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00:02:22
Hello. And welcome. To my favorite writer. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgarith.
00:02:41
What? What? Karen Kilgarith. Who? Thinking about what to say. How are we getting worse?
00:02:47
Truly. Are we on year seven? This is officially. Today. Today. Lucky Friday the 13th.
00:02:57
We're recording this early because of Martin Luther King Day. That's right. And this today is our seven year anniversary.
00:03:04
Happy anniversary. Thank you. You too. Thanks for thinking of this idea. Thanks for going along with it.
00:03:10
I really appreciate it. And all the things it's brought to us. Oh, let's count the ways.
00:03:17
Oh, well. What a seven years it's been. Yeah. Looking back, there's a thing my therapist always says where she's like, it takes the body a long time to realize it's safe.
00:03:28
And I'm always like, the absolute, like, it was almost like that you and I just grabbed hands and jumped off a cliff, but we went up instead of down.
00:03:40
Or we landed in marshmallows instead of on rocks. Yes, it was kind of like a casual cliff jump that then was like, oh my God, now we're in heaven.
00:03:50
Yeah. So crazy. That is so true. I love that saying. It is like, I mean, that's kind of all my work is like in therapy is like figuring out that I'm safe.
00:04:01
I know. It's really hard. It's hard, especially when it wasn't really for a while.
00:04:06
For so fucking long. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like you're making things up. No. It's like it was unsafe and now it's safe.
00:04:14
You're interpreting the real world around you. Yeah. And you're right to get ready to have things be more unsafe.
00:04:21
That's all of this is good brain work in terms of overall survival. Sure. So yeah, every once in a while I have to,
00:04:30
she literally makes me put my hand on my chest and say it. Oh. It's just like, okay, okay.
00:04:37
It's like a beautiful, sensitive move. It is. That would bother me, that I would feel corny doing.
00:04:44
Right. Because that's how I am. because we're always on camera. It's like everyone in junior high is still staring at us.
00:04:51
Judging you. They think you're, yeah, they're judging you. Yeah. What's going on?
00:04:55
What do you got? Not much. It stopped raining up here for five seconds, which is kind of exciting.
00:05:00
So I don't know. I feel like January, 2023, kicking off with endless torrential rain
00:05:08
all up and down California, where the story just was, it's drought forever and we're about to turn into the Sahara.
00:05:16
is such a great palate cleanser of a change. Yeah. In what way? What do you mean?
00:05:23
I'm like, definitely. What? Well, I guess this is what I'm saying. If you watch the news,
00:05:28
which I'm forced to now watch multiple times a day with my dad, because that's what old people like to do.
00:05:34
Yeah. You know, just getting in touch. And also, especially weather reports. Oh, okay.
00:05:40
And the flip from like, you know, Lake Mead, they're finding old, mafia bodies and lake means once a week.
00:05:48
All the different stories of like, this lake's empty. And it's scary and it's, you know, needs to be reported.
00:05:55
Yeah But then the rain does come And then it like and now it here And now we dealing with the inverse equal opposite problem which is how scary flooding is and how dangerous
00:06:07
and the horrible accidents that can happen or whatever. But it's like, but it is actually
00:06:11
a good thing. And it is like, nothing is forever kind of. Right. Totally. And I love a good rainy day. I just love, I don't want it to be destructive.
00:06:20
when it crosses over into destructive. I'm not enjoying it as much, but like just laying on the couch
00:06:26
and looking out the window and it's like raining is like one of my favorite feelings.
00:06:30
It's so nice. Also, when it stopped raining here, the window I look out of, there's a bunch of trees in my dad's driveway
00:06:36
and it's just birds flying back and forth. Like they have to remake their nests really fast.
00:06:41
So there's a lot of bird action, which I also really appreciate. And then just everything is,
00:06:46
especially in LA, when it's a nice like power wash on the city. That's the greatest.
00:06:52
Oh yeah, we need it. It stinks here. Yeah. You said you had a corrections corner?
00:06:57
Oh, I do. This is important. And this is one that our researcher, Maren McGlashan,
00:07:02
she caught this one herself. And she does such great research and such great work.
00:07:07
And she literally, when I did the story of Felix Carvajal, who was, I kept saying,
00:07:12
a Cuba's first Olympic athlete. She actually had to read like articles and Spanish and stuff to get that story and get all the facts.
00:07:21
She's really good at it. But then she looped back and was like, I just read something and technically that actually isn't right.
00:07:28
Because in 1900, Cuba had a fencer named Ramon Fonst and he was Cuba's first Olympic athlete.
00:07:39
But I think Felix Carvajal, he was the one that became kind of like world famous.
00:07:43
Right. The way he got there and the crazy story that I told. So it was almost like somebody actually went, but he didn't get lost on the way.
00:07:52
He didn't lose all his money. He didn't have an epic journey. Yes. I just thought to myself, should I take up the fencing?
00:08:01
That'd be kind of interesting. Right? Nobody does that. You know who does it? Theater students.
00:08:07
Theater students. You should go back to the theater. I should go to the theater.
00:08:12
Back to my roots. Back to your roots, what you really love, which is Shakespeare.
00:08:16
plays, fencing. That would be kind of interesting. It's just kind of sliding back and forth with one
00:08:24
hand up behind you, right? Yeah. Really like elegantly. Do we have any, are there any murdering
00:08:29
offensers? Please let us know. Here come the tweets saying, how dare you say all fencing is,
00:08:34
is sliding back and forth. I think it is actually very difficult. Oh, for sure. I'm sure it is.
00:08:40
Yeah, what, anything up with you? No, not really Just fucking trying my best Good
00:08:48
You know We were talking on Do You Need a Ride? Erin Foley was the guest And we were talking about New Year's resolutions
00:08:56
And she said she heard somebody say this And she likes it better What are you leaving behind in 2022?
00:09:01
Love that Right? As a reframe? Yeah, you know what? Well, I'm reading a book called How to Do Nothing
00:09:08
It's like a self-help book So I think mine is the judgment when I'm not doing anything that I'm not, that I'm lazy.
00:09:15
I'm going to get out, leave behind me thinking I'm lazy. Yeah. You should look at all the shit we've been doing for the past seven years.
00:09:24
You should maybe have a scrapbook or something. No, I still think that I am, that it's chaos, but it's not.
00:09:31
And I need to accept that and be like, it's okay if you want to just sit on the couch
00:09:35
and read a book on a Wednesday afternoon. You're not a lazy person. That's right.
00:09:39
Not only are you not a lazy person, but I've seen you, I've watched you and I've been there
00:09:45
while you've worked your ass off for seven years. Thank you. Do a bunch of things that you either haven't done before or haven't done that much and
00:09:53
did it anyway, even though you were nervous or maybe were like, I'm not a hundred percent
00:09:58
and you did it anyway. You jumped in with both feet. It's been seven straight years of that.
00:10:03
So lazy isn't. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. That's old tapes playing.
00:10:09
Yeah. Yeah, totally. I get it though. Thank you. What are you going to leave behind?
00:10:15
I'm going to leave behind isolating. Oh, gosh. Yeah, you could do that. I really love it.
00:10:22
I mean, it's just so much easier. It is. It's the easiest. But it doesn't bring you the joy anymore.
00:10:29
There's a time for it in the season of your life. Yeah. What it does is it leaves you alone with the tapes.
00:10:36
Yeah. That's so smart. Which is no good. And you know what? I wouldn't have had any of those kind of realizations.
00:10:44
But being here with my dad, because I was going to come up here, stay with my dad,
00:10:48
and then go to the beach and basically like not be in his business for what's now turned out to be 13 days.
00:10:57
Or more actually. No, more than that. Yeah. Two weeks. And basically having my dad as a roommate
00:11:04
and my sister and, you know, Nora and Adrian and all the people that I see all the time up here,
00:11:08
I'm like, oh, I'm always alone. Like it's not even a little bit. It's like, oh, this is what I'm used to.
00:11:15
This is my normal set point of what it's like up here. And down there, it's just kind of not like that.
00:11:21
And so, yeah, admitting I need it is an important thing to do. We need connections and we need it regularly.
00:11:28
It's like one of the key factors of not being depressed is connection. And socializing.
