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00:02:23
Hello. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff.
00:02:30
And the winds are blowing. Hey, the winds are blowing. Over. The Santa Ana winds.
00:02:38
Spooky. It's spooky Halloween. Yeah. Right here in January. Right off the bat, I wanted to tell you something spooky that happened at my house recently.
00:02:42
Oh, you know what? Hell yes. Okay. This is terrible. It's terrible. I hate it. Oh.
00:02:51
But it's good. Oh. I'm home alone. Vince is out, like, hanging out. So it's, like, late at night.
00:02:57
And I get into bed upstairs. And suddenly, from downstairs, my wireless speaker starts blasting music.
00:03:09
Oh, no. Blasting Elton John. Which is, at least it's not, like, it wasn't, like, terrible, scary music.
00:03:19
Yes, it wasn't In Agata De Fida. Right. But still, what Elton John? Because crocodile rock can be scary
00:03:25
depending on the mood you're in. I don't even remember at this point because I was so terrified.
00:03:29
I had to get out of bed. And I was like, there's an answer. There's a logical answer for this.
00:03:34
Like this, there's no... Because you have to be on the Wi-Fi to use our wireless speaker, right?
00:03:38
Sure. That's like, I thought maybe Vince was playing a trick on me out at the bar or something like that.
00:03:43
Hilarious trick with Elton John. You know, the way you guys joke around. Scaring the shit out of me.
00:03:48
So I had to go downstairs and the cats were freaked out, which is always my sign that something's wrong, you know?
00:03:53
And it was fucking blasting. And I had to like tiptoe over to it and unplug it. I made Vince come home immediately, of course,
00:04:01
but it was terrifying. Why did that happen? Why did it happen? I don't know. Do you have Elton John on your phone?
00:04:07
No, that's the other thing is I've never like listened to Elton John on my phone.
00:04:11
It wasn't like it picked up. I mean, maybe a neighbor accidentally. I need to know what song it was.
00:04:16
What was it? Slow or Fast. Tiny Dancer. Was it like Haki Elton? Elton John? Was it a deep cut? Someone saved my life tonight?
00:04:24
No, it was hacky. So it was like fast. Oh, goodbye, yellow brick road. That's what it was.
00:04:32
Is that the song of it? We're not saying that Elton John isn't one of the greatest performers of our time.
00:04:37
Sure. But blasting. So I have a musical ghost in my house. That is scary because there's a poignancy to that song.
00:04:47
Right. That you don't want to be shocked awake with. Absolutely not. And then when I was unplugging it,
00:04:53
I was like, if this doesn't stop when I unplug it, I'm leaving this house and never coming back.
00:04:57
Like, what if I had unplugged it and just kept going? Just lighting a match and fucking leaving.
00:05:02
This is the next Conjuring film. This is, you are writing it. You're writing it.
00:05:08
Poor man's copyright. I declare it right now. I love it. It's just like a wireless speaker that goes crazy.
00:05:13
Because, you know, in some of the movies, there's like a doll or, you know, there's Raggedy Ann or whatever, really scary.
00:05:19
It's time to update that horror movie trope. And how scary are either wireless speakers or Alexas that are eavesdropping on you all day long?
00:05:29
Absolutely. Okay. Seriously, poor man's copyright. Okay. Our movie, our next project is going to be about an Alexa that kills the family that she works for.
00:05:40
Or makes them like kill each other somehow. Yes. Drives them insane. Yeah. She basically is the demon like from the Amityville horror film.
00:05:49
Have you seen the movie Megan yet? No, I want to see it really bad. I'm surprised.
00:05:54
Yeah that a really new movie Well I was up in Petaluma Like I was doing family stuff So Megan is very feels like a very rebellious friend Yeah Natanay plan Yeah Did you see it No no
00:06:05
I don't want to see it. I want you to, I want your update opinion about it. I will tell you this.
00:06:10
I saw the Megan trailer when we went to see The Menu, which is that movie. I watched that.
00:06:17
Did you like it? I loved it. The trailer for Megan rolled before that movie and the audience went crazy.
00:06:24
It was like electricity in the room where I was like, they have finally thought like,
00:06:29
they're just getting so good at this type of movie because they were so formulaic for so long.
00:06:35
And playing with that kind of format is so great. It's just like, how scary is that doll that's dancing?
00:06:45
Totally. That is, it's scary and hilarious at the same time. Yes. You know, it's like, I can't take this seriously, but I'm terrified of it.
00:06:54
it's terrifying and you go, oh, this is like a new fear. This isn't the old fear of like,
00:06:58
I'm going to die on a dark highway. It's not, it has not, it's almost like you're like,
00:07:03
oh, this is the new, like, this is computer fear. Yeah. This is social media fear.
00:07:08
Robot fear. This is like, yes. This is the monster robot influencer that mercilessly makes you feel terrible
00:07:16
through your phone. Yeah, that's exactly right. Or through a movie. Yeah. Fuck, man.
00:07:22
Deep. Poignant. Movie Corner. I have a recommendation really quick. Because I did so much driving recently,
00:07:29
the podcast Chameleon, who had that first season about that unbelievable scammer that was like
00:07:35
international. He was hiring people for movies that didn't exist, that whole thing. If you haven't
00:07:41
heard season one of Chameleon, do yourself a favor. Season five now, so there's four more seasons,
00:07:46
tons of great stories. But I just listened to season five and it's called Dr. Dante.
00:07:51
And it is about a hypnotist from who got his start in like the late 60s, I believe, early 70s.
00:07:58
And his life story and the way he conducted his business as a professional hypnotist
00:08:05
is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Okay. Like it's a total binge. It's such great storytelling.
00:08:12
It's a real person. He actually appears in it. So it's not like his story is being told around him or anything.
00:08:18
It's just unbelievable. Okay, I'm down. It seems like lying. If it was in a movie, you'd be like,
00:08:25
there's no way this happened. It's so good. Is it positive or negative? Is it like feel goody or is it like, oh my God?
00:08:31
No, you know, in the trailer, I'll try to recreate very quickly the trailer, which was like professional hypnotism,
00:08:37
permanent makeup, attempted murder. Okay. Crazy story that you're like, wait, I'm sorry, what is he doing now?
00:08:43
He's a chameleon. He's a chameleon. He's a con man probably. And he's one of those people
00:08:48
that's just always got something going. and he's very successful. He's like the first person to scam
00:08:53
in this specific way. You have to hear it. It's just amazing. Okay, I will. I'll hear it.
00:08:58
Yeah. Cool. What else you got? The only other news I have is just the crazy fact
00:09:03
that the dorm dad, Lawrence Ray, was sent to prison finally and he basically moved in
00:09:09
with his college-age daughter in the dorms and kind of took over her and her roommate's lives.
00:09:15
And it's a crazy story and he was finally sentenced to 60 years in prison. Wow, 60 years.
00:09:22
That's great for his victims so they can finally move on. He needs to not be around people,
00:09:28
especially anyone young or vulnerable. Yeah, he's got cult leader vibes. Oh, such a crazy story.
00:09:34
Yeah. Anyway, what's new with you? Anything to report? I've been falling asleep to the podcast.
00:09:40
Nothing much happens, which I've mentioned in the past, but it helps me so much that I just want to shout it to the moon.
00:09:48
Because it's just like, I have bad insomnia. It drives me fucking crazy. I put that podcast on where she tells a story that she wrote
00:09:55
where nothing much happens. They're so charming. Like the most lovely little stories.
00:10:00
And I am asleep before like five minutes are up. It's great. Yeah. Oh, that's nice.
00:10:05
Yeah. And I listen to it. Like I wake up and I'm awake. I can't fall back to sleep.
00:10:08
I put it back in, fall asleep. It's the best. Nice. Oh, that's a good recommendation.
00:10:13
Yeah. That's it. Should we do some ERM highlights then? Sure. Keep this train a-movin'.
00:10:19
Let's do it, guys. There's a lot of big Exactly Right news this week. Tenfold More Wicked season seven is out Monday, January 30th.
00:10:29
Kate Winkler-Dawson is a machine. I mean... Just like an Olympic champion podcaster.
00:10:36
That's right. Amazing. Listen to Tenfold More Wicked season seven. This season is called The Annihilator,
00:10:42
and Kate Winkler-Dawson takes us to the 1800s Austin, Texas, for the story of a man who witnessed the aftermath
00:10:49
of a notorious serial killer who went on to kill in virtually the same way. Fascinating.
