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00:01:53
Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstar. Thank you. That's Karen Kilgariff.
00:02:01
And I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Criminal. Yes! Oh, it's so exciting to hear those words and see your face as they happen. What a treat.
00:02:14
Yes, so exciting. Well, I'm happy that you asked me to be here. We've been Criminal fans for a long time, as you know, and we love the work you do.
00:02:22
And so we're very excited when this idea came to light. It was thrilling. And we're so excited to see you and to be talking to you.
00:02:34
Yeah. Well, it's kind of like, you know, you have these satellites out there. You know, you have My Favorite Murder and you have Criminal and we hit each other.
00:02:42
Sometimes we send signals out and they bounce off each other. And now we finally get to be kind of in the same room.
00:02:51
Yes. And our worlds are going to collide for a second. Yeah. Imagine. And we want to do the most we can to not explode your satellite.
00:03:03
And in any, I feel like I can't curse too much in this. You know what I mean? Like there's certain curse words I normally use on our podcast that I'm just not going to.
00:03:13
That's not going to fly on criminal. They're not going to be having our inaccurate information over on that side of things.
00:03:22
I do, in real life, do say bad words sometimes. Oh, let's hear it. It's a little...
00:03:30
We hide that all, but I have been known to say something bad. And it's always a little shocking, but it has happened.
00:03:42
Do you think... Can we just get one fuck out of you just to hear, just for the experience of it?
00:03:43
Yeah. Like, I spill my water all the time in the studio because I have bottles all around me.
00:03:54
And I'll say like, motherfuck. Oh, great. Yes. Great. And then we immediately take it out.
00:04:02
So no one actually has to hear me say anything like that. That's right. It's not on brand.
00:04:08
It's not on brand with Criminal and what you've built. Absolutely not. How about you edit those and just send them over to us from now on and we'll plug those in on our podcast.
00:04:17
like morning DJs and doing it. I'll give you a whole reel. Yes. Great. No matter the mood,
00:04:25
I'll give you a word for it. Great. Yeah, we'd love different tones and different inflections.
00:04:29
It's just, you know, let's play with it. Or in the middle of an interview, you're talking to some old woman
00:04:35
about this amazing thing that she's done that she also got arrested for. And then it's like,
00:04:40
well, that's fucking great. I'm Phoebe Judge. And this is Criminal. I love the, I love the like summary of, of criminal.
00:04:50
There's some amazing woman. She's done incredible things. But she also got arrested for it.
00:04:54
You, you know how it goes. Fuck. Fuck. And she fucking got arrested for it. Um, all right.
00:05:04
So do you want to explain what you're, what you're about to do? Yeah. Yeah, so we have story ideas all the time that we can't do because we can't find someone to tell it because it's too old or no one knows about it.
00:05:19
And so we don't get to do it because the whole show is built on people who have actual experience with the event or some historian who knows a lot about it.
00:05:28
And so we've been, we have this collection of stories that we just haven't known what to do with.
00:05:32
And when we started talking about doing something together, we thought, well, this could be the perfect chance for me to get to tell you one of these stories that we've been really obsessed with but just haven't found anything to do, how to make it an episode.
00:05:48
And so we thought that it could be interesting to tell you the story about two women and what happened to them in 1946.
00:05:55
This was originally reported in The New Yorker in 1953 and then kind of not talked much about But it a really interesting story And so that what we thought we do
00:06:06
I'd tell you about Pearl and Olga and this wild man who entered their lives and kind of ruined both of them.
00:06:16
Love it. I love it. I had never heard this one at all, even though it is wild. It feels like it should be like on the level of, you know, the Bonnie and Clyde that gets told over and over again.
00:06:27
The experience of this, especially as a person who listens to Criminal, is the podcast listener's dream, which is you're listening to a podcaster tell you a story, but you actually get to say something back.
00:06:39
Like there's an interactive element that we get to have in an episode of Criminal essentially is what's going on right now.
00:06:47
And it's really, it's really a thrill. It almost feels like mystery science theater.
00:06:52
We're in the front row just screaming at the screen. Yes, please, Phoebe Judge, tell us a story.
