screen
00:12:05
with a messy, in a messy office. Like, how do I know who I'm talking to? Right. How do I know what we're going to talk about?
00:12:12
Right. Except for then I go, oh wait, I really like this thing. So the person who brought this theory,
00:12:19
and you really need to hear her describe the whole thing. Her name's Erica Nicole.
00:12:23
She's on TikTok. at E-N-I-K-K-I-G. So E-Nikki G. This TikTok starts with this quote,
00:12:32
the greatest crime of the internet is equalizing us across age and developmental stages.
00:12:38
And it goes from there. Oh my God. And it's just, it's brilliant. And I wanted Erica Nicole
00:12:44
to actually get the credit because I was kind of just going, I saw this TikTok, but like it's her theory,
00:12:49
but she's also like an educator, a really smart woman, and you should listen to her
00:12:53
and watch her TikToks because they're great. That is such a great point. Like that kind of hit home to me
00:12:58
because I get affected by comments and by what people say on the internet. And like, yeah, I forget that it's people
00:13:03
who are like 17 years old, could have written that comment just as well as someone like my peer could have.
00:13:09
Yes. We're always giving negative comments the benefit of the doubt and it should actually work the other way around.
00:13:16
Yeah. I remember once I clicked on a really negative comment, I clicked on her page because I was like,
00:13:22
who leaves a comment like this? And it was this like soccer mom in the Midwest. And she had like a cross, like around necklace on.
00:13:30
And I was like, what the fuck? And she's like in a photo with her sons, her Instagram's all like positive and shit.
00:13:37
And I'm like, who are you? And I also don't care about your, I wouldn't care about your opinion
00:13:40
if you came up to me at the grocery store. Why do I fucking care about it online?
00:13:45
And like, I saved that photo for a while and like looked at it when I was feeling.
00:13:49
You also have to consider, like that's one possibility that she's a lady living a weird double life,
00:13:55
trolling people online. It also could absolutely be like a bot or a bot farm. So all of those things that you're looking at
00:14:02
are presented to make you think it's a real person and it's not. And you're just kind of like upset at the air.
00:14:08
I didn't mean a cross around her neck as if like, ew, she's a Christian. I meant like, isn't the rule of Christianity
00:14:14
to be like nice to people? I mean, it is, but it's such an old rule that we're kind of, we let it slide.
00:14:20
Yeah. Yeah. My favorite joke of all time from Arrested Development is, maybe goes, she's pretending to be Kristen.
00:14:29
She goes, I need to get one of those necklaces with a T on it. And Jason Bateman goes, he goes, across.
00:14:35
And she goes, across from where? Yep. I love it. Yeah. Yep. It's only a necklace with a T if you don't actually live the rules
00:14:46
that the guy talked about, everybody. That one guy, everyone. That one guy with the beautiful hair.
00:14:53
Okay, so do you want to do exactly right corner? Let's do it. Okay, so here are highlights from our network.
00:15:00
Exactly right. On Buried Bones, Kate Winkler-Dawson and Paul Holes discuss the murder of Irene Garza,
00:15:07
which I covered in episode 99 of MFM. So make sure to check that out. First yours and then theirs over on Buried Bones.
00:15:15
And then Kate over on episode one of 10-Foldmore Wicked's eighth season. Of course, she's doing it all.
00:15:21
That's Kate Winkler-Dawson for you. The eighth season's called The Morphine Murderess.
00:15:25
It's available widely on Monday, March 20th. And over the course of six episodes,
00:15:30
Kate's going to tell us about a woman suspected of murdering four family members in 1900s New Orleans.
00:15:36
God, she's the most prolific podcaster. She is. She's the greatest. And then over on Parent Footprint with my cousin, Dr. Dan,
00:15:45
who I recently saw and just kept calling him Dr. Dan. I think everyone calls him that now, my family.
00:15:52
Parent Footprint is on their 200th episode, which is amazing. And he has guest Meg Zucker on.
00:15:59
She's the author of the book, Born Extraordinary, Empowering Children with Differences and Disabilities.
00:16:04
So make sure you check that out and check out all of his episodes. There's so many great resources for parents
00:16:09
and people who are around young children. And speaking of resources for people who are around young children,
00:16:16
National Beard Day is coming up. So the MFM store is featuring an assortment of pint glasses.
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Go over there, shop around, grab one if you plan to celebrate with your favorite regional beer.
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Goodbye. Okay, so today I'm going to tell you about the Mississippi cold case murders of Henry D. and Charles Moore and the two men who brought those murderers to justice.
00:20:07
Okay. So the main sources used today, there's a 2007 documentary called Mississippi Cold Case, which is what a lot of this is based on.
00:20:16
And actually, the documentarian plays a part in this story. It's pretty amazing.
00:20:21
There's also a 2005 Jackson Free Press article by Donna Ladd titled I Want Justice Too, Brother Wants Mississippi Cold Case Murders Reopened.
00:20:30
And then there's a Vice News mini documentary titled Investigating KKK Murders in the Deep South.
00:20:37
And the rest of the sources are in our show notes if you would like to look them up.
00:20:42
So it's 2004 and a Canadian filmmaker named David Ridgen is working on a documentary about the notorious 1964 Mississippi burning case.
00:20:53
And so that case centers on the Ku Klux Klan orchestrated murders of three civil rights activists.
00:20:59
Their names were Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. And this is a landmark civil rights era criminal case.
00:21:06
David wants to handle it with care, of course. So he's pouring through countless documents and reports,
00:21:13
newspaper articles, and hours of archival footage. Can I ask you something real quick?
00:21:17
Is David Rogen the Somebody Knows Something host? I think so. Is it? Yeah. It's our friend David Rogen.
00:21:25
Okay, I had no idea. I did not know that. Something clicked in. I don't remember anyone's name.
00:21:31
You know that about me. And somehow I was like, I've heard that name before. Yes, everyone check out the Somebody Knows Something podcast.
00:21:36
It's really good. Okay, this makes, I just got a weird, like, excited feeling because this is the fucking coolest story.
00:21:44
Wow. And it's David Ridgen from Someone Knows Something. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. He's so cool.
00:21:50
So it's 2004. So here's the thing. He was a filmmaker before he was a podcaster.
00:21:55
So 2004 is pre-podcasting. Okay, amazing. Okay, listen to this shit. I love how excited you are.
00:22:03
This is the best reveal. Wow. Nice pull. Great pull. Thank you. Okay. So our friend David Ridgen is working on a documentary,
00:22:11
but we know, you know, how thorough he is as an investigator. So he is basically in there pouring over everything.
00:22:19
And one day he's watching a narrated news clip from July of 1964. It's grainy black and white footage of Navy divers
00:22:27
who are swimming in the Mississippi River. And it was shot during the early searches for those three victims of who would eventually be found in August.
00:22:37
So since this is July, David knows that this search is going to come to nothing.
00:22:43
But he continues watching the clip nonetheless. And then he sees something that stops him cold.
