00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
00:00:33
Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town
00:00:39
selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
00:00:45
and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
00:00:51
This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
00:00:58
or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. Where does summer take you?
00:01:05
Maybe it's a coastal road trip or a quiet morning with the windows wide open. Summer smells like bright citrus, warm sand,
00:01:11
and endless possibilities. With Pura's smart diffusers and the new summer collection,
00:01:15
you can restore your sense of place and bring those unforgettable moments right into your living room.
00:01:20
Find your summer escape today. Visit Pura.com to learn more. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hey, everybody.
00:01:27
Before we start the episode today, we want to take a moment to address the June 24th,
00:01:32
2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade. This decision stripped away the right to have a safe and legal abortion.
00:01:41
Everyone should have the freedom to decide what's best for themselves and for their families,
00:01:45
including when it comes to ending a pregnancy. This decision has dire consequences for individual health and safety
00:01:51
and could have harsh repercussions for other landmark decisions. Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion,
00:01:59
threatens the health and independence of all Americans. Learn more by visiting choice.crd.co.
00:02:06
That's choice.crd.co. And if you're able to support others, please consider donating to abortion funds.
00:02:14
And thank you to Ariel Nisenblatt, the founder of Earbuds Podcast Collective, for starting this movement of podcasters making this announcement at the top of their podcasts.
00:02:24
in a time where people really are looking for help, looking for unity, looking to know what to do.
00:02:31
This is an amazing movement to show how many there are of us and how important coming together
00:02:37
and unifying over this very important topic is. We encourage you to speak up, take care, and spread the word.
00:02:54
Hello. Hello. And welcome. To My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgariff.
00:03:09
And this is the podcast... Where you have less rights than you did last time. The last time you listened, strangely enough.
00:03:16
Does it feel different? Do you feel different? Well, let's just say that, you know,
00:03:21
the world is a horrible place. It's hard to have banter at the top of a podcast when shit's all hitting the fan and I don't recognize the country I grew up in anymore.
00:03:34
But I kind of do. It's always been like this. Right. But there's never been a fascist takeover before.
00:03:40
I think that's the big twist-a-roo that we've seen it coming, but nobody believed it could be happening.
00:03:46
Right. And now it's actually happening. First, it happens to women. It already started happening to trans people.
00:03:54
It's really, really dark. Yeah, it's been happening to people of color for the entirety of how we've existed.
00:04:04
So here we are. Yeah, exactly. All right, well, I don't really have much at the top.
00:04:11
I'm reading a book called, it's called Mother Hunger, how adult daughters can understand and heal
00:04:17
from the lost, nurturance, protection, and guidance. by Kelly McDaniel. So that's how I'm doing right now.
00:04:25
That's how I'm, that's what I'm reading in my summer vacation that we're about to have,
00:04:29
you know, some light beach reading. Yeah. Fun stuff at the beach. Fun mom baggage at the beach.
00:04:37
I'm going to leave it there. I'm going to leave my baggage at the beach. I mean, I think that, you know,
00:04:41
that is a, this silver lining is everything else is so horrifying. It really does put some of that mom baggage
00:04:47
into perspective where it's just like, oh, okay, well. Yeah. Have you been on Twitter a lot? No, but I think it's so soon. It's like we
00:04:58
all got hit in the back of the head with a frying pan. Yeah. And everyone is just kind of like,
00:05:04
they actually went and did it. And it is that feeling. I was so grateful Ariel Ness and Blatt
00:05:09
got that message together that podcasters can kind of all do to kind of show unity.
00:05:14
because that's the kind of thing where it's like, and people tell us this a lot of like looking to us
00:05:21
at times like this, where it's like every time it gets worse. Yeah. How you try to stand up and lead people
00:05:28
through such extreme pure insanity and this idea that like, it can't stay this way.
00:05:35
We have to fight back. That idea of like, your company will pay for you to drive out of state.
00:05:40
Like, no, no, no. It's not a solution. Stop telling us how to adjust to these laws
00:05:43
that are actually, it's an illegitimate Supreme Court. We cannot have laws being passed down
00:05:48
by religious fanatics in this country. It's the reason the country was founded. Yeah well I love that there a big Jewish representation saying this goes against my religion you know and which I fucking love because it so true It like well if it fine with if your religion says no and mine says yes
00:06:06
it's okay in certain circumstances, then why are you more correct? Because you're more corrupt?
00:06:12
Yeah, that's basically it. So any opposition that can be used right now, I feel like it's just, it's fair game.
00:06:20
And it's not gonna change, I don't think, but to kind of point out the hypocrisies of it all
00:06:26
is just as important. For sure. Yeah. To reframe it back to, your belief system leads you to not have an abortion.
00:06:38
That's completely fine. That's your life. Yeah. This idea that people's private lives
00:06:43
and the way they have decided to live, they want that for everyone. Right. People shouldn't want that.
00:06:49
And it's totally unrealistic. And it's very bizarre. It's weird behavior. It's so weird to me to think that we're saying
00:06:57
that it's none of our fucking business what other women choose to do and what circumstances they are in that leads them to it.
00:07:06
It has nothing to do with you and me and anyone else, especially not fucking Jesus.
00:07:12
And especially not men politicians. Yes. You know? Male politicians who are like mentally ill.
00:07:19
Right. Many of them have terrible records themselves. Right. In terms of how they treat women, how they treat people of color.
00:07:27
Like, it is just, it's just so overwhelmingly insane and infuriating and beyond belief.
00:07:35
And it's clearly dark money. Like, there's so many things at play. And we, the media just keeps telling us like, well, Starbucks will pay for you to drive out of state.
00:07:46
Right. Like, no, this will not stand. These laws won't stand. there. It goes against the constitution. All of this is in direct conflict with the rights of us,
00:07:57
our inalienable rights. The government doesn't get to tell us what we're doing with our bodies.
00:08:02
That's crazy. Where are the mask people? Where are the mask people? Where are the libertarians?
00:08:08
Stand up and be like, hey, you don't want big government like this. Remember? Right. All right. Well.
00:08:16
Well, you know what? We've been through some horrible things going on in this country.
00:08:22
And this podcast is supposed to be the thing that you turn on to get away from that. And yet,
00:08:29
you know, we certainly don't want to be the kind of people that run away from talking about the
00:08:33
horrible shit since that's what we do. And that's what we have taught each other how to do over the
00:08:41
years. But this is so beyond that all I can say is there should be a general strike in this country.
00:08:47
Women should absolutely remove all, everything that they are giving to make this culture work
00:08:54
since this culture hates them so much and thinks that they can just take rights away and thinks
00:08:59
that they can send women to jail for having a miscarriage. Like what is happening? What is
00:09:05
fucking happening. In their most difficult life-altering time, punish them for being a woman.
00:09:13
You're being punished for being born a woman. It doesn't make sense that those laws are insane,
00:09:20
draconian, bizarre, far-right policy that is so minority in its backing. Mm-hmm.
00:09:29
Neral says 80% of Americans support and back abortion rights. This is absolutely minority rule in the craziest, craziest fascist takeover way.
00:09:40
Yeah, for sure. So adjust accordingly. Start reading some history books, World War II books.
00:09:47
No joke. Start looking at what other people did when the fascists took over. You're going to need to know.
00:09:52
Yep. Oh, so yeah. We're taking a couple weeks off, but we have some really great episodes for you that we've recorded.
