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. The best parts of summer aren't just places, they're feelings.
00:01:07
It's the scent of fresh ocean air, sun-warmed skin, and long evenings outside. Pura's new summer collection is designed to capture those fleeting moments and make them last.
00:01:16
Restore your sense of place with clean, premium fragrances you control from your phone.
00:01:21
Bring the feeling of summer home. Discover the collection at Pura.com. Goodbye. Goodbye.
00:01:25
Bye. This summer, one of our favorite podcasts is back. Yes, it's the second season of Tenfold More Wicked Presents Wicked Words,
00:01:34
and it's out now on Exactly Right. We'll be sharing the trailer at the end of this episode.
00:01:40
On Wicked Words, host Kate Winkler-Dawson interviews true crime writers and journalists about the best cases they've covered.
00:01:46
Together, they explore the stories behind the stories. This season features even more great guests, including Diane Fanning,
00:01:53
who recalls a story from her youth about when a serial killer told her and only her about the
00:01:58
murder he'd committed. And Paula Yu, who's an award-winning author who wrote a book about the
00:02:03
killing of Vincent Chin and the trial that galvanized the Asian American movement. And
00:02:08
Brennan Presser, a travel journalist who explored a remote island in the South Pacific with a history
00:02:13
of mutiny and greed. We think you'll love these historical and modern stories that come straight
00:02:18
from the experts who investigated them. Stay tuned at the end of this episode for the Wicked Words
00:02:23
season two trailer. And then check out the season premiere, which is available now.
00:02:27
New episodes drop every Monday. And follow the show on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:34
Goodbye. Hello! And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgareff.
00:03:01
I mean, and that's that. And that's you, and that's me, and that's them, and they.
00:03:07
This is us building a bridge from the very rehearsed and very known opening of this show,
00:03:14
which we do the same way every time. Right. But we're trying to be a little loose this time.
00:03:18
You know what I mean? Like we thought, let's get out of this mold we've set for ourselves of professionalism.
00:03:25
Let's find the new spots. Let's explore. We both have improv backgrounds. Absolutely.
00:03:30
So we're just like, let's heighten. Let's fucking explore. Let's play around. Let's play some improv games.
00:03:39
Georgia, act like you're walking through honey. That was the first time taking an acting class and it was a movement in theater class.
00:03:48
Okay. I should have known what was coming. Of course. Movement in theater. As a person entirely uncomfortable with her own body and highly Catholic.
00:03:56
And they're just like, all right, everybody just walk around the room. Okay, now you're walking through honey.
00:04:01
And I was just like, no, I am not. I'm not walking through honey. And I wouldn't know.
00:04:06
I'll never fall into a vat of honey. Right. And if I fell in maybe swimming through it, I will never walk in it.
00:04:13
And I don't think you'll ever get cast as a character who has the ability to comfortably walk through.
00:04:18
You know what I mean? Like that's not the Karen Kilgariff role type is not a be super casual.
00:04:26
I don't know what that means. But that like, you know what I mean? You're you. You'll never walk through Honey in real life.
00:04:34
I'll certainly never. Like the idea is that if you're walking through Honey, you are also like Honey.
00:04:41
Or it's like you'd be suffocated. Oh, right. You'd be captured like an amber, like a weird bug.
00:04:48
It would be panic-inducing. But so tasty. Oh, my God. And your throat would feel so smooth.
00:04:56
And your hair would be glistening. It's good for your hair, right? Oh, and your zits would go away.
00:05:01
Did you ever date? You'd have all those bear friends. Did you ever date an improv guy?
00:05:07
No, only stand-up comedy. That's good-ish. That's good-ish. Mm-mm. No? Well, it's all different kinds of problems.
00:05:15
But what's the parameters around dating an improv guy aside from going to their motherfucking shows?
00:05:23
I mean, that's it. You have to go to their motherfucking shows, which is fine if they're seasoned and in a good improv team.
00:05:29
But when you find them and they decide to start improv and you have to go to their empty room shows and tell them what parts you liked about it before.
00:05:40
And they're not a great boyfriend to begin with. So you have to like then, you know, it's not satisfying.
00:05:47
No. And I would imagine you were on the younger side where you didn't know that that's what that feeling was.
00:05:55
I should have known I was 30 That very young now I think that still emotionally it young I think Absolutely
00:06:05
I need that to be true. No, it is, but I look back and like, little Georgia, 30 Georgia should have known, you know?
00:06:15
Well, also, yeah, I guess much in the way that you know I would never walk through honey,
00:06:20
I also, it's not that I wouldn't want to support a boyfriend because I definitely want to do lots of boyfriends things, but I would want to be on the stage.
00:06:30
So I'd just be like, this should be me. Or why it would be like extra unpleasant because I wouldn't, just the idea of being the person that sits by and applauds and never goes like, okay, now you sit down, it's my turn.
00:06:46
I'm not here to give suggestions. I'm great. Absolutely. You hold my fucking jacket for sure.
00:06:52
I used to, I had a boyfriend who I've had several boyfriends where when they would come to see me to stand up in the car on the ride home, I would say, here's what you're going to do now is tell me everything you liked about my set.
00:07:04
And you're going to say I was the best one. And I don't care what your real opinion is.
00:07:08
I mean, you should not have to fucking say that. That is boyfriend, girlfriend. You'd like to not have to.
00:07:13
You'd like to not have to. But the reality is, especially when it's also a comic.
00:07:18
But it's like, yeah, you have to tell me I was the best one because I have to keep doing this.
00:07:23
And it's so difficult. How hard? I need it. How hard is it to perform in front of a boyfriend like that?
00:07:30
I mean, as someone who's... Vince is our tour manager. And I'd be like, did you hear when I said this thing?
00:07:35
He'd be like, oh, I don't listen. He like doesn't watch and doesn't listen. Of course not.
00:07:39
I said something really funny. He's like, I guess I'll listen to it on the show.
00:07:44
He says, he goes, I listen for my name. If something's going wrong, then I hear, Vance, we need you.
00:07:52
But I wanted to watch me until I'm not good. And then I'm like, I hope you weren't watching that.
00:07:57
Yeah. Well, you know, it's like you want them to be watching. And then you also really don't want them to be watching.
00:08:02
Because I loved every single show we ever did. But I can't imagine. Well, I can't imagine.
00:08:09
I've had to do that where I'm like, if I'm writing for somebody and then I have to watch them every night.
00:08:13
Or it's part of a job. But it can be so boring, especially when we were on the same cities.
00:08:22
So he's seeing us repeat stories or fudge it up from one cracker barrel anecdote to the other.
00:08:30
No one wants to see their spouse night after night doing the same-ish shit. I understand.
00:08:38
On top of which, he doesn't like True Crackers. Right. Right. I guess. Imagine if you were stage managing his wrestling podcast.
00:08:50
There was kind of an unspoken rule of like, not rule, but just like understanding that we don't listen to each other's podcasts ever.
00:08:58
No. No. No, because I think we've said this a million times on this show, but it's like, you can't convince people to like a thing this specific.
00:09:08
Right. And everyone has their specific thing. And in relationships, it's good to have your own specific thing.
00:09:14
Yes, true. Because you need to be an autonomous person, even if you're codependent, which we are.
00:09:20
Very true. Well, and also, you got to bring that small talk. So if everybody's looking at the same book all the time, there's going to be no new input at all.
00:09:31
Speaking of new input, I went to a concert last night. Who are you? I don't know.
00:09:38
It's summertime, Karen, my new personality. And it was the old 97. So it was amazing.
00:09:45
So good. It was in a relatively four, four, one of my first or like first big concerts going back.
00:09:56
It was in, it was a packed room. Like indoor, indoor? Indoor, indoor. Oh dear. Okay.
00:10:01
And packed. And I was like, not wearing a mask, like, yes, summertime 2022. We're back.
00:10:08
All day long, I'm like low-grade headache. Oh, no. Yeah. Is it that quick? You and I, like...
00:10:15
I don't know. Out of everyone I know, like you and I and Vince and a couple other people are like the
00:10:20
last holdouts who haven't gotten it yet, which is like everyone's gotten it. At this point, it's weird that we haven't gotten it.
00:10:26
True. Right? Well, I think it reflects my intensely and sorry, but your intensely hermetic lifestyle.
00:10:34
How dare you? Should we... Don't be offended. Should we go out to the, no. It's like, it was not hard for me to quarantine.
00:10:43
It was, I was thrilled. I was just like, find justification. I thrived. I thrived in quarantine.
00:10:50
Not, you know, not happy anyone's sick. However, that's my, you know, it happened the other day.
00:10:56
So my birthday's this week and- Happy birthday, Georgia, everybody. Cards and letters, cards and letters.
00:11:01
This is coming out a week later. So don't worry about it. Apology cards. But I was going to have a little dinner, and then I didn't fucking feel like it, and text
00:11:12
the friends who are going to come, like, I'm not doing it. And then my friend Micah Calabrese, who knows me very well, wrote,
00:11:19
Oh my God, you're flaking on your own birthday. Yes. Which was just like, because he knows I'm the biggest flake.
00:11:29
I'm flaking on my own birthday dinner. That is... It's kind of badass. It's kind of badass.
00:11:35
It's pretty next level. I respect it immensely. Well, also because just the idea that you're reserving the right to pull the plug.
00:11:44
I don't want a birthday party. Nobody wants a birthday party. It's for everyone else, right?
00:11:48
Yep. Well and I think it was so funny us missing our big ones in quarantine Yes 40 and 50 40 and 50 in quarantine I kind of am like yeah I don need any of those things anymore I like whatever
00:12:06
Who celebrates their 40? I mean, 42 is my favorite number, but who celebrates their 40 second birthday party
00:12:11
with a big old bash? You know what I mean? Seriously. It is, I think the older you get,
00:12:16
the more special you make it by not doing that. Right, by toning it down a little.
00:12:23
Although that reminds me, and I don't even think I would have remembered this, but if I may just, of course, improv way, change it back to me.
00:12:32
When I went home for like at the beginning of May to visit my family and I got there and there was a couple of things happening.
00:12:44
I think they were with the dog. So I was like, which by the way, sorry, but you can hear Frank chewing on a bully stick this entire episode.
00:12:51
I think our audio engineers, including Steven, are very good at editing that out.
00:12:57
Yeah. Okay, good. Because he won't leave the room. There's a lot of barking today is the thing.
00:13:03
But I ended up... Who was barking? You were barking? Yeah, I was barking and he was upset.
00:13:08
I drove up on my birthday because of delays. Yeah. And so I got there, got up there and just figured I was just going to get there and go to sleep or something.
00:13:19
and when I got there, Laura and Adrian had set up a table and had like, they made it look like
00:13:27
there's like this birthday party waiting. It was the cutest thing. They hung, remember at Christmas
00:13:33
when I was up there and we hung up a sign for Nora's birthday and then I just left it up.
00:13:37
Yeah. So every meeting that we would have on Zoom, people would be like, Karen, is it your birthday? And I'd be like, no. I just love a nice letter, individual lettered sign.