00:22:50
David would later say, quote, I saw the image of a body being taken out of a river.
00:22:54
And then the narrator said something like, this was the wrong body. It's not the body of Schwerner, Chaney, or Goodman.
00:23:02
And then the searchers moved on and that was it. And I said, wait a second, whose body is this?
00:23:08
Oh my God. So David Ridgen, as we know, is an investigative documentarian at the time,
00:23:15
an aspiring podcaster. So he quickly figures out that the man's identity, the body that was pulled from the river that day,
00:23:23
is a man named Henry D. Then David learns that a second body pulled from that same section of river the next day,
00:23:30
and that was a man named Charles Moore. These two men were friends. They were both 19 years old,
00:23:35
and they were both Black men from Franklin County, Mississippi. More shocking is the fact that
00:23:41
even though their remains showed clear signs of torture, and despite heavy suspicion of involvement
00:23:47
by local Klan members, Henry D. and Charles Moore's murders go largely uninvestigated
00:23:52
and basically unsolved for 40 years. The fact that David learns about Henry D. and Charles Moore's case while working
00:24:00
on the Mississippi Burning documentary adds an extra layer of complexity because one of these cases
00:24:05
causes enduring public outrage, media attention, and government intervention, while the other,
00:24:12
which happened the same year in the same part of Mississippi and also believed to be committed by Klansmen,
00:24:18
is just immediately forgotten. Yeah. So when David wraps the Mississippi Burning documentary,
00:24:24
which also he made a documentary about those, like, what a legend. I had no idea.
00:24:30
Yeah, he's incredible. So when David wraps the Mississippi Burning documentary, he is not ready to turn his attention away
00:24:36
from Henry D. and Charles Moore's murders. Their cold cases could be his next documentary,
00:24:43
but he's also aware of his limitations. He's an excellent, empathetic researcher and filmmaker,
00:24:49
and he's passionate about social justice, but he's also a white man from Canada.
00:24:54
So to make sure that Henry D. and Charles Moore's story is handled with care, David looks for any surviving family members that might want to talk to him or work with him
00:25:04
on the project. He can't find many, but then he lands on a name, Thomas Moore. So in Colorado
00:25:10
Springs, Colorado, the phone at the Moore house starts ringing. 62-year-old Thomas, a retired
00:25:16
sergeant major with the U.S. Army, picks up. And the man on the other line introduces himself
00:25:21
as documentary filmmaker David Ridgen. This isn't the first time Thomas has received a call like
00:25:27
this. A few years earlier, an ABC News producer reached out, then an LA Times reporter called,
00:25:33
and they wanted to know the same thing. What happened to Thomas's brother, Charles Moore,
00:25:38
back in their Mississippi hometown? But for Thomas, this is, of course, an incredibly painful
00:25:44
question. Charles Moore was a special person and not just to his brother. Everyone thought so.
00:25:50
During his senior year of high school, the year before he died. So they were kids,
00:25:55
They were teenagers. Babies, yeah. He was voted best dressed, most intelligent, and he served as senior class president.
00:26:04
After graduating, he'd written on his college application that he dreamt of being a school teacher,
00:26:09
which made sense. He was organized, friendly, and smart, the exact type of person that you'd want shaping young minds.
00:26:16
And Thomas was also close to his brother's friend, Henry D. It was impossible not to like Henry.
00:26:22
He had a laid back, easygoing attitude, and he had style. Henry was known as a snappy dresser
00:26:28
who wore his hair just like James Brown. Tragically, no pictures of Henry D. exist.
00:26:34
These men were unique, they were beloved, and they had bright futures ahead of them,
00:26:38
but they were taken by members of the Ku Klux Klan, and everybody knew this. But this was something that people in Franklin County
00:26:46
did not talk about. Thomas thinks this is because people were either Klan members,
00:26:51
clan sympathizers, or they were scared of the clan. So when Thomas and his mother Maisie buried
00:26:58
Charles, justice was not done, of course. And Thomas was furious. He dreamt about getting
00:27:04
revenge, but his mother Maisie begged him to channel that rage into building a successful
00:27:09
life for himself, which is so brilliant and such a strong, amazing reaction for a mother who lost
00:27:17
her baby son. She did not want to lose another son to the violence of racism. And she died about
00:27:23
a decade later and never got to see her son's killers face a judge. But her son Thomas held
00:27:30
on to her words. He joined the army, he found love, and he started a family far away from Mississippi,
00:27:35
but he never put the past behind him completely. So when reporters and producers would call about
00:27:41
this case, Thomas always had the same answer. He didn't know anything. And over the years,
00:27:47
he hasn't received any meaningful updates and he has no faith that anyone who actually has the
00:27:52
power to solve his brother's case is interested in doing so. Thomas says, quote, I was tired of
00:27:59
people asking me about it. So after David introduces himself, Thomas hangs up the phone.
00:28:04
David doesn't give up. He's gentle and respectful, but he's also persistent. Over the next several months,
00:28:10
David calls Thomas over and over again. He also sends letters to Colorado Springs.
00:28:17
Thomas ignores the calls and the letters. But by early 2005, he's starting to have a change of heart.
00:28:24
And that's because Thomas is watching news reports of the trial of Edgar Ray Killen,
00:28:29
who was the man that masterminded the Mississippi burning murders, who had never been criminally charged.
00:28:35
Thanks to the tireless work of activists who put a ton of pressure on elected officials to prosecute Killen, he is finally taken to court four decades after the murders.
00:28:46
And it's a really, of course, heavy movie, but you have to see Mississippi burning.
00:28:51
It's unbelievable. It's important history, and it's really horrifying. And this was basically when, you know, this is what it was about.
00:29:00
And this is a huge moment for Thomas, being able to see this actually take place.
00:29:03
The kill in trial makes him think that maybe there is still a shot at getting justice in an older cold case like his brother's.
00:29:10
So with that, he picks up the phone and he finally gives that very persistent Canadian filmmaker a call back.
00:29:17
So before long, David's traveled to Colorado Springs to meet with Thomas in person.
00:29:22
And when he arrives at the Moores' house, he turns on his camera and starts recording.
00:29:27
Thomas is captured sifting through old photographs, keepsakes, and other artifacts from his life back in Mississippi.
00:29:33
He's very clear on how he feels about Franklin County. It's the place where racist white men
00:29:38
were able to murder his brother and get away with it. But it's also obvious how nostalgic he is
00:29:44
for the brighter parts of his childhood. Mainly for that deep connection that he shared with his brother.
00:29:49
He pulls out a photograph of them together and he shows it to the camera. It was taken in 1963 he says which is the year before Charles was murdered Thomas comments that quote it a beautiful picture of us as teenagers two great football players I was the quarterback he was the center
00:30:06
and we played on a great team. In another moment, Thomas shows off an old bicycle
00:30:11
that's hanging in his garage. He said that his mother, Maisie, bought it back in the 60s,
00:30:17
and Thomas and Charles shared it. For a while, that's how they got around Franklin County.