00:10:56
Also, Aaron and Aaron from this podcast, Will Kill You, are back for their fifth season
00:11:00
with an episode on RSV or respiratory syncytial virus, which premieres Tuesday, January 31st.
00:11:08
And also in the MFM store, we have a pop socket, an enamel pin, and a patch that are all new to remind anyone who needs it
00:11:15
that the patriarchy still sucks. So go check those out and get yourself a pop socket or something.
00:11:21
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why you keep asking me. Get whatever you want.
00:11:27
There's socks. We sell socks. Like just go, you can have those. I'm wearing my favorite murder socks right now.
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00:12:34
Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Ear Say, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:12:42
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary,
00:12:50
massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
00:12:58
I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.
00:13:06
And it's like, OK, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:13:18
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:13:24
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:13:29
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:13:38
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00:14:40
Okay, so I go first this week, as we now know, because we just messed it up and had to re-record it.
00:14:48
So today I'm going to tell you a story about what is considered by many to be the perfect murder.
00:14:54
It's the classic English whodunit and has a very Agatha Christie feel to it. So this murder happened almost 92 years ago
00:15:02
and it remains unsolved, but I have a bunch of theories, so we're gonna figure it out today.
00:15:07
This is the story of William H. Wallace and the murder of his wife, Julia. So the main sources used in today's story
00:15:15
are an article from the Julia Wallace Murder Foundation, a Liverpool Echo article by Amelia Bona and Annie Williams,
00:15:22
a chesshistory.com article by Edward Winter, interestingly, and an article from the unredacted
00:15:30
and the rest you can find in the show notes. So it's the middle of winter in 1931
00:15:35
in Liverpool, England, your favorite place. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. And it's an especially cold and gray winter that year
00:15:42
and the Great Depression has just begun. So Liverpool, which was once a booming metropolis
00:15:48
and port city called by many the New York of Europe, is now finding many of its citizens unemployed
00:15:54
and in desperation as poverty sweeps the country and the world. So this guy, William H. Wallace,
00:16:02
and his wife, Julia, are lucky that William has a steady job as an insurance agent.
00:16:07
They live in a modest house and are friendly with their neighbors. They're an older couple
00:16:12
who've been married for almost 16 years. William is 52 years old. And it's believed...
00:16:17
So there's not a ton of info about Julia. It's believed that she is 69 years old.
00:16:23
Her background before marrying William is a little murky, unfortunately. But we know that both have chronic health issues
00:16:29
and they take care of each other. She has consistent respiratory issues, which I think fucking everyone in England did before now.
00:16:38
Yep. Kate Winkler-Dawson wrote a book on it about how bad it got in the 50s. That's right.
00:16:43
Because the coal burning and whatever the fuel that they were burning was causing.
00:16:47
Yeah. And he has a chronic kidney condition. So they keep to themselves mostly. Julia is nervous around strangers,
00:16:55
which like, hi, welcome to this podcast. but they occasionally host music nights for their friends.
00:17:00
He plays violin, she plays the piano. So a seemingly happy couple. She has worked as a governess most of her life,
00:17:07
teaching children, and she's a little shy and described as timid in social situations.
00:17:12
But by most accounts, William and Julia are happily married and very loving. Some people remember them as a peculiar couple.
00:17:20
I hate that word. And one former friend calls their marriage loveless and strained.
00:17:24
So there's varying accounts to what they were actually like. It's January 19th, 1931.
00:17:30
It's the evening and William is headed to a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club
00:17:34
at a local cafe where he's scheduled to play a game of chess. But before he arrives, someone calls the cafe looking for him.
00:17:42
When William gets there about 20 minutes later, he's handed a message from someone named R.M. Qualtrough.
00:17:49
This stranger has requested to meet William the following day to discuss insurance,
00:17:54
which is his job at 7 p And he gives an address on Menlove Gardens East William is confused He doesn know this person He never heard the name
00:18:05
He doesn't recognize the address, but money's tight and a potential commission from meeting with new customers
00:18:11
seems like better than no commission at all. So he talks a bit more about the strange call with his friends
00:18:16
and talks about the last name being odd. And that evening after chess, he goes home to his wife.
00:18:23
But the following day, William is making his rounds at work, visiting clients in their homes across Liverpool to collect their insurance payments, which he later stores in a cash box that he keeps at home.
00:18:35
He's described that day as pleasant by everyone he meets with, despite the cold, rainy day, and Julia is visited by her sister-in-law that day.
00:18:43
They catch up and gossip, even discussing some recent burglaries that happened in the area.
00:18:48
After William gets home from work, the couple eat again, and somewhere between 6.30 and 6.40,
00:18:54
the boy delivering milk to the neighborhood has a short conversation with Julia at the door,
00:18:58
so we know at that point she's alive. At around 6.45 p.m., William heads out for this mystery meeting
00:19:04
with this person, Qualtrough. William has to take three different trams to reach the area of the city
00:19:11
that he thinks that this Men Love Gardens East is in. He talks to several conductors
00:19:16
and passengers while traveling, asking for help finding the address. He asked people on the street
00:19:21
to help him find this address. No one's ever heard of such a place or such a person.
00:19:26
He finds a city directory to look up the address and the name, and William starts to feel uneasy
00:19:31
when he realizes he's been sent to an address that doesn't exist to meet a person who isn't real.
00:19:37
So what is going on? After 45 minutes of searching, he heads home, and he arrives back at around 8.45
00:19:44
p.m. He tries the closest entrance, which is the front door of the house, even though he usually
00:19:50
uses the back door. The front door is locked, which is very unusual, and he knocks and no one answers.
00:19:56
He tries his key, but the door has been deadbolted from the inside. He goes to the back door. It's
00:20:03
locked. He knocks, no answer, tries his key, and for some reason it doesn't work. He goes back to
00:20:08
the front door, and he's getting concerned when he runs into his next-door neighbors. The John
00:20:14
Johnstons ask him what's going on. And when they learn of the mysterious locked doors,
00:20:18
they tell him to try it one more time. And when he tries the back door again, this time it opens easily.
00:20:23
So was he lying about it? We don't know. The Johnstons offer to stick around while he checks out the house
00:20:28
to make sure everything is all right. And William enters the house alone. As the neighbors wait in the back,
00:20:34
they can see him moving slowly through the house, turning on lights and lighting matches
00:20:37
to see in the dark rooms. And they can hear him calling out softly for Julia. But suddenly, William returns to the back door,
00:20:46
screaming to the Johnstons, come and see, she's been killed. Julie Wallace is dead, face down on the floor of the parlor,
00:20:53
which is like their small living room, with her feet towards the fireplace. She's been bludgeoned to death,
00:20:59
and blood spatter covers the walls up to seven feet off the floor. Oh, my God. Her head wound is so extreme that there's rain matter on the floor.
00:21:08
The Johnstons immediately go into triage mode, checking her pulse and temperature,
00:21:12
but William seems to be in shock. He keeps repeating, they've finished her, they've finished her,
00:21:18
look at the brains. Oh. And there's actually a photo of the crime scene. No, no, no, no, no.
00:21:23
Don't look at that. No, absolutely not. William initially requests a doctor, but the Johnstons decide
00:21:28
it might be best to get the police because she's clearly dead. Then they leave the parlor,
00:21:33
go to the kitchen to regroup, and William at that point realizes that one of the cabinet doors has been broken.
00:21:39
It's where he hides his cash box. And inside, he finds the cash box, but it's been robbed.
00:21:46
About four pounds are missing, which in today's money is about $300. But other valuables are left behind, including money in Julia's purse,
00:21:55
which is in plain view of the cabinet with the cash box in it. So finally, the police come.
00:22:02
And in the meantime, William prepares dinner for Julia's cat and pets the cat over and over.
00:22:09
And the quote, callous way he pets the cat is later used against him when he's tried for the murder of his wife.
00:22:16
What? Yeah. So it's like one of those things of like, you're not reacting correctly to this murder.
00:22:21
Right. That's pretty outside even any, I've heard before, how you're petting a cat
00:22:28
is indicative of something. What did that have to look like for you to get like,
00:22:33
we're like petting a cat too heavily. I don't understand. But also, who is the one that said that?
00:22:39
Like the person in the room, the cop that was talking to him? It must have been, yeah.
00:22:44
I think it's a stretch. Do you think it's weird to start feeding the cat while the police are being called over and stuff?