00:13:48
Yeah, those are gorgeous. That's so sweet. So they did that for me. It was just so cute and funny where I truly didn't expect anything and
00:13:56
didn't care. And then suddenly, and they also got those kinds of gift bags with the tissue that
00:14:01
sticks up. So it kind of looks like people bought you expensive gifts. It was really funny.
00:14:07
Bowls of candy. They set up a thing like, it's your birthday. I love that. Oh, that's nice.
00:14:13
Well, I'm doing therapy on my birthday, which I can't. I have therapy. She was like,
00:14:17
I have Wednesday and I'm like, that's my birthday. Let's do it. Like, what's a better present to yourself than,
00:14:23
and I have a new therapist, which is weird, you know, and new and like, I like her a lot.
00:14:30
So yeah. So I'm going to do therapy on my birthday. What's a better present to yourself than-
00:14:35
What if you, because it's your birthday, tell your therapist all the worst birthdays
00:14:40
you've ever had as a way of celebrating? That's a great idea. Why aren't there themed therapy sessions?
00:14:46
Yes. What a great idea. Give me the five most embarrassing moments of your life. Give me
00:14:54
the three worst improv shows you've ever been to. Tell me what. You're just going to say it's kind of like the BuzzFeedification of your therapy thing,
00:15:05
or you're just kind of like, can I get a listicle of my own problems so this doesn't weigh me down
00:15:10
so much? And I was shook. That's like the five things that I heard, and I was shook. I fucking
00:15:15
hate those headlines that are like, and I was, and I am beside myself. It's like,
00:15:18
you're supposed to be a journalist. There's no I was this. I know you see that sometimes on like that bleeds over onto like the Yahoo homepage,
00:15:26
where it's like these pictures of Britney Spears' new gym will have you shook. And it's like,
00:15:32
sorry, am I reading the news or my niece's phone? What's happening? And I love a listicle, but just like, don't, okay, I'm not going to tell people how to journal
00:15:41
because of journalism because clearly we're not perfect. Wait, what? Wait a second.
00:15:49
That sounds like something your new therapist told you and I don't agree with it whatsoever.
00:15:55
Oh, all right. What? Well, I just cracked my shoulder in the craziest, loudest way.
00:16:02
A. B, I remembered, because I've already talked about this TV show, Gaslit, that I raved about.
00:16:10
Yeah. But then they had like episode six. And I just got to say, and I, so I'm going to repeat some raving.
00:16:18
Which was the one, tell me what it's about. Gaslit is the one about Watergate and how the Watergate scandal broke, which normally
00:16:25
I would never watch because I don't care about like politics and 70s and that kind of stuff.
00:16:31
Yeah. But it's Julia Roberts who is transcendent in this role, may I? Yeah. Martha Kelly, who is coming in with a wig to end all wigs.
00:16:44
And then the reason I'm bringing this up again is because I forgot to mention one of the best people in this series, which is Alison Tolman, who we know from Fargo, the second season.
00:16:55
Oh, yeah. Who is such a great actress. And she plays the journalist that is talking to Martha.
00:17:03
I can't remember her last name, but it's Julia Roberts' character. And she's so good and so grounding and so real.
00:17:10
And she has to wear these 70s clothes. I was so happy when I saw her. And this most recent episode is unbelievable and heartbreaking.
00:17:20
And it's kind of about women and women's positions in the world and in power and in families.
00:17:28
And it's pretty mind-blowing. It's just really good TV. Okay, I'm into that. I'll watch that.
00:17:34
I'll stop harping on it. but I really felt guilty because Allison- Would you shut up about the fucking show already?
00:17:39
God, you love Watergate. It's so boring. You've always loved Watergate more than anything else.
00:17:45
I just, also, I just, the idea that I forgot Allison Tolman when I truly am her number one fan
00:17:50
was a little bit heartbreaking, so. We were all pretty bummed about that. Right.
00:17:54
It disappointing Isn it Like we believed in you I watched the Sex Pistols show the new Sex Pistols TV show I like it a lot but it depressed me in a lot of weird ways
00:18:07
Like it's a good show, but like the whole punk rock thing kind of gives me weird flashbacks of being a woman or a girl really in that scene and how disenfranchising it is.
00:18:19
and everyone's kind of sad and like, you know, Johnny Rotten actually is like portrayed as like
00:18:26
this kid who is like, who is mentally ill and was like this sweet, I don't know. It is really good.
00:18:32
So the show is called Pistol. The woman who plays Chrissy Hynde, who's Sydney Chandler,
00:18:39
is so great in it. And then Thomas Brody Sangster. He's the little kid in Love Actually,
00:18:47
who's also in the, what's the chess movie? The chess movie, yep. What's it called?
00:18:54
Chess Attack. I think it's called Chess Attack. Come at me with your chess attack.
00:18:58
Look at my bangs. Chess story. A chess story. A chess improv story. He's so good.
00:19:05
I mean, it's good in like Vivian West. It's like, you know, it's a really cool period of time
00:19:10
that's like really interesting. And it's a good show. It's light. And it's, that's good to know.
00:19:14
It's based in the truth. I thought it was just kind of like, I just didn't get the sense of that it was basically a kind of a biopic of that band.
00:19:23
Because it's based on Jonesy, Steve Jones's, you know, the guitar players, his biography about it or his memoir.
00:19:31
So it is based in his truth, whatever that is. And he's so rad. Yeah, and he was there for it.
00:19:37
It's not like a journalist doing it. It's like Steve Jones. Jonesy's Jukebox, one of my favorite, favorite radio shows of all time.
00:19:45
So good. So good. And he's, yeah, he's a classic. So it's based on his book. So it's actually,
00:19:50
it's cool. It's cool. It's gritty. It's fun to watch. It depressed me a little, but I have a
00:19:57
new therapist. So don't count on my mental health being exactly what it's supposed to be.
00:20:03
Well, also, don't you think these days we can do that with TV shows and not have it impact us as
00:20:10
hard as like maybe a year or two ago. You know what I mean? Like feel that depression,
00:20:15
get like, visit those uncomfortable feelings and then kind of be able to walk away a little easier
00:20:20
than maybe before. I don't know. Feeling my feelings is always a hard thing for me.
00:20:27
But let Hulu help you. So my new therapist is named Hulu. It's actually just me watching Hulu.
00:20:34
$12.95 a month. It's really reasonable. On my birthday. Actually, what I meant was I'm going
00:20:39
going to binge watch Hulu shows for my birthday. Perfect. Great. Oh, should we do some real
00:20:46
business? Yeah. Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media, and there's stuff
00:20:53
going on all the time on it. How's that intro? How's that improv intro? Okay, I'll stop with the
00:20:59
improv. So for example, it's the one year, that's kind of mind-blowing. It's the one-year anniversary
00:21:04
of Parent Footprint with Dr. Dan. His guest is comedian, mother, and co-host of That's Messed
00:21:10
Up and SVU podcast, the great Kara Klink. She's a great mom. She really is. And I'm excited to
00:21:17
hear this episode. And you guys, Parent Footprint, Dr. Dan, please listen. Dr. Dan is my cousin
00:21:23
and one of the greats, one of the nice people in life. So please take a listen to that.
00:21:31
If you have some children and you need some parenting guidance or therapy or just experts
00:21:40
kind of telling you this or that, honestly, just take a listen. Look through the people. He's had
00:21:46
amazing guests and really good topics. And he just really knows what he's talking about.
00:21:50
He does. I will also say for non-parents, as an aunt myself, it is great to listen to these
00:21:56
things and then tell your siblings what they're doing wrong parenting wise. Yes, I highly recommend
00:22:01
that. That's really smart. It is. Come in hot at the holidays with advice. Well, actually,
00:22:11
well, actually what I read, Lee, this week on our newest Exactly Right show, Adulting with Michelle
00:22:18
Buteau and Jordan Carlos, the guest is Alok, who's a writer, performer, and public speaker.
00:22:24
and along with Michelle and Jordan, they answer all of your adulting questions like about self-care, getting older,
00:22:31
all the things you need to know so you can be the kind of aunt that is correct when you tell your siblings how to do things.
00:22:38
Yes, it's advice based. If you haven't yet tried adulting with Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos,
00:22:43
I am telling you, it is an easy listen. It's fucking hilarious. They're such good comics
00:22:50
and they're such good podcasters. I listened to the first episode with Maeve Higgins, who's one of my favorite people in the world.
00:22:58
And it's so funny. And it's such a joy. It truly is like a joy to listen to. You've got to listen to that podcast.
00:23:06
Definitely. Oh, also, guys, just FYI, the whistles have been restocked in the MFN store.
00:23:14
It's like this little sentence at the end of the page. Whistles are restocked. We're talking about our zine.
00:23:20
We have whistles in our zine store again at MyFavoriteMurder.com. Weet woo. Weet woo.
00:23:29
All right. Yeah. Okay. Ooh, I go first this week. I know. I could have sworn it was me, and I'm kind of mad about it.
00:23:39
While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:23:45
The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed,
00:23:50
scoring from angles that don't make sense, rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust.
00:23:55
Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either. Hyundai has always made
00:24:00
Move the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
00:24:04
Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
00:24:11
From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far-off concept.
00:24:17
It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
00:24:23
Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices. Shop now for up to 50% off select jewelry featuring personalized pieces to must-have summer favorites.
00:24:32
Timeless jewelry made to move with you through every moment. Shop in-store or online now through July 5th.
00:24:38
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.
00:24:45
It's 2026, and if you have an alternative career like food photography or professional mixtape making or witchcraft, you're going to need an online presence.
00:24:54
Whatever your thing is, Squarespace helps you build a website that's as unique as you are.
00:24:58
Squarespace provides you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place.
00:25:03
From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your offerings with a customizable
00:25:07
website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional
00:25:12
invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling
00:25:17
and email marketing tools. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools,
00:25:21
anyone can build a beautiful professional online presence that perfectly fits their brand or
00:25:25
business. Head to squarespace.com slash murder for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,
00:25:30
use offer code murder to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Goodbye.
00:25:37
Well, speaking of Alejandra, who I don't know, Alejandra, if you're prepared to have this
00:25:42
discussion, but our producer Alejandra is stepping in for Steven tonight because Steven
00:25:46
got to go to the movie premiere of the new Jurassic Park movie. Which, as you know, he has a Jurassic Park podcast.
00:25:57
He has dinosaur costumes. This is literally like maybe, I think, the first time he's ever taken a recording,
00:26:05
like asked for a recording night off. Yes, in six years, Stephen Ray Morris has never done.
00:26:12
This has not happened unless I'm sure there's been times maybe that he's sick, but I can't think of any.
00:26:17
Things happen, we have to reschedule. But this is the first time he was like, three weeks ago, can I please have Monday off?
00:26:23
Can I have it? Yeah, this night off. So of course we're like, no. Yeah, we're like, go to hell.
00:26:29
This is show business. You're fired. So our producer Alejandra's sitting in for him.
00:26:35
And Alejandra, do you know who recommended this story to me? Was it you? Was it Hannah?