00:30:21
But then as the boys grew older and they needed to travel further distances, they started hitchhiking.
00:30:26
It was the easiest and quickest way to get around. Of course, getting into a stranger's car is risky.
00:30:33
It's even riskier when you're a black man in 1960s Mississippi. I bet. Yeah. So there's not a ton of mystery
00:30:40
about what happened to Henry D. and Charles Moore. After combing through the thousands of public files
00:30:45
that exist on this case, David and Thomas learn of all the horrific information about those deaths.
00:30:51
It turns out that the FBI, who for a fleeting second looked into this case, got information directly from Klan informants about it.
00:31:00
This included a local KKK leader who, quote, had been told how the murderous acts had unfolded step by step by the very men who had carried them out, end quote.
00:31:12
So this is what they know. On May 2nd, 1964, Charles Moore and Henry D. decide to get ice cream.
00:31:20
Right? just heartbreakingly innocent regular day. So they decide to head to the local ice cream shop
00:31:27
in Meadville, Mississippi. Once they get it, they go out to the road to hitchhike to their next destination.
00:31:34
A truck driven by a 31-year-old white man named Charles Marcus Edwards stops and offers them a ride.
00:31:39
There are other white men in the truck too. All of them are members of the Ku Klux Klan,
00:31:43
including a 29-year-old man named James Ford Seal, who comes from a family of violent Klan members.
00:31:50
Of course, Henry D. and Charles Moore don't know any of this. They're being offered a ride.
00:31:55
They don't sense any danger. And they've hitchhiked with white people countless times, so they climb in.
00:32:01
But it quickly becomes clear that Henry and Charles are not being taken to their requested destination.
00:32:06
Instead, the truck heads into a nearby national forest and stops in the middle of the woods.
00:32:11
The young men are forced out of the vehicle, beaten, and interrogated. That summer, Franklin County Klan members are paranoid about a, quote, armed Black uprising in Mississippi.
00:32:25
These white men think that Henry D. and Charles Moore are gun-toting insurrectionists.
00:32:31
Neither teenagers plotting, of course, plotting any kind of uprising. They aren't even politically active.
00:32:37
They just wanted to get some ice cream. So at one point, Charles Marcus Edwards splits off from James Ford Seal and the other Klansmen.
00:32:45
and then the young black men are taken to a remote property in Louisiana. And this is really upsetting and horrible, this part.
00:32:53
They're attached to heavy equipment and then Henry D. and Charles Moore are thrown into the Mississippi River alive to drown.
00:33:03
God. Yeah. Their bodies are found two months later by the Navy divers. And again, they're both just 19 years old.
00:33:11
So within days of Charles and Henry's remains being found, Charles Marcus Edwards and James Ford Seale are arrested.
00:33:20
Seale partially confesses to FBI agents. Edwards, meanwhile, gives a full confession.
00:33:26
What? But inexplicably, neither man is ever charged for the murders. Both of them are released.
00:33:33
So as David and Thomas delve into this research, they land on a few potential explanations.
00:33:40
it's believed that the district attorney at the time was either afraid of the Ku Klux Klan or he was in it.
00:33:46
Sure. Either is possible. For the FBI's part, it seems that they made the choice to back off of the case
00:33:52
to protect their Klan informants. They felt that prosecuting Edwards and Seale might require blowing those informants covers.
00:34:00
Wow. It makes sense, but I never kind of thought about the fact that there would be informants in the Ku Klux Klan.
00:34:06
Yeah. That's wild. Especially at a time like that where I think there was so much civil rights activism happening.
00:34:13
It's like, I think they probably needed people down there to make sure that some, you know,
00:34:18
like this idea that when you're fomenting fear and rage like that, and it's this idea, the storyline of there's going to be an armed Black uprising,
00:34:27
you just keep telling people that. Then you're pulling people who would probably never get involved in anything.
00:34:33
You're convincing them that what you do is in their best interest. Right, right.
00:34:37
that other white people in town that's like, but you know. Yeah, you can't be idle, right?
00:34:43
Yeah, yeah. It's disgusting and it's a very common tactic. So learning all of this information
00:34:50
causes Thomas More to develop an even deeper need for resolution for his brother's death.
00:34:56
The idea that these Klansmen could brutalize and drown two innocent Black teenagers
00:35:00
and then just go free to live normal lives is unfathomable. But there is one major hitch.
00:35:08
Most of the Klansmen that are directly linked to these two murders are dead. They can't be prosecuted, including James Ford Seale.
00:35:15
But there is one who is still alive, the man who gave the full confession, Charles Marcus Edwards.
00:35:23
So this is the moment where Thomas and David's project goes from a documentary into a crusade for justice.
00:35:29
Thomas says it outright. He wants to see Charles Marcus Edwards put in jail. But both men know this is going to take a lot of work to push a cold case like this forward.
00:35:39
Or like a cold case isn't accurate. It's actually just a intentionally forgotten case.
00:35:45
But to push it forward, they're going to need to make a lot of noise. They're also going to need to find other people to join their cause.
00:35:53
And they going to have to do all of that in Mississippi So the two men who are essentially strangers get into David van and they set off towards Mississippi They basically like discuss it And David Ridgen is
00:36:10
just like, let's go do this thing. And Thomas More is probably like, I want to go do this thing.
00:36:17
And David's like, hell yes, which is just the love that I feel for that man. The two men basically
00:36:24
strangers get into David's van, they set off towards Mississippi, and the next few days consist
00:36:29
of endless stretches of highway and a building anticipation of the battle ahead as they get
00:36:35
closer and closer to Franklin County. By David's own admission, he and Thomas are an unlikely duo.
00:36:42
Thomas is this self-assured army man with a thick Southern drawl. David's a social activist and a
00:36:48
creative type from Canada. But as they get to know each other better, they realize that, of course,
00:36:53
they share many core values. Both men are putting everything at risk to right a 40-year-old wrong.
00:37:00
Not everyone would do that. So Thomas and David quickly build a trust between them.
00:37:06
And when they arrive in Franklin County, their presence is instantly clocked by locals who
00:37:10
recognize them as out-of-towners. It's unsettling. Thomas and David aren't taking any of this lightly.
00:37:17
They're very aware that what they're doing is dangerous. They're in Mississippi to turn old
00:37:22
stones that many people, including violent racists who still live there, do not want touched.
00:37:29
Immediately, David and Thomas are concerned about safety. So Thomas reaches into his extensive
00:37:33
military background to lay out a few ground rules. The men don't give their names out unless
00:37:38
necessary. They only book hotel rooms in the back of the building. That's a good tip. They drive
00:37:45
very intentionally, pay attention, and they do their best not to venture down the same roads
00:37:51
twice in one day. Wow. That's kind of interesting. Yeah. They're very careful about where they park.
00:37:57
David would later say, quote, we adopted a kind of military strategy. We always had each other's back.