00:22:50
Yes, but like we've said a bunch of times, like if you're just in weird auto mode
00:22:55
because you've seen your wife's brains, for God's sake, like it's extremely violent, gruesome murder.
00:23:03
And if you had nothing to do with it and walked into a dark house and saw that, you would be in serious shock.
00:23:10
Yeah. At the very least. You're on pilot mode and you just do. Just doing weird stuff.
00:23:16
Yeah. Because you have to move your hands and you're freaking out and they're questioning you, maybe.
00:23:21
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I could see it where this is the thing I'm supposed to do right now.
00:23:26
Totally. I mean, yeah. Totally. When the police arrive, several discoveries are made.
00:23:31
They take a closer look at Julia's body and realize that she's lying on a raincoat and both her dress and the raincoat are partially
00:23:39
burned, possibly from the gas fire that was burning in the fireplace that was nearby.
00:23:45
Investigators also see that the Wallace's bedroom looks like it's been rifled through
00:23:49
as if someone had been searching for something, but nothing is missing. Police interview William
00:23:54
and the Johnstons and the investigation of the murder of Julia Wallace officially begins. From
00:24:00
Star police and forensic investigators fumble this investigation. At the time, the police force in Liverpool is significantly understaffed
00:24:08
because of a major strike in 1919. So many detectives aren't properly qualified for the jobs they have
00:24:14
and make mistakes with the Wallace investigation. They stomp all over the crime scene.
00:24:19
It's the same thing we hear all the time. One officer even turns up drunk, which is fun.
00:24:24
That has nothing to do with the strike. Right. That's pretty standard, isn't it?
00:24:29
Yeah. He flushes a toilet that inexplicably has blood in it, so it destroys whatever evidence that could have been.
00:24:37
Still, investigators search the house and find no murder weapon or new evidence besides the bloody toilet,
00:24:44
messed up bedroom, and rob cash box. A forensics expert in Liverpool University is called to the scene
00:24:51
and based on the stiffness of Julia's body determines that her time of death would have been about 8 p.m. that evening.
00:24:57
But even in 1931, this was considered an outdated forensic technique. So all that investigators really know at this point
00:25:04
is that Julia had been murdered inside a locked house somewhere between 6.45 p.m. when she was last seen
00:25:10
and 8.45 p.m. when he got home. Four pounds have been stolen. There's no murder weapon or sign of forced entry.
00:25:18
And William has the perfect alibi. Remember he was on the tram, like talking to a lot of people,
00:25:23
which I think we always think of as suspicious, like trying to make it obvious that you were there
00:25:28
and they'll remember you. Right. Or he could have been lost and actually asking for directions.
00:25:33
Yeah, because it really does seem like there is a possibility that someone sent him away
00:25:39
for an extended period of time to meet no one, to go nowhere and meet no one. So it would make sense that he would be like,
00:25:46
yeah, can you help me out? Wow, is this address not here? Like you'd need to be interacting with people
00:25:50
if that's the position you're in, I would think. But from the beginning, William is the prime suspect.
00:25:56
Despite the numerous witnesses confirming they had seen him on the night in question,
00:26:01
sealing his alibi. Police believe he must have committed the murder before leaving the house to go on this wild goose chase.
00:26:08
So further investigation shows that the call placed to the chess club that night
00:26:12
from Bar M. Qualtrough saying, come see me the next night, was made from a public telephone box
00:26:17
just 400 yards away from the Wallace house. Ooh. And it was 20 minutes before he got there.
00:26:24
That telephone box is also directly next to the tram stop that William would have used to get to his chess club.
00:26:29
So police theorized that William placed the call himself using a disguised voice.
00:26:34
And that whole point of that was to get himself an alibi. Okay. So before he left the house,
00:26:40
I think he might've killed her. Yep, I see. Police also believe that William had enough time
00:26:45
in roughly 10 to 20 minutes to kill Julia, clean up that night, get to the tram and board the tram.
00:26:52
But William has chronic kidney issues. They're pretty significant. He's not in good health.
00:26:56
The idea that he was able to commit this murder so quickly is hard to believe. Remember, Julia was last seen by the milk delivery boy around 6.35 p.m.
00:27:06
An eyewitness remembers seeing William on the second tram of his journey a little after 7 p.m.
00:27:12
That proves that he must have left the house around 6.50 at the latest in order to catch the tram on time.
00:27:19
Investigators recreate the journey from the Wallace home to the tram stop several times to prove that he could have made it in that small amount of time.
00:27:26
but they use young police officers who are running at full speed. Yeah. So, you know, it's not plausible.
00:27:33
Also, don't you think there would be witnesses remembering a dude who was running full speed through a tram?
00:27:38
Right. They don't even factor in like he would have had to clean himself up. He would have been covered in blood and he's not.
00:27:44
Yes. Yeah, he'd have to run even faster. Exactly. He would have had to like take a shower or something.
00:27:49
Right. And he has these chronic kidney issues, which I'm sure slows him down as well.
00:27:53
But ultimately he's arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. William is cooperative and quiet.
00:27:59
He's perceived as cold and indifferent. His neighbors and acquaintances come forward
00:28:03
and they talk about William's suspicious behavior around the time of his wife's death.
00:28:08
For example, someone says they saw him crying in the street the day before the murder.
00:28:13
And the way he pets the cat is also scrutinized as heartless. That's evidence. Okay, but is he oversensitive or is he heartless?
00:28:21
Those are conflicting stories about his character. Right. Cold, but he's crying in the street.
00:28:27
Like, which one is it? You hate everything this guy does. Also, can I just say this?
00:28:31
You know, I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie. I love Miss Marple. I'm a good friend of Poirot's.
00:28:38
I've watched all those goddamn shows like four times. And the first thing I thought of was the idea
00:28:43
that he couldn't get into his own house. And when he went to the neighbors, they were like,
00:28:47
no, try it again. Yeah, it's weird. That's suspicious as hell. Totally. And then it worked.
00:28:52
Okay. So. Yeah. As you're saying that, it feels like the people the cops are talking to have a lot of sway over the situation.
00:29:00
Yeah. And what if they needed to have that sway? Because they're like, yeah, he cries and he really pets the cat hard.
00:29:10
Like, that's what they're accepting as like a negative character analysis from the neighbors.
00:29:16
Yeah. Or it's like, why aren't the neighbors trying to defend him if he's their friend?
00:29:20
Totally. And everyone's saying they had a good relationship. And his stony demeanor and lack of emotional expression,
00:29:27
they make him look suspicious to everyone, of course. Except for when he's in the street crying.
00:29:31
Yeah. So doesn't that balance out his emotional expression? Like if you can't do it at home,
00:29:36
but you get it out over by the tram, like, isn't that enough? It's like they want a performance in court.
00:29:42
They want you just to be performative. And then they'd call you performative probably
00:29:47
or overly emotional. A little bit. So in April of 1931, and prosecutors present the case against William to a jury It a packed courtroom It a huge case It later determined that the prosecution opening statement is riddled with mistakes but William lawyers do nothing and don speak up for him He continually declares he innocent but the jury doesn
00:30:10
take much time to deliberate before they come back within a unanimous guilty verdict.
00:30:15
He's sentenced to death by hanging a month later. Oh my God. When the court clerk announces this,
00:30:22
William replies with, I am not guilty. I cannot say anything else. William's lawyers quickly appeal the conviction.
00:30:29
In a completely unprecedented legal decision, the Court of Criminal Appeal in London
00:30:34
determines that there actually wasn't enough evidence to convict William of this crime.
00:30:39
And they say that William's conviction is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence.
00:30:45
So he's let out and he becomes a free man. So they overturn his conviction, which I think is the first time that happened.
00:30:51
Wow. Yeah. William attempts to return to a normal, what? Just the criminal court being like,
00:30:57
so this thing about him petting the cat, can we talk about that? Yeah, London's like, hey, Liverpool, we got to talk.
00:31:05
Yeah, it feels like you're overreacting about the cat. So he's free. He tries to return to a normal life,
00:31:12
but it's obviously very tough. He's shunned by old friends and former customers of his
00:31:18
who are convinced he's guilty, thinks he got away with murdering Julia. And he's meanwhile still grieving his wife
00:31:25
and physically ill with this chronic kidney condition. So he ultimately moves away, changes jobs.
00:31:31
He's getting constant hate mail and death threats even. I bet. And it said he declines a kidney operation
00:31:37
that might've prolonged his life and instead dies in less than two years after his appeal.