00:07:00
Yes. Okay. Well, in the fall of 1946, a woman named Pearl Lusk, she just graduated from high school outside of Philadelphia,
00:07:10
moved to New York City. She got a job in a department store. She got a room on the Upper West Side
00:07:15
and was kind of living the dream of moving to New York after graduating from high school in a small town
00:07:22
and seeing it all. And she was having a ball. She was having a really good time.
00:07:28
Her parents lived in Brooklyn, and she was visiting them on Thanksgiving and was traveling home on the subway,
00:07:37
and a man approached her and asked if she wanted to go out. and she said, I don't go out with men I don't know.
00:07:47
Thank you very much, and went on her way. She continued to work. It was ramping up.
00:07:53
It was the holiday season. It was December in New York City. And on Christmas Eve, she was told that she was going to be laid off
00:08:00
because the holiday rush was over, and she wasn't going to have a job. So she was a little downtrodden.
00:08:06
She thought she'd kind of made it, and now she's jobless. She goes back to visit her family the day after Christmas in Brooklyn
00:08:15
and is on that same subway home and sees this man again. She described him as the most handsome man she'd ever seen.
00:08:24
She kind of thought he must be an actor. He was so handsome and dressed incredibly well.
00:08:29
And he says again, want to get a drink? And for whatever reason, she says, sure.
00:08:37
and they get off at Times Square and they go to a bar and she orders a whiskey and 7-Up, a scotch and 7-Up.
00:08:44
I think that's called a 7-and-7. And they're having a drink and he says his name is Alan LaRue
00:08:49
and she's totally charmed by the way he looks. And he tells her that he's a private detective
00:08:56
and she'd been really into Perry Mason and mysteries and detective stories and she's intrigued and they're talking and she says,
00:09:05
I've been laid off. And he says, well, would you be interested in a job? And she says, I guess so.
00:09:14
And he said, okay, come and meet me tomorrow morning and I'll give you a job. So this 19-year-old
00:09:22
girl, Pearl Lusk, meets this man, Alan LaRue, the next day, and he tells her some more about what he
00:09:29
does. He is a private detective for an insurance company, and the insurance company looks into
00:09:36
insuring jewelry and then recovering stolen jewelry. And Alan LaRue tells Pearl that the
00:09:44
job will be to follow a woman who's working at a hat company and go to see this woman and see if
00:09:55
she's stealing jewelry from one of their clients. He tells Pearl that he can't be the one to follow
00:10:02
this woman and see if she's stolen the jewelry because she already knows his face and she'll
00:10:07
catch on and just ditch the jewelry. So they need someone who this woman named Olga has never seen
00:10:13
before. And he said, you've got to figure out what she looks like. So I want you to go to this office,
00:10:18
to this Crodin Hat Company office where she's a secretary and ask for a fake woman, Sheila.
00:10:27
And they'll say, there's no Sheila here, but you'll be able to get a look at this woman, Olga.
00:10:31
You'll know what she looks like. She's hiding the jewelry in her jacket. And so you'll know what she looks like.
00:10:37
And then what you're going to do is you're going to follow her. So Pearl says, okay.
00:10:43
She goes to the hat company offices. She gets a good look at Olga. She meets Alan LaRue again and says, I know what she looks like.
00:10:51
It's clear to me. And he says, okay, here's what you're going to do. We need proof that she's stolen the jewelry.
00:10:57
We can't get the cops involved until we know that she has the jewelry. So he says that he needs her to take a photograph of this woman Olga's coat where she's hiding the jewelry.
00:11:12
and she's going to do this Pearl will do this because Alan is going to give her a disguised camera
00:11:19
an x-ray camera that will take a picture through her coat and when it gets developed
00:11:25
they'll see that she's hiding the jewelry in the coat and so he hands Pearl this paper colored shoebox
00:11:34
covered in kind of brown parcel paper and on one end of it there's a little hole
00:11:38
where the camera is supposedly sticking out and he tells Pearl where Olga gets on the train and he says you're going to get on the train
00:11:47
with Olga and you're going to follow her and when she gets off the train you're going to get as
00:11:51
close as possible to her two and a half to three feet he was pretty specific and you going to take the picture and so Olga and Pearl are on the same train Pearl follows her gets off the train is supposed to pull this wire under the parcel this odd shoebox parcel which apparently has an X camera in it
00:12:11
And she does, and she takes a picture of this woman Olga's back of her coat. And she goes and she delivers the camera with the supposed film in it to Alan LaRue.