00:38:04
So the men waste no time in getting down to business. Thomas focuses on the image of Edgar Ray Killen
00:38:09
sitting in a courtroom. He wants the same for Charles Marcus Edwards. Soon they track down Edwards' phone number.
00:38:17
So David gives him a call and Edwards picks up. But as soon as David drops the names Henry D and Charles Moore, Edward hangs up. David calls back.
00:38:27
Edward hangs up again. And then he starts declining the calls outright. So Thomas and David decide to
00:38:33
drive over to Edward's house to try to talk it out in person. They make a plan for once they arrive.
00:38:39
Thomas will walk straight up to the front door, announce himself, and confront Edwards directly
00:38:44
as David captures everything on camera. Oh my God. Right? I mean, even just a kind of a regular documentary
00:38:53
where like someone like walks into a store with a camera unannounced and people are like, what are you doing here?
00:38:57
That makes me nervous. And this is literally like confronting murderers in the Deep South.
00:39:04
So they pull into Charles Marcus Edwards' driveway and to their surprise, Edwards is standing right outside of his house.
00:39:11
So one of Edwards' dogs sprints over to the van, starts barking very aggressively at David,
00:39:16
but David gets out of the van, starts rolling his camera, and then he approaches Edwards.
00:39:23
But when he looks over his shoulder, he realizes Thomas is still in the car. So David tries to carry on without him.
00:39:29
He asks Edwards a few questions as the dog continues barking at him. It's no use.
00:39:34
David's quickly rushed off the property by Edwards. So when David gets back into the car,
00:39:39
he sees Thomas is really upset and Thomas confesses to David that when he saw Edward standing there in real life,
00:39:46
he was flooded with terror and he couldn't get out of the car. Oh my God. He tells David that he feels like a failure.
00:39:53
David reassures Thomas that they will get to Charles Marcus Edwards soon enough.
00:39:59
So a few days pass, the men are back at it. They're building awareness of their mission
00:40:03
by interviewing locals about the case. They're setting appointments with state officials.
00:40:07
They're shooting B-roll all around the area. At one point, Thomas suggests that they stop for lunch
00:40:13
at this restaurant that he loves. They serve these big meaty sandwiches, which is too bad for David because he's a vegetarian.
00:40:22
There's no vegetarian option. David. Apparently, David keeps a Ziploc bag of Cheerios
00:40:28
in his pocket from just these situations. Oh my God. Be more charming. Yeah. And he doesn't mind, which is a good thing
00:40:37
because a chance encounter at this restaurant is about to change everything. So while he's eating, Thomas spots an old friend.
00:40:45
They catch up for a minute and Thomas explains why he's back in Franklin County.
00:40:48
He's helping David make this documentary about his brother's murder. And then Thomas laments that because James Ford Seal is dead,
00:40:57
he'll never face justice for murdering Charles and Henry D. But Thomas's friend tells him a shocking fact.
00:41:03
James Ford Seal is not dead. He's very much alive and he lives across the street
00:41:09
from where they're eating lunch right now. And he just points across the street.
00:41:15
So Thomas and David look at each other, completely floored. They'd done their research.
00:41:20
They looked into it. Multiple newspapers that do intense fact-checking, like the LA Times had reported James Ford Seal was dead.
00:41:30
So Thomas and David immediately get into the van, go across the street. When they pull into the nearest driveway,
00:41:37
an old man is sitting outside. Thomas instantly recognizes him. It's James Ford Seal.
00:41:43
David pulls out his camera and snaps a photo. Then Thomas gets out of the car and cautiously approaches Seal.
00:41:49
But as soon as Thomas announces who he is, Seal just turns around and runs into the house Yeah he does Unsure if he going to come back out with a gun Thomas goes back to the van and he and David drive away So for hours after this encounter the men are just shell
00:42:06
It's like seeing a ghost, you know? The fact that Seal's alive and that he's been managing to hide in plain sight right here
00:42:14
in his hometown is unbelievable. It turns out that James Ford Seal's family originated the death rumor themselves tactically
00:42:23
over the last few decades as more and more reporters pour through old civil rights era cold cases,
00:42:29
his family started telling any newspaper person who called that Seal had died. Yeah, but this scheme backfires in a huge way
00:42:38
because over the next few days, this twist drums up a bunch of publicity for the documentary and for Thomas and David.
00:42:47
So in fact, the picture that David took runs in multiple newspapers. Fuck yeah. Because he basically just got,
00:42:55
he unknowingly just got the proof right there. Totally. Before long, the New York Times is reporting
00:43:00
on Thomas and David's project, then CNN, then other national news outlets. Because of all this coverage,
00:43:07
the FBI decides that they're going to take another look at Henry D. and Charles Moore's case files.
00:43:13
So David and Thomas's mission now has new momentum. People across the United States
00:43:18
are becoming aware of what they're doing in Franklin County. Even still, they're just two men up against an uninterested and slow-moving justice system.
00:43:28
So to really get things moving, they're going to need more manpower. So Thomas and David start making inroads with locals.
00:43:35
And before long, they have a group of people who stage peaceful protests alongside them.
00:43:40
Thomas even stands at the pulpit of a local Black church and says, quote, I served this country for 30 years and 15 days.
00:43:48
I have the right to be here because I'm going to hold Franklin County and the state of Mississippi
00:43:54
accountable for the deaths of Charles anymore and Henry D. And I have no fear. Though I walk
00:44:01
through the valley of the shadow of death, I have no fear. Oh my God. He's in for the fight. He's
00:44:09
doing it. So beautiful. Thomas's words, conviction and devotion draw more and more people to his
00:44:16
fight. To remind them of their power, he often nods to the Edgar Ray Killen trial. He says that
00:44:22
if justice can be served in the Mississippi burning case after so many years, it can happen
00:44:27
in Henry D. and Charles Moore's case too. With an ever-growing group of advocates and activists
00:44:32
working alongside them, David and Thomas begin posting commemorative signs around town. They say,
00:44:38
quote, in memory of Henry Hezekiah D. and Charles Eddie Moore, rest in peace and justice.
00:44:47
Once posted in the spot where the young men were picked up, Thomas says that it is, quote,
00:44:53
not just for Charles Moore and Henry D., it's for you to remind you every time you pass through
00:44:59
this spot that this crime happened here. Wow. End quote. Then two more signs are put up,
00:45:06
one in front of Charles Marcus Edwards' home and the other in front of James Ford Seals.
00:45:13
There you go. Right? So Thomas is incredibly grateful for all the support, but they soon hit wall after wall with state attorneys.
00:45:22
So the men decide to reach out to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi,
00:45:27
a man named Dunn Lampton. Lampton is a smiley, smooth-talking Southerner, not dissimilar to the president who appointed him,
00:45:36
George W. Bush. Remember when George W. Bush was our worst problem in this country?
00:45:41
Oh, God. In any case, Dunn-Lampton and Thomas Moore hit it off. In their first meeting,
00:45:49
they realized that they served in the same army unit, but they just never met. And their time
00:45:56
in the service and then in that unit overlapped, but they didn't know each other.