00:31:44
And he's buried next to Julia in Anfield Cemetery in Liverpool. So dozens of books have been written,
00:31:52
some about this. It's still like kind of one of those seemingly locked door mysteries.
00:31:57
You know what I mean? So people are fascinated by it. Some defend Wallace and believe he's innocent
00:32:03
while others attempt to prove he's a criminal mastermind who duped the police and got away with murder.
00:32:08
This murder with no real motive and almost too good an alibi for the prime suspect.
00:32:14
But in the decades after William died, the name of another suspect emerges. And I think this is just the murderer.
00:32:22
So this guy, Richard Gordon Perry, was a young man from Liverpool. He was an amateur actor.
00:32:28
He was a petty criminal known for stealing and destruction of property. He sometimes worked with William at the insurance agency,
00:32:36
filling in for him when William was too sick to work. So William and Julia got to know Perry really well.
00:32:43
He visited the Wallace home many times. Though when Perry began subbing for William more regularly,
00:32:49
money started to go mysteriously missing. William confronted Perry about this and ultimately reported these, quote,
00:32:56
mistakes to the insurance agency, resulting in Perry being fired. So, notably, Perry performed in a local drama club
00:33:05
that met in the same cafe as William's chess club, meaning he would have known about William's scheduled chess games,
00:33:12
which were posted on a bulletin board. So he knew he was coming in that night. The night of the murder, Perry pulls into an all-night garage to get his car cleaned.
00:33:22
News of the murder had already spread around town, and the garage attendant that evening named John Parks has already heard all about it.
00:33:29
He notices how nervous Perry is acting that night. He begins to hose down the car, and he's known Perry since childhood,
00:33:36
and he's always been afraid of him because he is supposedly a bully. So Parks says what he's told, but in the passenger compartment,
00:33:45
Parks allegedly finds a leather glove soaked in blood. And Perry grabs it from him and says,
00:33:52
if the police got that, they would hang me. He tells Parks about disposing of an iron bar
00:33:57
down a drain somewhere nearby. Like, but why would he tell him all this, right? Like, seems a little outlandish.
00:34:03
Yeah, like he wants to tell on himself, you mean? Right, it's just some dude he's bullied.
00:34:09
He's known since childhood, I guess. Like, and maybe he's not smart enough to kind of just keep it zipped
00:34:14
and try to keep it under control. Like he's freaking out. This is his version of freaking out.
00:34:19
Yeah, this is adrenaline going on. That's true. Is that a cricket? I don't know what that was.
00:34:27
It's a very loud cricket. Hold me closer, tiny day. Oh my God. I did not sleep that night.
00:34:36
It was the most terrifying thing. Yeah, and also this guy doesn't mention these details
00:34:41
until years later. So it's not totally credible. But Perry was investigated by police at the time of the murder
00:34:47
due to his history of stealing and his relationship with the Wallaces. His alibis for both the night of the phone call
00:34:54
and the night of the murder, they hold up until his death in 1980 when it's discovered that his alibis were fabricated.
00:35:03
Oh. Yeah. So overall, the case against Perry is considered much stronger than the case against William.
00:35:09
Agree. But sadly, the case remains unsolved. And the more you read about this case,
00:35:15
the more questions actually arise. The details become confusing. I'm going to wrap this up with a quote from Raymond Chandler.
00:35:22
He's the author of The Big Sleep and a famous true crime enthusiast. His detective novels and crime fiction
00:35:27
are regarded as some of the best ever published. Chandler considered the Wallace case
00:35:31
to be one of the most puzzling and interesting crimes ever committed. He wrote that the Wallace case was completely unrivaled
00:35:39
when it comes to murder mysteries. He called it the impossible murder because Wallace couldn't have done it and neither could anyone else because of the locked doors
00:35:47
Mm-hmm. Chandler believed like many others that quote the Wallace case is unbeatable
00:35:53
It will always be unbeatable And that is the story of William H Wallace and the perfect impossible murder of his wife Julia Wallace For that man to be in that position to go through that loss to get accused and then basically to come out the other side and be like forget it
00:36:13
I'll just stick with this kidney that sucks and dip early is so awful and dark. And also like, I understand what that quote means.
00:36:24
Like it's unbeatable. But that's the kind of thing where like when you watch enough, you know, Agatha Christie or whatever,
00:36:31
it's like, but just one amazing detective that remembers every single thing that they hear
00:36:35
and whatever, if they just could be in there. If the real Sherlock Holmes could be in there.
00:36:40
Right, he would pick up on one little thing. Yes, or like put down the assumptions of the day,
00:36:46
which is a really ridiculous expectation. Like, it's too hard to do that when it's not being done.
00:36:52
But that idea of like, instead of spending all that time trying to bend facts backwards
00:36:57
and be like he was petting a cat really hard. And that is actually leading us to this thing.
00:37:02
It's like, no, hang in there a little longer and at least look at other people that were like around.
00:37:09
Yeah, check alibis a little bit better and deeper. Just keep the options open for a tiny bit longer.
00:37:15
It's like you always know the husband's gonna be there. What if the killer was in the house when he tried the front and back door?
00:37:21
He went around back to the front house and the killer unlocked the back door and escaped.
00:37:26
And that's why it was unlocked the second time he tried it. Yeah, easily. Right?
00:37:31
It's not a locked room mystery in that way. It's just, it's almost like a timing thing.
00:37:37
Yeah. Or like, if somebody, say it was that guy that you're talking about, got in, it was for revenge
00:37:43
or he was much more deviant than anyone even knew he was. was. He was a murderer or whatever.
00:37:48
But yeah, that's all you'd have to do. He knew that guy's, he knew William's whole
00:37:52
schedule. Yeah. So he was just like going to be prepared to run anyway. A lot of those psychopaths are super
00:37:58
bold because they don't have any fear. Right. They don't get scared. They don't get freaked out.
00:38:02
Yeah. They're just like, oh, I'll just hold my breath and wait here and then run out the back door.
00:38:06
Right. Fucked up. I'm going to be thinking about that for a while though. So that's
00:38:14
a good one. Good job. Tell me if you come up with any conclusions. Thank you. I'm absolutely convinced it's the neighbors and I've only heard
00:38:20
one factoid because I, like many of the police and the stories that we hear, love to jump to a
00:38:28
conclusion and never come back off of it. Or was it the cat? That fucking cat. It was like,
00:38:33
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That's K-N-I-X dot com. Code FLOW15. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
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This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary,
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massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
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I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.
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And it's like, OK, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it.
00:40:11
I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:40:20
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:40:27
That's great. Because it served the story. people will say like oh my god i cried at the end it's like yeah dude me too listen to earsay
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00:41:13
Well, should we just roll on into the second story? Let's do it. Because this is gonna be a
00:41:18
big surprise for you. But I'm going to tell you all about the legendary criminal herself,
00:41:24
Ma Barker. Amazing. There is, if you want, once I'm done with this very slick and well put together
00:41:32
overview, but if you want to go do a deep dive on Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpus gang, which is
00:41:40
a bunch of her sons and Alvin Creepy-Karpus, last podcast on the left has like the deep dive
00:41:48
episodes about it on one episode. So the sources the main sources we use today are the book Ma Barker America Most Wanted Mother by Chris Enns and Howard Kazantian The book Public Enemies America Criminal Past by William Helmer and Rick Maddox
00:42:05
And a bunch of articles and documents from the FBI's website. That website is www.snitchesgetstitches.gov.
00:42:16
And the rest of the sources in our show notes, if you want to go see. All right.
00:42:20
Paint the picture. And it's the same picture you were just painting, only across the pond.
00:42:25
It's the 1930s, America, and it's a very chaotic and difficult time for the majority of Americans.
00:42:31
It's the worst years of the Depression era. Many major institutions are nosediving.
00:42:36
By 1933, about half of the country's banks have failed. Think of it. Half of the country's banks have fucking closed.
00:42:44
Totally. Taking all the people's money with them. So fucked up. Yep, that's right.
00:42:49
And 15 million Americans are unemployed. Millions of people lose their entire life savings.
00:42:54
They're evicted from their homes. They wait in bread lines for food. Needless to say, people are furious.
00:43:00
They're enraged at the Hoover administration, Wall Street, the upper class, and of course, at bankers.
00:43:06
By 1932, riots and hunger marches are a constant presence throughout the nation.
00:43:11
This is also the era of the quote unquote public enemy, which is one of J. Edgar Hoover's go-to terms.