00:12:24
And he says, okay, let me try to develop it and I'll let you know what comes out if we got a good picture.
00:12:31
So a little time passed and Alan lets Pearl know that the picture didn't work. It didn't come out.
00:12:39
And so he says, I'm going to get a new camera and I'm going to call you in a few days and tell you when the camera's ready.
00:12:45
Pearl says, okay. So a few days later, Alan calls. They meet again. and Alan delivers Pearl a new box.
00:12:54
This time it's wrapped in Christmas, Happy New Year paper. And it still has this hole in one end of it,
00:13:03
in kind of where the camera lens might be. It's a lot heavier than the last box.
00:13:08
And it still has this wire underneath that Pearl is supposed to pull when she wants to take the camera shot.
00:13:16
So again, Pearl gets on the train with Olga, coming from Brooklyn into Manhattan, gets off at the station, stands right behind Olga,
00:13:27
two and a half to three feet, gets ready to take the picture, pulls the wire on the bottom of this
00:13:33
box, and a gunshot comes out of them. I was afraid you were going to say that. You knew. And it's New Year's Eve, and they're at the Times Square train station. She pulls the
00:13:49
loop, a blast occurs, and this box, which actually is holding a sawed-off shotgun,
00:13:58
shoots Olga's left leg nearly completely off. Pearl is so close to Olga because Alan LaRue
00:14:06
has said you have to get really close, that Pearl is covered in Olga's blood. And when
00:14:13
a guard, everyone, I mean, Pearl is shocked. She didn't know that this box had a gun in it.
00:14:18
And when the subway guard asks Pearl what happened, she says, I just took a woman's picture, but somebody shot her.
00:14:27
She didn't even know that she had been the one to shoot her because she had no idea.
00:14:31
When they open the box up, they see that it's got a sawed-off shotgun in it. And Pearl is now standing over Olga, who's laying on the ground, almost bleeding to death.
00:14:42
And Pearl is saying, I'm so sorry I shot you in a state of shock. She had no idea.
00:14:47
She said, I thought I was taking your picture with an x-ray camera. And Olga, laying there on the ground, looks up and there's people around, of course.
00:14:57
And according to these people, these witnesses, Olga says, well, he got me this time.
00:15:04
Now he's crippled me so I can't get away. No joke, I just got chills. And she's taken to the hospital.
00:15:12
Oh, where her left leg is amputated inches above her knee because the damage was so great.
00:15:20
So that's the story is what, what the hell? I didn't know you could put an x-ray camera in a shoebox in 1946 or that they even had x-ray cameras in 1946.
00:15:37
I don't know. I mean, can you do that today? hey, I don't even know if you can do that today.
00:15:44
Yeah, it sounds fake. I mean, that sounds like the thing in the back of a Richie Rich comic
00:15:47
where it's like, you know, x-ray camera, see through people's clothes. It's like, this is why you don't talk to people on the sofa.
00:15:56
That's what you're getting out of. That's why this is the rule. Just keep your head down.
00:16:01
No chit chat, no matter how good looking they are. Yeah. I just feel like though,
00:16:06
a 19-year-old who's like excited and into Perry Mason, and detective stuff. And there's this hot detective,
00:16:14
nicely dressed. Yes. Sends you on this cool mission that sounds legit. There's details in it, you know?
00:16:23
Also the first time and then it just didn't work. It's like such a, it's such a devious, horrifying setup.
00:16:31
It's all, I'm going along with this private detective and this is how stuff like this works
00:16:36
and I'm just doing what he tells me and nothing happened the first time. why would anything happen the second time? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the leap from x-ray camera to
00:16:44
sawed-off shotgun, I mean, I wouldn't make that leap if I wrapped in Christmas, Happy New Year paper. Yeah.