00:11:34
Socializing, yeah. We were talking about that. And then Erin's like, well, then it's,
00:11:37
I'm glad you're having a party. I'll be there. And I was like, okay, okay, yeah, got it, yes.
00:11:42
Love it. Yeah. Should we do some exactly right highlights? There's so much going on on the network, everybody.
00:11:49
We need to tell you. Let us. Like for example Kate Winkler and Paul Holes If you haven listened to Buried Bones do yourself a favor Ugh It such a good show It is They are so talented I can say that because it has nothing to do with us except for it on our network
00:12:07
Yeah. It's so great. And I've had so many people that I know just socially tell me that,
00:12:13
that they love it and they love listening to it. How could it not be great, you know, with the two of them?
00:12:18
They're just such true experts. And then, you know, they love each other. So this week they discuss a triple homicide that happened at a small roadside diner in 1963 in Idaho.
00:12:31
Check that out. That sounds fascinating. Yeah. On I Saw What You Did, Millie and Danielle have curated a double feature of the movie Sneakers from 1992 and the movie Hackers from 1995.
00:12:44
So they're going full 90s on I Saw What You Did this week. So check that out. What else could they do?
00:12:51
Slackers. but slacker was singular, not plural. And then over on Lady to Lady, writer Maddie Connors is going to join Tess, Babs, and Brandy
00:13:00
to chat it up, to chop it up on that podcast. And then in the merch store, guys,
00:13:06
we have new This Is Terrible Keep Going journals. So check that out on myfavoritemurder.com in the store.
00:13:13
Get yourself a journal and journal this season of your life. Every prompt is This Is Terrible Keep Going.
00:13:20
What does that make you think of? Yeah. Get into it. Cool. All right. You're first, right?
00:13:25
I believe I am. 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
00:13:42
audiobook project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science.
00:13:49
and what happens when you wake up alone very far from earth. I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat
00:13:57
and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent?
00:14:03
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
00:14:10
in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me,
00:14:17
and I left it on the mic. That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like,
00:14:23
oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club
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Data accurate as of 220-26. I'm blending back into telling these stories. I just was very excited to be able to talk about this today.
00:16:43
We're going to talk about the life and slightly mysterious death of Harry Houdini.
00:16:48
Ooh, good one. Right? Yeah. I know, I'm excited. Okay, so the main sources for today's story are a 2021 Smithsonian Magazine article by
00:16:59
Brian Green, Brian Green with an E, but not Brian Austin Green. Episodes from the podcasts,
00:17:06
Stuff You Missed in History Class, and Rituals, and also multiple articles from the website
00:17:12
Wild About Houdini. Right? There's so many people that are so into him and his history. It's, I mean,
00:17:20
really is the coolest. Also, there's an episode of the Timeline World History Series called
00:17:26
The Life and Magic of the Real Harry Houdini. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes for today
00:17:32
if you want to go look at those. Okay. It's escape artist, magician, and stuntman Harry Houdini,
00:17:38
who's also one of the most diehard skeptics of his era. It's said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
00:17:45
who the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, he was friends with Houdini, and he genuinely believed that Houdini had magical powers.
00:17:53
But Houdini was having none of that and he wouldn hesitate to remind Doyle or anyone else who made a suggestion like that that his act was one of skill wit and athleticism
00:18:05
No magic involved, except the magic of human talent. Oh. I put that one on there.
00:18:11
Houdini never said that. He didn't say that. No, that wasn't his thing. So there was a contemporary of Houdini's
00:18:16
named Mina Crandon, who her stage name was Marjorie. And she did claim to have special powers.
00:18:23
She was a medium based in Boston, and she claimed she could communicate with the dead.
00:18:28
She's making all kinds of money as a medium. Her seances are packed with dramatic flourishes that shock and stun her clients.
00:18:35
There's levitating tables. There's fingerprints that materialize out of nowhere.
00:18:39
There are spirits that mess with the clocks in her house. There's even ectoplasm.
00:18:45
I don't know if you've ever saw that. Wow, gross. Did you ever see that, like a haunting in Massachusetts or something?
00:18:51
and it's like the people like barf up ectoplasm during seances. It's pretty amazing.
00:18:58
It's a gooey substance that literally oozes out of Marjorie's body during her readings.
00:19:03
Yuck. Yeah. The idea that that's proof that you're communicating with the other side is pretty random.
00:19:09
Yeah. One step a little too far, I think. Maybe, but back then they didn't have TV.
00:19:14
So second best thing is ectoplasm. So Marjorie's a talented showman. people cannot get enough of her act and she skyrockets to fame. And this is also because
00:19:26
back then, this was like in the turn of the century into the 20s, there was a huge resurgence
00:19:32
in spiritualism, which is often called the pseudo religious movement, the core belief of which is
00:19:39
that the living can communicate with the dead through mediums. And it got very popular at that
00:19:45
time because so many people were reeling from the mass death of World War I. Oh, yeah.
00:19:52
I always think that's really interesting. And historians and researchers know that's kind of like the hook into everything.
00:19:58
It's like there's a reason for these trends. It's mourning. It's like group mourning.
00:20:03
If you live in a town, a little town in Iowa, and all of the boys 18 to 25 get shipped out
00:20:12
and never come back. Yeah. That's going to have an effect on everyone's day-to-day life, on everyone's kind of like mental and emotional state.
00:20:22
And so the idea that you could contact your dead loved ones provides real emotional comfort for the people dealing with that much loss in their own families, you know, in their towns, everywhere.
00:20:35
Yeah. So mediums like Marjorie become much more than entertainers. They're almost like grief counselors in a way.
00:20:42
And in this era, around 8 million people are followers of spiritualism in the United States.
00:20:48
So it was, yeah, it was pretty huge. But Harry Houdini detests mediums. He sees them as con artists who are capitalizing on people's trauma.
00:20:57
And his hatred for Marjorie is next level. At the height of his fame, he devotes his free time to exposing her as a fraud.
00:21:05
But in the end, Marjorie arguably has the last laugh because in 1926, She claims that during a seance, she's learned some terrible news that Harry Houdini will be, quote, gone by November, end quote.
00:21:21
Wow. And whether you believe in mediums or not, the fact is that on October 31st, 1926, Harry Houdini, at the very peak of his career, dies under strange circumstances.
00:21:34
Wow. So let's go back to the beginning. The man we all know as Harry Houdini was actually born, Eric Weiss.
00:21:43
Weiss. Weiss. It's so German. Weiss. He's born in Budapest, Hungary, in April of 1874.
00:21:51
But when he's four years old, he emigrates to the United States with his mother, Cecilia,
00:21:55
his father, Herman, and his six siblings. The Weisses settle in Appleton, Wisconsin, which is the home of my friends, Danny and
00:22:03
Sarah Ceballos. Sarah's a teacher at the college there. Wow. Yeah, that's so funny.
00:22:11
One of my oldest friends, Danny. Wow. So, but they live there too, the vices. And Eric's father serves as a rabbi for the local Jewish congregation.
00:22:21
Oh, yay, they're Jewish. Yes. It's a pretty small Jewish congregation in Appleton.
00:22:26
Even as a child, there are already glimpses of Eric's future greatness. According to a 1926 New York Times article,
00:22:33
he's naturally skilled in contortion and acrobatics, And he is very interested in picking locks.
00:22:39
Right? That's very kid-like. Legend has it that he picks his very first lock, trying to get a piece of pie out of the family's kitchen cupboard.
00:22:48
Shit. Because when you have six kids, you got to lock that cupboard up. That's fucking right.
00:22:54
Right? So Eric has a particularly close relationship with his mother, Cecilia, and he promises his father that he will always take care of her.
00:23:03
When he's around eight years old, his father abruptly loses his job and Eric immediately goes to work
00:23:08
selling newspapers and shining shoes. Then when he's nine years old, he discovers the circus
00:23:14
and basically he's sold. He wants to be in the circus and he just immediately starts performing
00:23:22
contortion and trapeze acts and getting paid for it and touring the Midwest as the prince of the air.
00:23:28
At nine years old? Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. But even with this work, his family is barely scraping by.