00:46:01
Oh, my God. Yes. Thomas would later say, quote, it's kind of like old soldiers taking care of each other.
00:46:08
He's a fine gentleman. So Lampton tells them that in order for him to prosecute Seal and Edwards,
00:46:14
he needs a strong witness who is willing to testify. And the best case scenario for that would be either Edwards testifying against Seal
00:46:23
or Seal testifying against Edwards. But getting either of them to talk is going to be tough.
00:46:29
And unfortunately, David and Thomas remain the only two investigators that are really super dedicated to this case.
00:46:37
Thanks to all the recent publicity, the FBI is said to be looking into it, but there's no real sense of urgency with them.
00:46:45
It's been 40 years. David and Thomas refuse to wait any longer for the local police or the FBI to do their jobs.
00:46:54
And Thomas thinks that their best bet would be getting Charles Marcus Edwards to talk
00:46:58
since he's the one who gave the full confession to investigators back in the 60s.
00:47:03
Maybe he'd do it again. And on top of that, he's a much older man now, and he happens to be a deacon at his Baptist church.
00:47:12
Oh, really? So there's a chance, since he spends so much time at church, that maybe he's repentant of his disgusting sins.
00:47:22
He's definitely lived with the guilt for a long time if he has it. So Thomas and David make a plan to confront Edwards at his church the following Sunday morning.
00:47:31
So they're on this thing. Yeah, they are. They're doing it like Michael Moore style.
00:47:36
So when Sunday comes, they break one of their ground rules, which is not driving down the same road more than once a day.
00:47:44
They end up driving in circles around this church, waiting for Charles Marcus Edwards to arrive.
00:47:49
and on their third or fourth time around, they finally spot his car and then see that he's walking in towards the church.
00:47:57
This time, Thomas doesn't miss a beat. He gets out of the vehicle. And he walks right towards Edwards, identifies himself as the brother of Charles Moore.
00:48:05
Edwards, of course, is completely shocked. He repeatedly says he has nothing to do with the murders.
00:48:10
But when he's asked if he was involved in picking up Henry D. and Charles Moore,
00:48:15
Edwards doesn't answer the question. He tells Thomas and David to, quote, get off his church grounds and stop stirring up trouble.
00:48:23
Mm. So Thomas rushes back to the van and immediately calls Dunn Lampton. Something about the way Edwards wouldn't answer
00:48:32
that second question feels very significant to him. So Thomas insists that Lampton get down to Franklin County
00:48:39
as soon as possible to interview Edwards. He has a gut feeling that Edwards has more to say about the murders.
00:48:46
And remarkably, Lampton listens to Thomas and within two weeks, Lampton sits down to an interview with Charles Marcus Edwards
00:48:56
about those 1964 murders. And finally, Edwards confesses. Holy shit. He tells Lampton that he helped kidnap Henry D. and Charles Moore.
00:49:08
In fact, it was his idea to do so because he claims he suspected that they were insurrectionists.
00:49:16
He also admits to taking part in their torture. But Edwards insists that the other men,
00:49:23
led by James Ford Seal, are the ones who took the teenagers to the Mississippi River and drowned them.
00:49:29
In exchange for legal immunity, Charles Marcus Edwards agrees to testify against James Ford Seal.
00:49:37
Wow. So now Don Lampton has his star witness. James Ford Seal is arrested, and in 2007, his murder trial begins.
00:49:46
Seal refuses to testify, But on the stand, Charles Marcus Edwards sticks to his story.
00:49:52
He even testifies that in the years since the two murders, he'd heard James Ford Seal talk about killing the teenagers.
00:50:00
And then in a stunning moment, Charles Marcus Edwards addresses the Dee and Moore families
00:50:06
and asks for their forgiveness. But the most emotionally tense moment of this trial
00:50:12
comes in June 2007 as the jury deliberates. Thomas and David are in the courtroom,
00:50:18
when the foreman announces the verdict. James Ford Seale is guilty on all charges.
00:50:24
He is given three life sentences. Holy shit. Three. Yeah. So Thomas's role in closing this murder case
00:50:34
is not lost on anyone, including the then attorney general of the United States who singles him out as the reason
00:50:42
that James Ford Seale is brought to justice. Wow. And another positive outcome that kind of feels or sounds like a small detail, but is actually huge,
00:50:53
is that through Thomas and David's research and throughout their investigation, they're able to locate a photograph of Henry D.
00:51:03
Oh my God. The family didn't have one before and now they actually in their research found one.
00:51:08
And when they do find that, Thomas instantly recognizes his old friend and he says, quote,
00:51:13
I almost felt the earth move beneath me. It was overwhelming. When Thelma Collins, D's sister, sees the picture,
00:51:20
she says, I was so happy I cried. The entire experience changes Thomas's life. He has said again and again
00:51:28
that he finally feels free from anguish. Their fight for justice is captured in the 2007 documentary, Mississippi Cold Case.
00:51:36
It's a testament to the bravery, tenacity, and friendship, as unlikely as it once seemed of these two men.
00:51:44
Thomas says, quote, I can have a bad day and think about what David and I were able to do
00:51:48
and it turns my day around. What if when David asked me to go to Mississippi in 2005,
00:51:54
what if I'd said, no, I'm used to living in pain? What if I'd said that? Then I wouldn't be able to stand here today.
00:52:00
I'm free. I got some justice. And in 2011, James Ford Seal dies in prison at the age of 76.
00:52:08
And that is the story of Thomas More and David Ridgen, the two men who finally got justice
00:52:14
for the murders of Henry D. and Charles More. Wow. Oh my God, that was heavy. Heavy, but also like so inspiring.
00:52:27
Like so beautiful. They just went and did it. They went down and did it. Totally.
00:52:33
Oh my God, I'm like speechless. If you've never listened to Someone Knows Something,
00:52:37
It's basically a podcast where David Ridgen is doing that for cold cases in Canada.
00:52:43
And it's unbelievable. Yeah. It's so good. It is. Oh my God. Incredible. Great job.
00:52:49
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Use code MFM15 for $15 off your first purchase at thirdlove.com. Goodbye. I have a mystery for you.
00:56:15
as I like to do. So the story has everything, mysterious objects, cryptic notes,
00:56:22
even possible police coverups, aliens. This is the 1960s Brazilian story of the lead masks.
00:56:31
Ooh. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Today's sources are an all that's interesting article by Killeen Fraga,
00:56:38
an episode transcript of the Skeptic podcast by Brian Dunning, and two Flying Saucer Review articles,
00:56:47
one from 1967 by Charles Bowen and another from 1971 by Gordon Creighton. And the rest are in our show notes.