00:43:18
He's the head of the FBI and he's basically trying to negatively rebrand professional criminals like big time bootleggers and bank robbers. But the problem with this is that
00:43:29
many of these so-called public enemies are seen by the public who rightfully feel robbed by the
00:43:35
establishment as folk heroes. So the book Public Enemies, America's Criminal Past notes that,
00:43:42
quote, Americans in the depression found something to admire in the bold and desperate men
00:43:46
who only stole from the banks what the banks stole from the people. Hell yeah. It's so funny because like an era like this
00:43:54
where you see it in movies all the time and stuff and you're like, John Dillinger, like, you know.
00:43:59
Yeah. Like, you know these stories from a distance. Yeah. Bonnie and Clyde and all these people.
00:44:04
And then it starts to make sense where you're like, oh yeah, that did have this rosy glow on it.
00:44:08
Right. And it was because those people were usually like, well, we're totally at the bottom of the barrel.
00:44:14
So we might as well just start robbing banks. Or robbing the robbers, essentially.
00:44:19
Robbing the robbers. Like, I don't know. It's now kind of relatable and in that way where it's like, it's not misguided.
00:44:25
It's actually, they were right to go like the uprising. Right. So of all those people that I just named, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly,
00:44:35
there's also the one and only Ma Barker. Ma is the machine gun toting criminal mastermind who also happens to be an old lady.
00:44:43
She's a paradox. She's unassuming. She's a little old lady, but then she's also very, very, quote unquote,
00:44:48
quote, bad. In an extremely sensationalized 1936 Kansas City Star article, they summarize her
00:44:56
criminal career by saying that she, quote, began her life with a hymn book in her hand,
00:45:00
and she died clutching a machine gun. That imagery came from J. Edgar Hoover himself.
00:45:07
It's factually very dubious. So let's actually get into the facts of Ma Barker's life and her
00:45:13
life story. So she's born in October 1873 to a big Scots-Irish family in the Ozarks,
00:45:19
and they name her Arizona Donnie Clark. Cute. Arizona is her first name. So good. So they call her Aerie for short, and her parents are farmers.
00:45:30
They struggle to make ends meet. Some writers have described her and her family bluntly
00:45:36
as hillbillies, but she is remembered as both a God-fearing religious girl who never misses
00:45:42
as a Sunday sermon and as a rebellious, intense kid who likes to defy her parents' authority.
00:45:48
So in short, Ma Barker, Arizona Donnie Clark, grew up, she was a real spitfire and that's
00:45:54
how people remembered her. And she was also a true crime fan. Oh. She grew up loving the true crime magazines.
00:46:02
Really? That they made back in that day. Wow. Yeah, they all had cover stories of outlaws and bank robbers.
00:46:08
and when Ari's just a kid, Jesse James and his gang passed through her little hometown
00:46:14
during a getaway. Wow. And it was a huge deal for the locals. Of course, there was a huge class divide
00:46:21
in the United States in the late 1800s. There was corruption in local politics, in business and policing
00:46:27
and so to many poor Americans, outlaws like Jesse James are not seen as criminals.
00:46:33
They're considered the people's bandits who shook their fists in the face of corrupt authority
00:46:38
and attacked the symbols of wealth. So kind of a similar thing happening in the 30s
00:46:44
with your public enemies as is happening back then with the Jesse James gang, the Wild West.
00:46:51
So this firsthand experience with the James gang starts a childhood obsession with outlaws
00:46:56
that never goes away for Ari. Her love for Jesse James is real. By September 1892,
00:47:03
she's changed her first name to Kate. She felt like Arizona was a little too, she wanted to be a little more refined, I guess.
00:47:10
And she marries a shy farmhand from Missouri named George Barker. George could not be more of Ari's opposite.
00:47:18
They settle down together. They make a home. In 1894, Kate gives birth to their first child, Herman.
00:47:25
And then two years later, she has another boy named Lloyd. Her third son, Arthur, goes by the name Doc.
00:47:32
And he's born in 1899. And then in 1903, she has her fourth son, Freddie. Wow. Yeah, four boys in a row.
00:47:40
Good night. So Kate Barker loves being a mother. She especially loves telling her boys the action-packed stories
00:47:47
that she read in her true crime magazines about the outlaws and the robberies and sticking it to the man, basically.
00:47:54
They're entertaining, but she also sees herself in them. In the book, Ma Barker,
00:48:00
America's Most Wanted Mother, they say, quote, the James boys were raised like Jesse James' family,
00:48:06
were raised by strong, defiant mothers who made sure that they knew how to use a weapon
00:48:10
and fight for what they wanted. Kate genuinely believes that Jesse James is a good role model for her sons.
00:48:16
There's also, of course, a ton of rumors about Kate's parenting. It seems Kate can't see her children as anything
00:48:24
other than perfect little angels. She has four boys. So that's crazy. She doesn't really discipline them at all.
00:48:32
But to be fair, it's people in retrospect, basically just critiquing her of like,
00:48:37
how did you let these boys get this way? But just because Kate's fascinated with outlaws
00:48:42
doesn't mean she wants to raise criminals herself. She does her best raising four sons
00:48:46
on like a farmer's modest income. Couldn't have been easy. Everyone knows she also tells them Bible stories.
00:48:53
She brings them to church regularly. So it's not like just, you know, she's got some religion in there.
00:48:58
She's got the Holy Spirit in there. What we do know, though, is in the end, every single one of the Barker boys
00:49:04
winds up with a criminal record and it starts pretty early on. So in 1910, when Herman's just a teenager,
00:49:12
he's arrested in Missouri for what they called back then highway robbery. And then he's arrested again in 1915 for the same crime.
00:49:21
Both times, Herman's released indicates custody and she does try to do something to fix it.
00:49:27
she and George moved the family to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a fresh start. So she's like, we're getting these boys out of the Ozarks
00:49:34
and we don't want them getting in trouble. It doesn't work. The boys immediately gravitate toward other kids with delinquency issues.
00:49:41
So that's who they are. You mean the fun ones. Yeah, exactly. Yes, they want to go smoke under a streetlight.
00:49:48
Let them. Of course they do. Before long, a group of 20 or so young men, including the Barkers,
00:49:54
start calling themselves the Central Park Gang. after their local hangout. But it's Central Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
00:50:02
so it's a little smaller than the one in New York City. And the Barker boys' criminal charges begin to stack up.
00:50:08
There's assault with intent to kill, there's theft of a government vehicle, and there's a bunch of burglaries.
00:50:14
In 1918, Doc even puts on his draft card that his occupation is, quote, in prison,
00:50:21
and that his employer is, quote, Tulsa County Jail. But each time one of her kids goes to court,
00:50:27
Kate lobbies relentlessly for their release. And she must have been very persuasive at the time
00:50:32
because all of her boys get off with a slap on the wrist, basically. But then by the early 20s, their crimes are escalating.
00:50:41
In 1921, Doc, who ends up being the most brutal of the Barker boys, kills a security guard and takes part in a robbery
00:50:48
where an Oklahoma police captain winds up dead. And for the first time, there are real consequences.
00:50:55
So Doc gets a life sentence. And that same year, Lloyd is sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his part in the robbery of a mail wagon in Kansas.
00:51:05
Then in 1927, Freddie's arrested for taking part in a bank robbery. So while all that's going on, there's a lot of chaos in the Barker family.
00:51:15
Also, at some point in the late 1920s, Kate separates from her husband, George. It's unclear why, but there are several reasons to imagine or choose from.
00:51:26
For starters, Kate and George are extremely incompatible. They're pretty much opposites.
00:51:31
She's very brash. He is a man of few words. There's also rumors that his alcoholism is putting a big strain on the already stressful marriage.
00:51:39
But the biggest stressor, of course, is probably that their sons are just straight up career criminals.
00:51:45
That's crazy. So then in 1927, 33-year-old Herman shoots a cop who later dies from his injuries.
00:51:52
So Herman goes on the run. But in August of the same year, an officer recognizes Herman's car, tries to pull him over.
00:52:00
And seeing no other way out, Herman takes his own life. Oh my God. So George then makes the long trip from Missouri to bury his son.
00:52:11
He and Kate keep their distance. By now, she is in another common law relationship
00:52:18
with a man named Art Dunlop. Art is described as, quote, an alcoholic billboard painter.