00:10:03
Interviews with really incredible women. A really fun episode at the end of that of a movie that we watch with the incredible women from I Saw What You Did.
00:10:14
So we're excited about that. We're excited to give you that content and we hope you really like it.
00:10:19
Well, yes, exactly. unlike last summer where we went into reruns entirely, with the help of some of the Exactly Right hosts this summer,
00:10:27
we just pre-recorded a bunch of really cool, fun interviews. So that'll be coming up next month.
00:10:33
And meanwhile, as we take a break from trying to somehow pretend like nothing's happening
00:10:39
when really horrible things are happening, we recommend you do the same thing. Yeah.
00:10:44
Truly, take care of yourself. Be careful. It's a very, very strange reality adjustment
00:10:50
that a lot of people are going through. And, but what's really cool is a lot of people are starting to take action
00:10:56
and a lot of people are unifying. And that is the truth. And the LA primaries couldn't have gone better.
00:11:03
There's a lot of progressive people that got voted into office. There's a lot of young people that showed up and voted
00:11:09
and actually did the thing that everyone bitches about on social media. But at the end of the day is the most important thing,
00:11:16
whether it sucks or whether it's, you know, whatever. People are doing that. So like, there's definitely things to talk about
00:11:25
to remind ourselves it's not all horrible, but there's some horrible shit going on.
00:11:31
Horrible. Take care of yourself. Take care of yourself. Make sure you're paying attention to your own mental health.
00:11:37
Yeah. All right. Well, I think you're first this week, right? Building better financial habits
00:11:44
usually starts with a few small steps. Start that journey with Acorns and give your money a chance to grow.
00:11:50
Acorns is easy to use You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing even if it your spare change The Acorns Potential screen shows you the power of compounding and how your money could grow over time You can quickly adjust how much you investing every day week or month to make sure that you always building towards your goals Sign up now
00:12:08
and Acorns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment. Join the over 14 million
00:12:12
all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $27 billion with Acorns.
00:12:18
Head to acorns.com slash MFM or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement, compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.
00:12:27
Tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers' accounts,
00:12:31
age, and investment settings. Does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio.
00:12:39
Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors, LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor.
00:12:46
View important disclosures at acorns.com slash mfm. Goodbye. Goodbye. If you spend all day waiting to take your bra off, it might be time for Third Love.
00:12:56
If you're looking for breathable, lightweight comfort this summer, you're gonna love Third Love.
00:13:00
Third Love is built around getting the fit right instead of expecting you to put up with something that doesn't work.
00:13:04
And Third Love offers a full range of sizes from AA to H, including their exclusive half cup sizes, so you can find a fit that feels just right instead of close enough.
00:13:14
Stop settling for bad bras. Whether you're looking for more lift, back smoothing, or straps that stay put, Third Love can find your fit fast.
00:13:22
Their virtual fitting room gets you in the right size and matches you with the best styles for your shape.
00:13:26
If you've ever been fitted for the right size bra, you are in for a treat. It actually changes the whole game with bras.
00:13:33
I thought I was like a something-something A cup. I'm a something-something B cup, and it's just changed my bra game.
00:13:39
I thought I just hated bras, but I was wearing the wrong size. And with Third Love, like they're so comfortable that it doesn't even feel like I'm wearing a bra.
00:13:47
Use code MFM15 for $15 off your first purchase at thirdlove.com. Goodbye. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:13:59
The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.
00:14:10
Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.
00:14:16
Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra fast charging capability.
00:14:23
And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game,
00:14:29
the future isn't some far off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA.
00:14:36
Goodbye. Goodbye. Long ago when we were planning these episodes and we knew that this would be the last episode
00:14:44
before that we would record. This would for us be the last episode before our vacation.
00:14:50
I think Hannah suggested this or Gemma suggested, I can't remember who, but it was basically anyone who loves the film Ferris Bueller
00:14:58
knows that he calls himself Abe Froman, the sausage king of Chicago in that movie.
00:15:05
To get into that restaurant. And the truth is that there was a sausage king of Chicago.
00:15:12
His name was Adolf Lutgart, and he killed his wife. And so this is the story of the real sausage king of Chicago,
00:15:20
who was also a murderer, Adolf Lutgart. All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. The sources on this story today,
00:15:28
there is a Yale Review article by Harold Schechter called The Sausage Vat Murder.
00:15:33
There is, of course, Wikipedia. page. There's a Chicago Tribune article by Edward Bauman and John O'Brien. There's a website called
00:15:45
grunge.com and there was an article on it by Samantha Sanders. There's a website called
00:15:50
Historical Crime Detective and an article by Jason Lucky Morrow. And there's a Huffington Post article
00:15:57
by Robert Lorzell. There's a website called Chicagoology that has an article on this. And
00:16:04
There's a website called Alchemy of Bones, findagrave.com, and a website called Chronicling
00:16:10
America that has two different articles about it. Adolf Lutger is born on December 27th, 1845,
00:16:19
to his parents Christian and Margrethe in the German city of Güttersloh. He's the fourth child
00:16:26
of 16. Nope. Nope. Fourth of a schoolhouse of a family. Nope. Fourth child of 16. He also has a twin brother. So at this time, basically, Germany, as we know it,
00:16:42
does not exist in terms of being one country. The place where Adolf grows up is in the province
00:16:47
of Westphalia. It has a population of around 3,000 people. When he's still a baby, there's a
00:16:54
a terrible famine in Germany. And I don't know if it's this one because this was the, you know, the 1800s.
00:17:01
But did you know that like Hansel and Gretel and those stories, the Grimm Brothers fairy tale stories,
00:17:07
like when they have kids in the forest, like wandering around, those are based on true stories of famine in Germany
00:17:13
where people, children would be orphaned and lost. And then if they got caught, they would be eaten by adults who were starving.
00:17:22
Oh my God. I read that recently on some kind of like, did you know, like, this is what this was based on it?
00:17:30
Because the names Hansel and Gretel were like saying John and Mary, like the most common names of the time.
00:17:36
Yeah. And it was essentially just like, yeah. Oh, God. This was something that happened culturally.
00:17:41
But I think it may have been an earlier famine, like in the 1600s. That's what I thought I remembered from this article.
00:17:49
Wow. Yeah. Just so I string it together to some super dark famine stuff Got to have it in there So crops fail food prices skyrocket around the time the German Revolution erupts in 1848 And this basically was what caused the great migration of
00:18:07
German people to America. Much like the Irish famine made everybody come, Germany was becoming
00:18:14
the kind of place where you had to get out. You had to go find a new place to make your start.
00:18:19
So basically in 1860, 14-year-old Adolf leaves school to take a job as a tanning apprentice
00:18:25
to a man named Ferdinand Nabel. This was very common for like young men to go get, if their fathers had a trade or they
00:18:33
could get an apprenticeship, they would leave school to go learn their trade and also live
00:18:38
with the family of the person that's teaching them their trade. So he basically finishes his apprenticeship when he's 17 and sets off traveling around Germany, picking up work where he can.
00:18:51
In 1865, when he's 19, he travels to London, but he can only get work scrubbing in restaurant kitchens.
00:18:58
So he only stays there for six months. And so he decides then to move to New York in 1865.
00:19:05
So two of his brothers have already made the journey and settled in both Chicago and Baltimore.