00:56:56
So it's August 20th, 1966. The weather is beautiful just outside of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
00:57:03
A boy realizes it's perfect kite flying weather, right? So he decides to visit Vintime Hill in Niteroi,
00:57:11
which is a city just across the bay from Rio. He also wants to climb the hill today
00:57:16
because he saw something strange there a few days before. On August 17th, he saw two men sitting in the weeds
00:57:23
very high up on the hill, and he couldn't see them very well because they were surrounded by plants and vegetation,
00:57:29
but he could tell they're sitting up and engaging with each other. He thought it was strange enough
00:57:35
that he actually came back the next day to investigate, and he sees the two men again,
00:57:40
but they're lying down. He thinks they're probably napping. So he leaves them alone,
00:57:45
but decides today when he's out flying his kite, he's going to see if they're still on the hill.
00:57:51
Yeah, it's never a mannequin and they're never napping. Well, and also, it's such a kind of funny little kid idea.
00:57:58
Yeah. That it's like, oh, you saw two people there. Now they're there again doing a similar thing
00:58:04
where it's like, when have you ever gone to a hill two days in a row? just like we had this awesome hike.
00:58:11
We have to go do it again. Maybe he was bored. I just think it's really funny where it's like,
00:58:16
oh, those are the same two guys and now they're doing a different thing. Well, they were just lying down the second time,
00:58:21
which he thought was weird. That is weird. Yeah. So sure enough, the two men are still there.
00:58:26
But as this young man approaches, he smells something horrible and he begins to realize that the two men
00:58:32
and the weeds are not napping. They're dead. Oh, no. Wait, I fell for my own dumb thing.
00:58:41
Now I'm the kid with the cake. Yeah. Now I'm the idiot. All right. He runs down the hill and calls the police.
00:58:48
When investigators arrive, they find the two men dead in the grass. So it's like kind of like weedy and...
00:58:55
A lot of shit everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. The bodies are lying face up. They're wearing matching like really nice suits
00:59:02
and raincoats over them. So they're well-dressed. Nearby them is a notebook an empty water bottle
00:59:08
and two towels. They also find a receipt for the bottle of water. This suggests that the men
00:59:16
plan to return the bottle to where it was purchased for a refund. So, you know, so somehow they died there
00:59:22
even though they had like plans for the future. Wait, sorry, you said this is the 60s, right?
00:59:26
Mm-hmm. Okay. It's just weird that people would buy bottled water. Bottled water.
00:59:31
I know it is. Back then. Yeah. But what puzzles investigators the most are two pairs of crude and homemade lead goggles.
00:59:40
It's a pair of sunglasses without the stems, basically, but made completely out of lead.
00:59:45
So it looks like a sleeping mask, like the eye part of a sleeping mask. Okay. And they're really crude and clearly homemade.
00:59:53
Sources are conflicting as to whether the men are wearing the glasses or if they placed right by their heads We not sure Either way the cops are mystified Their confusion deepens when they look inside the notebook
01:00:05
There's a handwritten note, which looks like it was scrawled out quickly, that uses strange grammar.
01:00:11
So it reads, 1630, meaning 4.30 p.m., 1630, be it at agreed place. 1830, swallow capsules.
01:00:22
After effect, protect metals, wait for a mask signal. You can't put it together to make total sense.
01:00:30
But it does mention swallowing capsules, the metal glasses they had, waiting for a signal.
01:00:39
Strange. Will you read the 1830 message again? Yeah. So 1630, be it a green place.
01:00:45
1830, swallow capsules. After effect, protect metals, wait for a mask signal. So it's like someone was writing,
01:00:53
jotting down a note to remind themselves, you know, in shorthand. Yep. I'm just thinking the way I write when I try to write a note fast and words get,
01:01:02
like I have to stick them under or whatever, where I'm like, the masks were metal. Maybe
01:01:06
metals should be up by masks for some reason. And signal should be on its own. Wait for signal is one phrase anyway.
01:01:16
Okay. So obviously police have a lot of weird evidence on their hands and they get to work.
01:01:22
So it doesn't take long for investigators to identify the two men as Manuel Pereira Cruz,
01:01:28
who's 32 years old, and Miguel Jose Viana, who's 34 years old. Both the men are electronics repairmen
01:01:36
from a small town about 170 miles away from where they were found. And I saw it referred to as electronics repairmen,
01:01:43
but also like electronic engineers. So I don't think it was just like people fiddling
01:01:47
with like clocks or whatever. I think they were actually, you know, into electronics.
01:01:51
Or maybe even like experts. Yeah, possibly. As opposed to just a guy who can fix a radio.
01:01:57
Exactly. Like they know their stuff, yeah. Right. Police are able to reconstruct their final days.
01:02:01
On the morning of August 17th, the men tell their wives they're going to Sao Paulo
01:02:05
to pick up some work equipment. Instead, they take a bus to Niteroy and arrive in the early afternoon.
01:02:11
It's not completely out of their way, but it's not really a natural stopping place
01:02:15
if they are actually going to Sao Paulo. Around 2 p.m., Miguel and Manuel make their first of several visits to shop around town.
01:02:23
They buy matching raincoats, as it's a rainy day, and stop in at a local bar. And this is where they buy that bottle of water.
01:02:31
The waitress who interacts with them later describes the men as, quote, visibly nervous.
01:02:36
She says that Miguel wouldn't stop checking his watch and he and Manuel are then seen heading to the hill
01:02:43
around 3.15 p.m. They're anticipating something, perhaps. Yes, yes. The investigation gets even weirder.
01:02:51
During the autopsies, no wounds or marks are found that might suggest they were attacked.
01:02:56
Accounts are mixed, but it seems that either the bodies are too decomposed at this point to do a toxicology test
01:03:01
or the coroner is just, quote, too busy. So no toxicology tests are taken. Wait.
01:03:08
Even though there's notes to swallowing pills. It can't be that they were too decomposed
01:03:13
because the kids saw them alive one day and laying down the next. Yeah. Yeah, so it's said that maybe the coroner
01:03:20
just like didn't bother. Okay, that sucks. Investigators don't force the issue because they don't think it's foul play.
01:03:28
Either way, we don't know for sure whether or not the men swallowed any capsules
01:03:31
like it mentions in the cryptic note. And if they did, we have no idea what was in them.
01:03:37
It seems like no official cause of death is ever released. It's just a mystery. I was just gonna say,
01:03:42
it really seems like if you're the coroner, you should figure that stuff out. Yeah, it's like two young men
01:03:48
just unexplained found dead with no sign of a cause, I would be really curious personally.
01:03:56
Sounds like a cover-up. It does. All right. Investigators begin to talk more with the surviving family members of Miguel and Manuel.
01:04:03
Over time, a strange picture starts to emerge. So in addition to being electronics repairmen,
01:04:10
both men allegedly were part of a community of, quote, scientific spiritualists.
01:04:16
And this is not the same kind of spiritualism that we talk about sometimes, like when Harry Houdini was anti.
01:04:22
It's not the same thing. This term is very vague and not well-defined in any of the available sources,
01:04:28
but it seems that Miguel and Manuel were interested in phenomena outside of this earthly realm,
01:04:34
namely aliens. Okay. So the Flying Saucer Review is this magazine from the 60s, which I'm so happy about.