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So when the police question Pearl, who really is this rather innocent 19 year old who just says I was approached by this man named Alan LaRue.
00:19:50
that coupled with what Olga had said of, well, he's crippled me now, now he can get me.
00:19:58
They start putting two and two together. Alan LaRue's real name was Alphonse Rocco.
00:20:06
And he and Olga had been married in May of 1945. They had met in 1944 at a dance.
00:20:15
She had been obviously charmed by him as well. They'd gotten married in May of 1945, and the relationship quickly goes south.
00:20:26
Alphonse Rocco had been a con man, stealing cars, stealing money for years, had a police history, and the marriage does not work.
00:20:36
In 1946, Olga decides to leave Alphonse Rocco and go on her own way, and she moves to Brooklyn, and they separate.
00:20:48
Quickly, she realizes that Alphonse Rocco is not going to leave her alone. Still, whatever he is with her, obsessed with her.
00:20:56
And he begins following her. He starts to follow her on the subway to and from work.
00:21:03
He offers to drive her. He sometimes will find her and then offer to drive her somewhere.
00:21:09
She declines a lot of the time. But finally, one day, for whatever reason, she's tired and she says, fine, I'll get in the car with you.
00:21:18
And when she gets in the car, her ex-husband, Alphonse Rocco, puts a knife to her throat and says, don't move or I'll kill you.
00:21:27
And he drives her to Poughkeepsie, to a cabin where he basically held her hostage for two days with this knife at her throat.
00:21:37
They drive back to New York. He then buys a gun and starts threatening her with that.
00:21:41
Then he drives her back to Poughkeepsie to a different cabin where he holds her for five days.
00:21:46
And they drive back to Brooklyn. Finally, he drops Olga off at her family's house and goes away.
00:21:53
We don't really know why he just said five days is enough, go back home now. But he's now been threatening her for weeks.
00:22:00
on November 1st just a few weeks before Alan LaRue, Alphonse Rocco meets Pearl Lusk
00:22:09
Olga is standing in the kitchen or the dining room in her family's home near an open
00:22:15
window and she's shot through the thigh, a clean shot she's just standing there and a bullet comes
00:22:21
in the window and shoots her through the thigh she spends 10 days in the hospital
00:22:25
and she says at that point to assistant district attorney to a detective with the NYPD. My ex-husband is trying to kill me. He's held me
00:22:36
at gunpoint. He's held me at knife point. He's the one who shot me. So she's telling anyone she can
00:22:42
that this man is trying to get her. The police over the next couple of weeks take some action.
00:22:49
They take a lot of statements. They say that they're going to send someone to watch her while
00:22:56
she's walking to and from the subway station. Some detectives do show up at some point to offer
00:23:02
her this service, but it doesn't work. And throughout this whole time, Alphonse Rocco,
00:23:10
Alan LaRue, is trying to get Pearl Lusk to step in and, as we find out, get close enough
00:23:20
to actually shoot Olga and try to kill her. I mean, it's so evil. It's like, it's so,
00:23:30
the planning and the scheming to get this done is like, it's like KGB level. Yeah, that's right.
00:23:39
It is kind of like, it is kind of like KGB level and also just really horrible. I mean, it's like gone from just terrible,
00:23:48
violent abuse to roping in other people and trying to be creative in the way that you can be
00:23:54
the you know the ultimate abuse of of killing her yeah Wow. Yeah. So Pearl, you know, is complicit in going along with this X-ray camera, and Olga is actually terrified every time she leaves the house that she's going to see that she's going to get shot again, or that she's going to see her ex-husband, or that he's going to, you know, shoot her silently without seeing her.
00:24:23
I mean, he's done this before. He was able to do it, and she's convinced that it was him.
00:24:27
And finally, you know, as she says, he got me this time. I can't run away. So after this happens, Alphonse Rocco knows that this is all going to come out.
00:24:43
And he steals a car and drives to the Catskills. And, you know, basically at gunpoint, threatens people to give them their house for the night.