00:19:10
So he believes that he too can travel to America and make a better life for himself
00:19:17
with 30 bucks in his pocket. Right? Adolph doesn't stay in New York City. He actually almost immediately goes to Quincy, Illinois,
00:19:25
where his brother Henry lives. But when he fails to find work in Quincy, he goes into the city and goes to Chicago.
00:19:31
And he finds a job as a tanner at Union Hide and Leather Company. And he also, of course, gets a second job to make ends meet.
00:19:38
So from 1867 to 1872, Adolf continues to work for tanneries and saves $4,000. Yeah.
00:19:47
Which is the today's equivalent, $4,000 in 1872, $95,800 in today's money. How? That's so much money for like a young tanner, I would imagine.
00:20:02
He's busting ass and he is not fucking around. He's not buying himself new shoes.
00:20:07
Right. He is saving every penny. Right. So he uses this money to start his own business as a wholesale liquor dealer, which is actually
00:20:15
kind of smart. He buys property at the corner of A and Dolmack Streets in the Nicholsonville neighborhood,
00:20:21
which was named after the Nicholson Distillery. So he buys and sells liquor from the basement of the building that he buys, and then he lives
00:20:29
in the building. So at this point in time, Chicago is the second largest city in the United States.
00:20:35
The economy's booming. The Great Fire just happened the year before. So 1871 is when the Great Chicago Fire happened, killed 300 people, leaves 100,000 homeless,
00:20:47
destroys 17,000 structures, causes 2 million in damage. So if you 2 million in damage then, when 4,000 is 95,000, don't even get me started with math.
00:20:59
You love math. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So remember the story of when I told of the great Chicago fire
00:21:07
and all the people were just standing in the lake staring at the city burning? Yeah.
00:21:12
Remember that part? Yeah. That's from like five years ago. Yeah. Chicago's rebuilding itself and it's got all the industries.
00:21:19
It's got the big hogs. It's got the slaughterhouses. It's got this guy with his liquor.
00:21:25
It's all happening. So on April 13th, 1872, when he's 26 years old, Adolf marries a 23-year-old woman named Caroline Rupka.
00:21:35
So his business is doing so well, he moves to Clyburn and Webster Avenues and he combines the sales with a saloon tavern.
00:21:44
And then they live in the building again, rooms above the store. January of 1873, Adolf's new wife, Caroline,
00:21:51
gives birth to their son, Max, and then a second son named Arnold a little less than two years later.
00:21:57
Sadly, the same year that his brother Arnold is born, Max dies when he's two years old.
00:22:03
Very bad infant mortality back then. November 17th, 1877, 27-year-old Caroline succumbs to period tinnitus
00:22:11
and she dies. She leaves Adolf a single father to a two-and-a-half-year-old boy.
00:22:18
Adolf sends his son to live with Caroline's mother while he stays in the building running the store
00:22:24
and running his liquor empire. Two months after Caroline's death on January 18th, 1878,
00:22:32
32-year-old Adolf Lukert remarries. Two months. Yikes. His new bride is a 23-year-old Louisa Bickneys.
00:22:42
And he actually, when he proposes, gives Louisa a 14-carat gold wedding ring that's engraved with her new initials, LL.
00:22:50
So Louisa's also from Germany. She is the second youngest of six children. And when she was 17,
00:22:57
she and her 15-year-old brother, Diedrich, sail from Bremen to New York City. They arrive in America on November 12th, 1872.
00:23:05
And then Gemma put a note that said, I'm not sure how Louisa makes her way from New York City to Chicago.
00:23:12
What I would like to tell you, Gemma, and everybody else is that I know how because that's how my grandmother
00:23:17
emigrated to San Francisco. She came in Ellis Island. She and her two sisters, and my grandmother was also 17.
00:23:24
She and her two sisters were brought to the Lower East Side and put into a tenement house.
00:23:31
And basically, when my grandmother got to the tenement house, their sponsor was like,
00:23:35
we're coming, I'm coming back tomorrow. And you guys were going to put you in some, like they were going to go be maids.
00:23:40
The second the guy left, my grandma turned to her two sisters and says, I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting out of here.
00:23:46
And they went down to Grand Central Station, took a train from New York City to Chicago.
00:23:52
Wow. And then from Chicago to California. That's how they got to San Francisco. So I bet that train to Chicago out of...
00:24:00
NYC was very popular. Yeah. Because it was rough for immigrants. My great-grandparents went to Chicago too.
00:24:09
Did they? Mm-hmm. And Philadelphia? That's not right. Cleveland. Cleveland. Cleveland.
00:24:17
But they came through Ellis Island? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Many, many did. That's the way.
00:24:23
Many to escape religious persecution and fanaticism. Definitely mine. and now it's being taken away all over again.
00:24:31
And now it only took us about 100 years to forget how much it sucks. So basically, Louisa, my guess is she takes that train
00:24:40
to Chicago, gets there. She also becomes a domestic servant. She barely speaks English.
00:24:46
At some point, she meets Adolf. It's kind of mysterious how they met. They fall in love, get married.
00:24:52
And then basically, Louisa knows that she's the wife and she will soon be a mother.
00:24:59
She also supports Adolf's commercial ambitions. She really wants him to succeed.
00:25:03
She knows his business is going great, but she also wants him to save money and she wants him to be very careful
00:25:09
just so they can be as successful as possible. So in the fall of 1879, 33-year-old Adolf sells his liquor business
00:25:16
and starts a meat route, making and selling sausages door to door. Can you imagine?
00:25:23
You're just like, knock, knock, knock. Do you need any bacon? just right there on your doorstep.
00:25:29
So, and the couple end up having four children and two of them die of cholera because that was the time, you know,
00:25:39
that's, it was pretty common back then. Yeah. So they've moved basically from the city
00:25:45
out to a farm in Elgin, Illinois. But Louisa doesn't like being away from the city.
00:25:51
And she tells Adolf she wants to go back and she urges him to take steps to basically,
00:25:56
continue growing this sausage business. She really sees a future in it. So basically,
00:26:02
what Adolf did was he manufactured summer sausage in the winter. And that basically,
00:26:09
it's a very... In Europe, it was a popular style of sausage because it doesn't require refrigeration.
00:26:14
So the meat is slightly fermented, usually consists of beef and pork. And then you...
00:26:20
Because it's fermented, it keeps for a long time. So it's really popular. So Adolf takes his earnings and he builds his own factory,
00:26:28
which becomes the AL Lutgart Sausage and Packing Company. He buys a place on North and Sheffield Avedues.
00:26:35
So it's basically a commercial property and then a family home is all built. Like that's how well they're doing.
00:26:40
They have a whole compound. And so they move in in 1886. But by 1891, Louisa has had enough.
00:26:49
She cannot live next to the sausage factory anymore. Imagine the smell. Oof. And the fermentation smell especially.
00:26:57
Ew. Fermentation, old sausage, offal, O-F-F-A-L. Not cool. So in the spring of 1891, 45-year-old Adolph buys land on Howe Street.
00:27:10
The family moves again. They have another child named Elmer and everything is going well.
00:27:15
The business is going really well. So Adolph purchases property at the southwest corner of Diversi Parkway and Hermitage Avenue
00:27:22
on the northwest side of Chicago for $141,000. So basically his plan, he buys the spot.
00:27:30
He's going to build a five-story brick factory. But Louisa doesn't want him to put that much money into it.
00:27:36
He's like, let's just spend it all and let's go for it. You know, we're having a sausage renaissance.