00:26:40
Was it Gemma, our researcher? I found it. But I think we started getting a bunch of tornado stories after you talked about the flight, one of your survivor flights, and you were talking about tornadoes or weather there.
00:26:54
Oh, right. Because the story of the pilot getting sucked out the window on the plane, I referred to the tornado scale, like the threat scale of tornadoes.
00:27:07
And we had had that mini-sode where the British people were in New Orleans and there was a tornado warning and they freaked out.
00:27:15
So basically, tornadoes have been in the air. Oh, Karen. I almost just said it and it's like, God damn it.
00:27:27
It's been around in a topic of conversation. But what's funny to, I think, both me and Georgia is because we're from California,
00:27:35
we do not know anything about tornadoes or how they work. I think we were getting some shade about the fact that we were just like,
00:27:42
what's a tornado like, you know? Yeah, that's the same kind of thing of like people being like,
00:27:48
oh, if you're cold in California because it's 60, than you are a bad person or whatever, where it's like, you know what? You know what,
00:27:55
Midwesterners, you can live that way if you so choose. Sure. And you know what? Earthquakes are kind of fun when no one gets hurt. So suck on that.
00:28:03
And also it is cold when it's 71. It's a different kind of experience. Yeah. So I'm going to now tell you, Georgia,
00:28:11
about the deadliest tornado in United States history, and that's the 1925 tri-state tornado.
00:28:19
Yes, three states and one tornado? It covers so much ground. It is so fucked up.
00:28:28
It is really crazy and scary. Oh my God. But I'm going to explain it to you in the way that we love to do, which is like Gemma put this research together explaining how tornadoes work.
00:28:40
So now I'm going to read it as if I know, but I don't. Oh, no. She could literally be like, if you mix chocolate and peanut butter in the air,
00:28:48
you get a tornado. And I'd be like, and that's the fact. But I will also say she is from and lives in Australia.
00:28:55
Do they have tornadoes in Australia? There's no way. I don't think so. You know what they have is they have tornadoes of snakes and sharks.
00:29:03
I was going to say giant spiders. Yeah. Yeah. Just all mixed together. So she doesn't know.
00:29:08
We don't know. Let's get to it. But guess who knows? The internet. And please, we'll just say this before we even start.
00:29:18
Feel free to email your corrections and your passionate objections to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
00:29:27
That's right. Dot tornado. Okay, so here's how tornadoes work. Also, I find that we have a lot of newscasters and meteorologists that listen to the show and say hi on social media.
00:29:42
What's that? I thought of them a lot as I was putting this together, editing it for my own use, and I feel very nervous.
00:29:53
Good. So here we go Sources for this story I about to read you are Britannica of course Wikipedia the National Weather Service website which is www
00:30:11
Hell yeah. Get on there. There's a Washington Post article by Kevin Ambrose. There is a TornadoFacts.net website.
00:30:19
There's a Tri-State Tornado 97 Years Later, which is an article written by Amber Rush for kfvs12.com, indiana.gov website on the Tri-State Tornado, Associated Press article by Chris Hottinson, and the rest we'll list in the show notes.
00:30:40
Tornadoes form from inside large rotating thunderstorm clouds called supercells.
00:30:45
inside these clouds, there's a combination of air temperatures. Warm, humid air rises
00:30:54
while the cooler air falls. Also, there's rain and hail and lightning. And when the warm air
00:31:03
rises and the cooler air falls at the same time, they can cause horizontally spinning air currents,
00:31:10
and that's called a vortex. And sometimes those air currents become vertical and drop down out of
00:31:17
the cloud, creating a funnel. And that is what fans of the Wizard of Oz know to be a tornado.
00:31:26
Who needs college? Come on. Yeah, for real. Okay. But however, there's lots of variations of this,
00:31:34
of the warm air, cool air kind of combo and different things that can happen. And that's what makes it very hard to determine exactly what a precursor to a tornado is.
00:31:46
So they are a little bit like earthquakes that way, where they're a bit mysterious and kind of like we wish we knew more.
00:31:56
So a storm cell can spawn one or more tornadoes. That's horrifying. Which means a cluster of tornadoes can break out and cause tons of damage during a tornado outbreak.
00:32:08
Now, this is what I didn't know. They usually occur during spring, starting around March and peaking between May and June.
00:32:16
And they most commonly occur between the hours of 4 and 9 p.m. Weird. Right? Yeah.
00:32:24
Because that's when the air goes up and down. Oh, okay. Hot and cold goes up and down.
00:32:28
I don't know. Got it. I was asking you. Oh, I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the time they travel at speeds between 20 to 40 miles an hour.
00:32:39
And sometimes they can just go for a mile. Sometimes they can go for 100 miles. And usually the United States sees around 1,200 tornadoes annually.
00:32:49
And they're most common in the Midwest. Hey. And there's an area that people know about in the Midwest that goes from Texas and Louisiana
00:32:58
to Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. And that is known as Tornado Alley, baby.
00:33:08
Also my album. Okay. So there are warning signs when a tornado is about to hit. Birds stop chirping, singing, and flying.
00:33:20
When the sky goes quiet, run. That is terrifying. Just run away. So birds, their little tiny ears can sense a change in the barometric pressure, and they can hear the low frequency sounds that signal a storm.
00:33:39
And that's why they know that flying would kill them. And so they stay out of the sky and they zip the lip.
00:33:46
Cute. Another tornado warning, which we learned about in the Minnesota email that I was referencing earlier, is a green sky.
00:33:54
This is not a well-understood phenomenon, but scientists have basically figured out that because of the time of day, which is usually roughly around sunset, the sky is already yellow, orange, and red.
00:34:09
And then the air doing its weird thing underneath the cell, that's blue. And the combination makes a green sky.
00:34:21
Yellow and blue make green. Yes. Right? And sometimes there's like hail or, you know, like frozen ice, frozen rain, I mean, or whatever.
00:34:30
And that reflects that color. So it makes it stand out. Got it. You can tell it went off the page right there.
00:34:37
Okay. Tornadoes also happen when there's no green sky. So it's not like a hard and fast rule.
00:34:44
Cool. So don't just think you can sit in a bar in New Orleans and drink and wait for the green sky because you could be wrong.
00:34:50
Possibly. People from England. Okay. So tornado strength is measured using the enhanced Fujita scale or the EF.
00:35:00
I talked about the Fujita scale briefly and found in my other story when I brought it up that this
00:35:06
is one of my favorite things and I don't know why. It's very appealing to me to have tornadoes
00:35:12
broken down this way. So I'm going to walk you through the Fujita scale right now. F0 is a 40
00:35:19
to 72 mile per hour wind speed. It causes light damage. Branches are broken off trees and there's
00:35:25
minor roof damage. And F1 is 73 to 112 miles an hour. That's moderate damage. Trees are snapped.
00:35:34
Mobile homes can be moved off their foundations. Roofs are damaged. And F2 is 133 to 157 miles an
00:35:42
hour. It's considerable damage. Mobile homes are demolished entirely. Trees are uprooted.
00:35:49
Strong homes are unroofed Strong built homes it says The F3 is 158 to 206 miles an hour This is severe damage So trains get overturned Cars are lifted off the ground
00:36:06
Strong built homes, the outside walls blow away. An F4 is 206 to 260 miles an hour.
00:36:15
That's devastating damage. Oh my God. Like the only thing left are piles of debris.
00:36:19
Cars are thrown 300 yards or more. So an F5 tornado is 261 to 318 miles an hour. It's incredible damage.
00:36:33
Strongly built homes are completely blown away. Car-sized missiles are generated from the amount
00:36:39
of debris. So it can blow, as we all learned from Twister, the movie, like a cow into the air
00:36:47
or people or things. I mean, it's incredible power. So the national disaster I'm about to tell you about was an F5 tornado. And as I said,
00:36:57
the deadliest one in American history. So at 1.01 PM on Wednesday, March 18th, 1925,
00:37:06
a tornado basically touches down three miles north-northwest of Ellington, Missouri.
00:37:13
It's in the southeast part of the state in the Ozark Mountains. And nearby the residents, and I'm thinking this line because they say people were expecting rain and wind, not a storm, definitely not a tornado.
00:37:27
And it makes me think back then when people used the Farmer's Almanac because they had to predict weather.
00:37:35
They had to know when it was going to rain or snow or something like that because they had to get prepared whether it was because they were farmers or whatever.
00:37:42
But it was like the 20s. So they didn't, it wasn't like the nightly news was there.
00:37:46
They had to, that was the way they knew. Had a plan and everything. Exactly. Yeah.
00:37:52
So what's interesting about that is this was, there were no tornado warnings back then.
00:37:57
Because not just like it hadn't been invented yet, the government believed if you warned people about tornadoes, it would cause hysteria and panic.
00:38:07
So actually from 1887 to 1948, there was a ban on using tornado sirens or saying the word tornado.
00:38:16
No. Saying the word like publicly. Yeah. Yeah. In any way, because that would cause people to freak out.
00:38:23
Yeah. Which is insane. Yeah. Like give them a minute to fucking hide with these sirens, right?
00:38:29
Exactly. Yes. People need. Yeah. Sometimes hysteria isn't the wrong reaction. Especially because back then, by 1925, 500 people would lose their lives every year to tornadoes.
00:38:45
Wow. So there was a need for that warning. So when the residents of Ellington, Missouri see this huge tornado coming, they think it's actually a massive dust storm.
00:38:56
That's how big the bottom of this tornado is. Holy shit. It's taking up all their eyesight.
00:39:03
And they just think, oh, that's weird. It's a dust storm. Yeah. Holy shit. Miraculously, this tornado passes through Ellington, Missouri with no fatalities and no injuries.
00:39:16
Okay. So we normally imagine and have seen in movies and stuff, tornadoes being on flat ground.
00:39:21
But because this one started in the mountains, no one was ready. That's not something people are used to.
00:39:27
Like you can see it coming when it's on the black ground. Exactly. Okay. Yes. And you can warn people and there's some kind of like scope of it, but this one started very differently.
00:39:38
So it moves northeast from Ellington through five counties in Missouri. So it goes through Reynolds, Iron, Madison, Bollinger, and Perry counties.
00:39:49
11 people are killed in the Missouri towns of Annapolis, Beely, Frona, Redford, LaDana, and Cornwall.
00:40:01
So then a double funnel tornado becomes visible as the storm intensifies. Witnesses say it sounded like a freight train.
00:40:11
And it crosses the Mississippi River and it moves into southern Illinois. And as it goes, it's gaining more and more power because it's moving across flat land.
00:40:23
So there's nothing impeding its path, I guess. Got it. So now wind speeds are estimated to be around 300 miles an hour.
00:40:32
And it meant this storm itself measures three quarters of a mile across as it passed.
00:40:40
I didn't know they could get that big. I don't think they normally do. They do, right.
00:40:45
Like this was, yeah, this was unprecedented. It passes through Jackson, Williamson, Franklin, Hamilton, and white counties in Illinois.