00:52:25
That's a description. That is a really insulting description. How dare you? It's unclear if he and Kate are ever happy together,
00:52:33
but, you know. Yeah. They shacked up. Art can't provide for Kate the way her sons did,
00:52:39
so she lives in poverty for the next several years when she's with Art. But even with her new, I wrote CLBF, common law boyfriend.
00:52:48
Kate still relies on her boys. And Herman's widow, apparently, who Kate refers to as a hussy, only as a hussy, doesn't call her by her actual name, takes care of her mother-in-law.
00:53:01
Wow. When, after she loses her son. So basically goes in and like shows like insane kindness.
00:53:08
Wow. And takes care of her. Then in 1931, Freddie's paroled Kate is ecstatic She immediately welcomes him into her home
00:53:17
That she shares with Art Dunlop The alcoholic billboard sign painter But Freddie doesn't come home alone
00:53:23
While he's in prison, he meets an inmate Named Alvin Old Creepy Karpus Wow, that's a nickname
00:53:29
Right That nickname is because of his dead expressionless eyes Cool Yeah Oh great, come have dinner
00:53:38
Come on home with me So he and Freddie have decided to team up. And before long, they attract nearly 30 other gangsters into what they are now calling the Barker-Karpus gang.
00:53:48
And this includes Freddie brother Doc Barker who was serving a life sentence as you might remember for murder But after 13 years in prison Freddie and Alvin are able to pull strings with corrupt officials and get him out on early release Oh my from a life sentence to 13 years
00:54:05
Yes. Those are some corrupt officials. Here's a little paragraph that Maren wrote in here.
00:54:11
Okay. Maren Muglashen, the great researcher, she wrote, just a quick word on this kind of corruption.
00:54:17
In the early 1930s, it's rampant in the United States. Some cities like St. Paul, Minnesota,
00:54:21
are even considered havens for bank robbers and bootleggers. In places like this, police chiefs and local politicians have been bought off
00:54:29
and gangsters can operate in those city limits without fear of being arrested. What's up, St. Paul?
00:54:35
Yeah, like, they were just completely lawless. If you had the money, you were fine.
00:54:39
And you didn't have to worry about jail. So meanwhile, J. Edgar Hoover, you know, he's the head of the FBI,
00:54:46
which has only at this point existed for 10 years. So it's brand new. It was so new that they just called it back then
00:54:53
the Bureau of Investigation. Before 1935, that was the name of it. So we call it the FBI in this story,
00:54:59
but for the early days, it's the Bureau of Investigation. It was just the B-I at that point.
00:55:05
Yeah, just the B-I, leave the Fs out. So J. Edgar Hoover is looking for any excuse
00:55:11
to expand the Bureau's powers. It isn't what the American public wants, but with corruption being so baked
00:55:16
into government offices and institutions, people naturally just don't like this idea of federal cops.
00:55:23
Like, they just don't trust that it's going to go well. But J. Edgar Hoover is famously, almost disturbingly driven,
00:55:30
and the agency starts a full-on mission to take down the gangsters that they call public enemies.
00:55:35
Hoover figures that this will prove the Bureau's competence and give the feds an opportunity to play the part of the hero.
00:55:42
So the fledgling Barker-Karpus gang flies under the FBI's radar for a long time.
00:55:47
They pull off more than 10 bank robberies and countless car thefts. All these crimes net them millions of dollars.
00:55:54
And on top of being big money makers, the Barker-Karpus gang also gets a reputation for brutality, violence, and murder.
00:56:01
Among their victims is alcoholic billboard sign painter Art Dunlop. No way. Yes, Kate's common law husband.
00:56:09
In 1932, police find him dead in Wisconsin. He's been shot three times at close range.
00:56:15
And it's believed that Alvin and Freddie, who only ever referred to art as, quote,
00:56:20
that old bastard, killed him because of his habit of sharing the gang's secrets while he was drunk.
00:56:26
Oh, dude. He couldn't just be cool. Snitches. Get. Candy. Dot. Go. Kate moves on quickly.
00:56:36
Now she's enjoying the spoils of her son's criminal activity. The Barker boys and Alvin, who is like another son to her,
00:56:43
they hold true those Jesse James morals and treat her like a queen. Kate wears nice clothes.
00:56:49
She has furs. She gets jewels. She wants for nothing. But being the mother of gangsters is tough.
00:56:55
So whenever the men leave for a robbery, Kate demands that they call the second they're safe.
00:57:00
Oh my God. Moms are getting a mom, I guess. They got a mom. No matter what crimes you're pulling off,
00:57:07
she would apparently sit at home and weep, fearful that this would be the job that killed them.
00:57:13
And only stop once she heard their voices. So in 1933, the gang diversifies. This is the year after the Lindbergh baby kidnapping,
00:57:21
which is known as the crime of the century. And the media circus around Lindbergh abduction is intense.
00:57:27
But what stands out to the criminal syndicates is the huge ransom payout that the Lindberghs paid to their son's kidnappers.
00:57:33
And suddenly kidnapping for ransom is all the rage in the American criminal underworld.
00:57:39
No. Uh-huh. So the Barker Carpus gang gets in on that action. They're recruited to help abduct the heir to the Ham's Beer Company.
00:57:49
Oh. William Ham Jr. I assume it's the Ham's Beer Company because his name is William Ham Jr.
00:57:56
It's got to be. Is there two M's at the end of Ham's? Yeah. Then it's got to be Ham's Beer.
00:58:00
And there's a little bear ice skating. I love that Ham's Bear. Oh, it's pretty adorable.
00:58:09
It's really quality 70s marketing where it's just like, beer sounds like beer. And it's good beer too.
00:58:16
And it's just delicious quality beer. What if William Hamm Jr. was the heir to the Budweiser fortune
00:58:22
and I was just fucking this up so badly. Oh, well. Oh, well. So William Hamm Jr. is held in Chicago
00:58:30
until his family pays $100,000 ransom, which is around $2.2 million today. Holy shit.
00:58:38
That's a biggie. so after the Barker Karpis gang gets the money and returns Ham safely
00:58:43
they're pleased to find out that the police and feds have absolutely no idea of their involvement
00:58:48
all right so the gang walks away scot-free okay that could have turned out a lot worse
00:58:53
I thought he was gonna die they were all gonna no and they do have the reputation
00:58:58
of like being mean and cruel and violent so it's kind of nice Bill Ham got to go home
00:59:04
I'm sure it wasn't pleasant I'm sure it was a bad experience and traumatic But he got to go home.
00:59:10
Yeah. I'm not supporting it. I'm just saying. Okay, this is not setting a precedent.
00:59:15
It doesn't go this way for very much longer because J. Edgar Hoover is still determined
00:59:21
to expand the FBI's power. He's still deep in his public enemy phase. And now he's also jealous
00:59:27
because there's a charming media savvy FBI agent named Melvin Purvis who's outshining him.
00:59:35
Purvis is currently tracking down John Dillinger and becoming a household name in the process.
00:59:39
And this makes Hoover long for his own big fish to catch and more importantly, flaunt to the American public.
00:59:45
So when fingerprints left on the hand ransom notes are linked back to Alvin Karpis,
00:59:50
Hoover thinks he's finally found an opportunity to shine. So meanwhile the Barker gang is planning another kidnapping This time their target is a St Paul banker named Edward Bremer So Bremer comes from a filthy rich family
01:00:06
They're extremely politically connected. Edward's father, Adolf, even donated $350,000 to FDR's presidential campaign,
01:00:14
which is over $7.5 million in today's money. So they're rich. So it's a very big deal when on the morning of January 17th, 1934,
01:00:24
Edward Bremer is abducted after dropping his daughter off at school. So it basically goes like this.
01:00:31
Doc and another gang member surprise Edward Bremer while he's in his car. Doc loses control and winds up beating him with such force
01:00:39
that Bremer's car is covered in blood. And to the point where later when the police find the car,
01:00:45
they assume Bremer must be dead. The gang puts blindfold goggles over Bremer's eyes.
01:00:50
They drive him to a remote hideout spot in Illinois. and they demand 200 grand ransom money,
01:00:57
which is over $4 million in today's money. And because of Bremer's high profile and his connection to the literal president,
01:01:04
the FBI is immediately all over this kidnapping. A few weeks later, after the ransom money has been paid
01:01:10
and Bremer has been returned home, agents grill him for any details he might remember about his abductors.
01:01:16
He doesn't know much because he was blindfolded. He was repeatedly beaten. But he says that he could hear dogs barking,
01:01:24
young children playing, and quote, the voice of an older woman praising the criminals holding him hostage.