00:27:41
And she's just like, don't do it. He also wants to take on borrowed money from investors.
00:27:47
like he wants to really go for it. And she's like diversify. It's basically a thing they fight over all the time.
00:27:55
And I think she is so assertive and he's kind of like, how dare you? You're not, you know, it's, hold on.
00:28:01
It's the 1880s and I'm a man. How dare you tell me anything? So he forges ahead with his plans.
00:28:07
The five-story building is a warehouse. There's also a grocery store in it, Adolph's office,
00:28:12
and then a basement where the actual sausage curing vats are housed. Then there's a smaller building on the site that's the Sausage Factory.
00:28:20
And then the family's three-story home is next to the Sausage Factory. So it wasn't really planned out very well.
00:28:27
And that new compound they move in in 1894. So this is the point where Adolph becomes the Sausage King of Chicago.
00:28:34
He is known throughout the city. You know, he actually goes out walking and he's a very imposing presence
00:28:40
because most of the time he has Great Danes that he walks. And so people know who he is.
00:28:46
And he's kind of like this local character. So Adolf and Louisa's fights about money
00:28:53
and the running of the business escalate into violence. Adolf is physically abusive to his wife.
00:28:59
In the mid 1890s, a 22-year-old cousin of Louisa's named Mary Simmering comes to stay with the couple
00:29:05
to work as a servant. And Adolf starts flirting with Mary, which of course pisses Louisa off.
00:29:12
And then there's also a woman who is the saloon owner across the street's wife. And her name is Agatha Tosh. And he's very friendly with her as well.
00:29:23
So, and then there's also a wealthy widow named Christine Felt. Louise is basically getting it
00:29:28
from all sides, hearing that he just is like, he can't get enough of these women that are basically
00:29:33
in the neighborhood. She's super pissed. She makes it clear that she's unhappy about it,
00:29:39
that she doesn't like her husband's extramarital activities. He starts sleeping in the factory.
00:29:47
He's got a room off of his office that he starts sleeping in. And that's also where he entertains
00:29:52
these women that he is becoming friends with They just friends Besties Okay So to make things worse the sausage business starts to decline Yeah In 1896 the country plunged into an economic depression So he basically
00:30:09
constantly expanding his business and then he's borrowing from kind of shady, dangerous people.
00:30:16
And he just keeps borrowing money. But when the economy slows down, 50-year-old Adolf finds
00:30:21
himself struggling to repay his debts and his creditors are powerful and dangerous people.
00:30:26
So we're thinking, yeah, some mafia types. So Adolf now knows if he doesn't find a solution
00:30:33
that he'll lose his business. So of course, that's even worse. So the marriage isn't going well,
00:30:39
then the business isn't going well. And then Louise is coming to him being like,
00:30:43
I told you not to invest all this money. I told you. Basically, like you didn't listen to me.
00:30:48
So on March 11th, 1897, Adolf buys 50 pounds of arsenic and 375 pounds of potash, which is a highly caustic potassium rich salt, which is similar to lye.
00:31:03
They usually use it in making soap and liquefying fat. Ew. Like a fight club. Yes, exactly.
00:31:13
So a month after he makes that purchase on April 24th, Adolf tells a factory employee named Frank Odorfsky
00:31:21
to help him pour the potash into a steam vat with water. So Franks think this is weird.
00:31:28
He has never known potash should be used in any sort of sausage-making process, but he does as he's told
00:31:33
because he's dealing with the sausage king. What choice does he have? So on the evening of May 1st, 1897,
00:31:43
Adolph tells factory watchman Frank Bialk to bring two barrels of potash to the basement boiler room.
00:31:50
Frank watches as Adolph pours the potash into one of the vats and turns on the steam line, boiling the water and the potash mixture.
00:31:59
And then that night, around 10 o'clock, Adolph sends Frank to the drugstore to get him some medication.
00:32:05
At 10 o'clock at night in the 1800s. Like, what? Is it 24-hour, like, a CVS from back in the day?
00:32:13
Right, hit up the CVS, please. What would it be? Can we just take a moment? I bet you can knock on the door of the pharmacist and be like, Gregory, it's me.
00:32:22
It feels like back then everyone lived above their store or shop. Mm-hmm. That was kind of like the rule.
00:32:29
So, yeah, you could send someone and just be like, I need something in a blue bottle with a label, a handwritten label on the front of it.
00:32:37
Can you come down here? Mm-hmm. I just really want to go to a pharmacy from 1897.
00:32:44
A grocery would be amazing. A green grocer or a fucking, I would love that. Even those pictures where like the cool, you know,
00:32:53
the ladder that rolls down the thing and they go get things off of the top shelf
00:32:58
and all that shit. Like everything was kind of like wood cut and like perfectly, this is the candy sales area
00:33:06
had its own jars and things. It's just beautiful. Apothecary. That's the thing I want to see.
00:33:15
Apothecary. Yeah. And then you can go and just get a little, just a little bottle of cocaine for yourself.
00:33:21
Just for later. When the kids go to bed. A little pep. Every morning. Just take a look at the lake and have a good time.
00:33:28
Not long after Adolph sends Frank to go do his errand, Several witnesses see Adolf and his wife, Louisa,
00:33:37
who's only about five feet tall, the wife. They enter the factory and they, so like from their house into the factory.
00:33:43
Charles Hanks, who's walking past the factory around the same time, hears a noise that he believes sounds like screaming.
00:33:51
When Frank Bialk returns from the errand, he can tell that Adolf is in the boiler room,
00:33:56
but the door's locked. So he doesn't know who else is in there. He doesn't go inside.
00:34:01
No one knows exactly what went on in the boiler room that night, but it ends with Adolf placing his wife's dead and fully clothed body into the vat of potash and water.
00:34:14
And that highly alkaline mixture begins to dissolve Louisa's body. Oh my God. So they do know that Adolf went and returned and checked on the vat basically for the next couple of days and was just constantly checking it.
00:34:31
And he actually ends up recruiting some employees from the sausage factory to go help him clean up and dispose of a rancid red-colored liquid that was spilling over the side of the vat.
00:34:42
Oh. So they empty the vat. They scrub it of any evidence of flesh or bone. And then that liquid is dumped into the factory furnace.
00:34:53
He thought of a real messy way of doing it. Yes. And also a really public way of doing it.
00:34:59
Public and messy. Cocky almost, a cocky way of doing it. Yes, and kind of a stupid way of doing it.
00:35:06
Adolf tells his sons that their mother went to visit her sister and he doesn't know why she hasn't come back.
00:35:12
So clearly not thought through. Right. No plan. Louise's brother, Diedrich, tries to make contact with her,
00:35:19
but she's never at home or at the factory or anywhere for that matter. No one else in the family has heard from her either.
00:35:26
Diedrich becomes concerned and then suspicious, especially when Adolf is dismissive of his brother-in-law's questions about Louisa's
00:35:33
whereabouts. So Diedrich reports his sister is missing on May 8th, 1897. So when the police go
00:35:40
to speak with Adolf, he tells them that Louisa's run away with another man. But then they search
00:35:45
the Lugart home and they notice that Louisa hasn't taken any of her belongings on this trip.