00:40:57
And through the towns of Gorham, DeSoto, Murfreesboro, Hurstbush, Ziegler, West Frankfurt, 18, Parish, and Crossville.
00:41:09
Do you think we have any listeners in any of those counties? I mean, I don't know because here's what's interesting.
00:41:13
You can look on YouTube and you can see a crop duster went up and there's black and white film footage of them flying over Murfreesboro and DeSoto afterwards.
00:41:26
And it is like, it's just that thing of like, every once in a while, there's a little house that for some reason didn't go down.
00:41:33
And it's, but as far as the eye can see, it's just piles of debris and it's mind blowing.
00:41:39
Like you've just never seen anything like it. So yeah, all these basically on its path, these are the towns that just got hit.
00:41:50
In DeSoto Jackson County Deputy Sheriff George Boland he on foot patrol when this storm hits the town And the strength of the tornado lifts him off of the ground and he disappears up the funnel and his body is never found
00:42:08
Yes. Holy shit. Lifts a grown man off the street. So in the mining town of West Frankfurt, 800 miners are working 500 feet below ground when the tornado strikes.
00:42:23
And so, of course, they lose electrical power, but they don't know why. So when they come up to assess what's going on and to fix the power problem,
00:42:32
because they just think the power got cut for some reason, they're in total shock as they look and see that this town has been leveled.
00:42:41
And basically, the majority of the town's dead are women and children because the men are down in the mine.
00:42:48
And also long ago, I recommended a TV show called Godless that's on Netflix. And it's the exact opposite of that tragedy, which is there's a mine explosion and all the men are killed in the mine.
00:43:06
And the women are left to run the town and then bad guys come to take over and the women fight back.
00:43:12
And it's such a good show. It's like unbelievably great, great show. Okay. The heaviest loss for a single family is the Carnes family of Caldwell near that town of West
00:43:26
Frankfurt. Eleven people from just one family die that day, including a storekeeper named Isaac
00:43:34
Carnes, his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, and seven grandchildren.
00:43:41
Oh my God. horrifying in the town of gorham illinois it's it's a completely leveled half the town's population
00:43:51
is either killed or injured the railroad tracks have been ripped out of the ground
00:43:57
fuck um this tornado hit gorham at 230 and then it continued at top speed and it had the next town
00:44:06
which is Murfreesboro at 2.36 PM. So in Murfreesboro alone, 234 people are killed
00:44:14
and 1,200 buildings are destroyed. And this is the town that you can see the footage of on YouTube.
00:44:21
It's black and white and it's pretty crazy. So basically now in just 40 minutes, this tornado
00:44:27
has left 613 people dead in the state of Illinois, including 30 farmers. And the reason that's
00:44:35
What's amazing is because farmers, obviously, like many people back then, but especially if you're a farmer, you absolutely track the weather.
00:44:43
You have to pay attention. You have to know all the little signs when it's going to rain, when it's going to snow, and what you need to do to keep your farm going.
00:44:51
And so for these farmers, all of them, to be completely taken unaware as this tornado hits just really shows how deceiving it appeared, even to experts and even to people who are used to paying attention to stuff like that.
00:45:08
There, of course, there's no photographs or film of the tornado itself, but witness reports describe it as looking like an amorphous rolling fog.
00:45:18
So that's why people thought it was a dust storm Right Because it was so big And it just didn't have any of the qualities of a regular tornado
00:45:27
That just sounds huge Yes, and horrifying Horrible So from Illinois, the storm continues along its path of destruction
00:45:37
It crosses southwestern Indiana at 4 o'clock over the Wabash River And Posey, Gibson, and Pike counties are all directly in its path
00:45:47
The towns of Griffin, Owensville, and Princeton, Indiana are all destroyed in addition to 85 farms.
00:45:57
One Griffin resident grabs a door handle during the tornado, but to close the door, his entire house blew away and he was left standing holding the door handle.
00:46:08
What the fuck? By the time the storm ripped through, the Indiana death toll stands at 76 people.
00:46:16
Wow. So by 4.30, the tornado dissipates three miles southwest of Petersburg, Indiana.
00:46:23
It traveled 219 miles through three states, and 695 people are killed in just three and a half hours.
00:46:33
Almost 700 people are killed. Wow. It's the longest, largest, fastest, and farthest traveling storm in the country to date.
00:46:43
15,000 homes across 164 square mile area are reduced to rubble. And one third of the tornado's
00:46:53
victims are children. Yeah. Because a lot of them were at school or away from home.
00:47:01
Right. So the tri-state tornado was actually part of a bigger tornado outbreak on the same day.
00:47:09
So that outbreak also hit Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Kansas. And in all, with the total
00:47:17
of all storms that day, killed 747 people and injured 2,298 more. So this was a horrible day,
00:47:27
basically, in the United States. So there was, of course, heavy rains following the tornado,
00:47:32
which caused the Wabash River to flood. By March 23rd, five days after the storm,
00:47:39
the only way to reach the devastated town of Griffin was by boat or railroad. Yeah, so insane.
00:47:46
So, of course, basically, if you were lucky enough to survive this insane, terrible disaster,
00:47:56
you have nothing but the clothes on your back here. You don't have a home. You don't have a place to go to.
00:48:03
Wow. Lots of people lost their family or members of their family. And some people lost their livelihoods.
00:48:11
Right. What wasn't destroyed by the fierce winds is then at risk of burning to the ground as fires take hold in numerous towns.
00:48:21
And some victims are still buried alive. Like it's just a horror. Yeah. people, of course, then begin looting and stealing because if you're a survivor and
00:48:34
you're just standing there, you have nothing. So there are a couple crazy stories from this.
00:48:42
In West Frankfurt, a farmer finds a barber's chair that when they end up tracking it down,
00:48:48
it was from another town entirely. And those things are fucking heavy. Yeah. Someone found a bond, like the piece of paper.
00:48:57
It had been in a safe and it was just out freely 125 miles away from where it began.
00:49:04
And the person that found it mailed it back to its owner. Aw. I know. Residents of the nearby towns that were not hit, they mobilized to provide aid and relief to the survivors.
00:49:16
And the American Red Cross and the Indiana National Guard provide medical aid and emergency supplies.
00:49:21
the Red Cross alone receives almost $400,000 in donations from the public, which is almost $7 million in today's money.
00:49:31
And also this is 1925. It wasn't an easy time in America anyway. Right. Yeah. So those donations are used to open relief centers,
00:49:40
provide survivors with food and medical aid and clothing, to buy building supplies, to make repairs,
00:49:47
buy tools, household goods, transportation. The donations also fund tetanus vaccines to protect against infection of the wounds because literally you're just out piles of wood and things that used to be buildings that are now just exposed nails and broken wood.
00:50:07
Yeah. So crazy. And then dirty water from the flooding and stuff too, right? Thank God for vaccines, right?
00:50:14
Thank God for vaccines. Hopefully no one fought their tetanus vaccine. There was a picture I saw of people standing around and it looked like somebody's front porch.
00:50:26
So there was a piece of wood going vertically. And then a second piece of wood that had come through and just bisected it horizontally like this.
00:50:36
It was flying so fast, but it was like a two by four that pierced this first piece of wood like an arrow.
00:50:45
And it's just people standing around looking at it. I'm sure after all the devastation, then it's slowly revealing of the reality that winds like that.
00:50:56
Okay. So of course, the US government is totally unprepared to deal with devastation at this level.
00:51:03
So aid and resources are slow to make their way to the affected areas. Overall, the damage is estimated to be about $16.5 million back then, which is $1.4 billion in today's money.
00:51:20
Yeah. And two-thirds of that damage took place in Murfreesboro, Illinois alone. Wow.
00:51:28
The very last victim of the tornado was a 46-year-old man, a West Frankfurt coal miner named Gervais Burgess, who dies from his injuries.
00:51:37
January 3rd, 1926, almost a full year after the disaster. So the reason the tri-state tornado was
00:51:45
so ferocious was determined later to be because, and this was by, we used to have a U.S. Weather
00:51:52
Bureau, but I guess we don't have it anymore because the phrase was by the then U.S. Weather
00:51:58
Bureau, but I didn't look it up to see whether or not we actually do. So it turned out this tornado
00:52:06
was one continuous supercell. There were no breaks, no gaps. So I guess normally in a tornado,
00:52:14
there are breaks and gaps and it lessens the power. But this thing was just like on one.
00:52:23
I've never even seen a tornado. I know, but I get it. It's like it gets broken up by this and that,
00:52:29
by hills, by like slowing down here and there. But this one had like nothing in its path.
00:52:35
It just was going. So basically, this tornado and this massive disaster is the reason local
00:52:44
tornado spotter networks began forming throughout the country. And this is the birth of what we now
00:52:51
know as tornado forecasting, because people were like, I don't give a shit if this word is banned.
00:52:57
We have to start talking about this and planning for it. In March 1948, the first tornado forecast
00:53:04
is issued in Oklahoma. And because fatalities are averted because of the warning, it leads to
00:53:10
the Weather Bureau lifting the ban on the use of the word tornado. So they saw the error of their
00:53:15
ways. Thanks, guys. Yeah. The development of more sophisticated forecasting over the ensuing years
00:53:21
sees the annual average tornado death toll drop to 50 people a year. Wow. 500. Yikes.
00:53:28
So although the tri-state tornado is the deadliest in U.S. history, there are incredible survivor stories.
00:53:36
And there's many, of course, we'll just never hear, right? Because that's just the local lore of like someone's grandpa, great grandpa has the story that he tells or doesn't tell.
00:53:46
But there is one that I can tell you now. And it's the survival story of Betty Barnett Maroney.
00:53:52
She was seven years old on the day this tornado hit She has six brothers and sisters They live with their parents in DeSoto Illinois which is the town where the cop got lifted and sucked into the funnel and never seen
00:54:05
again. And this town got hit really, really hard. It was right near Murfreesboro. So the day of the
00:54:12
tornado, Betty went to school as usual. At lunchtime, she walks home to eat lunch. I was
00:54:17
always jealous of those kids that could just go and eat in the privacy of their own home at lunchtime.
00:54:22
but her clothes get soaked on the walk home because it starts raining. So she has to change
00:54:28
her clothes to go back to school. So at 2.30, she's outside with the rest of her classmates.
00:54:36
And on the playground, it's getting so windy that Betty remembers her older brother and his friends
00:54:41
were playing a game where they were throwing their hats in the air to see how far the wind
00:54:47
would take the hats. So it was starting up and they just kind of thought it was like a regular
00:54:53
old rainstorm that was starting. But then the sky turned black and Betty remembers that the wind
00:55:00
getting so strong that she had a hard time standing upright. Wow. So the teachers call in
00:55:06
all the students. They go into the school and the teacher says, girls, take your seats. Boys,
00:55:13
close all the windows. Betty sits in the front row in our classroom. Her 10-year-old sister,
00:55:19
Marie, sat next to her. So for the next eight minutes, the tornado is coming toward them.