01:04:43
So good. it claims that almost every, quote, electronic specialist and enthusiast in Brazil
01:04:51
in the late 1960s was dabbling in scientific spiritualism. So it's like a hobby or a thing that people are into.
01:04:59
Yeah, it's like you're in, because if you're interested in the possibility of something that seems impossible in terms of UFOs,
01:05:07
then probably also in other stuff, right? You just have kind of an open mind and you're interested.
01:05:12
Yeah, a curious mind. Yeah. Allegedly, they had a whole secret society to conduct seances
01:05:17
and try to reach extraterrestrial beings. That's totally unverified, but we do know that Miguel and Manuel
01:05:23
spent a lot of their free time building various gadgets and devices to make contact with, quote, alien spirits.
01:05:31
It's kind of a serious crossover to do seances to reach aliens. Yeah, you wouldn't put those things together,
01:05:39
would you? I wouldn't. I think you'd need like electronics to do that. Also, like, why would they, why would aliens be able to talk to you through a seance?
01:05:49
Maybe there wasn like a radio or like a CV radio or something where they were like trying to connect with extraterrestrial ships and stuff But also light candles Yeah but also hold hands But also get into a big on a circular table and work it out
01:06:05
Exactly. Okay. You know. Sure. When police search their homes, they find evidence that they made
01:06:10
the lead masks themselves. They also find a book with highlighted passages about, quote, intense luminosity,
01:06:17
which might happen once they make extraterrestrial contact. So police think this may explain the lead masks.
01:06:24
The Brazilian news media totally plays this angle up and stirs up rumors that the men died
01:06:29
while trying to make contact with aliens or that they might've been killed by aliens.
01:06:34
Hmm. I mean, it's the 60s, you know? Sure. Eventually, it becomes difficult to convince the public
01:06:39
that aliens are definitely not responsible for these deaths. For starters, news surfaces of a mysterious death
01:06:46
from four years earlier. The dead body of a man was discovered in 1962 in Crozero Hill, also in Brazil.
01:06:54
He was also an electronics repairman that had no obvious cause of death. So totally similar circumstances.
01:07:01
He was also found with a mysterious lead mask lying next to him. When people connect this death
01:07:07
to those of Manuel and Miguel, members of the public begin to come forward with even more confusing and sensational information.
01:07:14
Can I just throw something out that popped in my head? Yeah. All three of those men could have died
01:07:18
if they were handling lead to make masks. That's fair. Lead poisoning. Some kind of standard lead poisoning.
01:07:25
I'm just going to put that on the invisible billboard of this conversation. I just don't know how fast it kills you.
01:07:31
Does anyone? I don't think anyone knows. Does anyone in the world? No one. Nobody knows.
01:07:36
I recently like broke my heart over lead because I read a thing that was like all vintage glassware and cutlery
01:07:42
and like kitchenware is filled with lead. You can't use it. And that's like my entire fucking kitchen.
01:07:47
I know. I know. It's a bummer. I remember reading that about Fiesta Wear. Yes. Which I love so much, but there's new Fiesta Wear.
01:07:55
But if you have the old kind, there's certain kinds, not all of it. Yeah, I can't give it up.
01:08:00
It's so sad. It is. Because that's the best stuff. It really is. So just five days after the discovery of the Vintime Hill bodies,
01:08:09
a woman speaks with the press and she's described as a, quote, sensible and well-balanced lady,
01:08:15
entirely reliable and very highly regarded where she lives. So she's not a quack is essentially what they're saying.
01:08:22
But she was described that way by the Flying Saucer Review. So no one really knows.
01:08:27
No, no. This is just like, she goes to the press or something or the police. And she says she was driving past that hill
01:08:34
where they were found on the evening of August 17th, which is the last day the men were seen alive.
01:08:41
she and her three children saw a, quote, oval-shaped object of an orangey color with a band of fire around its edges.
01:08:49
Oh. AKA a motherfucking UFO. Yeah, right? Okay. She says it floated over the top of the hill
01:08:56
for several minutes. It was there for so long that she pulled the car over to watch,
01:09:01
and then she watched it send rays of light across the sky and slowly rise and fall
01:09:06
until it disappeared. Ooh. Yeah. When she hears that there were two men who died on that hill that night,
01:09:13
she calls the police and tells them what she knows. When her story appears in the newspaper,
01:09:17
other people start calling the cops to verify what she saw. They said they saw it too.
01:09:22
Is there any room in your mind for this being a possibility that they saw what they said they saw?
01:09:27
Sure. I'll always save a little room. Okay. But I've said this before to you. I love all of it.
01:09:34
I want to talk about the Loch Ness Monster. As you know, Bigfoot, don't get me started.
01:09:40
any cryptozoology, stuff under the sea. But aliens and that concept of like completely different beings
01:09:49
from a different place that don't work like us in any way, but are visiting, I just can't right now.
01:09:54
Because you don't think they'd visit or because you don't think they exist? Because it stresses me out
01:09:58
and I don't want to have to be real about like, how does that impact me? You know, will everybody start running
01:10:07
in all different directions and screaming? which I hate, you know. We're having enough trouble dealing
01:10:13
with what's on this fucking planet. So we don't need to add more planets. I get stressed when I look at email.
01:10:20
I cannot be like, oh, but also there's definitely UFOs killing people on a hill somewhere.
01:10:28
Yeah. No, it's not good. But you know, it's kind of weird. So they're found with two towels.
01:10:34
And if anyone who's read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is my favorite book of all time,
01:10:38
knows that one of the things hitchhikers through the galaxy, I think the most important thing
01:10:43
to bring with them is a towel for various hilarious reasons in the book. So I looked it up
01:10:49
and Douglas Adams didn't write it until like the 70s. So I wonder if he found, he saw this article
01:10:54
and just added the towel part because he saw it in this. Did some research. Yeah.
01:11:00
Like, oh, that's hilarious. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Other people saw the UFO. This incredible woman did as well.
01:11:06
About one week after Manuel and Miguel are found, a man named Elcio Gomez is brought in for questioning by authorities.
01:11:15
He's a friend of Miguel and Manuel and also an electronics repairman with an interest in aliens.
01:11:21
He's a person of interest because earlier in the summer, Elcio was a part of Miguel and Manuel's
01:11:28
plans to build a device to contact aliens. Apparently all three were in on it and the
01:11:34
device they built eventually exploded in the backyard of one of the men's house, which is not
01:11:41
good. No. This alone doesn't make him seem suspicious, but Manuel's wife reports that she
01:11:47
heard Elcio and her husband having a terrible argument not long before his death. Even though
01:11:53
Elcio gives, quote, contradictory statements to the police, there's no real evidence to connect
01:11:59
him to the deaths. of his friends and he's released. So there is someone suspicious going on here.
01:12:05
Not long after this, another man comes forward. He's a prisoner named Hamilton Bizani
01:12:09
and he gives authorities a wild and detailed story about a botched robbery in Vintime Hill.