00:35:52
That when Adolf changes his story He says because of the business dire financial situation Louisa has taken her own life He claims that on the night that she was last seen he was in the company of his friend Charles
00:36:06
Mader. But officers find sales receipts documenting Adolph's purchase of both arsenic and potash
00:36:14
just before the murder. So when they ask him what he uses those chemicals for, he says he has it to
00:36:20
make soap to clean the factory. But the amount of potash that he has purchased would have made
00:36:26
around 2,000 pounds of soap. Yeah. Too much soap. Very, yeah, cost prohibitive for actually
00:36:37
using that soap to clean. It's too much soap. So police grow increasingly suspicious that Adolf
00:36:45
not only knows more than he's saying, but that he's directly involved in his wife's disappearance.
00:36:50
On May 15th, officers search the factory, and that's when they make their way to the boiler room in the basement
00:36:55
where they see a large vat. So peering inside, they see remnants of the slimy, red,
00:37:01
foul-smelling potash solution. And when the remaining sludge at the bottom of the vat is drained,
00:37:06
police find two rings, one of which is Louise's wedding ring, which is easily identified with the engraved initials of LL.
00:37:14
Yeah. So what more do you want? Come on, dude. Like he's not even trying No And then underneath the vat
00:37:22
They find partially dissolved human teeth And then they search the drain pipes That's when they find particles of human bone
00:37:31
They then search the furnace And they find even more grisly evidence Along with burned sausages
00:37:37
There's steel boning That's the kind that's used in women's corsets Those are found inside the furnace
00:37:43
More human bone fragments are found in the factory yard. So basically, the police now are searching for Charles Mader,
00:37:52
who is the only person that can hold up the alibi claim of Adolph's. But they discover that Mader has fled to Europe.
00:38:01
A great sign. So investigators then speak to more people who know the couple, the Lutgerts, and Adolph's friends, Agatha and Christine,
00:38:11
the women he was messing around with, They both tell police that Adolf told them on numerous occasions that he wishes his wife, Louisa, was dead.
00:38:20
So when Adolf's employees and the watchman, Frank, tell officers about assisting Adolf in the days leading up to and after the murder, Adolf is arrested on May 17th, 1897.
00:38:31
He insists he's innocent, and he has no knowledge of where his wife is. On June 6th, Adolf is indicted by a grand jury to stand trial for murder, and they refuse bail.
00:38:42
So basically between Adolf's arrest and the beginning of his trial in August of 1897,
00:38:48
the company's sausage sales plummet because just as you said, there's a murder in the building
00:38:54
where they make the sausages. So immediately the rumor, Mill has it, that Louise's body was in the sausages.
00:39:02
Ooh, right. Yeah. Yes. That's how he actually disposed of her, which is horrifying, disgusting.
00:39:09
And also you would only need to hear that even just the slightest suggestion, you wouldn't be able to eat that sausage.
00:39:14
No, definitely not. In my opinion. I challenge you. That rumor actually gets put to bed publicly when it's
00:39:24
pointed out that Adolf wasn't manufacturing sausages at that time of year. But as we all
00:39:29
know, by that point, it doesn't matter what the truth is. The trial receives a ton of media
00:39:34
attention. Newspaper reporters from all over the country are sent to Chicago to cover the trial.
00:39:39
and every day for the first couple months of the proceedings, there are mobs of spectators at the Cook County Courthouse
00:39:47
where it's being held, even back in 1897. Yeah. The biggest hurdle for the prosecution
00:39:52
is proving murder in the absence of a body. So aside from the bone fragments, there are no sizable remains belonging to Louisa
00:40:00
that are recovered. The prosecution alleges that the potash solution liquefied Louisa's soft tissue
00:40:07
and dissolved most of her bones, but that's difficult to prove. So the state has a novel and unprecedented ace up its sleeve.
00:40:14
For the first time in U.S. legal history, the prosecution calls forensic anthropologist
00:40:20
George Amos Dorsey from Chicago's Field Columbian Museum as an expert witness. Right?
00:40:28
So George Dorsey testifies that the bone fragments found in the furnace include bones from human feet and toes
00:40:35
and the posterior end of a human rib. And the court hears that amongst the bones found in the factory yard
00:40:42
are the remains of a human skull. The prosecution goes so far as to conduct an experiment
00:40:47
to see what happens to a human body submerged in a potash solution. People must have been talking about this trial forever.
00:40:56
Yeah. Because that's pretty wild that they did that test. And they dissolved a cadaver in the same vat
00:41:04
where Louise's body was disposed. Wow. After the mixture containing the body is boiled for two hours,
00:41:11
nothing remains at the end, except for some of the larger bones. The prosecution also points to the discovery
00:41:18
of what are proved to be Louise's rings at the end. So that's kind of very damning.
00:41:24
Also, that woman, Agatha Toach, who I believe is the saloon owner's wife from across the street,
00:41:30
she tells the court that on the night of the murder, she'd seen smoke coming from the factory chimney.
00:41:36
At that time, Agatha thinks this is odd, given that the factory isn't meant to be manufacturing
00:41:40
at the end of the fall season. And then the woman, Christine Felt, gives damning testimony,
00:41:46
telling the court that the day of Adolf's arrest, he gives her a four and a half inch pocket knife
00:41:51
for safekeeping, right? The knife which is rusted and stained we don know with what is passed around the courtroom And Adolf admits it his and he inspects it running his fingernail along the blade
00:42:06
but he shows no emotion. The prosecution tells the courtroom, this is the murder weapon.
00:42:13
So the defense argues that on the night Louisa disappeared, she left the house voluntarily.
00:42:18
They point to evidence by people from as many as 12 different states who had contacted the police
00:42:23
to claim they had seen Louisa Lutgart. One particularly popular story is that she'd fled her violent husband
00:42:30
and boarded a ship back to Europe. But there were no sightings of Louisa outside of the U.S. ever.
00:42:37
They were never reported. Adolf's general demeanor during the proceedings is one of a relaxed and confident man
00:42:43
who clearly thinks he's going to be acquitted. But October 21st, 1897, the jury comes back and they cannot decide.
00:42:53
And so it's a hung jury. In December of 1897, Adolph's second trial begins. And again, the prosecution calls
00:43:01
that same forensic anthropologist, George Dorsey. When Adolph takes the stand, this time around,
00:43:07
he's questioned for 18 and a half hours. Jesus. Yeah. Most of his responses are a combination of,
00:43:14
I don't know, or I don't remember. So- That's part jurors. Yeah, and the funny thing is it's three months later.
00:43:22
Right. It's not like they had to wait five years. It's ridiculous. So on February 9th, 1898,
00:43:29
the second jury finally reaches a definitive conclusion and 52-year-old Adolf Lutgart is found guilty
00:43:36
and sentenced to life in prison at Illinois State Penitentiary. His attorney immediately begins working on an appeal,
00:43:42
but soon after Adolf is imprisoned, he starts complaining that Louise's ghost is tormenting him.
00:43:49
And what's strange is around the same time, the Lutgart's neighbors report seeing,
00:43:55
they think they're seeing Louise's ghost back from the dead in the house, which I think is the fact that both of those things
00:44:02
are happening simultaneously. They're like, ooh, what's going on? 18 months after Adolf's conviction
00:44:08
on the morning of July 7th, 1899, the 53-year-old man is found dead in his prison cell.
00:44:15
Despite some accounts claiming that Louise haunted her husband until he died, the cause of death is officially recorded as fatty degenerative heart disease.
00:44:25
So in the years following Adolph's conviction and death, the Lutgart family home moves at least once from its original location on Hermitage Avenue.