01:01:30
Oh my God. Meanwhile, Kate and the gang meet up in Chicago. They're splitting the ransom money
01:01:37
and taking all the necessary steps to cover their tracks. So everyone involved switches out their license plate.
01:01:43
They come up with alibis. They take on fake identities. But most importantly, they all keep quiet,
01:01:49
except for one gangster named shotgun George Ziegler. George cannot resist bragging about his part in the kidnapping,
01:01:56
which has become a huge news story. Before long, Ziegler's big mouth does him in,
01:02:02
killed by a shotgun blast. And when his dead body is turned over to police, they find money from the Bremer kidnapping in his possession.
01:02:10
So before long, the Bureau traces Ziegler back to the Barker-Karpus gang, and now Hoover is one step closer to catching his big fish.
01:02:18
So the Barker-Karpus gang soon pieced together that the FBI is on their trail. This inspires Freddie and Alvin to take some extreme precautionary measures to avoid being captured.
01:02:29
And this includes getting botched plastic surgeries from a gang-linked physician named Dr. Joseph Moran.
01:02:37
No. Yes. Like purposely botched? No, I think... Just it got botched. It got botched.
01:02:44
Like he wasn't a world-class plastic surgeon. 1930s plastic surgery cannot be an exact science.
01:02:53
It simply can't. And also, you know, this guy isn't the best in the biz because he's also helping them launder kidnapping money
01:02:59
through his practice. So in the book, Ma Barker, America's Most Wanted Mother, they say that on the night of the operation,
01:03:07
Dr. Moran, who was suffering from alcoholism, was, quote, a physical ruin. His fumbling fingers did little more than butcher the two patients.
01:03:15
So both men leave these surgeries in incredible pain. And just an interesting side note,
01:03:23
Dr. Moran goes missing after reportedly bragging to Freddie and Alvin that he, quote, had you guys in the palm of my hand
01:03:30
because of his insider knowledge on that kidnapping. So he was basically taunting these gang members.
01:03:37
Don't do that. These serious criminals who he also fucked their like nose up. Alvin would later write in his autobiography
01:03:45
that, quote, Doc and I shot the son of a bitch. We dug a hole in Michigan and dropped him in
01:03:50
and covered the hole with lye. Wow. I don't think anybody is going to come across
01:03:54
Dr. Moran again. And in fact, no one has ever found Dr. Moran's body. Alvin Karpus keeping it creepy.
01:04:01
Oh my God. In February of 1934, Hoover and his investigators get a solid lead. In Illinois,
01:04:08
they find four flashlights that were used in the Bremer kidnapping and they trace them back
01:04:12
to a specific store. and luckily for them, an employee identifies Alvin Karpis as the man who bought them.
01:04:19
And then two days later, investigators find gas cans used during the kidnapping and trace fingerprints on those to Doc Barker.
01:04:27
And now Hoover knows with certainty he's dealing with the Barker-Karpis gang. So meanwhile,
01:04:32
they've all gone in different directions. Everybody's just run basically. So Freddie and Kate,
01:04:38
they go south to Florida. They move into a house on Lake Weir. they introduce themselves to neighbors as the Blackburns
01:04:45
and they don't really raise any suspicion. So the neighbors all think of Kate as a sweet little old lady
01:04:50
and they think Freddie's just a charming doting son. Meanwhile, inside their house,
01:04:57
they're sitting on a heavy arsenal of pistols, rifles, machine guns, and ammunition.
01:05:03
The Kansas City Star adds a bit of factually questionable flair to this saying that Kate would, quote,
01:05:09
sit by a window, flowers on a nearby table, knitting in her lap. But at her feet always was a machine gun ready for action.
01:05:19
So Freddie and Kate live a peaceful, quiet life in Florida for about a month. But then back in Chicago, the FBI tracks down Doc and arrests him.
01:05:29
And when they search his hideout, they find letters that Kate sent that basically directly point to Lake Weir.
01:05:35
Like they can figure out where they are based on her communications. and Hoover decides to keep Doc's arrest under wraps
01:05:42
and quietly sends agents down to Florida. So days later, on January 16th, 1935, there's a knock at the door of the Barker's Lake Weir home.
01:05:52
And according to legend, Kate opens the door and asks who there And the men reply that they federal agents And they say quote if you come out one by one there be no trouble And then Kate says quote
01:06:05
to hell with you. Let the feds have it. And then the shooting begins. This exchange between Kate
01:06:12
Barker and the feds almost certainly did not happen. But we do know that the FBI fires over
01:06:17
2,000 bullets into Barker's hideout over the next four hours. Holy shit. They just are shooting up the place.
01:06:26
Just a shootout. At the end of the siege, Freddie, age 33, and Arizona Kate Barker, age 61, are both dead.
01:06:34
It's reported that Kate dies from a single gunshot through her heart. So in no time at all, J. Edgar Hoover takes the victory lap he so desperately wanted.
01:06:44
He speaks to the press and the American public, making sure to emphasize just how evil the Barker-Karpus gang is
01:06:51
and how commendable the FBI is for dismantling their group. But instead of focusing on Freddie and Alvin Karpis,
01:06:58
the leaders of the gang, he goes all in on Kate. J. Edgar Hoover is the one that started calling her Ma Barker, not Kate.
01:07:06
And he actually said, quote, the real public enemy number one is the mother. Wow.
01:07:13
And he doesn't stop there. He goes on to release a detailed damning backstory about how Ma Barker dominated her husband,
01:07:20
never disciplined her children, was obsessed with criminals, and bribed local officials all before her boys went on to become felons.
01:07:29
He has to justify killing a 60-something-year-old woman. Exactly right. Ding, ding, ding, you got it.
01:07:36
I'm about to take four paragraphs to say exactly that same thing. But essentially, there's some truth to the claims.
01:07:43
He's basing this on slight reality. But then he goes into the realm of pure fiction,
01:07:48
claiming that Ma Barker, not Freddie or Alvin, but Ma Barker was the real leader of the Barker-Karpus gang.
01:07:55
She put all the strings, she arranged the robberies, she approved the hits, and naturally was firing a machine gun
01:08:02
at the federal agents alongside Freddie during the Lake Weir shootout. And of course the country eats this story up,
01:08:09
but maybe not in the way that Hoover intended. The story hits a sweet spot between being extremely bizarre
01:08:15
and somewhat sympathetic. They talk about it in the book, Public Enemies, America's Criminal Past,
01:08:21
saying, quote, if Americans found something almost romantic in Bonnie and Clyde,
01:08:26
a boy and girl bandit team, despite their murderous ways, the notion of a mother and son bandit team
01:08:31
also appealed to the country's streak of rebellion against authority, especially when most police of the day
01:08:37
were regarded as only a cut above the crooks they were supposed to catch. Suspiciously, nothing on Kate Barker
01:08:44
exists in the FBI's record before her death. She wasn't even called Ma by her sons.
01:08:51
She was simply referred to as mother. Many people think J. Edgar Hoover created the myth of Ma Barker
01:08:57
to protect the young FBI from the PR crisis of killing an innocent bystander. Right.
01:09:04
So if Kate really was just an innocent bystander who never participated in the Barker-Karpus game crimes directly,
01:09:11
then this action, of course, would be totally unprecedented. It would be absolutely horrifying.
01:09:16
and it would be a complete, it would besmirch the name of the brand new FBI. Other famous criminals' parents,
01:09:24
including Bonnie and Clyde's moms, were charged with harboring fugitives. They weren't murdered by government agents.
01:09:30
Yeah. So Alvin Karpis himself calls bullshit on J. Edgar Hoover's claims about Kate.
01:09:36
In his biography, he writes that Kate was, quote, just an old-fashioned homebody from the Ozarks,
01:09:41
a simple woman. Ma was superstitious, gullible, simple, cantankerous, and, well, generally law-abiding.
01:09:48
The most ridiculous story in the annals of crime is that Ma Barker was the mastermind
01:09:53
behind the Carpus Barker gang, end quote. Wow, so it's all a myth. Yeah, and it's the FBI's myth
01:09:59
to basically cover up, like, a citizen murder. Yeah. This is backed up by another member of the gang
01:10:06
named Harvey Bailey, who once said that, quote, the old woman couldn't plan breakfast.
01:10:11
We, the indignities. She raised four children. Truly. Leave her alone. We'd sit down to plan a bank job
01:10:22
and she'd go in the other room and listen to hillbilly music on the radio. So to this day, historians have mixed feelings
01:10:29
about Kate's role in the Barker-Karpus gang. And really, J. Edgar Hoover and Alvin Karpus
01:10:34
both have incentive to lie. Hoover, of course, wants the FBI's reputation to stay pristine.
01:10:42
Karpus, on the other hand, probably doesn't want the world thinking that he worked at the direction of a little woman named Ma.
01:10:49
But even if Kate wasn't the mastermind behind all these crimes, and she most certainly wasn't,
01:10:55
she was at the very least complicit. She benefited off the gang's burglary. She wore those furs and jewels.
01:11:00
She spent their stolen money and she cooked meals for wanted murderers and thieves.
01:11:05
As the authors of Ma Barker, America's Most Wanted Mother, points out, quote, she let her sons get away with murder.
01:11:12
In fact, her boys counted on her to see them through whatever ruthless act they executed,
01:11:19
proving that even murderous gangsters need their mother. End quote. Here's the thing.
01:11:24
In a time like that in America, when everything was so difficult and awful, to me, this is just what people do in desperate times.
01:11:34
She has to be all in. What's she going to do? Kick them all out or be like... Rat them out?
01:11:39
She needs them. Yeah. Yeah, she needs them. She loves them. And what can she do?
01:11:43
It's like, I mean, yes, they're murderers and they're criminals. She's going to kind of be like, do you need breakfast?
01:11:49
Okay, well, I can't make it. Right. I can't wrinkle that. Okay, well, that's not me, but you should make some scrambled eggs.
01:11:55
Yeah. So before long, the Barker-Karpus gang is dismantled by the FBI in 1936. 36, less than a year after Freddie and Kate's deaths,
01:12:03
Alvin Karpis is tracked down in New Orleans. It's said that J. Edgar Hoover flies to Louisiana
01:12:08
to arrest Alvin personally, and of course, get photographed doing so. Alvin is sent to Alcatraz.
01:12:15
He's there for 25 years before being paroled, after which he writes an autobiography,
01:12:20
and then he moves to Spain. The same can't be said for Alvin's fellow inmate at Alcatraz, Doc Barker.
01:12:27
On January 13th, 1939, just a few years into his sentence, he is shot to death by prison guards.
01:12:33
And it's unclear why, because some reports say that Doc was trying to make a break for it
01:12:38
and swim off the island across the bay. But others say he was just trying to get a ball
01:12:43
that had been kicked toward the shoreline during a game. Oh, no. And his last words were reportedly,
01:12:50
I'm all shot to hell. Oof. So in 1938, Lloyd Barker, who's now 42 years old, is finally released from prison.
01:12:58
He had such a long sentence for robbing a mail wagon that he has missed the entire Barker-Carpus gang era.
01:13:06
And basically he's lost most of his immediate family. But Lloyd really tries to turn his life around.
01:13:13
It's said that if any Barker boy was truly capable of redemption, it'd be Lloyd.
01:13:17
When he's released from prison, he moves to Denver, he gets married, he has some kids, he opens a diner.
01:13:23
But in 1949, when he's 53 years old, he is shot and killed by his wife who suffers from paranoid delusions.
01:13:32
Yeah. Lloyd's headstone reads, quote, went straight, but two was killed by a gun.
01:13:38
He will have judgment. He paid the price. Wow. And that's the story of the legendary Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpus gang.
01:13:46
Holy shit. I had no clue. Woo! Woo! Good job. I wish we could hear or read your Alcatraz live story,
01:13:57
the member from Davies Hall. Yeah. Because I think you've talked about Alvin Creepy Karpis.
01:14:02
I've heard the name. Probably. For sure. Who knows? I think he's kind of a famous Alcatraz inmate.
01:14:08
Okay. That's fucked up. I don't know. I didn't know any of that stuff. No. I mean, I would have just, yeah.
01:14:16
I didn't even know she was killed. Yeah. That so fucked up It really is Well good job You did it We really did We did it Okay so we just wanted to you guys may have seen this on social media
01:14:30
Erin Brown, who runs our social media, and our producer, Alejandra Keck, had this idea when it was our seventh anniversary
01:14:36
that they would post the first minute of the first episode and then ask you guys,
01:14:42
when did you start listening? And we were so touched by these answers that we got back.
01:14:46
I mean, there's a real variety, but there were some really lovely ones. So we just wanted to read them to you because we really love the fact that
01:14:54
you guys wrote in and you kind of told us about how your journey on My Favorite Murder began.
01:14:59
So we thought you'd like to hear them too because they're pretty good ones. Okay, here's one from Facebook from Jennifer Pruchels.
01:15:08
It says, 2018, when I started a new job in child welfare, my coworker asked me if I ever heard of it.
01:15:14
She had a hunch I'd love it. She had to show me the podcast app on my phone first.
01:15:20
First and favorite podcast. And now she's my work bestie. And we work less than a mile from the location of a murder that you've covered.
01:15:28
But she doesn't say which one. Could be so many. Okay, this one is from at Bell D. Collin.
01:15:37
And it says, 2018, I think. So it's like, when did you start listening? 2018, I think.
01:15:41
Then went back to the start to catch up. Probably not many middle-aged men in England listening,
01:15:46
but it's been a pleasure to listen along with you all. I think I've learned as much about the reality of being a woman
01:15:52
as I have about murder. Probably a good thing. Yeah, I love it. Isn't that the best?
01:16:00
That's the best. Okay, here's one from Amanda Heiter. It says, started listening about a year in,
01:16:05
I was listening to another podcast and comedian Bert Kreischer started talking about the show and left Georgia a drunk voicemail.
01:16:12
I was laughing so hard I had to check out MFM. I forgot about that. You got the machine on your side.
01:16:22
That's right. The machine's your fan. Yada, Y-A-Y-D-U-H, they say, when did you start listening?
01:16:32
And they answer, back at the beginning, baby, when episodes were still numbered with a pun.
01:16:37
Early days, remember? That's right. I was like up until episode 18 or 20 right We were bending over backwards My friend Owen Ellickson actually wrote one for us He was like why don you do this And I was like thank God Like we painted ourselves into a corner
01:16:52
It wasn't sustainable. No, that was rough. Here's one from our Instagram. It's Girtana.
01:17:01
It says, 2018, going through infertility and later IVF. And I couldn't bear listening to or reading happy stories.
01:17:08
Fell into MFM and you in the back episodes were there for me. By the time I caught up, I had a daughter and now I have two.
01:17:16
And so still haven't moved back to happy stories. Happy anniversary. I love this one.
01:17:23
This is from, it's a Facebook post from Mary Schroyer Rudnicki. And she says, she started listening in September, 2020.
01:17:30
My daughter introduced me to podcasts and yours was the first one I listened to.
01:17:34
I started at the beginning of your series and remember telling my daughter that I really liked it, but do you have to say fuck so much?
01:17:41
She just laughed. I don't even notice it now. Thanks for all you do. Love the podcast.
01:17:47
Thank you, Mary, for sticking through what can be a real barrier. Yeah, a real fuckfest for sure.
01:17:56
Thank you guys so much for listening, for sticking around or just showing up for the first time today,
01:18:02
whatever it may be. We appreciate you guys so freaking much. Yes. It's just so surreal.
01:18:08
I mean, George and I talked about this, but how it's been so long. It's been seven years, so much change and so much like growth.
01:18:16
And it was just very touching to read those replies and be like, oh yeah, there are people who actually have like a story or a background or something to tell us about.
01:18:25
And it's really, it means a lot to us that you would even remember or you would know the background or whatever.
01:18:31
Yeah, totally. So we love it. Thank you kindly. And thanks to everybody who helps us make this podcast.
01:18:37
Stephen Ray Morris been hanging in, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his notebook
01:18:41
for seven years. Can you imagine what his lumbar area feels like? Stephen, how are you doing?
01:18:47
I'm doing great. I'm doing yoga. I'm stretching, making sure all the good stuff.
01:18:54
Good. Taking glucosamine pills. We got another seven years to get through, so take care of that. It's
01:18:59
fine. Yes. Yeah, really please stretch because when we do our 25th golden anniversary...
01:19:05
Oh my God can you imagine From the nursing home like we little old ladies We just driven every person absolutely insane Yes yes
01:19:16
It's all about longevity. That's right. All right, thanks, everybody. Stay sexy.
01:19:20
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:19:33
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:19:41
Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
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