00:24:55
And he's on the run. On January 5th or 6th, that's six days from the shooting, police find him in the Catskills.
00:25:04
He's sleeping in a sleeping bag in 10 inches of snow under a tree, and the police fire a warning shot to get him to surrender.
00:25:13
He fires back at them, and the police return fire and kills him. And when they went up to the body, they find on him a picture of him and Olga in his pocket.
00:25:29
And that's the end of Alphonse Rocco. Pearl and Olga actually kind of became friends, even though I think Pearl's life ended up a little happier than Olga.
00:25:43
Olga loses her leg. Her family basically bankrupts themselves, paying for her doctor's bills.
00:25:49
She starts selling costume jewelry to make ends meet. She ends up trying to sue the city of New York for $200,000, claiming that the police were negligent because she had made so many attempts to get them to pay attention to this very dangerous, abusive man.
00:26:10
And they hadn't done it. They hadn't been successful. The argument on the other side is that the case is dismissed after five days because the judge says, well, while you might have a little bit of a valid point that we are supposed to protect you from this man, it wasn't this man who actually shot you.
00:26:31
It was Pearl Lusk who shot you. And so we can't, we're not going to give you any money.
00:26:38
You know, it's kind of this legal detail that made them dismiss the case. And Pearl goes on to have a pretty happy life.
00:26:48
She has a family. And I think Olga spends the rest of her life, you know, really struggling.
00:26:54
She was 28. Olga was 28 when this happened, when she was shot and her leg was taken by Pearl Lusk.
00:27:03
I mean, that's such a hideous technicality. Right. Because Pearl Lusk wouldn't have been doing any of it.
00:27:12
if it wasn't for the man who asked her to do it. It's almost illogical in that they're just
00:27:17
getting her on this technicality of, well, we shouldn't have to pay for it. When Pearl was
00:27:23
duped into this plan, she didn't think she was doing anything trying to do harm. I mean, that's
00:27:30
just horrifying. And also, why would he plan all of that to such insane detail and then there's no
00:27:40
escape plan. And his plan is I just drive north and then sleep in the snow. Like there was just,
00:27:47
he was clearly, it was just his obsession is what he was dedicated to. You know, I've thought about this story over the years so much, you know, it's such a strange, sad,
00:27:57
sad story. And when the police interviewed Olga, she said that she had seen Pearl on the train
00:28:06
that morning because she had seen this young, pretty woman holding this big box that was
00:28:14
wrapped in New Year's paper and had a hole in it. And so you can just imagine these two women riding into the city, looking at each other
00:28:25
across the car, both knowing that there's something odd. You know, Olga saying, why is this woman carrying this big present with a hole in it?
00:28:35
and Pearl saying, well, there she is. I'm just going to get my shot and then I'll be the next Perry Mason.
00:28:43
So they spent time in that subway car together looking at each other. I wonder what that was like,
00:28:50
if you could have just been a fly on the wall in that subway car watching Pearl holding that box,
00:28:55
Pearl having no idea that what was inside was a sawed-off shotgun. Yeah, and why would Olga?
00:29:01
I mean, I think most people would see that hole and not think, especially back then, you know, have any idea of what it was or that it was, if they kind of were sketchy about it, that it was meant for them in any way.
00:29:16
Well, but also because Pearl wouldn't have been giving anything away. She's innocent.
00:29:22
So she's staring. She's probably staring around. There's no, she's not giving off weird vibes of, oh my God, I have to get the shotgun in the rights.
00:29:29
There's nothing like that. So she's not going to betray anything. It's, you know, sorry to give credit, but it is kind of the perfect plan in how horrifyingly evil it is in that way.
00:29:42
What a cover. Well, and that he was able to say to Pearl, you've got to get close because the camera's got to get a shot.
00:29:50
So you've really got to be within two feet or the camera won't pick up the jewelry.
00:29:54
You know knowing that you got to be kind of close with a shotgun the sawed off shotgun And when there a picture of the actual box Pearl was carrying and you know he rigged up the shotgun with some twine on top of a kind of a plywood box
00:30:10
with the shotgun just rigged up on top with twine and a wire around the trigger.