01:12:16
He says he met Manuel and Miguel at a spiritualist center and kidnapped them with the help of three other men.
01:12:24
Hamilton says they forced them into a Jeep, drove them up the hill, robbed the men at gunpoint
01:12:29
and force them to take poison. And that's how they died. But of course, this story doesn't add up, obviously.
01:12:36
Yeah, like why would they do that? Yeah, it doesn't make sense. They knew too much type of thing?
01:12:41
No. And plus the men were seen walking towards the hill at 3.15 on the day of their deaths.
01:12:45
So they weren't in a Jeep. Yeah, so we can disregard that one. Oftentimes, prisoners will come up
01:12:51
with kind of a crazy story. That's true. To either get into something, get out of something.
01:12:56
Yeah, but this confession becomes the official version that the Brazilian authorities stick with.
01:13:02
Then to me, that's the authorities doing some bad stuff and pinning it on that prisoner, right?
01:13:07
Because they can do that too. Okay. I can't land anywhere with this story. I don't know what to think or believe.
01:13:13
Pun intended? Land anywhere? No, no, no. Okay, sorry. Never. Never. It's also been written that this version is dismissed by police
01:13:21
when they can't verify it. Either way, there's a small group of writers for our favorite magazine,
01:13:27
The Flying Saucer Review. That's right. Who followed this case super closely in the late 60s and early 70s.
01:13:33
This United Kingdom-based magazine is exactly what it sounds like, a quarterly publication
01:13:38
on all things UFO-related. Even though the content is entirely devoted to aliens,
01:13:44
during the 60s and 70s, it's considered fairly reputable and the reporting is fairly well-trusted.
01:13:50
The writers believe that this robbery-gone-wrong version is faked by the police themselves.
01:13:55
Look at you. I'm going to submit to the Flying Saucer review. I like the one shaped like cigars.
01:14:03
You'll never believe what happened to me. They think it's put out there by authorities
01:14:07
for the sole purpose of drawing attention away from the quote, real story, which in their minds, of course,
01:14:12
is the UFO being involved. Oh, I thought the real story was that the coroner refuses to do his job.
01:14:18
So what really happened It hard to track what is real in this story because it so long ago It easier to speculate that the men might overdosed on something like a substance that they had taken themselves
01:14:29
in order to communicate with like the higher beings and the aliens. Within a few weeks of the mysterious deaths,
01:14:36
a quote, professor of yoga comments publicly on how the men might've somehow overdosed
01:14:42
on LSD or mescaline in order to quote, step up their mental alertness and their frequency of the brain, which sounds fun.
01:14:51
If that's what was happening, their clothes would be off and there would be barf somewhere, right?
01:14:57
There would be more of like... You wouldn't drop dead where you are exactly if you were on drugs like that.
01:15:04
No, there'd be more of a Woodstock portion of the day. Yeah. So, but maybe they overdosed on something else.
01:15:11
One Flying Saucer Review article reports that after the bodies are finally exhumed in 1968
01:15:16
for toxicology, hair tests, no evidence of any fatal substance is found. But who knows if that even fucking happened.
01:15:23
And the next line is that this test actually happened though. You knew. I knew. You knew they were going to say that.
01:15:30
I'm psychic. So then there's the issue of the lead masks. Presumably they're meant to protect against really bright light or radiation,
01:15:37
but they would only provide like comically little coverage from the impact of radiation.
01:15:43
Essentially, it would just prevent someone from seeing you with their eyes at all.
01:15:47
So that doesn't make any sense. The glasses would blind you and not protect you from radiation whatsoever.
01:15:53
There's almost no imaginable scenario in which these lead masks would be helpful.
01:15:58
So what were they for? Who knows? We'll likely never know. Allegedly a few days before his fatal journey
01:16:04
to Vintime Hill, Miguel told his sister that he, quote, would soon be carrying out an important mission,
01:16:10
but that it was a secret he could not disclose to anybody. Maybe Miguel and his friend Manuel
01:16:15
did carry out their secret mission in the end. Maybe their human bodies got left behind, but their spirits are with aliens now.
01:16:23
We don't know. It was like a heaven's gate approach where it's like to have this meeting,
01:16:28
you have to. Yeah. Your body is just a vessel that you have on earth, right? Yeah. Yeah. So maybe
01:16:34
you can't take it up there with you. I don't, I mean, that's so heavy. Maybe it worked.
01:16:39
And that the mysterious story of the lead masks case I mean more questions than answers at this point I know That what you love I love to be stumped you know
01:16:53
Well, and also because how satisfying if like in five years, people are like, they found the answer to the lead masks case.
01:17:00
Yeah. I think the thing that makes the most sense is that they got, their spirits and souls got taken away by UFOs.
01:17:08
Whatever they were doing worked, but we can't understand it completely. That's the most positive interpretation,
01:17:15
I think, of all of those things. There's also just the, what's it called? Folly adieu, where it's like two people get an idea
01:17:23
and they go a little crazy on it. And then basically they maybe touched some chemicals
01:17:28
or decided to take something that then wasn't the thing that they thought. But that, I want to say that,
01:17:35
but if they were, you know, engineers of some kind, and obviously intelligent people,
01:17:41
those kind of mistakes are less likely, I would think. Yeah, but maybe drugs were involved
01:17:45
and they messed that up. So weird. Yeah, so strange. It's one of those like when you can't sleep at night
01:17:51
and you're on one of those websites, like the 10 creepiest stories that have no explanation,
01:17:56
it's always on there. So I love it. I'm gonna stick to my actual lead poisoning of when they made those masks.
01:18:03
Okay, I think that's a good option if lead can kill you that quickly. Or if they tried to mix in the stuff in thermometers,
01:18:11
mercury or something like that. You know? Yeah. I don't know. I like it. Just no aliens, please.
01:18:18
Not right now. You can do it later when I'm like 70 or something and I don't care.
01:18:23
No aliens, no talk shows, no award shows is the rule. If you're going to join this MLM, known as MFM.
01:18:33
This MLM that is MFM. If you're going to be our lover, You got to get with our friends.
01:18:40
And it's none of those things we just listed. That was a fascinating case. Great job.
01:18:46
Thank you. Thank you. Fun to talk about. Fun to think about. You know, guys, that's what we try to do with you on this podcast.
01:18:53
We try to chat in your ear. Like you're on the phone, but you don't have to talk.
01:18:57
That's right. Like you're in our offices with us even. Yeah. You know? But relax, we'll do all the talking.
01:19:03
Yeah. Yeah you can just chill And now you have things to really consider about this world we live in Only this world Only this planet Yeah I need it to only be Earth please
01:19:14
If you don't mind. Thanks for listening. You guys are the best. We appreciate you enabling us
01:19:22
to tell you stories like this for a living. Oh my God, so much. It's really nice.
01:19:28
We appreciate you. Have a great day. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
01:19:39
Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
01:19:53
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:19:57
Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:20:05
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