00:55:25
The storm is intensifying. And at 2.38 PM, the tornado hits, the windows shatter and explode,
00:55:32
and the building is blown apart. So back then, I guess most schoolhouses were made of brick.
00:55:40
And there wasn't like a strong, I guess, inner structure foundation or inner structure.
00:55:46
So these schoolhouses that got hit, they just fell apart into a pile of bricks. And everybody inside just got buried in the debris.
00:55:55
And of course, no structure had the ability to withstand this tornado. Right. Except for like, you have to look at the video is so crazy.
00:56:04
Every once in a while, there's just a house standing there. Those are so wild to me.
00:56:08
And even when there's a fire and it wipes out of town and there's just one fucking random house
00:56:14
standing, it's eerie. That must be such a weird feeling to be the last house in a neighborhood
00:56:21
or just to have that sensation of you must feel incredibly lucky and incredibly guilty
00:56:27
and sad and it's so bewildering. It is. Okay. So the next thing Betty knows, she's opening her eyes and looking around and she has debris all over her and bricks all over her,
00:56:39
but she doesn't know why. She doesn't understand what's happened. She's only seven.
00:56:45
And she's somehow miraculously, she's not buried in the rubble. She's actually able to immediately
00:56:51
stand up. So she starts walking and everything around her is unrecognizable. There's no school.
00:56:58
There's no kids at school. There's nothing familiar. Trees are gone. All buildings are gone.
00:57:05
So she's stumbling through the debris and there's bodies everywhere. She's trying to walk home,
00:57:12
but she doesn't know what direction her house is in because she doesn't really know where she is.
00:57:17
Oh my God. She's just walking and she sees Mr. Tippy from the town restaurant. He's the guy that owns the
00:57:24
restaurant. And so she says, she later tell a reporter, I said, Mr. Tippy, did the world come
00:57:32
to an end? And he said, no, we had a tornado. And she says, I said, what's a tornado?
00:57:40
Like, she's just a little baby girl. Oh my God. So Mr. Tippy takes Betty's hand, best name of all time.
00:57:46
Mr. Tippy. He is with his own young son. And so the three of them try to navigate their way through the rubble
00:57:55
back to Betty's house. So when she gets home or when she gets to the spot where her house used to
00:58:02
be, she finds her father, Martin. He's got a bloody rag tied around his head. And she sees
00:58:09
her sister, Elise, who's very badly injured. Her mother, Minnie, who had right as the tornado hit,
00:58:16
had just picked up their six-month-old daughter, Ruth. And Ruth has, thank God, minor scratches and
00:58:22
cuts. So the whole family is taken to DeCoin Hospital, which is about a half a mile away.
00:58:29
This hospital is so full, they have to get treated in like a triage center in the basement.
00:58:34
And that's when they find out her father sustained serious head injuries. Betty later says, I was happy the day of the tornado and just in a flash, I was desolate.
00:58:44
I didn't have a home, didn't know the way home. It was all blown away. After the tornado was over, nobody knew where anybody was.
00:58:53
You could be blown forever. There wasn't a house left standing. So Betty's 12-year-old sister, Tina May, never made it back home.
00:59:02
Two days after the tornado, searchers found the bodies of three little girls in an outhouse,
00:59:08
which had been pulled off its foundation and blown from the schoolyard all the way across the railroad tracks in town.
00:59:15
Oh my God. And one of those girls was identified as Betty's sister, Tina May. And her 10-year-old sister, Marie, died at the school that day.
00:59:27
So four days after the tornado on March 22nd, Betty's six-year-old sister, Elsie, who was home with the family,
00:59:35
she ends up dying at the hospital from her injuries. So that's the Barnett's three of their children died in this tornado.
00:59:43
Oh my God. Three of Betty's siblings died. So 69 people in the town of DeSoto died in the tornado.
00:59:49
33 of them were children. Betty's parents actually remained in DeSoto and rebuilt.
00:59:54
Betty was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in the nearby town of Hearst while they rebuilt the house And a few months later Betty family new home is finished because the Red Cross assisted
01:00:05
And so they have a new home. But only a couple months after they move into that house, her father, Martin Barnett, dies from his injuries, basically, or the issues that came from his head injuries.
01:00:18
By this time, her mother, Minnie, is three months pregnant and a widowed mom of three.
01:00:23
Oy vey. who has lost three children in the disaster. Betty would later say, that was 1925. We didn't
01:00:31
have social security and we didn't have any government handouts. You just had to do it
01:00:35
the hard way. Mom just always tried to make us feel good. Oh my God. I was strong with Minnie Barnett. Seriously.
01:00:45
That family comes together, Betty and her two brothers and her mom and the new baby.
01:00:52
and she grows up and she marries the love of her life, a man named Jesse Maroney on June 12th, 1944.
01:00:59
And two years later, they welcome their only child, Michael, and Betty dotes on her son.
01:01:06
But then the eight-year-old comes home one day in 1955 complaining of excruciating pain in his legs.
01:01:14
And when he's taken to the doctor, it turns out that Michael has acute leukemia.
01:01:19
He dies within a matter of days. And he is also now buried in the DeSoto Cemetery.
01:01:27
Oh my God. Betty goes on to become a founding member of the Christ the King North American Lutheran Church of DeSoto.
01:01:35
And she dedicates much of her time to her family and her community work. Her husband, Jesse Maroney, dies in August of 2003 at the age of 85.
01:01:43
And despite the overwhelming tragedies Betty has experienced in her life, she remained grateful for surviving the tornado and to have been surrounded by her loved ones, saying, I've had a lot of dark days like the tornado, but I've had a lot of rainbows.
01:02:02
Betty Barnett Moroney died on November 7th, 2020. What? Surrounded by her loved ones at home, she was 103 years old.
01:02:12
Holy shit. And that is the truly devastating story of the tri-state tornado of 1925.
01:02:21
Oh, my God. I almost just said, what a whirlwind. But I won't. You should not. I wouldn't.
01:02:30
Wow. There's an article that's one of the sources. Everybody in the heartland has a story, Betty Maroney, which was written by a writer named Marianne Maloney.
01:02:40
Marianne went to Betty's house when she was about to turn 100 to talk to her about her life
01:02:47
and basically be like, look at the life this woman has led. And she has these great quotes in it.
01:02:53
But at one point, she says, getting old is a shipwreck. Oh, my God. That's true.
01:03:00
It is. And she's like, the writer basically comments that like she might be, you know, her body might be old,
01:03:07
but her mind is sharp as a tack. Hell yeah. It's really cute. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,
01:03:15
Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent. The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14.
01:03:21
Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense,
01:03:25
rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either.
01:03:32
Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
01:03:38
Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
01:03:44
From robotics that change how people live to young athletes changing the game, the future isn't some far-off concept. It's already here.
01:03:51
Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
01:04:00
Shop now for up to 50% off select jewelry featuring personalized pieces to must-have summer favorites.
01:04:05
Timeless jewelry made to move with you through every moment. Shop in-store or online now through July 5th.
01:04:11
Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Summer clothes should feel easy and still look polished.
01:04:19
Low maintenance, high reward. That's how we live our lives. For summer clothes you will actually wear, there's Quince.
01:04:25
Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and toffs with styles starting at $32.
01:04:32
Their denim is soft and easy to wear, and their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights.
01:04:38
Everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories.
01:04:43
So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has become a destination for elevated essentials across the home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond,
01:04:53
making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. I am a fan of Quince.
01:04:57
Yeah, Karen's wardrobe is Quince-centric. I'm a lazy basics person. And the things that I get from them, I always go, oh, yeah, now I'm wearing these.
01:05:06
They work. They're cute. They're stylish. And they're classy. Yeah. Like, it doesn't look lazy.
01:05:12
It looks classy. And it's so affordable. Yeah. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash MFM for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
01:05:22
Now available in Canada, too. That's quince.com slash MFM for free shipping and 365 day returns.
01:05:29
quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. All right. Great job. Thank you. That was wild. I have a wild story as well. Today,
01:05:40
I'm going to talk about the great Buenos Aires bank heist of 2006. Oh, I've never heard of this. Yes. AKA the heist of the century.
01:05:52
Oh, great. That's what they call it. Okay. So the sources used today are an oxygen article by Jill Sederstrom a Washington Post article by Monty Real I heavily use a GQ article by Josh Dean who also wrote the book The Great Buenos Aires Bank Heist a BBC staff article a CNN staff article and an El Pa article by Rudolf Palacios
01:06:19
So a lot of names I'm going to do my very actual truly best to get correct. All right.
01:06:29
So Karen, the early 2000s in Argentina is a time when everyone really distrusts the banking system.
01:06:39
It's at an all-time high of the distrust. In 2001, the Argentine peso is on par with the U.S. dollar.
01:06:47
But then the country's entire banking system collapses and overnight the local currency is completely devalued, causing millions of Argentines to lose their entire life savings, their retirement accounts, everything they've worked their entire lives for.
01:07:03
So everyone's anti-banking. Yeah. One of the families that loses everything is that of Sebastian Garcia Bolster.
01:07:12
So he's a family man. He's in his early 40s. Sebastian makes a living by repairing engines of smaller stuff like motorcycles.
01:07:23
He's one of those smart people who like to tinker with mechanical things. You know, those types who take things apart and put them back together and fix things?
01:07:31
Yeah. I don't get it. In fact, according to the GQ article, in his free time, he works on plans for a hill-made helicopter.
01:07:40
As you do. You know, when you just want to make one at home, you don't want to have to go get one from the store.
01:07:46
I just want a little one. Yeah. So he is a law-abiding citizen, but we all have that one friend who's a bad influence, but probably really fun, right?
01:08:00
So this friend of his, he's known since high school. It's 41-year-old Fernando Arejo.
01:08:06
So Fernando is known as an eccentric who makes a living by teaching martial arts, but that's just so he can do whatever he wants on his free time.
01:08:15
According to the GQ article, he also studies Eastern philosophy. He's kind of a free thinker.
01:08:22
He also smokes a lot of pot and is into bank robber movies. So yeah, all those things go together.
01:08:30
Free thinking, weed, and a nice action flick. That's right. Well, so this Fernando, he starts to fantasize about robbing a bank himself.
01:08:41
And he shares his idea with his friend, Sebastian, who is actually kind of into the idea,
01:08:46
not so much because of the whole outlaw aspect of it, because he is a family man,
01:08:50
but more so the part about humiliating the banking system, because his family had been fucked over by them and had sent his once middle-class family into
01:09:00
ruins. So he was intrigued, but also Sebastian knows not to take Fernando too seriously because
01:09:07
Fernando comes up with many crazy ideas. Again, he's a pothead. So they kind of stopped talking about it. But Fernando can't get the robbery idea out of his head and starts to
01:09:20
consume every movie and TV show he can about robbing banks to figure out what to do, what not
01:09:26
to do. And his aim is to develop the ultimate foolproof plan and avoid the typical mistakes
01:09:34
that seem to get people caught. And it seems like in Argentina, bank robbery has always kind of been
01:09:39
a big business, I guess. Past time. Past time. Thank you. In 2004, Fernando again brings up the
01:09:48
idea of robbing a bank with Sebastian. But this time, Fernando has finessed the plan. He tells
01:09:55
Sebastian that he needs Sebastian's engineering help. He's like this really smart mechanic type
01:10:03
brain. And so Sebastian is an integral part of the plan. So Fernando tells Sebastian the plan
01:10:09
is to enter and exit the bank via an underground tunnel, Shawshank Redemption style.
01:10:15
Yes, I like this. Right? So see, Buenos Aires has a vast underground storm tunnel system.
01:10:22
So the plan is to get as close to the bank as possible, then dig a tunnel up into the basement level of the bank.
01:10:30
Smart. Yeah. So it seems as though Sebastian, the engineer, which he becomes known in the plan as the engineer, he's interested by pretty much the sheer technical aspect of the proposal.
01:10:44
Like it's almost like he wants to see if it's possible not to rob a bank, but to like see if he can figure it out.
01:10:49
So Sebastian agrees under the condition that they won't be using real weapons and that there will be no violence at all.
01:10:57
And so Fernando agrees to that. So the whole plan revolves around the fact that they have to rob the bank during the daytime because the alarms going off at night when the bank is closed would alert authorities really quickly and it'd all be like foiled.
01:11:13
So this part of the plan can only work if there's some sort of diversion inside of the bank to
01:11:18
distract the police if they break in during the day. So while the other real robbery goes through
01:11:24
the tunnel. The proposal Fernando puts forward is to stage a fake robbery in the main bank area
01:11:33
while the real robbers go through the tunnel. I like this plan. You do? Well, it's just really smart.
01:11:42
It's bold. It's very bold. It's very bold. Exactly. Well, and also because it never made sense to me.
01:11:49
Like to me, I feel like the odds of you getting away with a bank robbery are so low.
01:11:53
Yeah. Because so many things have to go right and so many people have to keep their mouth shut
01:11:58
and da-da-da. that this, I love the idea that they're doing like an alternative bank robbery.
01:12:05
Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. It's like, look over here, look over here. And then like real smarts come in.
01:12:09
Yeah. Right. So basically what will happen is that the phony robbers will come in,
01:12:15
pretend to be robbing the bank. And meanwhile, in the basement, the rest of the team
01:12:19
is emptying the safe deposit boxes. Because you see, after the financial crash, No one had any faith in the banking system. So suddenly everyone had a safe deposit box and put
01:12:32
everything in there, their cash, their credit cards, all their jewelry, all their expensive
01:12:37
things. So that's where the real money is. So they don't trust the bank as a system of like,
01:12:43
we'll take your money, but then it's actually going to get put into a huge pool.
01:12:46
Right. But they do trust the bank simply as a safe. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So the bank they pick is Banco Rio. It's the largest bank chain in
01:12:59
Argentina. And it's in one of the most wealthy regions called San Isidro. So these safe deposit
01:13:07
boxes would be flush. Wouldn't you love to look through safe deposit boxes? Oh, my dream. What is in them? Anything you want.
01:13:15
Anything and also weird secrets. Weird secrets. It's not all just diamonds and bonds, stocks and bonds.
01:13:23
Even if it is. Yeah. A key. A key. What's this key for? And then like a tooth. Where'd this tooth come from?
01:13:29
I was going to say a tooth. You were not. Have we had this conversation before? Probably.
01:13:34
Or we watched the same movie. I bet we watched the same movie. Oh my God. Like when you, did you watch Lost when she like finds the little toy airplane in a safe
01:13:42
deposit box and like, what does it mean? And it doesn't mean anything because the writers didn't know what it meant either.
01:13:47
It was very exciting when you saw it. But they knew it sounded and felt good. It did feel good.
01:13:52
That should be, sorry, but this is a poor man's copyright. Because we've talked about storage wars and what a satisfying show that is.
01:14:01
But how about the high-class aspirational concept of safety deposit box wars? There's got to be people who stop paying rent or whatever on their safe deposit boxes, right?
01:14:15
Are we tapping into a whole new market? I mean, but also, would that be possible?
01:14:19
Or would you just open your safety deposit box and cash out some of your diamonds?
01:14:23
Diamonds? Well, no, because what if like the whole thing, everyone in the family line dies?
01:14:28
But you know what happens is those banks and just own it probably, right? I was, you know what?
01:14:34
Greedy. Making a note to look into this. Because this is I need to know. All right.
01:14:41
This is our new reality show. Yeah, for real. The San Ysidro branch has around 400 safe deposit boxes.
01:14:49
They're all made of reinforced steel and they contain valuables, which Fernando estimates could be worth up to $60 million.
01:14:57
So like this is where the real fucking money is at. Yeah. Fernando names the plan the Donatello Project because he's a stoner.
01:15:06
So it's after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Nice job. Yeah. According to the GQ magazine article, Fernando plans to do like the cartoon characters do.
01:15:20
They move around under the city streets through the tunnel system. The whole thing is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plant.
01:15:28
This is why stoners shouldn't make the main plans of things. You know what I mean?
01:15:34
Ideas, great. Run it by a sober person. Well, this is probably why he got the engineer, Sebastian, involved.
01:15:42
Yeah, he's like, I actually, he's like, look this over, and now I need you to watch this TV show with me so you understand what my, and also, do you want to get pizza?
01:15:52
Always. So, Sebastian, you know, the engineer, begins to work on the mechanics. Like, this is the main, this guy to me is the hero in a way, you know, the anti-hero, because none of this would have happened without his brains.
01:16:05
He's so freaking smart. He begins to figure out the mechanics and engineering of the plan.
01:16:11
Well, in the meantime, Fernando has criminal underworld connections, and he begins to assemble his crack team to help because he knows he needs more help with the plan.
01:16:21
And this is when it comes like an Argentinian Ocean's Eleven, essentially. So one of his recruits is an experienced bank robber known only by the nickname Doc.
01:16:32
Doc also brings along a friend named Ruben Alberto de la Torre, known as Beto. Both men were members of the notorious Superbanda, a violent gang which would do bank robberies across Argentina in the 80s and 90s.
01:16:50
Another person Fernando calls upon is Julián Zaloecavera. He's a former car thief who was, he's like, this is like a movie.
01:17:00
He's kind of out of the criminal world at this point. He's like retiring from all that lifetime, but he gets a call from his friend Beto and
01:17:07
he's like, I can't pass this up. One last job before you retire. That's right. So plans move forward with Sebastian, the engineer, basically having the biggest workload.
01:17:21
He works under the cover of darkness during the night for eight months. He goes inside the Buenos Aires drain system, then has to walk a half an hour until he reaches
01:17:32
the location closest to the bank and then has to measure exactly. It's not just like,
01:17:38
here's under the bank. He has to figure out how far it is. So he does it in these crazy ways,
01:17:45
one of which is by taking his bicycle above ground, rolling it until he gets to the bank
01:17:51
from the closest manhole then counting the number of times the tire on his bike turned and then measuring that so he knows how far to go in under the tunnel Wow Yeah That really good problem solving
01:18:06
Yeah. He's so smart and there's multiple ways he has to measure different things to do that.
01:18:11
Because yeah, he could drill right up into just like- Grandma's house. Whoever lives next door to the bank.
01:18:18
Right. So all kinds of brilliant ways he figures it out. Then he starts to dig a tunnel into the
01:18:24
bank's basement. And in the GQ article, he's like, my wife knew something was up, but I figured she
01:18:29
just thought I had a mistress because he was like at 930 every night working all night for eight
01:18:33
months. And the wife doesn't go like, you son of a bitch. Who knows? Who knows? She's like,
01:18:41
at least he's got something to occupy his time. Right. This fucking brain of his.
01:18:46
This is the thing we talked about earlier. It's good to have different interests.
01:18:49
That's right. I'm in a bank robbery. I'm not. I'm into you going to do that and leaving me alone.
01:18:57
Okay. So then Fernando realizes that, ironically, as they say, it takes money to make money and he
01:19:05
needs money to purchase these supplies like a hydraulic shovel. So he knows he has to get
01:19:12
someone involved who can put some money into the project. So Doc tells him he is a associate who
01:19:19
can invest, obviously who wants a part of the proceeds. So Uruguayan thief Luis Mario Vitet
01:19:27
is a sophisticated, smooth talker and has experience. In previous years, he was known
01:19:34
as the Spider-Man of Buenos Aires because he scaled high-rise buildings to break into apartments.
01:19:42
do do do do do he's spider-man his way yeah you just need to think of another fictional character
01:19:49
that first one did it we've got we got the teenage mutant ninja turtles we've got spider-man
01:19:53
this is the most entertaining story like there's just no denying it but how crazy would you feel
01:20:00
if your shit got broken into and there's and you live in a high-rise apartment where it's like
01:20:05
there's no way to actually get in here no i can't wrap i can't think about that too long or i'll go
01:20:09
nutso. You know what I mean? It's terrifying. Well, because deep down, we all should be afraid
01:20:17
of Spider-Man. Luis, again, can't pass up Fernando's opportunity. So he invests $100,000
01:20:24
in the idea. Spider-Man knows what's out. Spider-Man knows. The gang recruits another man named Luis. So to avoid confusion, we'll call
01:20:34
the money man, Luis. We'll call him Batet. And actually, I should say this other guy, Luis,
01:20:40
who is recruited, no one ever finds out who he is. So it's still a mystery to this day who this
01:20:47
second Luis is. It's Jake Gyllenhaal. Wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah. That'd be a great reveal
01:20:54
when he was older. We all misunderstood him. We all underestimated him. That's right.
01:21:03
Right. So the next step is that Sebastian, the engineer, needs to figure out how to break into
01:21:07
the safe deposit boxes, right? Because that's not like something you can just crack open.
01:21:12
He figures out what the make and model is at this bank. He buys them himself and he tries all these
01:21:16
different things to break into it. He can't use explosives because he doesn't want the hostages
01:21:20
upstairs to like hear it and know something's actually going on downstairs. He figures that
01:21:24
away. It's basically a jackhammer. But the jackhammer has... That's so quiet. Yeah, right.
01:21:30
Right. Explosives, that's too loud. What's my second? Jackhammer. But then he has to figure out how to take apart the jackhammer because you can't bring
01:21:39
it all the way up in one piece. It's just so complicated, every fucking piece of it.
01:21:43
So the next insane step that they have to solve the problem of is how the team will take the
01:21:49
money that they gather from the bank. So there's so much stuff that's going to be
01:21:55
taken that Fernando and Sebastian hit upon the idea of a motorized inflatable rafts waiting.
01:22:05
Once they go back down through that hole into those water tunnels, there'll be rafts waiting
01:22:10
for them. Okay. See, I didn't understand there was water in those tunnels. I thought it was just,
01:22:15
oh shit. So the underground storm tunnel system that they have does have water in them. So now
01:22:21
Now they need rafts to carry all this fucking money that they're going to take and jewels and gold and teeth, whatever they find.
01:22:29
So many tiny teeth. Gross. So, okay. So rafts, great. They'll be waiting. But the water in the drain system isn't deep enough for the inflatable rafts to carry everyone and the jewelry.
01:22:41
So what does the engineer, Sebastian, do? He builds a dam in the stormwater drain to raise the water level to ensure a quick getaway.
01:22:50
I mean, yeah, this is amazing. So here we are on the morning of January 13th, 2006, aka Friday to 13th.
01:23:00
Everything is in place. At 7 a.m., Sebastian enters the stormwater system via his usual access point.
01:23:08
He heads towards the bank's basement and he waits in the dark next to the wall where his co-conspirators will break through from the other side.
01:23:14
Another vehicle containing Fernando, Beto, and Doc, and Luis, also makes its way to the same spot.
01:23:21
Meanwhile, Julian is in a getaway van, and he's in a spot in the city near a manhole cover where they'll pop out of.
01:23:31
So he waits in the car for two hours while the team does its thing. And Fernando has given the team a two-hour limit before they need to be out of there.
01:23:40
Vitette is the head negotiator. So Vitette and Beto, they will manage the hostages, while Doc, who is wearing a ski mask, will enter the bank with the others.
01:23:51
And he make his way to the basement to help with those jackhammered safe deposit boxes So Beto goes in He dressed as a doctor He the first person inside the bank That his like get up He shouts at the 23 employees and customers to stick their hands up
01:24:06
and get on the floor. And he brandishes a toy gun. So there's no real guns in this situation.
01:24:11
They're all toy guns. Fernando is waiting outside in a staged getaway car. So they made it look like
01:24:16
there's a getaway car sitting there. So the cops will surround it. Like they definitely made it
01:24:20
look like you have to surround the front and back entrances and this getaway car.
01:24:24
so they would have no clue. The cops would have no clue. So Fernando goes in as well,
01:24:29
waving a fake gun also. He's wearing a long blonde wig with a ski mask over it, a baseball hat and sunglasses.
01:24:37
A little bit overkill. It's always like in the mirror, you're supposed to take off one thing
01:24:43
before you leave the house, right? Yes. Like no one thinks that's your real blonde hair
01:24:48
sticking out of the ski mask, right? Just get rid of the wig. Yeah, the wig can go.
01:24:52
Also, there's so much heat under there. So nasty. So Vitette and Luis get the jackhammer parts inside and they go upstairs to continue with the fake robbery while Doc and Sebastian start cracking open the safe deposit boxes.
01:25:06
So Vitette is wearing a gray suit and fake mustache and they all begin to pretend to empty the bank's cash drawers.
01:25:16
And Vitette, who tells the hostages his name is Walter, at 12.38, He's the one talking to the police who show up.
01:25:27
The officers arrive and they cover the two obvious exits to the bank. Around 200 armed officers set up a perimeter, including four police snipers.
01:25:38
And police get a negotiator on the scene to establish radio contact with what is known as Walter.
01:25:45
So Vitette tells the officers that they have no intention of surrendering. He says that the gang is armed and will shoot their way out if necessary.
01:25:51
However, he also impresses upon police that resolving the matter peacefully is their top priority.
01:25:57
Like they're just pretending to do a basic bank robbery. They don't want anyone hurt.
01:26:02
And as a gesture of good faith, they release the bank's only security guard. They take the bullets out of the security guard's gun, puts them in his pocket, and they allow him to walk out of the door.
01:26:12
And they say it's because it's a gesture of good faith. But really, they don't want anyone with a real gun in the bank.
01:26:19
Smart. And so the security guard lets them know that there are other hostages inside.
01:26:23
By this time, the TV news stations are on the scene. It's always a big deal when there's a bank robbery on TV.
01:26:29
And for the next six hours, the drama is televised live across the country. Six hours?
01:26:35
Yeah. Patet, or Walter, soon becomes known as the man in the gray suit, as he's seen briefly when he lets another hostage go.
01:26:45
And he kind of becomes immediately like a folk hero. because everyone hates the banks.
01:26:50
He tells police the hostages are being looked after and actually the atmosphere inside the bank
01:26:56
is kind of somewhat jovial because one of the hostages' phones keeps ringing because their unsuspecting loved ones
01:27:04
are calling to wish them a happy birthday. And so when the robbers realize it's their birthday,
01:27:10
they sing them happy birthday. Oh. And the police can hear it from outside and they're like, what the fuck?
01:27:18
They're keeping it light inside. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I respect it. Yeah. So more of the gang go downstairs to help with safe deposit boxes.
01:27:27
And they basically are finishing up and they clean up the area, the whole area with bleach
01:27:33
to remove DNA. And they also had gotten hair from a barbershop and start throwing it around the room.
01:27:40
That's smart. So like for DNA and shit. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And earlier, before they had gone in, they had all put super glue on their fingers to try to get rid of the fingerprints.
01:27:52
Does that work? I don't know. Well, it would just cover. Yeah, it would make them smooth, right?
01:27:58
Right. Didn't you ever used to play with super glue? Oh, yeah. So fun. I loved covering my fingers like that because then you had these weird little caps on your fingers.
01:28:07
Right. But the whole time I'd be thinking of those stories of coming out of the emergency room of kids gluing their eyes shut and stuff.
01:28:16
Yeah. It's like, this is dangerous, but I love it. Karen. Sorry, I'm stopped talking.
01:28:22
Living on the wild side. No, I love it. That's how we partied. I love picturing you as a little baby bank robber, like seven years old, and you got your fingers all glued.
01:28:30
Like, I'm going to take all the money. In my homemade helicopter. Oh. With your blonde wig.
01:28:36
Okay. Okay, so at 3.30, it's the two hours. This is the signal. It's time to go when he says to request from the hostage negotiator
01:28:47
that they want pizza delivered in order to feed the hostages. So is that another callback to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
01:28:55
They're like, they're nerds about it. At this point, they're nerds. Yeah, so that's the signal to everyone.
01:29:03
Like this is the point where we all have to go into the basement and get out. But the hostages can't know about it because when the police come in, they don't want the hostages to be like, that's how they left.
01:29:11
It'd be obvious. Yeah. Right. So everyone goes back down to the basement and they kind of like plaster the wall so you can't tell it's been broken into.
01:29:20
They conceal the point of entry with a filing cabinet. So when you walk into the room, all the police will see is the fake guns lying there, the toy guns.
01:29:30
And so they go down to the tunnel. They get into the inflatable rafts. The rafts won't start.
01:29:34
They flood the engines. But Sebastian, because he's brilliant, has also brought rows.
01:29:41
What are they called? Ores. Ores to row themselves out to safety. He had a backup just in case.
01:29:49
Like, sorry, that's hot. Like somebody that thinks things all the way through is amazingly hot Absolutely And yeah this is I feel like we going to find
01:30:05
out that you are just telling me the plot of a movie because this is beyond like any story,
01:30:11
I feel like. I am because it becomes a movie, but this is fucking real. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:30:16
Yeah. This is all real. And in fact, okay, I'll tell you later. Okay. So they're in one
01:30:24
wrapped in the raft behind them is the fucking crazy amount of loot that they got away with.
01:30:29
Out of the 400 safe deposit boxes that were down in the basement, Sebastian had enough time to open 143 of them in about 90 minutes. It's never been revealed exactly
01:30:42
what the men stole aside from the cash and credit cards. That's the mystery of safety deposit boxes. No one can know.
01:30:51
Just piles of teeth. So for another three hours after they ordered the pizza, police are waiting to make contact with Walter.
01:30:59
And there's no response. They don't know what to do, of course. So they had left the building.
01:31:05
The whole gang had, they made it about 10 city blocks to the waiting getaway card.
01:31:10
So back at the bank at 7 p.m., finally, the special operations police storm the building.
01:31:15
They locate the remaining 19 hostages who are all unharmed. And then they find a note left behind in the basement that reads, quote, in a neighborhood of rich people without weapons or grudges, it's just money, not love.
01:31:31
Which I don't understand what that means. For sure. Do you think it's referring to the like, it's all love saying, like it's all love or whatever?
01:31:40
Yeah. Like things are all love, like it's positive. A neighborhood of rich people without weapons or grudges.
01:31:47
So it's like, it's not about the money or it is just about the money. It's not about the money.
01:31:53
It's like, it's basically saying, don't take this personally. Right. Yeah. And the police are humiliated at this point when everyone finds out what happens.
01:32:02
So in the days following the robbery, the gang, this is so smart. They discard the credit cards that they had gotten out of the safe deposit boxes
01:32:09
throughout Buenos Aires in the underground drain system. And it seems like other places.
01:32:13
And these are red herrings for the police designed to confuse them. Partly from where the gang surfaced after the heist, but also because when random people find a credit card here and there and use them, they have to be investigated themselves, which wastes tons of police time.
01:32:30
Ooh. Right? They're probably like hundreds of credit cards. So there's probably hundreds of people using them that have nothing to do with the bank heist.
01:32:38
It's really smart. So smart. So the robbers have escaped with around $20 million in cash and valuables.
01:32:45
Yes. Although the total is never released to the public. Police have zero leads.
01:32:49
This only adds to the embarrassment law enforcement are already dealing with over them being completely tricked.
01:32:56
I was just like tricked in the craziest way too. Like masterminded is really. That's right.
01:33:03
You know, they shouldn't be that embarrassed because it's such a high level plan that it's like, hey, no one had a chance.
01:33:09
Exactly. this one. Exactly. So it's almost the perfect crime, but five weeks after the robbery,
01:33:17
it all comes undone. How? Can I guess? Yeah. The teenage mutant ninja turtles came and called them. We got this, dude. Hey, dude.
01:33:29
Nope. It's the age old jilted lover story. So at the time, Beto is married, but apparently he has
01:33:38
affairs all the time. And one day his wife's just fucking over it. And she thinks, so he's out for
01:33:45
a drive with his mistress. I think the wife thought he was getting out of town and like
01:33:52
leaving with the money and his mistress. So she had told the police that she believes her husband
01:33:58
was involved in the heist and that he's trying to flee the country. So he gets pulled over and
01:34:04
and arrested. Was he doing that? He insists that he wasn't leaving town, but he was definitely with his mistress. Oh, well then, you know what? Fair's fair.
01:34:14
Yeah. Like don't fuck around. Fuck around or fuck around and find out, right? He chose to fuck around and then he found out. That's right. And that's how it usually goes.
01:34:24
That's right. So the wife's name was Alicia and her account is that he had brought his share of
01:34:30
the robbery home, which could have been up to like $3 million, and told her everything,
01:34:35
like didn't keep it a secret at all. And they got into arguments about it and all this shit.
01:34:40
So she was like jilted. And so when police show Alicia, the wife, pictures of men with prior
01:34:46
records of robbery, she's able to identify most of the gang because they had been in her garage
01:34:53
in the days before the robbery. Yeah. What? Yeah. Isn't that sad? It's like, it's like beautiful art.
01:35:02
They say it's like a piece of art, the robbery plan. And then it's all come undone because fucked around.
01:35:08
Because art imitates life. And also don't have a garage meeting when Alicia's home.
01:35:15
Like if this plan is so high level that you can like figure out that you need to measure the distance by bicycle rotations,
01:35:23
How about you wait till Alicia goes to the fucking mall before you all go hang in the garage?
01:35:29
Or tell Alicia you found the money on the street or your fucking great aunt died and gave it to you.
01:35:35
You know what I mean? Or don't fuck around on Alicia. Yes, 100%. But then you pull her all the way inside like she is your number one.
01:35:44
Yeah. And then you treat her like that. Yeah. Well, then you don't deserve to have your money.
01:35:49
That's right. Well. You're not. Oh. or am I going to change that? No, no, no. You're absolutely right. So,
01:35:54
Fernando, Beto, Vitette, Julian, and Sebastian are all arrested. They have guilty to charges of aggravated robbery with firearms,
01:36:03
which carries a sentence of three to 10 years in prison. The judge finds there's insufficient evidence
01:36:08
to convict Vitette, the man in the gray suit, but he is convicted for an unrelated robbery.
01:36:14
The remaining four accused are convicted in 2010, but because the men hadn't used real weapons
01:36:20
during the robbery, none of them received sentences any greater than five years.
01:36:25
And Doc and Luis are never charged. As I said, Luis is never, we don't know who he is.
01:36:32
That's amazing. I love mysteries. And because Vitette, the man in the gray suit, is not an Argentine citizen,
01:36:40
his sentence can be halved if he leaves the country and never returns. Oh. So in 2013, he's deported back to Uruguay, and he's actually kind of a local celebrity there.
01:36:51
He deserves it. Yeah. Yeah. So Sebastian, our engineer, is convicted only for his role in engineering the tunnel.
01:36:59
And as a result, only serves just over two years in prison. And you got to hope he gets an engineering job offer after that, right?
01:37:07
Yes. He should fucking be given his own, like, I don't know, bridge company. What do engineers...
01:37:14
This is exactly right. You need an engineer. He's just every idea he has is like, okay, we're going to go under the building.
01:37:21
It's like, no, no, no, this is a roof situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can come in through the front door, Sebastian.
01:37:27
It's the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles themed. Every single thing he does is like that.
01:37:33
We were just like, no, no. No, nunchucks, quit it. The nunchucks. All the men are eventually released.
01:37:42
And so no one stayed that long in prison. Wow. And they all enjoy a level of notoriety.
01:37:48
They give media interviews from time to time about their roles in the heist. And they kind of revel in their infamy, it seems.
01:37:55
And there's multiple books and movies about the case with all the different perspectives,
01:38:00
depending on which of them is consulting or co-authoring. It's kind of this cool little like he said, he said type of thing.
01:38:08
None of them really seem to have any animosity towards each other. And most of them kind of seem a little stoked for the folk hero fame that has brought them.
01:38:18
And they also are all a little impressed with this seemingly perfect heist they pulled off.
01:38:23
And in a way, too, it's like if they hadn't been caught, they would never have gotten this notoriety around it.
01:38:29
So they pulled off this perfect heist. They got caught immediately. And now everything, you know, is what it is.
01:38:37
And now they can kind of sit back and laugh in the garage. Exactly. Order pizza.
01:38:42
Hey, we did it. Yeah. Right. And there's also a dramatized film about it released in 2020 called The Heist of the Century.
01:38:51
It's never revealed by police exactly how much or what items the men stole from the safe deposit boxes.
01:38:58
But the majority of the stolen cash is never recovered. Yes, yes, yes. That's right.
01:39:05
And Sebastian and Fernando remain friends to this day. And that is the story of the great Buenos Aires bank heist of 2006 Fucking the heist of the century is right Yeah
01:39:20
Okay. Whatever that movie is that you just mentioned, I've never seen it. No, it's an Argentinian film.
01:39:27
But I feel like there have been other heist movies that have stolen elements of this one.
01:39:32
Absolutely. For sure. Absolutely. Or, I mean, is it a normal thing to fucking tunnel into a bank or something?
01:39:38
Yeah. Let's get some percentages on how this is normally done. But it's so, God,
01:39:45
they really, like, it's such a good, if I was in a heist group and then they were like,
01:39:50
you're the one that's going to go pretend hold up the bank. I would just be like, no fucking way.
01:39:55
Yeah. That guy is very brave. Well, he was a bank robber beforehand. So it was NBD to him.
01:40:01
He's like, used to, okay. Yeah. And he's like, he probably thinks it's less stakes because it's not real. It's not like
01:40:08
They're saying, go rob this bank. They're saying like, go put on a show. I don't know.
01:40:12
Like it seems like a fun project almost for him where he's out of the business, but he still gets to play robbers.
01:40:19
Yes. That's very, very true. A good point. Yeah, because there's way less risk when he's like,
01:40:26
yeah, I didn't actually steal any money up here. Yeah. So you can't really do anything to me.
01:40:30
And the security guard's gone. So don't worry about that. I know I'm not going to hurt anyone.
01:40:34
I'm going to sing someone happy fucking birthday. for all fucking things. That would be so,
01:40:39
that's like my sister calling four times in a row. Just like, just pick up the phone.
01:40:43
I'm trying to tell you something. I'm trying to, and it's just like, I'm in a robbery.
01:40:47
I'm being held hostage, Laura. It's not always about you. Oh my God, what a delightful tale.
01:40:56
Yeah. Nice one. Thank you. Really good story. Thank you. It was fun. Well, that was some good listening.
01:41:03
Yeah. I feel strong. I feel strong about that one. I do too. I listened to it and I thought it was great.
01:41:10
I don't know about you. I'm going to put this one aside for the Emmys. I think this will be our submission for the Emmys this year.
01:41:18
Oh, you mean for when we host it? We improv host it? Let's do it. Never. Can you imagine?
01:41:27
Yes, I can. Very accurately. You're sweating. Thank you. Well, I guess the last thing to talk about,
01:41:34
and everybody knows about it. So we didn't really want to start with this, but there was,
01:41:39
of course, we know the horrific school shooting at Evalde in Texas on May 24th, which was
01:41:46
devastating, horrifying. There was the Buffalo shooting that was, I believe, just a week before.
01:41:52
We have a serious gun problem in this country and it needs to get solved soon. And what's kind of
01:41:59
exciting about a problem like this is there is a resource that basically everybody knows is the
01:42:05
resource, and it's the Everytown for Gun Safety, which is the largest gun violence preventional
01:42:10
organization in America. That's right. After Sandy Hook in 2012, Everytown for Gun Safety was
01:42:15
formed, and they worked to introduce evidence-based solutions in every town across America to end
01:42:21
gun violence So we going to donate to Everytown And if you want to donate please go to their website which is everytown And if you don have money to donate you can go onto that website and find out what the action items are so that you can help put pressure on the politicians who are basically have this issue deadlocked and aren doing anything about it and are pretending that not doing anything about it somehow represents anyone when everyone knows that the
01:42:52
majority of Americans want gun control in this country. Yeah, you can go there and educate
01:42:57
yourself. You can also volunteer for events in your community. You can do phone banking. You can
01:43:01
join local chapters to help spread the word. It's all so important. So if you want to find out more,
01:43:06
again, go to everytown.org and you can follow them on Instagram and Twitter at Everytown.
01:43:11
And so we want to thank them for all the work they're doing. Hey, take care of yourself.
01:43:16
Take care of your mind. Take care of what you're intaking. Take care of each other.
01:43:24
Be kind to people IRL, which is where you should try to spend the most of your time.
01:43:30
Look for the good. Stay strong. Be good. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
01:43:41
Elvis, do you want a cookie? he hits that moment that everyone's had when you've just gone too far when you've stayed too
01:43:50
long and he knows that she knows and he hears her scream from upstairs you get up here right now
01:43:56
and he gets up she throws him against the wall she has a hammer and she says i see you get out
01:44:04
i'm kate winkler dawson and this is tenfold war wicked presents wicked words i'm a crime
01:44:10
historian and author. I'm also the host of Tenfold War Wicked on Exactly Right. I've traveled around
01:44:16
the world interviewing people, and many of those people are writers. They've had so many great true
01:44:21
crime stories, and now we want to tell you those stories with details that have never been published.
01:44:27
Here's what you can expect during our second season of Wicked Words. It was an unusual posture
01:44:33
to find a drowning victim. She was dressed only in a pink silk teddy, stockings, and pumps, so the
01:44:39
Police couldn't tell what they were looking at. Folger asks this man immediately, where is everyone else?
01:44:47
And he says, swept away by desperate contentions. Who's going to rule the island?
01:44:52
They all murdered each other. Of all weapons, poisons are always premeditated. You can lose your temper with a gun.
01:45:01
You can be fearful with a brick, right? but you have to think ahead and plan if you're going to be a poisoner.
01:45:10
Within a community, this family are masquerading as kind of upstanding, standoffish citizens, and then over a three-year period, they kill 11 people at least.
01:45:23
Does this end sometime soon? No, that brings us to seven victims, and we have to get all the way to 11.
01:45:30
Oh, gosh. I Kate Winkler Dawson Join me for the second season of Wicked Words a deep dive into the stories behind the stories Season two of Wicked Words is now available on Exactly Right with new episodes every Monday Listen leave us a review and follow
01:45:48
Wicked Words now on the Tenfold War Wicked feed on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
01:45:54
like to listen. You can hear every episode one week early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.
01:46:06
This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
01:46:14
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:46:19
Our researcher is Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:46:25
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
01:46:31
Goodbye. Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.
01:46:46
With Cheap Caribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.
01:46:52
You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder. Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.
01:47:00
Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.
01:47:06
Goodbye. If audiobooks are your thing, or if you've been meaning to listen to more of them,
01:47:11
you should check out a podcast called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, hosted by Cal Penn.
01:47:17
Each episode spotlights standout audiobooks on Audible across all kinds of genres,
01:47:22
sci-fi, comedy, romance, thrillers, and more, with Cal talking to guests who help break down what makes each story worth listening to.
01:47:29
It's a fun, easy way to discover your next great audiobook. Check out Earsay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:47:37
Goodbye. You know that fantasy where you run into your ex while looking impossibly cute and wildly unbothered?
01:47:43
Hill House makes the perfect dress for that moment. Or if you're just running errands.
01:47:48
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.
01:47:58
Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Anne Hathaway, and Mindy Kaling have all been spotted in Hill House.
01:48:04
These dresses are the definition of versatile. Perfect for running errands in the morning and stylish enough for dinner or a party that night.
01:48:11
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.
01:48:20
And it's so true, the hardest time picking out one nap dress because the prints are so dreamy and beautiful.
01:48:26
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.
01:48:33
Cowboy boots or cute heels, whatever it is, this nap dress can make it look classy.
01:48:37
You look like that classy lady you see at the airport. Hill House makes fun fashion that makes you feel good.
01:48:42
Get 15% off your first order of $100 or more at hillhousehome.com with code MURDER15.
01:48:49
That's MURDER15 for 15% off at hillhousehome.com. Goodbye.