00:44:34
Only one tenant moves into the Lutgart's house after the murder, but they don't stay long.
00:44:40
And no one else seems to want to live in the house, probably because the gossip has gotten around that her ghost is haunting it.
00:44:46
There's a fire at the Sausage Factory in June of 1904 that destroys part of the building,
00:44:52
but not all of it entirely. And at this point, the former factory is now occupied by the Library Bureau.
00:44:59
So it still exists today. In the late 90s, it was converted into condos, but the Sausage Factory building remains standing today on the south side
00:45:10
of the 1700 block of West Diversi Parkway. Wow. In Chicago, Illinois. Do you live there, anyone listening? Tell us about the ghosts.
00:45:20
Are your lights constantly going on and on? And that is the terrible, horrible nightmare story of Adolf Lutgart, the murderous Chicago sausage king.
00:45:29
Wow, that's fucked up. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:45:40
The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.
00:45:51
Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach.
00:45:57
Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle. Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability.
00:46:04
And Hyundai continues doing it every day. From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far-off concept.
00:46:13
It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
00:46:19
Peace of mind can be hard to come by. Especially at 2 a.m. when your house suddenly makes a weird noise.
00:46:23
That's why so many people trust SimpliSafe to help keep their home secure. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in has already happened, and that's too late.
00:46:32
SimpliSafe is changing that. The system is customizable so you can build the one that fits your home and your specific needs.
00:46:38
The 24-7 professional monitoring is effective and affordable and won't lock you into a long-term contract.
00:46:44
Listen, Cookie is a really good watchdog, but she's not going to tell me what is actually going on.
00:46:49
If it's a raccoon or if it's a person looking through my windows. Like, you have to get this level of safety if you want to feel as safe as possible.
00:46:57
So you know what's going on. So I just feel safer with actually having something like SimpliSafe around.
00:47:02
There's a whole staff at SimpliSafe that's waiting to talk to you and help you out and tell you, no, you're fine.
00:47:07
It's a raccoon. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting SimpliSafe.com slash MFM.
00:47:13
That's half off at SimpliSafe.com slash MFM. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goodbye.
00:47:19
If you're always on the lookout for a great audiobook or just want help figuring out what to listen to next, there's a podcast you should know about.
00:47:26
It's called Ear Say, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club hosted by Cal Penn. Each episode takes a closer look at some of the most talked about new audiobooks on Audible, spanning a wide range of genres from sci-fi and literary fiction to rom-coms, thrillers, and comedy.
00:47:40
Cal is joined by guests who dig into what these stories are about, what makes them stand out as audiobooks, and why they're connecting with listeners right now.
00:47:47
If you're looking for your next listen, this is a great place to start. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:47:57
Goodbye. All right. Great job. Oh, thank you. Moving right along. I'm going to tell you about the strange disappearance of Laureen Rahn.
00:48:12
So the sources I used today are the New Hampshire Department of Justice website,
00:48:18
the Doe Network, the Charlie Project, an in-depth case summary written by Raman Alien on Reddit.
00:48:24
Oh. In a Medium article written by Brenda Thornlow. On April 3rd, 1966, Laureen Rahn is born in Manchester, New Hampshire.
00:48:38
When she's still a baby, her parents divorce. She stays with her mom. She rarely sees her dad.
00:48:43
And by 1980, mom and daughter are living in an apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire,
00:48:50
which is right outside of Bedford. And it's about an hour from Boston. Laureen, who's in junior high now, is smart and outgoing
00:48:59
Her aunt said that she's, quote, pleasant and happy all the time She's kind of a normal young teen
00:49:06
And by junior high, she's on the honor roll She loves to sing and dance And she dreams of being an actress someday
00:49:14
But while in junior high, like so many of us Laureen starts rebelling and spends a lot of her time hanging out in the neighborhood,
00:49:24
which in her neighborhood, it's on the rougher side. She starts smoking weed and drinking.
00:49:30
One of Laureen's aunts later says Laureen is, quote, an angel who hung around with the wrong people for a while,
00:49:37
which, amen. On April 26th, 1980, Laureen's mom, Judith, goes out of town with her boyfriend.
00:49:45
He's a professional tennis player and he has a tournament that day. And Laureen usually goes with them
00:49:50
But this time she asks if she can stay at the apartment alone. It's the first night of spring break.
00:49:55
She wants to hang out with her friends and have the house to herself. Like any 14-year-old would.
00:50:01
So Laureen spends the day hanging around the neighborhood, then invites two friends over.
00:50:05
And the friends have never been named. But we know they're a 14-year-old girl and a 21-year-old boy.
00:50:12
And according to them, they go to Laureen's apartment around 11 o'clock at night.
00:50:16
And they drink beer and wine cooler. And so after they drink for a while, Laureen's girlfriend goes to sleep in Laureen's bed.
00:50:24
She gets drunk. And Laureen and the male friend sit on the couch in the living room hanging out.
00:50:30
And that's when the male friend says that he thought they think they heard someone in the hallway
00:50:36
coming to the apartment door. And Laureen thinking her mom might be coming home early
00:50:41
just like rushes the guy friend out the back door. But actually, her mom doesn't get home until around 1.15.
00:50:50
And as she and her boyfriend walk up to the third floor apartment hallway, they notice that every hallway light is out.
00:50:57
So it's completely pitch black. So she figures a fuse burnt out or something. But when she and her boyfriend reach the apartment,
00:51:04
they find that the door is unlocked, which is weird because Judith is really careful.
00:51:10
Her and her daughter are really careful, and they make sure the house is locked all the time.
00:51:14
So once inside, Judith goes to look in on Laureen in her room and sees someone in Laureen's bed and she figures it's her.
00:51:23
But then Judith's boyfriend notices that the apartment's back door has been left wide open, which Laureen would never do.
00:51:29
And so Judith double checks on her daughter in the bedroom again and realizes it's Laureen's friend.
00:51:37
And the friend says Laureen should be sleeping on the couch, but of course she's not on the couch.
00:51:44
There's only a pillow and blanket there but there's no sign of Laureen. There's also no sign of a struggle
00:51:48
and nothing seems to be missing. But however, Laureen didn't take clothes or money
00:51:54
or any personal items with her including her brand new favorite shoes which are in the living room.
00:52:01
Like she, it's almost like she had taken the shoes off and laid down on the couch with a pillow or something
00:52:05
and something happened. Judith and her boyfriend start searching the neighborhood for Laureen
00:52:10
and can't find anything. And by around 3.45 a.m., Judith reports her daughter missing.
00:52:16
Of course, police ask if Judith and Laureen had had a fight recently. Judith said they had a little disagreement,
00:52:23
but that wasn't something Laureen would run away over. But police cling to that idea.
00:52:28
And so in their minds, Laureen's a runaway. She's 14. She's from a, quote, broken home.
00:52:33
It happens all the time. But Judith says that she and Laureen are best friends. They're really close.
00:52:38
Laureen would never do this. When police speak to the friends who had been with Laureen that night,
00:52:43
the mail tells police that when Laureen snuck him out the back door, when they thought the mom was coming home,
00:52:49
he distinctly remembered her locking the door after he left. The girl was too drunk to remember much of anything.
00:52:56
She's later hypnotized, hoping that she remembers something, but it doesn't work.