00:30:15
And then around it, you see all of the wrapping paper. You know, it's, yeah, quite a sight.
00:30:21
she could have shot anybody on that subway accident. I mean, anything could have happened.
00:30:27
Yeah, anything could have happened. And, you know, then would, if she had shot someone else,
00:30:33
would two and two have ever been put together of who this guy really was, you know?
00:30:38
Right. It's so sad, too, with Olga, you know. Now we probably would know that she had PTSD
00:30:44
after this experience of being stalked for, you know, who knows how long that lasted.
00:30:51
and being targeted in such a horrible way. Yeah. I mean, imagine those weeks up, you know, November 1st, she shot.
00:31:02
And then December 30th, the day before she shot again, she goes to police headquarters and basically begs for help.
00:31:10
You know, she says she's so afraid she doesn't know what to do. And the detective she speaks to is so concerned by the story
00:31:17
that he calls another lieutenant and says, hey, we're going to have a homicide on our hands if we don't do something.
00:31:26
I mean, and this is just the day before. But she knows she's got to get up the next morning,
00:31:30
and she knows she has to go to work and get on the subway or she's going to lose her job.
00:31:36
What's she going to do? Right. Ugh. Wow. Yeah, we've never been able to find anyone to tell that story,
00:31:45
but it's one of the wildest stories I've ever heard. and no one really knows it.
00:31:53
Totally. Yeah, it's crazy. That's insane. And if that was in a movie, you would be like,
00:32:01
oh, this is a little corny. I wouldn't buy it. Yeah, or it sounds like a Hitchcock movie.
00:32:06
It's like, it's totally diabolical, you know? It's like, amazing. Amazing. Phoebe Judge, you've done it again.
00:32:17
That's right. Well, I, you know, I'm glad to bring some light to these two women and an X-ray camera in 1946.
00:32:27
I mean, of all the things he could have said to come up with an X-ray camera because she's hiding the jewelry in her coat.
00:32:34
I mean, that right there is, that's a lot of thinking ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you hadn't met the exact right woman for the job, unfortunately, not that she had anything to do with it, but she was naive and fell for it. And I think a lot of us would have, especially at 19.
00:32:55
Yes. I mean, she's... 19 and someone that's very like so good looking that they seem like a movie star where everything seems a little more believable and buyable out of like a hot person's mouth.
00:33:07
And exciting. Yes. And, you know, Pearl had arrived in New York and it was all working.
00:33:13
You know, she had that Upper West Side room. In the New York article, they talk about how she was starting to change her hairdo, that she had gotten rid of her bangs.
00:33:20
And so she was, you know, having a lot of friends and she was out on the town and she's having a great time.
00:33:25
This is life. Finally, I got out of high school. I'm living life. And then you're fired.
00:33:31
And so this reality has just been ripped away from you. and so sure this handsome guy says I want to buy you a drink and you say what have I got to lose
00:33:42
you know um yeah yeah that's kind of part of the dream like right isn't that a little bit the next
00:33:47
step when you're like I'm going to move into the big city and that's where people look like movie
00:33:51
stars usually live and I'm going to be in the mix and I'm going to be metropolitan and exciting
00:33:58
things are going to happen. And instead it's a nightmare. I mean, amazing. Anytime you have these stories that you can't.
00:34:09
Please come back anytime. It's like, anytime. We have a lot of them and I would love to because this is fun to be able to just,
00:34:19
to be able to tell it. And, you know, there's so many, there's so many odd things out there.
00:34:26
It surprises me every day, the stuff that we all find and just look at each other and say, could that actually have happened?
00:34:34
You know, this isn't, real life is better than what they write in the movies. I mean, that is just true.
00:34:40
And the stuff you find in this world, in this crime world, I mean, you can't write it.
00:34:45
You couldn't write this, as you say, this Pearl and Olga story, it's too much. It's almost, it's too over the top.
00:34:51
It has to be real because it's too wild to not be real. Totally. Yeah. NYX, that's K-N-I-X leak-proof underwear, isn't just for one moment.
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That's K-N-I-X dot com. Code FLOW15. Hey everyone It Cal Penn host of Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club This week on the podcast I sitting down with Lily Chu the author of the Audible original
00:36:07
romantic comedy, Just Kiss Already. It's a story about a forensic anthropologist who secretly
00:36:13
writes mystery novels, an actress who adapts his book into a film, and what happens when a meme
00:36:19
and a media tour collide with a slow burn romance. It's performed by Simu Liu and Philippa Su,
00:36:26
and it is an absolute blast. When you actually hear the performance, you realize that other people are taking your words
00:36:35
and what you thought was kind of a straightforward sentence, like the cat in the corner is black.
00:36:40
In my head, it's the cat in the corner is black, not the dog, not the gerbil, but someone else might say it,
00:36:46
the cat in the corner is black. that's always fascinating to me how they just bring in all these different nuances and really
00:36:53
make it fun and interesting and distinctive listen to earsay the audible and iheart audiobook club
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00:37:39
When you do these stories, do people reach out to you with their stories, or is it mostly you guys tracking people down?
00:37:47
How hard is it when you need to track them down? Well, people do write in with their stories, and we love when people write in.
00:37:56
But a lot of the time, it's just us looking, constantly searching for interesting stories and stories that feel like they would be good on Criminal, on this show.
00:38:08
So, you know, not every story works for us, but I think we've been doing it now for seven years.
00:38:13
And so we kind of, when we see it, we kind of know. We don't even have to say much.
00:38:18
Someone will send a link or, you know, I'll look at Lauren Spohr, you know, co-creator of the show.
00:38:24
And it's like, oh, perfect. You know, perfect in the sense of this, we have to follow up on this.
00:38:31
But, you know, some of my favorite stories people have written in about. So it's this odd mix of, you know.
00:38:37
And because those little odd, strange stories oftentimes don't get written about or there's no article to find, you have to rely on someone saying, hey, I heard about this odd thing.
00:38:49
I thought you might be interested. Or like the episode you guys had recently when you talked to the man who I believe is almost 100 or really close and he was the lawyer at the Nuremberg trial.
00:39:02
Yeah. That, it is the most unbelievable. But then his audio and you interviewing him
00:39:10
where Phoebe would get on the phone with him, he'd be like, all right, let's move this along.
00:39:14
It's the kind of thing that if it were an article or in a magazine or something,
00:39:18
you wouldn't get the real sense because his accomplishments and who he was in this incredibly historically
00:39:26
unbelievable time, you wouldn't ever think that's what he's like. And the way that whole episode rolled out, it's like you knew him by the end of that episode.
00:39:38
You knew that man and what he had accomplished. And he wasn't self-serious and he wasn't self-congratulatory.
00:39:45
And he wasn't there to teach everything. It was like he was telling you his morning exercise routine.
00:39:51
And then at the end, he was like, all right, I don't have time to keep on talking.
00:39:54
I have other stuff to do. Like it was the funniest, most beautiful kind of profile that like the audio is everything for that, a story like that.
00:40:04
Yeah. And that he had no time for me. And I knew that. I love that you left it in. It was so funny.
00:40:11
Yeah. The minute I walked into his house, I thought, well, this man is seven times as busy as I am on my what I think busiest day.
00:40:19
And Phoebe, just be ready when he kicks you out of here. But the thing about there's a moment in that interview, it's why I like this.
00:40:30
I like sound so much. And he's talking about an absolutely horrendous scene that happened in a concentration camp that he saw.
00:40:38
And you can tell it's painful for him to be telling me. I mean, horrible, horrible stuff.
00:40:46
And he tells me. And then very seriously, he says, next question. Yep. I'm done. Yep. Move on. And that, hearing him say that like that to me,
00:41:01
was all seven paragraphs of writing about how he felt about what he saw or, you know,
00:41:08
what it took to get over that wouldn't have done what he did by telling me next question.
00:41:15
And I think that can be so powerful in this all. And it feels really lucky to get to talk to people
00:41:21
and hear their stories. And what we always say on this show is the best episodes of Criminal
00:41:29
are the ones where you hear me the least because the person's story is just so compelling
00:41:36
that you don't need me summing it up because they're doing it. They're doing it with their voice and the words they choose
00:41:44
and what they're putting in and what they're leaving out, but not leaving out because they're trying to omit something,
00:41:49
but just because it you can tell what they saying or not saying it um it it makes doing this for as long as we been doing it just still fun and feel important some days Yeah it is It beautiful
00:42:06
Definitely. Definitely. And you are so skilled. You have that little knowing when and what to ask.
00:42:16
And so when you're listening, you're like, wait, what was that? I want to know more. And then
00:42:21
immediately you come out and say that you have this sixth sense when you're interviewing someone
00:42:27
about an important, and these are such delicate topics, obviously, that you talk to people about,
00:42:32
and they open up to you in a way that I feel like it's because you have this, you know, energy
00:42:38
and skill. It's amazing to watch. Well, I think you both have a lot more fun. a little bit
00:42:48
a little bit I kind of I'm jealous of what you get to do and these fans of yours
00:42:57
who are so wildly devoted to you and love to hear you and love to hear what you have to say
00:43:03
and the way that you tell stories and such that's an accomplishment to create a tribe
00:43:10
of people who you know that feels like a real thing to have done. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. We're, it's, we, we have to be genuine,
00:43:21
but you know, you can't, that doesn't just, you don't pay for that. You know, you don't pay for
00:43:26
people's allegiance and their loyalty. People can sniff stuff out quick. Especially in audio. It's like, absolutely. That's what it is. It's that authenticity
00:43:37
in interviews or in, when people are, you know, speaking about themselves for themselves,
00:43:42
You know when someone's just giving you like the party line. The other thing that I really love is that, you know, I came up doing stand-up comedy,
00:43:52
which is one of the most competitive things you could do with your time. The idea that podcasting, because people can listen to 29 podcasts a day,
00:44:03
we're not competing with each other. The content like needs to keep on coming. So it's the opposite of that.
00:44:11
It's, we all get to be supporting each other and pointing to each other and going, you have to
00:44:17
listen to this and you have to listen to that. To me, that's one of the most satisfying parts of
00:44:23
this where we all are fans of this, you know, specific kind of media. And then we get to be
00:44:30
like, if you like this, you'll love this. Or, you know, I mean, like to me, that's the best part.
00:44:36
And the idea that we get to sit here and talk to you when we're such fans of what you do is just
00:44:41
a dream. It really is. Well, you've been, both have been so nice to us and our little show. And
00:44:50
you know, anytime, sometimes people say, well, they did your voice, Phoebe. And so, and I hear about it and I'm so happy. I said, well, isn't that nice?
00:45:05
It's all in reverence. Full respect. Full respect. No, no, no. I mean, that's the nicest thing to have you talk about the show and be Phoebe for a minute.
00:45:19
No, I mean, most people are waiting for me to, for my voice to, you know, they kind of meet me sometimes and they'll say, oh, it's your real voice.
00:45:33
It's not an act. It's actually really tough. Well, thank you so much. This was awesome.
00:45:39
Can we please do it again? It would be so cool. Anytime. We will start getting our list ready of stories that I can tell you about because I think that would be the best thing.
00:45:52
Yes. Amazing. We're honored. We are huge fans and we appreciate so much you coming on and sharing that incredible story with us.
00:46:01
Yeah, that was so great. Watch out for x-ray cameras. Absolutely. That's our new tagline for this crossover.
00:46:11
Let's get a t-shirt made. No matter what episode, watch out for X-Air cameras. Yeah.
00:46:15
Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
00:46:24
Motherfucker. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
00:46:39
Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our associate producer is Alejandra Keck. Engineered and mixed by Andrew Eapin.
00:46:46
Send us your hometowns at myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
00:46:55
For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to myfavoritemurder.com.
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And please rate, review, and subscribe. Goodbye. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms.
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Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best-sounding book club you've ever heard
00:48:24
with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. every episode i nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on
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00:48:41
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