00:23:36
In 1887, when Eric is 13, the family relocates to New York City and Eric works long hours doing odd jobs
00:23:44
while still dreaming about the circus. He takes trips out to Coney Island and watches the performers out there
00:23:51
pull off all their shocking stunts. He sees nail walkers, fire breathers, sword swallowers,
00:23:57
and he begins to devote himself learning the tricks of the trade. He buys an autobiography of a famous French magician named Robert Houdin.
00:24:07
And by the time he's 17, he teams up with a few friends and he creates the act, The Brothers Houdini,
00:24:15
which is Houdin's name with an I at the end. Ah, got it. Yeah. So their act is described in a PBS article as, quote,
00:24:23
an unremarkable collection of card and other magic tricks. Ouch. You try so hard.
00:24:32
You give it your all. And here comes PBS. PBS just shitting all over. The nicest news people in the world.
00:24:38
That's what you want to think. Yeah. You think that Big Bird is behind it, but no.
00:24:43
The harshest critic. Still, they book shows at Coney Island and they tour upstate New York and throughout the Midwest.
00:24:50
They just don't make any money. The next year, Eric's father dies. He's devastated.
00:24:55
And now he has to make good on his promise to take care of his mom. So he chooses the perfect safety net.
00:25:01
He puts everything into becoming a magician. You know. The plot of Arrested Development.
00:25:10
So he practices new tricks. He takes feedback. He studies other performers. He fine-tunes his crowd work,
00:25:17
but he's still not turning a profit. And then in 1893, he has some good fortune when he meets a performer named Wilhelmina Rahner,
00:25:26
who's known professionally as Bess Raymond. She's an 18-year-old singer and dancer who is a staple in these Coney Island shows that he loves so much.
00:25:34
The two of them meet. They immediately fall in love and they get married three weeks later.
00:25:41
Oh my God. Yeah, big time. That's wild, yeah. Big love. So Eric then quits the Brothers Act and he starts working with Bess on stage.
00:25:52
She knows the biz. he actually wants to rebrand the act as the Houdini's, but Bess knows enough,
00:25:59
she's been around long enough to know that a masculine name is what's going to sell tickets.
00:26:04
And this is how Eric Weiss becomes Harry Houdini. Wow. I know. And she's his assistant.
00:26:12
She is like the perfect assistant for his act. She's very petite. She just knows the business.
00:26:17
She's really pretty. And like that he wanted to name it the Houdini's because he wanted to give her credit too
00:26:23
for what she was bringing to the act. And she was the one that was like, no, no, we have to do this
00:26:28
so that we get butts in seats, basically. Sure. So Houdini and Bess are very in love.
00:26:36
He later describes her as, quote, the one shackle I don't want to escape from. Oh.
00:26:42
Are you kidding me? But they're also incredibly broke. Of course, no one's coming to their shows.
00:26:48
They don't have any money. At one point, they even decide because spiritualism is so popular at this time,
00:26:54
they test run having a medium as part of their act because basically doing seances is just a cash grab
00:27:01
and everyone knows it. But Houdini cannot get on board. He quote, found it too distasteful.
00:27:07
So as the weeks go on, the Houdinis actually start to go hungry. Not being able to provide for his family
00:27:13
eats away at Harry. And in 1898, when he's just 24 years old, he's ready to give up show business.
00:27:21
He and Bess moved back to New York to stay with his mother Cecilia on a long break from being on the road.
00:27:27
But then in spring of 1899, they decide they're going to give it one more shot and they go back out.
00:27:34
And this time their luck changes. There's a vaudeville mogul named Martin Beck who's drinking at a restaurant
00:27:40
where Bess and Houdini are performing. He ignores their show. Nothing. He doesn't think it's that great
00:27:46
until one part of the act catches his attention. He watches Harry Houdini wiggle out of a pair of handcuffs
00:27:53
right in front of the audience. He's blown away. So after the show, Beck approaches the Houdinis
00:27:59
and challenges Harry to do the same thing tomorrow, but with a pair of handcuffs that he brings himself.
00:28:06
And Houdini accepts immediately. The next day, Beck places the handcuffs on Houdini's wrists
00:28:12
and Houdini escapes the cuffs with ease. Beck is stunned. He tells them that handcuff escapes
00:28:19
should be his bread and butter. And he hires the Houdinis to perform on the Chicago vaudeville circuit.
00:28:25
Days later, Houdini's performing alongside Bess as the King of Handcuffs. One of the great, most creative names
00:28:34
anyone could ever think of. You'll work at something your whole life just to be named the King of Handcuffs.
00:28:40
The King of Handcuffs. But the show is an instant hit. People love it. By the turn of the century, Harry Houdini is a star in the United States.
00:28:49
Finally, he and Bess can do fewer shows for higher pay. They're touring in some of the most beautiful theaters in the country.
00:28:57
And then in 1900, Houdini travels to London. Of course, no one's heard of him over there.
00:29:03
So in one of the great marketing stunts of all time, he marches down to Scotland Yard.
00:29:09
He asks detectives to lock him up. And then he seamlessly escapes from a jail cell.
00:29:15
And by the end of that day, Houdini's gone from total obscurity to being one of the most talked about men in England.
00:29:21
Wow. So over the next few years, Houdini makes a name for himself across Europe,
00:29:26
escaping dozens of jails and prisons in front of thousands of amazed spectators.
00:29:31
And he keeps it going when he returns to America. Most famously, he escapes the death row cell
00:29:37
where President James Garfield's assassin was incarcerated. I'd never heard of that.
00:29:43
Yeah. Or knew about that. But basically it's like, yeah, you can hold that guy. And not me.
00:29:49
So now Houdini's rich, famous, and finally able to support his family. He moves his mom Cecilia into a new Manhattan brownstone that he shares with Bess So you know he made it He made it there He made it everywhere Success story
00:30:06
So then in 1913, while Houdini's on tour in Europe, he gets the terrible news that his beloved mother, Cecilia, suddenly died.
00:30:14
So at the time, he's in Copenhagen preparing for a show. And when the news is broken to him, he actually faints.
00:30:21
is friends and family say that this loss changes him forever. And some people theorize that losing his mother
00:30:28
is what leads to Houdini's act going from regular show business dangerous to actually life-threatening.
00:30:35
Wow. He starts doing some of the stunts that are the most famous and the most dangerous from this era.
00:30:42
So one of the things he does, he jumps off of bridges into rivers while handcuffed
00:30:47
and sometimes shackled at the ankles. Jesus. Which would be amazing to see. So we all just go down by the river and watch you basically risk your own life.
00:31:00
I mean, that's worth the price of admission. Sure. He also, at this time, perfects the milk can trick.
00:31:07
That's the one where he contorts his body to fit into an oversized metal jug filled with water while handcuffed.
00:31:14
Yeah, this one's amazing. And then he escapes, pushing himself. he basically gets out of the handcuffs inside the jug and pushes himself back out.
00:31:23
Oh my God. This becomes one of Houdini's most famous acts. And it starts getting ripped off endlessly by other performers.
00:31:31
And one actually dies trying to copy it because it's that dangerous. It's like, it's not really a trick.
00:31:38
It's a skill. So then Houdini moves on to what many consider to be his greatest stunt, the water torture cell.
00:31:45
So I think we've all kind of seen versions of this in movies and stuff. But essentially, his ankles are put into stocks,
00:31:53
and then he's dangled upside down from those stocks and submerged into a tank of water upside down.
00:31:59
That alone is very upsetting. And the tank of water is like the size of a big phone booth, all glass walls.
00:32:08
So once he's lowered all the way in, the stocks at the top act as a seal, and the audience can see that Houdini is locked inside underwater upside down.
00:32:19
A curtain is then pulled around the tank and after Houdini works his magic for a couple minutes,
00:32:24
he pops out of the water and everybody cheers and goes crazy. When he pops out, it's shown that he's free from those stocks now,
00:32:32
but the stocks are still in the same locked position at the top of the tank. It's seemingly a magic trick.
00:32:38
Yeah. But as Houdini's stunts become more intense, so does his hatred of mediums.
00:32:45
He basically uses his free time while he's becoming hugely famous to go on an anti-spiritualist crusade.
00:32:55
I wonder if it had anything to do with his mom dying. He just got so angry. It's like, let people have their beliefs, you know?
00:33:02
I know a lot of them are getting ripped off too, so. I think you're completely right.
00:33:06
I think a lot of people thought that's what it was where there was probably that thing.
00:33:10
Well, I mean, like in the beginning when he and Bess had the opportunity to make money off of a medium act.
00:33:15
He thought it was distasteful while his mother was still alive. But then I think once he lost his mother,
00:33:21
he understood and empathized with why people would believe and want spiritualists to be real.
00:33:29
And so I think he started to understand what was being played on there and how easy it would be to fall for that
00:33:36
with that kind of grief. Yeah, taken advantage of because of their grief. Exactly.
00:33:41
So basically, he just declares all-out war against spiritualism and mediums. And his relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle plays into this.
00:33:50
Both men are experiencing deep grief. They say that Houdini never bounced back really from losing his mother.
00:33:58
And Arthur Conan Doyle's son died from complications of the flu in 1918. But he chose to work out his grief by embracing spiritualism.
00:34:08
So instead of agreeing to disagree on their coping methods, these two men start to argue with one another.
00:34:16
And what starts as a small rift between friends morphs into a heated, ongoing fight about spiritualism.
00:34:23
But Doyle never stops trying to change Houdini's mind. So in June of 1922, Doyle's wife, Jean Leckie, holds a seance where she claims to connect with Cecilia.
00:34:34
Jean starts doing automatic writing, which she says is coming directly from Houdini's mother.
00:34:40
The problem is that the writing is all in English, which is a language Cecilia never learned to speak.
00:34:46
And Jean also communicates a sign of the cross at one point, obviously unaware that Cecilia was Jewish.
00:34:53
Through all of this, Houdini holds his tongue, but it reinforces his belief that spiritualism is all bullshit.
00:35:01
And as much as I'm sure he understood that was coming from a place of love, it's also really fucking insulting.
00:35:08
Yeah. Where it's like, I'm going to make up a whole thing to comfort you that isn't true.
00:35:14
It's like, it's not, yeah, not a good idea. It's the age old religious people versus atheist argument, you know?
00:35:20
Yeah. And no one's gonna convince anyone of anything. Yeah, in both directions. Yeah, right.
00:35:26
So in 1924, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle convinces a scientific American magazine at the time known for its investigative journalism to tackle spiritualism.
00:35:36
So the magazine puts out an open call for any self-professed medium that's willing to demonstrate their methods in front of a panel of skeptical scientists,
00:35:45
psychologists, and mathematicians from places like Harvard and MIT. And if they can stump the panel, they'll win $2,500,
00:35:53
which is almost in today money It so much more Yeah So Houdini is on this panel and he and the scientists
00:36:05
easily unravel most of the participants' methods. But then Marjorie, our girl Marjorie that I talked about from the beginning,
00:36:14
she comes along. And of course, Houdini knows who she is because the Doyles are big fans of hers.
00:36:21
and Marjorie is operating on a totally different level than all of these other self-professed mediums.
00:36:29
A Harvard parapsychologist on the panel named William McDougall sets up a seance with Marjorie.
00:36:35
He doesn't invite Houdini to go to the seance because he thinks Houdini's gonna be too biased
00:36:40
and disruptive, which of course, when Houdini finds out about it, infuriates him.
00:36:46
But McDougall goes in particularly interested in figuring out one trick of Marjorie's,
00:36:52
which was how the clocks in her house all stop at a specific time during her readings.
00:36:58
So to make sure this isn't some elaborate trick, he, quote, asked the servants to leave,
00:37:05
bolted all the main doors and sealed them using ceiling wax impressed with his thumbprint,
00:37:11
examined all the closets, trunks, and desks, looked under beds and furniture, inspected the locks for trick devices,
00:37:18
and lock the grandfather clock, removing the key. Wow. So next, McDougal sits next to Marjorie at a round table
00:37:25
in a small room washed in red lighting, and the seance begins. As Marjorie calls out to the spirits,
00:37:32
there are five loud bangs on the table, and then the table levitates before tilting on its side
00:37:38
in the air for half a minute. Hmm. It drops back down with a thud while a man's voice calls out from the darkness.
00:37:45
It asks McDougal to name a specific time. McDougal replies 10.30 p.m. And then later when the session ends,
00:37:53
McDougal checks the doors to see if they're still locked and sealed. And then he inspects the clocks around Marjorie's house
00:38:00
and they have all frozen at 10.30 p.m. Wow. So McDougal leaves this experience totally stumped.
00:38:07
He's half convinced that Marjorie is actually the real deal. Yeah. But of course, Houdini is outraged.
00:38:13
He publicly offers a $5,000 reward, which is 80 grand in today's revenge money. And all McDougal has to do to collect this reward
00:38:24
is to be nailed to a heavy crate thrown into a river and escape to the surface. And Houdini reportedly says, quote,
00:38:31
I assure you that Professor McDougal's friendship with Marjorie and all her spirit controls
00:38:36
will not get him out of the box before he drowns. Oh my God. Of course, McDougal doesn't take Houdini up on this offer.
00:38:44
And Houdini is not invited to McDougal's birthday party. I made that up. I made that up.
00:38:50
But basically, he's just saying, if she has all these powers and can use spirits to do things,
00:38:57
make her do something meaningful outside of her house, essentially. But then Houdini schedules multiple readings with Marjorie.
00:39:05
And to be clear, he goes into these very biased. He believes all mediums are deceitful opportunists
00:39:11
who make money off of grieving people. But as an illusionist himself, his vendetta against Marjorie is also personal.
00:39:19
Because if she can stump Houdini, that means she's arguably the superior performer.
00:39:24
Yeah. So during their sessions, Houdini's hypersensitive to the most subtle movements
00:39:29
Marjorie makes with her hands, wrists, and feet. He also makes mental notes of the other features of her seances,
00:39:35
then goes home and works tirelessly to basically unravel the mystery around what she's doing.
00:39:43
Before long, Houdini's convinced that he's figured Marjorie out. But meanwhile, the Scientific American investigation continues,
00:39:51
and some of the panelists are on the fence about Marjorie. Houdini is so worried that Marjorie could win the prize money
00:39:58
that he breaks off from the panel and publishes his own 40-page pamphlet, complete with illustrations
00:40:05
called Houdini Exposes the Tricks Used by Boston Medium Marjorie. Wow, he kind of needs a chill pill.
00:40:12
Yeah, he's on one for sure. Yeah. I'm sure Bess was like, can you calm the fuck down?
00:40:19
Yes. If I was Marjorie, I'd be like, you're so jealous of me. To make sure his work doesn't fall on deaf ears,
00:40:26
Houdini incorporates an act into his show that reenacts and then debunks stunts that are commonly used by Marjorie and other popular mediums of the day.
00:40:37
He then posts an open call to all mediums offering to donate $10,000 to charity,
00:40:43
which is over $150,000 in today's money, if they can bring him a supernatural act that he can't figure out.
00:40:50
But no one ever does. And in 1926, Houdini actually testifies before the U.S. Congress
00:40:58
in favor of legislation that would regulate psychics, mind readers, and mediums.
00:41:03
And this is at absolutely the height of the spiritualism craze. One leader of the spiritualist movement is quoted as saying,
00:41:11
why try to fight spiritualism when most of the senators are interested in the subject?
00:41:16
I know for a fact that there have been spiritual seances held at the White House
00:41:19
with President Coolidge and his family. This craze has taken over in a very real way.
00:41:26
Yeah. But Harry Houdini is a man on a mission. During the hearing, he does a presentation that includes sleight of hand magic,
00:41:33
prop work, audience participation. And this is my favorite line Maren wrote, it's not the warmest crowd.
00:41:42
So he's basically there. There's lawmakers everywhere that kind of believe in it.
00:41:48
But there's also, quote, 300 fortune tellers, spirit mediums, and astrologers who came to these hearings to defend themselves So it is the worst room possible And it so packed that people are pouring out of the hallways It a total circus It later described as quote four raucous days
00:42:10
Order in the chamber disintegrated. Police were repeatedly summoned. And the husband of a medium
00:42:14
nearly punched Houdini in the face. Yeah, I think he probably deserved it. I'm going to go on a limb,
00:42:21
going on a limb and say. Well, one good point is like, he's trying to expose these people
00:42:27
and he's taking money out of their pockets. Like that is their life's work. It's what they do for a living.
00:42:34
And it is in demand. So if they get exposed, someone else is going to do it. It's like that kind of thing
00:42:40
where he's not going to be able to shut down the need average people have to talk to people they've lost.
00:42:48
Whether it's someone who's completely craven and has no talent is completely exploiting people,
00:42:53
or if it's like, you know, I see ghosts. Yeah. The need is still there. Right. But Houdini will not rest.
00:43:00
He's out there. He's making new enemies by the day. By his own count, he investigates hundreds of mediums
00:43:07
throughout the early 20s. And with each new expose, he's basically taking hits himself
00:43:14
because he's making all these enemies. He's accumulating expensive defamation and libel lawsuits.
00:43:20
he's receiving death threats, and of course he's dealing with rampant anti-Semitism.
00:43:27
Wow. He's kind of like an internet troll in a way, where it's like, well, you don't have to listen to this podcast
00:43:33
if you hate it so much, clearly, and stop leaving comments, right? Like, you don't have to go to a medium.
00:43:38
No, that's right. You cannot go. It can be there. Get the fuck out of my feed. But he won't stop.
00:43:47
He won't stop until he's taken down the entire movement. So in 1926, the same year as that hearing,
00:43:55
Houdini's at the pinnacle of his career. He has a sold-out show on Broadway, and it's a huge hit with critics and audiences.
00:44:02
And then he decides to take it on the road, and that's when everything shifts. So during the climax of a show in Albany, New York,
00:44:10
Houdini's dangling upside down by his ankles in the water torture cell, and a piece of equipment comes loose,
00:44:16
and it smashes his foot. He's in incredible pain. He still manages to complete the stunt and finish the show.
00:44:24
Afterwards, a doctor confirms that his foot is fractured. Oof. He advises him to take a few nights off to rest,
00:44:32
but Houdini, who is a lifelong showbiz devotee, knows the show must go on. He refuses to take a break.
00:44:42
He continues on to Schenectady, New York, where he does his entire show in agonizing pain.
00:44:47
And then he heads to Montreal. And at this point, he's in rough shape. And still, he is not resting.
00:44:54
In between shows, he goes and gives speeches and lectures around town about what else?
00:45:00
His hatred of spiritualism. Oh, buddy. So on Tuesday, October 19th, he meets with a group of McGill University students to have this discussion.
00:45:11
and he, after that discussion, he offers for them to come to his show and then come backstage in a week
00:45:18
to hang out with him at one of his matinees. And this is the question mark area.
00:45:24
So it's unclear who exactly is in this group. I don't think the security was super tight back then.
00:45:30
We do know that it was a group of students. It was Bess, his wife, stagehands, and then a couple other people.
00:45:37
They're all hanging out with Houdini in the green room. And at some point, someone brings up one of Houdini's classic stunts.
00:45:46
It's the one where he's repeatedly punched in the stomach by audience members and he doesn't flinch.
00:45:51
Everyone is very familiar with this trick. What it was was he would be in charge of the trick, obviously.
00:45:58
So he would be calling people up to punch him. And then he would tense his abdominal muscles in a very specific way before he got hit, which was the key to making it painless.
00:46:07
And as they're talking about this, one of these dipshit McGill students with no warning punches Houdini in the gut incredibly hard two times as he's laying on the sofa.
00:46:21
Oh, my God. Why would you do that? It's so crazy. I mean, I'm sure he was like, I'll show you.
00:46:29
But he, of course, Houdini winces and doubles over. One of the students who was there that day
00:46:35
remembers later that after the punches, quote, Houdini immediately stated he had no opportunity to prepare himself against the blows.
00:46:43
He didn't think that the student would strike him as suddenly as he did or with such force.
00:46:49
And Houdini also says that his injured foot kept him from jumping up off the couch
00:46:53
and defending himself. Yeah. So now his stomach's on fire. He tries his best to shake it off.
00:46:59
Okay, but by the time he and Bess reached their next tour stop in Detroit. He's still in pain,
00:47:05
and now he has 104-degree fever. But he doesn't cancel his show. No, dude. Vaudeville, baby.
00:47:13
Instead, he stumbles through it. He makes mistakes, which I think he never did normally.
00:47:18
He's actually forced to have his assistants finish some of the tricks for him. When the curtain finally drops at the end of the show,
00:47:25
Houdini collapses. He's taken to a Detroit hospital where it's discovered that he has a burst appendix.
00:47:32
Holy shit. So he goes into emergency surgery. Doctors successfully remove his appendix,
00:47:37
but it has already caused a bacterial infection. And we're still at this point in time,
00:47:43
two years away from Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin. So an infection like this
00:47:50
is a death sentence without antibiotics. Houdini hangs on for a few days. He seems to be recovering.
00:47:57
Then he suddenly takes a turn for the worse and he's like, And on Halloween 1926, Houdini dies in the hospital and he's 52 years old.
00:48:06
Wow. I'm 52 years old. Don't you hate that? I really do. That's so young. I want to tell myself that.
00:48:16
So, of course, there's an outpouring of grief. No one can believe this man who seemed superhuman, who was so famous,
00:48:24
he was one of the biggest performers of the time, could suddenly just drop dead from a bacterial infection.
00:48:30
And the intrigue around his death lingers to this day because there's theorists who suspect
00:48:35
that it actually wasn't appendicitis, but it was foul play. Because Houdini made so many enemies in his life
00:48:42
and because there was never a formal autopsy done to rule out any other cause of death,
00:48:47
some people suspect that he could have been poisoned. There are two, actually, Houdini biographers,
00:48:54
William Kalish and Larry Sloman, who think those gut punches and appendicitis stories are all red herrings. They wrote a book a few years ago suggesting that certain branches
00:49:05
of spiritualism had ties to organized crime, right? And that these criminal groups had a
00:49:12
history of poisoning their enemies. It doesn't seem impossible knowing that Houdini received many
00:49:18
death threats in his war against spiritualism. And he also traveled around the world without security.
00:49:24
He interacted with the public constantly. It's just not out of the realm of possibility
00:49:29
that someone could have found an opportunity to poison him. Members of Houdini's family have even supported this theory as a possibility.
00:49:38
In the early aughts, his grandnephew conceded that many people wanted Houdini dead.
00:49:43
During his life, even his friends acknowledged this. In 1924, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
00:49:49
who by this point was Houdini's full-on frenemy, acknowledged this theory in a letter.
00:49:56
He says, quote, I think there is a general payday coming soon for Houdini. Oof. So in 2008, there were murmurings
00:50:05
that Houdini's body will be exhumed. The plan is to enlist top forensic scientists
00:50:10
to look for evidence of a fatal poisoning. Marjorie's great-granddaughter even comes forward
00:50:15
and is vocally supportive. Speaking about Marjorie and other spiritualists, she tells reporters that, quote,
00:50:21
with people that delusional, you have to question what they're capable of. If there's any circumstantial evidence
00:50:27
that Houdini was poisoned, we have to explore that. That quote makes me think, is the great granddaughter saying
00:50:35
she thinks that spiritualists are delusional? It sounds like she's like calling it.
00:50:39
She's calling out on her great grandma that she was crazy. Yeah. Or that her followers were maybe.
00:50:46
I don't know. That's true. However, best Houdini's next to kin are not on board.
00:50:50
And of course, you can't blame them. They think an exhumation of Houdini's body is sensational, unnecessary, and not what
00:50:59
Bess would have wanted for her beloved husband. It never happens. So the simplest explanation is likely that Harry Houdini died of untreated appendicitis.
00:51:11
At first, doctors thought the student's punches might have directly ruptured Houdini's stomach.
00:51:16
But according to a doctor named Howard Markle, it's probably murkier than that. He says that it's possible that, quote,
00:51:22
the hits gave Houdini a false explanation for his abdominal pain. Harry may have simply ignored the fire brewing in his belly
00:51:30
and chalked it up to a punch in the gut, which delayed him seeing a doctor and having his appendix removed before it ruptured.
00:51:37
In an ironic twist, Houdini and Bess actually promised one another when he was still alive
00:51:44
that if it were possible, they would find a way to keep in touch from beyond the grave.
00:51:49
So he did believe in it after all. Right. Well, even though he detested the people that he considered frauds in the spiritualism movement,
00:51:58
as someone who knew how painful grief was, he also wanted to believe that it was possible to never really have to lose a loved one.
00:52:07
He's a human being. That's kind of the bottom line is that's the reason he fought it so hard.
00:52:12
It's all projection at the end of the day. So the two of them came up with an intricate code.
00:52:17
and they were the only two people who knew it. And for an entire decade after Houdini passed away,
00:52:25
Bess repeatedly tries to reach him through mediums. Oh my God. I know. She even hosts seances herself,
00:52:33
but she never reaches her husband. Bess stops trying in 1936, fully resigned, and says, quote,
00:52:40
Houdini did not come through. I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me or anyone.
00:52:46
But Bess's resignation does not stop others from trying. Eventually, Bess and Harry's secret code gets leaked to the public.
00:52:53
And to this day, every single Halloween, Houdini fans gather at LA's Magic Castle to try and reach him through seances.
00:53:02
Wow. Not difficult to imagine how Houdini would feel about this. Totally. As Brian Greene writes for Smithsonian Magazine,
00:53:12
quote, Ever the attention seeker in life, Houdini would be honored that admirers are still making the
00:53:19
anniversary of his death after 95 years. He'd likely be mortified, however, to learn that these
00:53:24
remembrances take the form of a seance. Oh, and one PS before I finish this, Marjorie the Medium,
00:53:33
she ultimately stumps the Scientific American Committee. Oh my God, she got the money?
00:53:38
Some panelists concede that there are certain elements of her readings that they cannot
00:53:42
scientifically explain away. She's investigated a total of nine times by various institutions and
00:53:48
organizations and the results are always mixed Though many people suspect it she is never proven to be a fraud in her lifetime Wow Marjorie go Right So it doesn sound like she got that money Yeah Anyway and that is the life and death of the legendary Harry Houdini
00:54:10
Wow. Wild. Good one. Good job. That was a good one. Thank you. I like that one. Yeah. It's
00:54:18
always disappointing when someone who does things as insane as that guy dies of like
00:54:24
appendicitis. And yet it's kind of thematically appropriate where it's like, this is human life.
00:54:33
People die unexpectedly. They die before their time. They die in war. It's unfair. It sucks.
00:54:41
And then what we do to cope about that is basically a huge part of being a human being.
00:54:48
Yeah. That's a good point. That's very true. It's just so interesting that he was so anti,
00:54:52
Like there's got to be some underlying psychological thing going on with him that just, you know.
00:54:58
It's like if I can't, then you can't. Right. I don't believe I can have it. So I need you to stop believing you can because it's like affecting him or it's like too painful for him.
00:55:09
Yeah, for sure. Okay. Good job. Thank you. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:55:22
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary,
00:55:30
massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
00:55:38
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.
00:55:46
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.
00:55:58
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:56:05
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:56:09
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.
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Data accurate is of 2-20-26. Okay, well, my story today is one of those cold case, missing person cases that you always see
00:57:31
on the Reddit forums of like, what's one case that you can't believe isn't solved,
00:57:35
or that seems solvable, or that's so mysterious you need another answer to. And this is one of those cases.
00:57:43
This is the story of Brandon Swanson and his mysterious disappearance. So the main sources used in this are an Inform article by Tricia Turinskas, a CNN article by Alexis Weed, a Marshall Independent article by Jenny Kirk, and an All That's Interesting article by Neil Patmore.
00:58:04
And you can find the rest in the show notes. So let's start with the disappearance.
00:58:08
It's the early morning hours of May 24th, 2008. And 19-year-old Brandon Swanson is driving home from a party in Canby, Minnesota.
00:58:17
When he veers off the road a little bit, he doesn't exactly crash his car, but so there's no major impact.
00:58:23
He's not hurt, but the car ends up in a ditch and he can't get it out on his own.
00:58:28
So it's almost two in the morning. He calls his parents as a last resort. He's already called several friends,
00:58:34
but they don't pick up as friends never do at 2 a.m. And parents do. When his parents answer his call,
00:58:44
Brandon assures them that he's fine and his car is fine. and he's just stuck in a ditch and needs help.
00:58:49
His parents have a pickup truck so they could be able to pull the car out. So his parents are awake enough.
00:58:54
They said they'll come get him. He tells them his approximate location. And he's a native to this area.
00:59:00
So in his mind, he knows exactly where he is, tells them exactly where he's at. He tells them to drive towards Linde
00:59:07
from their house in Marshall, Minnesota. It should take them about 10 minutes to get to him.
00:59:12
They start to drive and they stay on the phone with him the whole time. but when they arrive at the exact spot he's told them to meet him,
00:59:19
they don't see him there. He's a little annoyed at this point. He says he'll flash his headlights to show them where his car is
00:59:25
and they don't see the car flash its headlights or him or the car. His parents flash their headlights and still on the phone,
00:59:33
he says he doesn't see them. So they're not in the same location. Confused and frustrated, Brandon asks his parents to drive
00:59:40
to a nearby bar in Linde that they all know and he says he'll just walk there and meet them there.
00:59:46
And then he's walking along the road and he decides to take a shortcut because he can see the lights of the nearby town
00:59:52
and wants to get there as quickly as possible. So his parents still on the phone he walking towards their meetup location and he suddenly shouts oh shit And his parents don hear anything else And that is the last anyone hears from Brandon Swanson
01:00:06
No, that's so awful and scary. The parents were like on the phone with him. Yeah.
01:00:12
And he didn't, the call didn't end. It just like you couldn't hear him anymore. All right.
01:00:19
So let me tell you a little bit about Brandon Swanson. He's born January 30th, 1989.
01:00:24
He's the only son of Brian and Annette Swanson. He has a younger sister. He's born and raised in Marshall, Minnesota.
01:00:31
He graduates high school in 2007. He wants to stay close to home. He attends nearby Minnesota West Community
01:00:37
and Technical College to study wind turbines. Oh. Which I guess is something really smart people do.
01:00:43
Yeah, that's right. That's the future. He's smart. The future of energy. Yeah. So he's planning on transferring
01:00:49
to another technical program in the fall. Like everything's going well for him. You know, there's no reason for him to purposely disappear, basically.
01:00:56
Yeah. And he's been living at home with his parents. So on May 13th, 2008, the semester is officially over and he goes out with some friends to
01:01:05
celebrate. Basically going to the casual Minnesota house party circuit. You know what I mean?
01:01:10
So he goes to at least two different parties that night. The first one is in a small town of Linde, just a few miles southwest of his home, which
01:01:18
is where he said he told his parents he was at. And the second one is in Canby, where his school is, and about 40 minutes away from the first party.
01:01:26
And at both these parties, he has a few drinks, but everyone who's with him says he's not drunk or out of control.
01:01:32
You know, he's underage, but by the time he is ready to leave the party, his friends say he seems totally fine to drive.
01:01:39
He leaves the party around midnight, and it should be a 30-minute drive from Canby to his home in Marshall.
01:01:45
He doesn't call his parents until just before 2 a.m. So where is he during that time period?
01:01:53
It's known that he called several friends for help before calling his parents, but there's not a clear timeline for what happened between leaving the party and getting stuck in the ditch.
01:02:02
Okay, so back to the beginning when he says, oh shit, and the call doesn't drop.
01:02:07
The line just goes dead. It just goes silent. And eventually Brian hangs up when his son doesn't say anything.
01:02:13
And his parents call Brandon back six or seven times after that. and his phone just rings and rings
01:02:18
and goes straight to voicemail. So finally at 6.30 that morning, Brian and Annette go for help.
01:02:23
They try to file a missing persons report with the Lynn Police Department, but police are slow to start a search.
01:02:30
Even though Brian and Annette are very clear with police that their son didn't sound drunk
01:02:34
and he was calling them for help to come get him at that moment, police are pretty sure he's just been partying all night.
01:02:40
And he also told them about him saying, last thing he said is, oh shit. Yeah. Like that's terrifying.
01:02:46
Yes. Something happened, obviously. We've said this a million times. I just don't understand if it is your job.
01:02:53
The police department, it's your job to go figure out what's going on, not to theorize from a distance why you don't need to go look.
01:03:01
Right, because what if you're wrong? Every time you just have to ask yourself that question, what if you're wrong?
01:03:06
Yes, but also like you are wrong for doing it that way. Like how many stories have we told of like, it's a runaway.
01:03:15
This reason, that reason. They're partying. They'll come home. Yeah. Oh, frustrating.
01:03:20
It is. They tell Brandon's parents it's normal for a boy his age to stay out late
01:03:24
celebrating after, you know, they just kind of give him those lines. And one of them even says
01:03:29
to Annette, it's Brandon's right to be missing. I know. Like, he left on his own accord
01:03:34
and it's his right to not, like, if he disappeared, he's allowed to. But that's,
01:03:38
it's almost like they're using the line from a different situation where it's like,
01:03:42
it is his right to be missing if he didn't call, he called for help. Right. If he didn't come home that night,
01:03:48
yeah, I could see him just like having maybe stayed over at the party. Whatever.
01:03:52
But still. Yeah. So after a slow start, police finally start investigating. First, they took a look at the phone records
01:03:59
and see that Brandon was nowhere near Lind when he called his parents that early that morning.
01:04:05
The call pinged a cell phone tower over 20 miles away from where Brandon thought he was,
01:04:10
which is weird because he's from that area. Like he should have known where he, where he was.
01:04:15
Yep. That afternoon, police find Brandon's car. It's between the towns of Porter
01:04:21
and Taunton, Minnesota. It's just about a 10-minute drive from the location of that second party,
01:04:28
25 miles from his hometown in Linde. Brandon had given his parents the wrong location.
01:04:33
The car is stuck in a ditch, like Brandon described. The doors of the car are open
01:04:37
and the keys are missing. His glasses are still in the car, which is significant
01:04:42
because he's legally blind in one eye and needs those glasses to do pretty much anything.
01:04:46
Whoa. So it's weird that he left them behind. Yes. Unfortunately, finding the car doesn't provide many leads
01:04:52
as to where Brandon might be. So search efforts begin on foot and by air. Investigators aren't sure which direction he went in
01:04:59
and for how long he walked before he disappeared. So the initial search area is really big.
01:05:05
Hundreds of volunteers show up to help. Police bring in search dogs who follow Brandon's scent
01:05:10
for roughly three miles through a field because it's all field area. Yeah. Past an abandoned farm
01:05:16
and onto a trail next to the Yellow Medicine River. So he was walking in some wilderness area, basically.
01:05:24
I'm kind of thinking of the beginning of Fargo, the movie, where it's like... Which part?
01:05:29
Well, just the fact that it's like a highway with snow on either side. Yeah, yeah.
01:05:34
And where even if there were normally, maybe the normal, like he's not, you said that wasn't his hometown.
01:05:40
It was like nearby. I don't think it was snowy, but I know what you mean though.
01:05:45
Sorry, I thought you said there was snow in the ditch. No, he drove into a ditch.
01:05:50
There's no snow. Okay, sorry. I was picturing that the snow was making everything look the same.
01:05:55
But I think like for you tell me because you live in a kind of an area that wide and spread out and there some you know open fields and stuff Like if you been drinking
01:06:05
will you get that confused pretty easily? Hell yes. I'm confused completely sober
01:06:09
trying to find the drive-thru Starbucks in my hometown that I have been in for half a century.
01:06:16
Oh, wow. I gave up. I called my sister. I go, I can't believe they closed the drive-thru Starbucks.
01:06:22
And she goes, you didn't drive down far enough, dipshit. It was like, that's what I started thinking when you said that is if he left that party,
01:06:31
he could have had three beers. And what if there was something else? What if he had taken a medicine or somebody drugged him or there was something that where
01:06:39
he was impaired in a way he didn't know? Absolutely. Which is so easy to do. So easy.
01:06:45
And then you think if it's nighttime, okay, my snow thing's completely out of it.
01:06:49
I guess because you said Minnesota and I was immediately like, it must be snowing.
01:06:52
It's snowing. Yeah. But if it's nighttime, when you think you know where you are,
01:06:57
and then you're going in completely the opposite direction, then it's like you're, then you are fucking up
01:07:03
and you don't even understand how you're fucking it up. And then there's also the like two hours between when he left the party
01:07:10
and when he called his parents that maybe he had gotten lost, thought he found his way correctly, but had just been turned around completely.
01:07:16
So maybe he had been driving longer than he realized, something like that. I don't know.
01:07:22
Yeah, it's just like he's marking space by like fields. Right. And farmhouses. And yes, it's very in springtime or when it's clear or whatever,
01:07:31
it's still very repetitive looking. Yeah, yeah. There's no like clear landmarks where you can be like,
01:07:36
that's the Sonic that I always drive past near my house or whatever. Right. I thought of a Midwestern drive-thru.
01:07:43
Sonic. Don't they have a lot of Sonics? Yeah. That's a really, I bet people on Reddit are really,
01:07:49
there's a lot to theorize about this from the get-go. Totally. I have a couple of theories in a minute.
01:07:55
So the dogs, again, trace him next to the Yellow Medicine River. They trace the scent to a particular point by the river
01:08:01
and then stop, leading investigators to believe that Brandon may have fallen in.
01:08:06
The river was up to 15 feet deep in some places that night and people worry he may have drowned.
01:08:12
But the river is searched over and over again and no evidence of Brandon ever shows up.
01:08:17
Ultimately, over 140 square miles of land and river are searched. And the search effort is still ongoing today.
01:08:25
Unfortunately, there have essentially been no major developments in the case in the past 15 years.
01:08:29
But the Swansons still hold on to hope, leaving their porch line on every night in case Brandon comes home.
01:08:35
Oh, no. That gets me. I know. Let's get to some theories. He was in great health at the time of his disappearance, had no known history of mental health issues.
01:08:45
so investigators think it's unlikely he had a psychotic break, ran away, or hurt himself on purpose.
01:08:51
I mean, and the circumstances don't add up to that anyways. You don't call your parents in the middle of a psychotic break
01:08:58
and be like, hey, can you help me out? Just that, oh shit, is so scary to me. Yes.
01:09:03
Right? Going back to the idea that he may have fallen into the river, it seems unlikely that he drowned since no remains have ever been found.
01:09:11
However, if he fell in, he likely would have gotten hypothermia and might have frozen to death,
01:09:15
but then they would have found him. It was about 39 degrees Fahrenheit that night,
01:09:19
so it was really cold. Yeah. If Brandon fell into the cold river and then got himself out to keep walking,
01:09:25
it's really likely he would have become hypothermic. Some people think he may have just fallen asleep
01:09:29
in a field somewhere and died of hypothermia in the night. Oh shit, then you fall asleep?
01:09:35
Yeah. Well, oh shit, I fell in. But then he would have kept talking to his parents.
01:09:39
Or they would have heard noises that sounded like, yeah, right? Yeah. And you go, oh shit, I fell in a river.
01:09:46
If he was walking in the dark and fell into a river, he would have said, oh shit,
01:09:51
and the phone would have gone dead because it would have gone into the river with him.
01:09:55
Right, right. But it's just so crazy that like, he also thought he knew where he was walking.
01:10:00
He thought he knew that field because he thought he was somewhere else. Ugh. So he might not have even known that that river was there,
01:10:08
you know? Right, yeah. But of course, people are like, well, why wasn't his body found if that was the case?
01:10:14
So it was farm country. Overall, local farmers have been very accommodating to the police though.
01:10:19
So there are still farmers who refuse to have their property search, which fucking sucks.
01:10:24
And is suspicious. Yeah, because many of the searchers are with cadaver dogs. Cattle farmers don't want dogs to scare their cows.
01:10:31
And in cases where farms are growing crops, search groups can only search during specific time periods
01:10:38
based on the planting and harvest schedules. So they haven't been able to do as thorough of a search as they would like to.
01:10:44
Ken Anderson of Emergency Support Services, which is an organization out of Minneapolis that specializes in search and rescue efforts,
01:10:52
says of these farmers, quote, they will not allow us on their property. We don't dispute the reason why.
01:10:57
We try and work out a method that would make it acceptable. And we've not been able to come up with a working compromise.
01:11:03
So he could be in one of these fields. That should be figured out. That should be something that gets figured out
01:11:11
because how many times does the federal government do like seizures of people's stuff?
01:11:18
How many times do they kick down doors? Get a warrant, get a fucking search warrant.
01:11:22
Get a warrant or get a thing where you're like, what is your concern? That we're going to step on your crops?
01:11:28
Then this is how we're going to do it. So that does not happen. Someone's child is missing.
01:11:33
Let them fucking look. Yeah. And also the people who say no, After that? Yeah. Why are they saying no?
01:11:40
Suspicious. Yeah. Immediately. Absolutely. When landowners decline to have their property search, investigators say there's no probable cause to get a warrant.
01:11:49
Sucks. There are still other theories. Some people believe he fell into a cistern, which is basically a deep hole in the ground to collect rainwater, which I think makes total fucking sense.
01:12:00
He just like fell down a crazy well. Yes. Unconscious. That's why he didn't keep talking.
01:12:05
And that's why his phone didn't turn off. Yep. I mean, imagine trying to search for fucking a cistern.
01:12:10
And he wasn't in the place he thought he was. So he wouldn't have known the terrain.
01:12:14
He could have just fell in. The idea of walking in the dark, thinking you know how many times you've done that.
01:12:21
That's just so awful. I mean, walking down the stairs at night in my own fucking house
01:12:25
and I miss a step and eat it, you know? Completely. It's like crazy. Police are actively receiving tips to this day,
01:12:33
but there are almost always dead ends. Outside of what was found in his car, no physical evidence related to Brandon Swanson
01:12:39
has ever been found, including his cell phone, car keys, and clothing. So Annette and Brian have not given up hope
01:12:47
in finding their son. They have also not forgotten the slow and dismissive response they received
01:12:52
from police at first. Their experience of not being taken seriously drives Brian and Annette to lobby
01:12:58
for changes to the state law regarding missing persons, specifically so that police need to investigate adults
01:13:05
who have been reported missing with the same speed and seriousness that they investigate missing children.
01:13:10
So they went on to do something, you know, for their community. Amazing. Which is pretty amazing, yeah.
01:13:16
Annette and Brian meet with local officials and managed to get the law changed at the state level.
01:13:21
In July 2009, the governor of Minnesota signs Brandon's law into effect. Since then, four other states passed similar laws.
01:13:31
Even though Brandon's law could not help Brandon Swanson, this kind of law can help prevent delayed investigations like his in the future.
01:13:38
Yeah. And that is the mysterious disappearance of Brandon Swanson. I hate that that's all.
01:13:46
I know. It's so frustrating. Also, I want a list of the people's names who won't let them search their...
01:13:53
What the fuck is that? What is that? Yeah, it's a little heartless. It's a little heartless.
01:14:01
And it doesn't seem, at least from what I feel I know, about people, you know, farm people,
01:14:10
community-oriented farm people who do exactly the opposite, would give whatever it took to help that out.
01:14:19
It just doesn't make a ton of sense. It's like- There's no reason not to, like no good reason at least.
01:14:25
No Or whatever It almost like whatever the reason is isn there a way to figure out a compromise where it like no blah blah blah has happened in the past and we cannot risk blank you know And whatever that is then it like then that exactly the thing we avoid
01:14:43
doing and we guarantee it and you will get this much money. Could they raise money to give
01:14:49
money to the people who are like, if we lose these crops, we will lose X or anything. Like,
01:14:55
don't let the conversation end at just no. Why? Oh, my cows will be scared. No. Fuck that shit.
01:15:02
And also like put those cows in the barn. They would prefer it. Like get them inside for five hours a day.
01:15:09
I don't know. That's just, that's, yeah. That's so frustrating. Go on Reddit and tell your theories.
01:15:18
I think the cistern thing makes the most sense or some kind of well or, you know.
01:15:22
So basically then what they're saying, his remains are in a cistern that the people that own it will not let people look into.
01:15:30
Who knows where it is? They might not have been able to find it. It is a lot of rural area.
01:15:36
You can't be sure to search every square inch. There's no way. So it could be on someone's land for sure.
01:15:42
It could be on someone's land. If it's in a cistern that someone owns and they found those remains
01:15:48
and they didn't say anything, they should say something. No way. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying like those cisterns
01:15:54
aren't just sitting there randomly. that someone's in charge of that thing. Maybe it's one that's like so much land
01:16:00
that it's been abandoned or something like that or an old well or something like that.
01:16:04
I don't know. I don't know how the, I'm from the city. I don't know how land works.
01:16:10
I'll tell you what, a very early memory, we had a dog named Pepper. We always had a pet named after like a food item
01:16:19
or like a, it was like, we were so bad at naming pets. But we found a little dog in,
01:16:25
it was actually like a mini mini cistern where it was like in our side field there was just this
01:16:32
weird pipe that had water in it and we heard yipping and we looked in and there was this
01:16:36
little puppy in this pipe that we pulled out treasure and we got to keep pepper but um that
01:16:43
like that it is very real and and even if it wasn't something like that but it was like
01:16:48
what if it was like just a sinkhole or some weird thing, some anomaly that like you're saying,
01:16:57
if it's like an untended ground, a farm, a field that is an abandoned, you know,
01:17:03
the side of an abandoned farmhouse Totally Oh it so frustrating And when you do these ones I know I know you hate these cold cases so much Makes me crazy This is what keeps me up all fucking night is I want to know these I on these fucking
01:17:17
Reddit threads that are like, what's the one you want to see solved or you think is solvable? Or
01:17:22
what's the one that has like an obvious answer but hasn't been solved? I'm obsessed with those.
01:17:27
And I know they drive you crazy. Well, and you know what's good is like, we can absolutely rest assured that it's driving
01:17:33
other people crazy. Yeah. It's driving some detectives in that area crazy. Obviously the family,
01:17:40
but there's other people that have a way worse feeling of this. And that like, clearly the parents
01:17:46
have already done so much with regard to that, but that someone somewhere because of this feeling
01:17:53
that's like, could get it done. Totally. Totally. Please do it. Please get it done.
01:17:59
Yes, please. And hopefully that Brandon's law is helping other people in the meantime.
01:18:04
Yeah, that is a good law. I mean, I like that one. That was really good. Thank you.
01:18:09
Well, we've done it again. Seven-year anniversary episode. I think we nailed it.
01:18:15
I think we did better than the first episode. That's probably for sure. We were just like,
01:18:22
I'm going to tell this story off the top of my head. That's the thing that keeps me cringing through the night.
01:18:28
I was like, I'm going to drink a bunch of whiskey and then tell this story off the top of my head.
01:18:32
Yeah. will be impaired. Yeah, it'd be perfect. And who cares? And then it turns out
01:18:38
lots of people end up caring. No one's listening to this, right? Oops. Well, thank you for caring
01:18:44
if you've been listening to this podcast for seven years. Yeah. We can't thank you enough.
01:18:49
Or if this is your first time listening, thank you for coming in. Welcome. Where you been?
01:18:53
Hey. Nice to see you. Thank your sister for introducing you to this podcast for us.
01:18:58
Your cousin Maureen is a real fan and she made you listen and now you're here with us.
01:19:02
Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Oh, wait, sorry, really quick. That reminds me here in my hometown,
01:19:08
me and Adrian were at this place, Ray's, and this guy walked up and he's like, sorry to interrupt you guys.
01:19:14
I just wanted to say, and then he took a slight pause. And then I go, your girlfriend loves my podcast.
01:19:20
And then he got really mad. He goes, no, I love your podcast. So I want to say thank you, Tanner,
01:19:27
a hometown murderino. That was very exciting. It was really funny. And he told me about his, I think it was his goddaughter who is going to study forensic psychology or forensics in college.
01:19:40
Amazing. Yeah Hell yeah There a whole family holding it down on our behalf So thanks for all the hometown people and all our hometowns across America Yeah we appreciate you
01:19:53
Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:20:09
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:20:16
Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:20:24
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
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