00:53:00
One of Laureen's neighbors tells police that around the same time that Laureen and her male friend had heard voices,
00:53:07
he had also heard voices in the hallway. He said he heard footsteps going towards Laureen's apartment.
00:53:12
Then everything went silent. And then they find out that all the lights that are out in the hallway,
00:53:19
the reason they're out is not a fuse being busted, but someone had lightly unscrewed every light bulb.
00:53:28
A week after Laureen disappears, police still think she might be a runaway. Although because of that, those weird little incidents,
00:53:35
they starting to believe something might happened to her A bus station employee says he sold a ticket to a girl who looked like Laureen and he said he dropped her off in Park Square in Boston
00:53:47
But later, he sees another updated picture of Laureen and doesn't think it's her.
00:53:52
Judith goes to the FBI, but of course, they can't do anything about it without an evidence
00:53:56
of kidnapping. They do tell Judith that it's possible Laureen has been sold into, quote,
00:54:02
white slavery. And they give Laureen the number of two private investigators who she does hire,
00:54:09
but they never find anything of interest. Finally, police start to suspect that Laureen
00:54:14
didn't actually run away because she doesn't contact anyone. They theorize that she willingly
00:54:18
went outside through the back door and planned to return to the apartment, but was met with foul
00:54:23
play outside instead. They do find in the neighborhood, there's a 35-year-old man who's
00:54:29
known to invite teen girls to his apartment and gives them beer. He's the known owner of child
00:54:34
pornography magazines, but they never find any evidence linking him. In November of 1980, Judith
00:54:41
looks over her phone bills and notices that she'd been billed for three calls placed in Santa Monica,
00:54:49
California on October 1st. So Judith knows she didn't make these calls. So did someone, you know,
00:54:56
wondering, did someone make them from her apartment? But that's not what happened.
00:55:00
According to Medium, calls could be charged to your own number by calling the phone company and entering a PIN code.
00:55:08
But Judith has no ties to anyone in California, so there isn't an explanation for who the calls were made by.
00:55:14
And she starts theorizing that Lorene had made these calls. So two of the calls were to a motel in Santa Ana,
00:55:21
and the third was to a hotline for teens who had questions about sex. So police contact the doctor who runs the hotline out of California, but he says he doesn't know anything about that call or Laureen.
00:55:34
So this starts to get really like tangled and weird. Judith and her sister also start receiving mysterious phone calls.
00:55:42
And when the call is answered, the person on the other end just doesn't say anything and hangs up.
00:55:47
The calls come in around 3.45 a.m., which is the time Laureen was reported missing.
00:55:53
After around a year, the calls taper off. However, for a few years, the calls do return around Christmas time.
00:56:00
And they finally stop when Judith remarries and moves to Florida and changes her number.
00:56:05
But one of Judith's other sisters, Janet, also receives calls. One comes from a young girl asking for Mike.
00:56:11
And Janet has a son named Michael, who's Lorraine's favorite cousin. And Lorraine's the only person who calls him Mike.
00:56:18
So it's very suspicious. But when Mike comes to the phone, the caller's gone. Then in 1985, police look back into the hotline call Judith was billed for,
00:56:27
and they speak to the doctor again who runs the hotline. And this is where things get weird and confusing because there isn't a ton known about this.
00:56:36
The doctor has changed his story now. He says runaway girls often visited his wife at their house,
00:56:43
and he remembers that one of the girls might have been from New Hampshire. in 1985 the male friend who was there that night with laurine the night she disappeared he takes
00:56:54
his own life he leaves a note saying he quote couldn't take it anymore um but he was never a
00:57:00
suspect and laurine's family wonder if maybe he just knew more and was scared or something like
00:57:05
that i mean i was gonna say in the beginning it's super weird that a 21 year old is hanging out with
00:57:10
14 year old girls yeah 14 year old girls are babies that's like just out of junior high yeah
00:57:16
There is no reason for those two sets of people to be, quote unquote, hanging out together.
00:57:22
At 14, I hung out and drank with 21-year-olds and they were looking back, so fucking sketchy, but at the time.
00:57:30
But then it was also 1980. Watch that movie. Over the Edge? Yes. Yes. And it's like, people just hung out together.
00:57:40
No, that's, it's true. I don't mean that about that person. But I mean, it's just kind of like, it's not, imagine that today.
00:57:48
No. It simply would not be. Right, right. It's the wild openness and kind of like, yeah, it would just be,
00:57:58
that's the first person I would absolutely check on, which maybe is what he's talking about of saying he can't take it anymore.
00:58:04
It's just like he can't take the suspicion. Right, totally. I will say that some articles say he's 15,
00:58:10
but from what I was able to find the most of, said he was 21. So the next year in 1986, an investigator travels to California
00:58:19
and finds the motels where the billed calls were placed. According to the officers, the two motels had been on the police's radar in 1980
00:58:27
for a different reason. They were bases for a number of sex trafficking rings at the time.
00:58:33
And it turns out that a lot of child pornography was filmed there. And the investigation into the trafficking rings had uncovered that the leader at the time was a man known as Dr. Z.
00:58:48
And he was a child pornographer. Police are never able to find any ties between Dr. Z and the hotline or Laureen.
00:58:56
However, police have never ruled out this theory completely. And it's just so like ominous and there's not a ton of information about it.
00:59:04
But it's like, you know, it's too big of a coincidence, right? Yes completely agreed Also because that was the time where like 800 numbers were starting and the phone it was a very strange time where the phone really was a thing that got used so much more But you telling me it a hotline for teenage girls to call and ask questions about sex
00:59:28
Right. That's about the most, like, what in the living hell are you talking about service I've ever
00:59:33
heard of. Like, it's not like they're not calling the nurses station at a local hospital.
00:59:40
That's such an inappropriate thing to have like a hotline for that it would be very interesting
00:59:46
to know what the qualifications of the people on the other end of that. If it was like, yes,
00:59:51
it's us, the Women's Health Center. It's a bunch of women and retired nurses answering these
00:59:56
questions, but it doesn't sound like that. No, no. So besides the hotline, Dr. Z and those
01:00:03
California calls, there haven't really been any solid leads. With that said though, there are
01:00:09
some other young women who disappeared in that area around the time Laureen went missing and
01:00:15
they look similar to Laureen, which might not mean anything. You know, everyone kind of looked
01:00:19
the same in the 80s, right? They did. Everyone had feathered hair. Exactly. Parted up the middle.
01:00:24
Right. Girls had boys' haircuts. Right. Lots of makeup and, you know, wild, wet and wild lip gloss and stuff. Yeah. These cases have never been specifically linked,
01:00:32
but it's worth mentioning because there's some coincidences that are like, again, too big.
01:00:37
Or they're red herrings. So on March 22nd, 1980, 15-year-old Rachel Garden, she buys a few things at a corner store at a market in Newton, which is around 45 minutes
01:00:49
from Manchester, where Laureen's from. She then starts walking to a friend's where she's going to
01:00:54
spend the night and she never makes it and she's never seen again. So then on June 8th, 1980,
01:01:00
25-year-old single mother of two, Denise Dinalt, leaves a private social club in downtown
01:01:07
Manchester around 1.30 a.m. And that's where Laureen went missing from. She says she's going to another party,
01:01:15
but Denise is never seen again. And then we'll much later find out that her neighbor from literally a couple doors down
01:01:22
is none other than suspected serial killer, Terry Rasmussen, who's very likely responsible
01:01:28
for the Bear Brook State Park murders. Oh, shit. That fucking evil monster. That guy is disgusting.
01:01:36
So Terry died in prison in 2010. It's strongly believed that Rasmussen is responsible for the murders of a woman
01:01:44
and then three small children whose bodies were found in barrels in the woods near Bearbrook State Park in Allenston, New Hampshire, which is close by.
01:01:53
So he lived in that fucking neighborhood two blocks from Laureen at that time. And this man is an evil monster.
01:02:04
So these women, young girls, young women going missing. and there's another coincidence that seems like too much of a coincidence too much yeah today most
01:02:15
investigators who worked the case believe laureen was murdered the night she went missing or sometime
01:02:19
soon after um and one officer says he still thinks that the friends that were at the house that night
01:02:24
know what happened to laureen but are too afraid to say and what were too afraid to say anything
01:02:30
if she is still alive today laureen would be 55 years old and those phone calls are so odd aren't
01:02:35
Like, that's another, there's like these weird coincidences that could just be red herrings in this case.
01:02:43
But when you said that they were from motels, like, and also you saying the phrase like white slavery or whatever, but that's just an antiquated, very problematic way of basically expressing sex trafficking.
01:02:59
Right, exactly. It's essentially what in the 70s and 80s people thought was an imaginary thing that now we know to be sex trafficking that's very real and happens all the time.
01:03:11
I mean, it's absolutely possible that she was kidnapped that night. And that she was told, if you do this or that, if you call your mother, you do something directly, I'll kill them.
01:03:24
Or some kind of, you know, a threat, one of the many threats that we know that people use to kind of coerce and control people.
01:03:33
And then, yeah, so she would just be calling to hear people's voice or, I mean, it's just so sad.
01:03:40
Well, there is one other call that happened. So the mom moved away, so had a different phone number.
01:03:46
So a childhood friend of Laureen in 1986, the friend named Roger tells police that a woman had called him.
01:03:55
He wasn't around, but Roger's mother answered the phone and the woman said her name was Lori or Laureen.
01:04:00
She couldn't remember which. And the woman said she was Roger's ex-girlfriend and Roger had dated Laureen
01:04:07
when they were around 12 years old. So maybe she's just thinking of phone numbers
01:04:11
that she had memorized back then because that was all she had access to and just wanted to hear someone's voice.
01:04:17
That's a really good point. So sad. Yeah. Laureen's been missing for 41 years. Judith still maintains that her daughter could be alive.
01:04:25
And she said that if she could tell Laureen anything, it would be, quote, please call us.
01:04:30
We miss you. We love you. No matter why you left, whatever reason, it doesn't matter.
01:04:34
We just want to make sure you're in good health and you're fine. And that is the mysterious disappearance of Laureen Ron.
01:04:42
R-E-H-N, if you want to look at that. God, that would be so awful. Like you're getting mystery calls from California.
01:04:48
Totally. Just nightmarish. It reminds me of the Johnny Gosch case where it's just like these parents are tortured
01:04:55
for the rest of their lives, essentially. Right and it could just be some hang call that your phone is randomly ringing but you want to hold on to that hope you know But man Yeah The light bulbs just slightly being turned
01:05:09
Yes. That's so sinister. It's like, and it's also so, that's like a recurring thing that happens all the time.
01:05:15
Yeah. That's sinister. The fact that the back door was wide open, like maybe she just went out for a smoke.
01:05:21
She didn't have her shoes on or she didn't have her shoes with her. Went out for a cigarette.
01:05:25
and this fucking serial killer is living down the street from her. Yeah. Yeah. Like, who knows?
01:05:33
So shady. God, it's weird. I don't feel better. Those two stories, and I don't feel better.
01:05:41
What are you talking? How? What do you mean? I mean, I don't know. Sorry, I did.
01:05:47
What I should have said is great job. Thank you. Thank you. Very sad story. Yeah.
01:05:53
It does. Every cold case, I just... I just then have so many wishes of wanting to know the truth.
01:06:00
Me too. So frustrating. It is so frustrating. I mean, maybe someday we will, you know?
01:06:07
Yeah, true. Hey, look, everybody, we love you. We're with you. Yep. We're in this together.
01:06:19
We got each other's backs as we always do. We are used to bullshit and we are used to oppression.
01:06:24
I was reading a thing this morning about all of the black women who stood up when the Anita Hill thing was happening
01:06:33
and people were trying to talk about Clarence Thomas and how awful he was and no one would listen to black women
01:06:41
also just take care of yourself truly pay attention if you're like me and you don't love feeling feelings
01:06:49
be especially attentive to yourself because you might convince yourself you're fine
01:06:54
and then you're in the grocery store crying because a certain song comes on. If that happens, who gives a shit?
01:07:01
Yeah. No one cares. You get to do what you want. You get to be a little weak. You get to reach out to your friends.
01:07:08
Talk to older women that you know. Don't be alone. Don't isolate. Yeah. Communicate and then, and participate.
01:07:16
Well, we'll be back. We hope you enjoy the July episodes. We are really proud of them.
01:07:23
And hopefully when we're back, we'll have some fun time, good news to talk about.
01:07:28
And we could talk about Fire Island and the fun shows we've watched instead of doom and gloom.
01:07:34
Yeah, exactly. We'll get to take... Well, this is absolutely, obviously, a mental health break for us.
01:07:41
Yeah. But it couldn't come at a better time. But, you know, along with that, take care of yourselves.
01:07:48
Give yourselves a break. Make sure you get a vacation of some kind, if possible.
01:07:53
Yep. If only in your mind. Yep. We love you. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
01:08:00
Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook
01:08:27
at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder. Goodbye. Vacation planning should feel like a breeze,
01:08:43
not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal. With Cheap Caribbean's Budget Beach Finder,
01:08:49
you can search every destination and every date all in one search. You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.
01:08:55
Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.
01:09:00
Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.
01:09:06
Goodbye. You know that fantasy where you run into your ex while looking impossibly cute and wildly unbothered?
01:09:14
Hill House makes the perfect dress for that moment. Or if you're just running errands.
01:09:18
Hill House Home is the brand behind the viral nap dress, known for its signature smocking, ultra flattering fit and comfort that makes it a favorite for just about everyone.
01:09:28
Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Anne Hathaway and Mindy Kaling have all been spotted in Hill House.
01:09:34
These dresses are the definition of versatile, perfect for running errands in the morning and stylish enough for dinner or a party that night.
01:09:41
And it's not all they carry. They started with bedding back in 2016. And now you'll find bathrobes, pajamas, children's clothes and maternity, all with the cutest prints. And it's so true, the hardest time picking out one nap dress because the prints are so dreamy and beautiful. But now that I have it, I'm going to wear it all day, every day. I'm going to throw on my leather jacket at night and look like a total badass. Cowboy boots or cute heels, whatever it is, this nap dress can make it look classy. You look like that classy lady you see at the airport.
01:10:10
Hill House makes fun fashion that makes you feel good. Get 15% off your first order of $100 or more at hillhousehome.com with code MURDER15.
01:10:19
That's MURDER15 for 15% off at hillhousehome.com. Goodbye. Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
01:10:28
Shop now for up to 50% off select jewelry featuring personalized pieces to must-have summer favorites.
01:10:34
Timeless jewelry made to move with you through every moment. Shop in-store or online now through July 5th.
01:10:40
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye.