00:00:00
This is exactly right. Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill?
00:00:10
Because this is our life. Backstage, on the road, it's loud, messy, real. And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving.
00:00:19
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00:00:26
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For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Your husband is not who you think he is.
00:01:20
Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.
00:01:26
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
00:01:34
He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.
00:01:40
And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:48
And a one, two, three. that felt good it was chunky oh right hello and welcome to my favorite murder that's georgia hardstart that's karen kilgariff
00:02:17
We are here with you on Thursday, November 5th. That's right. 2020. That's right.
00:02:24
What a week. And what a week it's been. Oh, my God. So much crazy stuff, guys. Yeah.
00:02:31
It's currently right now, as we're speaking, Wednesday evening. Yes. So things are still up in the air.
00:02:39
Right. Nothing has been announced officially. There's lots of reason to have good feelings.
00:02:47
but God forbid we have good feelings. Yeah, I'm not. I don't have good feelings yet, but I'm there.
00:02:54
Everyone I know and love is having good feelings. And so I'm going to trust you guys.
00:02:59
But hey, you're right to fear good feelings because we haven't had them in a long time
00:03:04
and we all have PTSD from 2016. That's right. So nothing. This is also similar. Yeah.
00:03:12
That it can't feel good. No. Right. At the moment. And even if it does feel good,
00:03:16
The whole narrative that we're learning this week is that it is as bad as it seemed the last four years.
00:03:27
That's right. It's still a negative positive. Sure. There's no only positive after an experience like the one we've had with this leadership.
00:03:37
But the fact that at 9 o'clock last night, looking at Twitter, it was a very different story.
00:03:44
Oh, I didn't do that. That's happening today. Oh, it was insanity. So, yeah, I think I did it in a way that scared me into then this morning waking up and going, oh, all is not lost. Oh, wait a second. Quite the opposite. Yeah. So we just needed to be official. And we need responsible parties come out and say, stop trying to create violence and negativity.
00:04:10
Yeah, I was I had a therapy appointment today. And I was I had a realization that I get along
00:04:17
really well with my mom, when there's a democratic president. And I realized like,
00:04:23
oh, yeah, the Obama years, I could just laugh her off, laugh all the shit she said to me off.
00:04:29
Yeah, like, oh, mom, you know what I mean? But then the last four years, I've every time she
00:04:33
brings something up, it triggers something from my childhood. Sure. So when we go to this
00:04:40
mediator slash therapist in two weeks, I feel like maybe I'll be in a better place to like,
00:04:45
be open to her. That's the dream. It is. Yeah, because it's a the balance of power shifting or
00:04:52
the reality, you know, we spend time in the another reality, right? It takes away her some
00:05:01
of her power over my emotions and feelings. And that'll be nice. And high time, and it's high time
00:05:08
that happens. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Amen. Enough already. Enough already. That's right. What are
00:05:15
you doing to distract yourself this week from? Oh, you know, just a ton of podcasting. I don't,
00:05:20
I don't understand how I'm still podcasting. I have, I don't, Stephen is there with me every time
00:05:25
I do it. I have nothing to say anymore. I can't, it's literally like, do you want me to describe
00:05:31
how I made toast this morning? Cause that's fucking, it's just unbelievable that through
00:05:36
all of this we've just continued podcast it is weird it is weird like all we have to talk about
00:05:42
and everyone's like all we have to talk about are what tv shows we're watching to distract ourselves
00:05:47
from the end of the fucking world or like uh i got to see someone face to face right
00:05:53
and here the candy i binging on right now for real i had i actually had to go throw out a bag of the nerds ropes or whatever those nerds things were There was a different version of them that people kept recommending
00:06:08
Yeah, they're like, like this version, much actually easier to eat as opposed to the rope
00:06:15
that where the nerds get everywhere. I actually was like, Oh, I could handle that. But I don't
00:06:19
need it in my house. No, no. I had several handfuls and then stood up and walked to the
00:06:26
garbage can, threw them away and said, stop pretending you can just fucking eat candy.
00:06:30
Like enough already with this fucking behavior. I'm doing that, but with alcohol.
00:06:35
Yeah. How is it going? It's going well, actually. This time totally feels, it feels a little different. Like I'm not doing it because I'm not doing it for like 30 days and
00:06:43
I'm not doing it to like lose weight. I'm doing it because suddenly I realize I'm not having fun
00:06:49
anymore. And I'm not, it's not actually giving me anything and I'm not enjoying it at all. So it
00:06:56
feels like a little shifty, a little different. Sure. Like suddenly I'm, I'm ready to deal with
00:07:01
the anxiety that I've been pouring alcohol on for 20 years, you know? Yeah. Maybe it's because I have
00:07:07
a really great therapist right now. And I'm seeing her twice a week, but there's something,
00:07:12
it's something that feels a little different this time. That's good. And you have security
00:07:16
in your life and you have other things to worry about, like you have bigger things.
00:07:22
And maybe not. Maybe you can just update the story, which is I'm not. I wish I could do the same for myself.
00:07:30
But that whole idea, this is what my therapist always says, is we had something happen to
00:07:35
us usually around like 12, 13. And then your like limbic system or whatever, whichever one it's called, like your reactive
00:07:44
system kind of stops taking in information after that. And they're like, yeah, I've already seen this.
00:07:49
I'm not fucking doing it again. And she always says that to me. She's like, the worst thing already happened.
00:07:54
This is all just kind of like reacting to the memory of what happened. And so, yeah, the more we think about that, horrifying, I mean, horrifying.
00:08:05
You should get to skip it. It's such a terrible age. I was in rehab at 13. Yeah, you went for it.
00:08:12
You went for it. He's like, let's clear this the worst year possible. Oh, God. But I am and I'm journaling about it now, which is actually really helpful.
00:08:23
And I'm doing that. So I want to recommend if anyone else is trying it, which we all are at some point.
00:08:29
Right. So like aside from the stuff I was reading before, when I tried this, you know, last year, the beginning of this year, This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, I'm listening to.
00:08:39
And then I found a new book. it's called Quitlet. I didn't know that was a thing. Quitlet. I've never heard of that.
00:08:48
I hadn't either. Like, you know, all the sobriety books I read that are like, here's how to do it. And here's what works for me. And here I'm a woman and we can do it.
00:08:54
It's called Quitlet, which I love. So here's my new Quitlet suggestion. It's called Mrs. D is
00:09:04
Going Without. And it originally was an anonymous blog way back when blogs existed by this woman.
00:09:10
in New Zealand. And her name, her name is Lada Dan, and she is identifying with her so much.
00:09:19
And it's just a really light, easy read about how fucking hard it is to become sober when you
00:09:26
even though you know you need to. So I'm enjoying that. Yeah. But I mean, other people's stories, that's kind of the key, knowing that, that it isn't special to you. You're
00:09:36
not the only not only are you not the only one, it's very typical. Yeah, it's tons of people deal
00:09:42
with substance issues. Everybody does in some way or the other. Yeah, we all deal with soothing our
00:09:50
soothing our trauma in some way or another. Yeah, ideally with therapy and learning, you know,
00:09:56
really, truly how to cope with it. But that doesn't usually happen. And it takes a long time
00:10:01
to get there. Well, and also with some will pick things up and put them back down. And you get it,
00:10:06
You go in and you go out of it. And then there's a drama within doing that. And that's all part of it.
00:10:12
And if you can kind of pull back and see that that's all part of it. And it's not like, oh, I failed again.
00:10:16
But it's like everybody fails again and again and again and then tries again. And the whole point is building your resilience to keep trying and to kind of keep open.
00:10:27
I think that's just it. You just don't. It's never the final chapter. You just get to keep trying.
00:10:32
That's right. That's yeah. It feels at 40 suddenly like crazy that I'm just now ready to not obsess about when I get a drink again or drinking or that I have a hangover or that I feel like shit.
00:10:46
And like this whole pattern that I've been doing, I'm suddenly ready to not distract myself with that anymore.
00:10:55
Sure. At fucking 40, it's like it just seems wild. But it took, you know, that's how long it takes.
00:11:01
I'm sure it'll happen again. Whatever. It's always something. Because literally, it reminds me of when I was in my 20s and my great idea for my eating disorder was I was going to take, I took Fen-Fen.
00:11:14
Yeah. But without the downer Fen, it just was the, it was the first version. So it was uppers only.
00:11:19
And so I stopped eating almost entirely. Didn't care about food. Never thought about it.
00:11:24
Lost a ton of weight very fast and started obsessively compulsively shopping where I literally went to the Beverly Center every single day.
00:11:32
and had my closet looked like a little mini gap. It just had stacks of color-coded shirts.
00:11:39
It was pure insanity. And that's when I saw that it was like, oh, it's not about the thing I'm doing.
00:11:44
Right. You didn't have to eat your fucking stress away anymore. You needed something else.
00:11:49
So shopping became it. And something will replace it. And it's just about the, because you have to dig down further It not just the thing Yeah It what underneath it and like sitting with it So my therapist told me this really great analogy I think it is where it like okay there a tiger in a cage and the tiger pacing back and forth in this little cage its
00:12:09
whole life. But it's a comfort and then suddenly gets put out into this big field and gets taken
00:12:15
out of the cage, but it continues to pace back and forth in the same area the cage would have been
00:12:21
And wait, because that's what it knows. That's what's always worked. That's what's safe.
00:12:27
And that's the only way it knows how to deal with life. And you can't realize you have this big open expanse of other possibilities.
00:12:36
Yep. I think that's right. Yeah, it sounds right on. I mean, it makes sense to me.
00:12:42
It also makes me think of how when I stopped drinking after I was hospitalized for it.
00:12:46
Hey, at least you didn't get fucking hospitalized at county hospital for it. Hey, hey, rehab at 13. Let me just remember.
00:12:54
Hey, look, we've been champions in our own way. That's right. This whole time. That's right.
00:12:59
But when I went all the alcohol was finally out of my system and I was home for a couple days,
00:13:05
I had that dream where I was standing like on a prairie with tall grass, like up to my hips, green grass.
00:13:12
And this wind was blowing and I could see all the way up and all the way to either side.
00:13:17
Like I was a crazy, like a fly with like crazy vision, complete peripheral. And it was like 360 vision or 180 vision.
00:13:26
Instead of this tunnel that you've been looking into for so long. It was so moving and so like I was just kind of in the dream going, oh, I get it.
00:13:36
Like, thanks. Thanks for being so on the nose brain. But it is it reminds me of that tiger story because it is that thing where it's like, yeah, you don't have to just go in circles anymore.
00:13:46
which can be just as intimidating and just as fraught. And, you know, there's freedom is scary, too.
00:13:54
Yeah. Learning how to pace the cage as a young person worked for you. And so you've been you keep doing it, even though the cage is gone,
00:14:02
because you haven't yet learned that you're free and how to. And because if you have these coping mechanisms that go four feet by four feet by four feet,
00:14:11
you're not going to be like, watch me while I fucking take off into the woods. It's like you never learned how to take off into the woods.
00:14:19
No, that's all new. It's like you got to give yourself, you know, let yourself adapt and adjust and fall down and get up.
00:14:29
I feel like the two therapy sessions a week is really is really helping me with that.
00:14:35
Yeah. Finally. It's good. After a decade of therapy. Like, it's just crazy how that works, you know?
00:14:42
Yeah. But then it's good. But then like I love the when I suggested to my therapist, I was like, should we go to three days a week?
00:14:51
And she's like, I don't see why not. You have the money. And I was like, you're right.
00:14:55
Yeah. What else do you think I could spend it on nerd ropes? That's not doing anything for you.
00:14:59
I gotta stop spending it on nerd. Yeah. Please stop sending me suggestions of nerd things.
00:15:04
Oh, yeah. I don't want to eat that shit anymore. Because also I realize like pacing the cage, eating a bunch of sugar and then laying on the couch and panicking is a vibe.
00:15:13
It is like a choice and a feeling that I don't have to be in anymore. And you are you are you are like triggering emotional reactions with sugar.
00:15:24
Sugar does that to you and your hormones and your sugar is the fucking worst. It's bad for you.
00:15:30
It has to get eventually someone has to figure out once we're going to do the covid vaccine first, then can we please have a sugar vaccine?
00:15:38
Yeah, because those people that are like, I'm not that into dessert. I'm like, what part of the world is your family from?
00:15:48
I need to get your jeans. Truly, I have two unopened bags somehow of fucking Mint Milano's in my house because I just can't not have them like constantly.
00:15:59
Need. I need it. I know. Oh, should we talk about the Queen's Gambit that we both found out that we're in love with?
00:16:05
Yes, we should. On Netflix. So good. How did you find it? Because someone tagged me in it and I didn't know what it was.
00:16:12
Someone on Twitter was talking about it. I think it was James Urbaniak or somebody who I like their taste and think they're smart.
00:16:24
And they basically were like, wow, I'm surprised. I didn't even know what this was.
00:16:28
And all of a sudden I stumbled upon it. And it's such a delight. So I kind of had bookmarked it.
00:16:34
And then, yeah. And the second it started, I was just like, the visuals, the storyline, the fucking everything.
00:16:42
So good. So basically, I wrote down that it's like Amelie meets... What was that Taurig movie?
00:16:50
The what movie? About Taurig. Wait. Taurig, the Volkswagen van again? No, wait. Taurig.
00:16:58
The SUV by... The guy who solved the puzzles in World War II. Oh, Alan Turing. What was that movie called?
00:17:11
Taurig. the imitation game? Imitation. Thank you. Was that it? Thank you. Okay, so it's like
00:17:17
Amelie meets the imitation game, don't you think? A little? Sure. Yes, totally. Yes.
00:17:23
Why not? And the word cocksucker gets bandied about a lot in the first episode by children, which I really appreciated.
00:17:30
And there's children on pills, no spoilers, but it's, yeah, it's, it is absolutely where it, the only
00:17:37
thing is, it's a, it's just a fictionalized story. It's from a book, I believe. Yes, it is. I looked it up.
00:17:46
It's from a book. I wanted that person, that character to be real so badly. But of course,
00:17:52
because it a perfectly written character with a perfect background and the whole storyline is just so compelling Also how about the hotel in Russia I was just like I want to walk around that hotel so bad I do too but I haven gotten there yet I only gotten through Episode one was really long
00:18:05
I got through that and now I'm starting episode two, but I'm excited about it. It's good.
00:18:10
It's a delight the whole way through. Doesn't disappoint. All those actors are so goddamn good.
00:18:14
So good. The little baby boy from Love Actually, who plays in the band. Yes. who I thought was David Spade when I first saw him in the trailer.
00:18:26
He's David Spade's illegitimate child. He's the cutest. He's such a good actor. Yeah, he is.
00:18:32
The Queen's Gambit. And Queen is like chess. It's not like the Queen. Right. So I saw someone say, I don't want to watch it because I'm sick of British royalty stuff.
00:18:41
And it's like, no, no, no. It's about chess. Fine. Get out then. Then get out. Take your opinion with you.
00:18:49
It makes me feel really stupid because I don't know how to play chess. Do you know how to play chess?
00:18:52
You know, it's funny as, uh, as I was watching it, I had a recovered memory in grammar school.
00:18:57
I did play chess and there was a, like a chess. We got to go to one of the mobile home buildings that was like the out, out building on our
00:19:07
grammar school property, Wilson school. What up? Wilson Wildcats. What up? Um, but, uh, we got to go out there and this there, we had a really smart, genius chess
00:19:20
teacher and we would just all sit there and play chess all the time but it wasn't like
00:19:23
how they were doing it where we knew it we didn't know uh ways of play and whole systems and you
00:19:31
weren't a savant a legitimate fictional savant but i was kind of i mean we don't know whether
00:19:38
or not i was you could have been in the right in the right situation you may even if i were
00:19:42
were no one was paying attention to be even if i i would be like can i go to this chess tournament
00:19:47
my dad would be like, I'm not driving you there. I'm not driving all the way to Novato.
00:19:51
Who wants to watch chess? But it was kind of funny because I was like, this is so interesting.
00:19:58
And then I was like, wait a second. I used to love chess, but I didn't. I don't have a memory of the concept of the game,
00:20:07
except for like one of them could move in like an upside down L shape. That's kind of all I can remember.
00:20:13
It's hard. I never got past checkers. shakers is very complex when you think about it getting to double up on things sure sure sure
00:20:23
sure um what else i are are you watching doing i i escaped into last night i basically was like
00:20:32
stay off twitter stay on social media you have to you have to give yourself over to the question
00:20:38
mark of this situation. And, you know, so I turned on one of my BBC series. Oh, Martin Chesilweb,
00:20:49
which is a Charles Dickens series. Oh, that's comforting. That's comforting. Tom Wilkinson is one of the leads who is just the most delightful British actor that's
00:20:59
been in a million things and won a million awards. And you know who he is. Yeah. But it was one of
00:21:04
those things where I was just like, oh, I need something completely removed from modern life
00:21:10
right now. And it worked. And then I went to sleep. Angora sweater. Of people talking like this to each other and then some horses.
00:21:18
Without animal cruelty. Carriages. Right. Yeah. That sounds nice. Yeah, it was good.
00:21:24
So for Exactly Right News, we're really excited because at the end of this episode, you're going
00:21:28
to be able to hear the brand new trailer for our brand new Exactly Right podcast called Tenfold
00:21:34
more wicked that we told you about. It's hosted by crime journalist and author Kate Winkler Dawson,
00:21:41
who she's written some of your favorite true crime books. My favorite recently is the book
00:21:48
American Sherlock, which is an incredible, if you haven't read it, it's unbelievable. It's basically,
00:21:54
you know, it's about one of the first forensic science scientists in America. So Kate is the
00:22:00
host of this podcast. And she basically takes all of her journalistic and author knowledge and
00:22:08
intelligence, essentially. And she digs into the story of one of the first serial killers in
00:22:15
America. And it is and there's a whole kind of like side story about neuroscience. It's just a
00:22:22
fascinating historical true crime series that she's hosting that we really think you're going
00:22:28
to love. Definitely. It comes out on Monday, November 23. So be sure to like and subscribe
00:22:34
on iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts and stay tuned at the end of this episode
00:22:39
to listen to the trailer. It's really an awesome podcast. So good. So proud. So proud. So proud.
00:22:45
Our little fledgling network is becoming this like, you know, it's growing into a adolescent.
00:22:52
it's you know it's becoming it's becoming its own person and like learning and growing and like
00:22:59
and making friends with really smart people who make their own podcasts really well and make make
00:23:05
really good stuff that they want to come to our party it's it's the best yeah it's um it's really
00:23:11
good yeah and thanks for supporting us you guys it's all because we have the best freaking listeners
00:23:17
yes absolutely we think of you when we're trying to pick these podcasts and what you might like
00:23:22
and what might serve you in your day-to-day lives. And there's many more to come that we're very excited about.
00:23:29
I can't believe it. I wrote down today on a forum that it was like, what do you do?
00:23:33
And I'm like, podcaster, writer, and business owner. I'm a fucking, we're business owners.
00:23:39
How cool is that? I mean, it's all right. I don't know. Business owners who, as of this weekend, won't have an office anymore, which is so sad.
00:23:49
I know we had to give up our lease on our office. We had basically rented an empty office for the past six months or whatever.
00:23:57
But I know. I know. It's such a weird time. You know, and it's such a weird time.
00:24:04
It's nice that we can all kind of go through it together and distract ourselves with podcasts and television, things that we like and whatever.
00:24:13
And and also, you know, feel connected to each other. And one of those ways that we're doing that is by and maintaining our sanity is by putting up a quilt episode this week.
00:24:24
Karen and I both picked one of our favorite stories that we've ever done. and so we're going to post those.
00:24:31
They've never been in an episode together and they're not live. They're older episodes that we love,
00:24:38
older stories that we love. Right, and that you've told us you love. So it's, yeah, we're doing,
00:24:44
this is kind of like the Eagles' greatest hits just because this week has been incredibly stressful
00:24:51
as it has been for everybody. So we weren't going to be doing this usual homework.
00:24:57
We're trying to take it easy a little bit and then be like, OK, well, we can at least we'll hang out.
00:25:02
We'll check in and then we'll play some stories that people we know people like so that we don't all go crazy because I am having a hard time unclenching my teeth.
00:25:11
Oh, much, much less sitting down and writing a six page book report. Oh, totally. Six pages. I laugh in the face of six pages.
00:25:19
They're never six pages. No, they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be. there was a time when they were four three to four and it was like k k bye peace peace in the
00:25:29
streets but no longer no nine at least minimum why is it always chaos when we link up because
00:25:36
nobody plans anything bro good thing the rogue's ready like that for real rain dirt whatever
00:25:42
available all-wheel drive five modes we still outside and they got some kick too that turbo
00:25:48
torque is crazy the most in its class it moves moves rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space
00:25:54
merch on merch gear mics all the fits load up we out 2026 nissan rogue built for all of it
00:26:02
auto pacific segmentation 2026 rogue versus latest in-market competitors in the x suv mainstream
00:26:09
midsides class excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites your husband is not who
00:26:15
you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.
00:26:21
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th
00:26:27
season of Family Secrets. Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags
00:26:36
that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into
00:26:41
the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately
00:26:47
can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying
00:26:52
to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like
00:26:58
everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move, and he went out the front
00:27:03
door and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14
00:27:07
of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:14
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
00:27:22
I vowed I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.
00:27:29
We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.
00:27:36
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, all right.
00:27:47
So should we, mine's going first this week. So I'll introduce that. So I'm going to take you back, dear listener, all the way back to May 27th of 2016.
00:27:58
So May of 2016, when we were so young and innocent and believed. believed in the world.
00:28:08
Oh, God, take me back. I mean, let's go back now. Let's just do it mentally. Have a fun mental exercise of going back to George's
00:28:16
old apartment with no air conditioning. That's right. If it was May 27th, it would have already started to get very hot.
00:28:21
That's right. 2016, I probably had minimum two jobs at the time. I had just gotten married.
00:28:30
That's sweet. That's a nice thing. Yeah. And, you know, we were just we were just slowly putting this thing together.
00:28:37
And Georgia, everyone's well, would show me some good, positive thing on her phone.
00:28:41
And then I go, that's done. Don't get used to it. I'd show you the numbers or like where we are on the on the comedy chart.
00:28:46
And you'd be like, shut the fuck up. It's not real. Get it away from me. I don't believe in anything.
00:28:52
That's my beautiful journey from from show business cynic to a wide eyed believer in the in the possibility of magic.
00:29:00
Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this is from episode 18. Oh, my God. Investigation 18 discovery.
00:29:07
What do we call it? Investigation 18. Investigation 18 discovery. Who knows? Back when we would do that, not only the extra work of trying to make one of those good pun
00:29:18
titles, but I also had people. I'll never forget my friend Owen Ellickson, who I worked with.
00:29:24
He was the showrunner on a show I was writing on. And he wrote into me for one of them that was so good.
00:29:31
And it was like, we needed the help where I'm like, we can't keep doing this. Yeah.
00:29:34
If we have to rely on outside sources. Yeah. We start, we just, we dropped that like naming, naming podcasts after the number pretty quickly.
00:29:44
Yeah, we had to. Yeah. Cause that was like, it was so much work. Anyway. Yeah. Investigate teen discovery.
00:29:50
So this is actually a story that last summer we did some compilations of like your guys favorites favorite shows And this is a story of mine from your favorite show And it the unbelievable and amazing survival story of Mary Vincent
00:30:09
So here's 2016 me telling 2016 Georgia in 2016 Georgia apartment about this nightmare story.
00:30:19
Should we get into the murder? Favorite murder. Oh, sorry. I don't know how to sing, as I mentioned earlier.
00:30:30
They didn't know that was... Oh, here we go. Guys. Here we go. I'm going first this week.
00:30:36
I think you're first. I think I am. I'm going to get cuddled in. Yeah. I'm going to have this half a glass of whiskey.
00:30:41
Drink some of your whiskey. I wish I could. I drank all mine already. Before you were 30.
00:30:47
It was up, yeah, in 1997. I had my last. Shit. God, I was good at it. My therapist told me that we're doing an experiment where I'm drinking two glasses of booze a day just to see how it goes.
00:30:59
So I'm allowed to have two glasses of booze a day. Oh, no more, no less. Yeah, we're just like seeing how this goes.
00:31:04
So it's almost like what if you don't feel like it? Oh, no, then I still have to force it down.
00:31:09
Yeah. And this is clearly like this was two glasses of whiskey and one big cup. Oh, that's fun.
00:31:13
Does that count as one? It does to me. There you go. If I was your therapist. Hell yeah, girl.
00:31:18
I had this realization when I was trying to think of this week's, there's so many good cases, and there's so many people who are very passionate about the cases that are their stories or just ones they like or think are fascinating.
00:31:33
There was a guy that tweeted me a case. His Twitter handle was at Arkansasyer, so it was almost like Arkansas lawyer.
00:31:41
and it was a case of a guy, I think his name was Bobby Lee Foster or Bobby Joe Foster,
00:31:46
who killed his own mother, Edna, and decapitated her and put the head in the local church
00:31:52
and then took the eyes and mailed them to Eisenhower. What in the actual fuck? Yeah, it was crazy.
00:32:01
So I was kind of into that, thank you for sending that, I love it. But I had a realization that when we were talking about our kickoff murders,
00:32:11
The ones that got us kind of into it. I realized that factually and date wise, I had an earlier one than Diane Towns.
00:32:19
And it because it happened in the Bay Area. And it's this Lawrence Singleton attack on Mary Vincent and later murder of.
00:32:30
So I'll just tell you about it. Let's unpack. Let's unpack this. It happened in 1978.
00:32:37
So I was eight years old. and this was on the news. It was like in 1979 is when he went to trial
00:32:44
and all this stuff happened and it was on the news every night. My parents were livid.
00:32:48
They talked about it all the time. So you must have just been, you were there too.
00:32:52
Yes, because it was, we watched the news together as a family every night before dinner.
00:32:57
I feel like there's nothing more harmful for a kid than the news. Yeah, no one knew.
00:33:01
I know. It was back, this was the late 70s where no one knew what was good or bad for children.
00:33:05
Totally. It was all just like eat your cereal, go outside, try to survive, come home, and then we'll watch the news together.
00:33:12
It was a generation away from children, after children being coal miners. Yes, exactly.
00:33:18
It was that weird time in between coal mining and children being carried their entire lives until they get to college.
00:33:26
Right. Essentially. So I'm the last of that generation I lived. So here's the story.
00:33:33
On September 29th, 1978, a man named Lawrence Singleton, who was a merchant seaman, always
00:33:40
a bad job. Richard Speck was a merchant seaman. Oh, really? Yeah. It's bad news.
00:33:45
I think it's what happens when you're like super fucked up, but you're so fucked up you
00:33:49
don't want to join the army. So you're like, oh, I'll go out on a ship for a while with a bunch of dudes.
00:33:53
Yeah. So he picked up a 15-year-old hitchhiker named Mary Vincent in Berkeley, California.
00:34:00
Honey. Mary had run away from home She lived in Las Vegas Her parents were getting divorced
00:34:06
It was all fucked up And she had friends in the Bay Area And relatives So she made her way up to the Bay Area
00:34:14
But she was homesick And she'd been on her own for a while She had a boyfriend that was bad to her
00:34:19
She left him, ran away She just wanted to get back home Sweetie So she is hitchhiking in Berkeley
00:34:27
And a van pulls up and there are two people hitchhiking behind her. Now, just so you know, Mary Vincent herself tells this story on an episode of I Survived.
00:34:38
It was season four, episode one, and it is epic. I know you don't like survivors.
00:34:45
I fucking love survivors. And things like this where you get the firsthand account of something.
00:34:50
This story is also insanely fucked up. I guess if it's been that long, I can deal with it.
00:34:56
Right. And it's when they can tell their own story. They're not, you know, that they're able, they're in charge of this narrative and they can tell you what happened.
00:35:06
Yeah. And like when it's a grizzled fucking bartender, like cafe waitress and she's like, this is what fucking happened to me, I can deal with it. But when it's like some like college girl whose life is ruined.
00:35:17
No, you will. Because here's the thing. The saddest part about it, but the truest part about it is it happens to a lot of people.
00:35:24
So when you have one woman sitting there going, here's what happened to me, A, B, C, and D, you not only get the don't fucking hitchhike, keep your eyes open, pick up on context clues, you have all that, but you also have survive.
00:35:37
And you can survive and you can come out the other end and help other people. And it's okay to tell your story.
00:35:43
You don't have to keep this huge secret. There's other people who have been through similar or worse.
00:35:48
And you have to tell your story. That's part of healing. Right. Right So a lot of what I have here is basically her firsthand account Holy shit So the van pulls up and there two hitchhikers behind her in Berkeley 78
00:36:06
And the guy that's driving the van says he only has room for one person and says it's Mary.
00:36:14
Well, the two hitchhikers behind her go, don't get in that van because they can see into the back of the van.
00:36:19
The whole thing is empty. There's plenty of room. But if a person is saying he only has room for the young girl, they go, don't take that ride.
00:36:26
But she was so tired. She just wanted to get home. And he looked like a grandfather.
00:36:31
Oh, really? Yes. He's this big pot-bellied kind of grizzly old guy. He was like in his mid-60s at the time.
00:36:39
So she's like, what's that guy going to do? So she gets in. And she's really tired.
00:36:45
She's been walking and hitchhiking for a long time. So she says, I'm trying to go back home to Las Vegas.
00:36:51
He says, I'm going to Reno, but I'll give you a ride to Los Angeles, which is that right there.
00:36:58
What? That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Why? So she settles in and she falls asleep.
00:37:04
Don't do it. Don't do it. She wakes up and they have gone east and not south. When she finally sees a sign, they're somewhere out in Patterson.
00:37:14
They're somewhere out by Modesto. So they're on the other side of the five. There's a lot of, for people not from here, there's a lot, especially in the 70s, there's a lot of no man's land.
00:37:23
Yes, a lot of, especially in the Central Valley, which is where he drove her out to.
00:37:28
It's just all empty, rural farmland roads, little hills with an oak tree on top.
00:37:34
There's nothing. So she notices that they're going east. She freaks out, confronts him, says, what the hell are you doing?
00:37:40
He says, I'm sorry, I'm an honest man. I made an honest mistake. Let me just turn around. He pulls around. He turns around, starts going down the road. He says, sorry, I have to go. I have to relieve myself. He pulls the van over. She's getting nervous. She realizes this is now a bad situation. It's nighttime.
00:38:00
time. He's down relieving himself and she looks down and realizes one of her shoes untied. And
00:38:06
she thinks to herself, if I have to run for some reason, and I could outrun this old fat guy,
00:38:11
but if I have to do it, she's like, I got to tie my shoe. So she gets out of the van too.
00:38:15
She bends over to tie her shoe and she blacks out. He hit her in the head with a sledgehammer.
00:38:23
She wakes up. She's tied up in the back of the van. After her sledgehammer hit, she wakes up she wakes up so he just conks her out yeah she doesn't like thank god she didn't die
00:38:34
she's when she wakes up she's tied up and she's naked oh fuck and he starts raping her he rapes
00:38:41
her all night and into the morning and the whole time she's of course crying she's 15 years old
00:38:46
crying whatever and saying just set me free please i won't tell anyone just set me free
00:38:51
sometime in the morning when he's finally done he pulls her out of the van unties her
00:38:59
and says you want to be set free I'll set you free picks up a hatchet out of the back of the van
00:39:07
cuts off her left arm she's screaming below the elbow she's screaming freaking out
00:39:15
going crazy she grabs him with her right arm going, freaking out. He takes the hatchet
00:39:25
and he starts hacking off her right arm. What the fuck? But the craziest thing to me
00:39:31
is as you're telling this, I'm like reminding myself that she survived, but it doesn't fucking sound
00:39:35
like she's going to. I know. It's crazy. So she is holding on to him, but she falls backwards anyway.
00:39:44
And that's when she realizes that her right hand has been, her right arm has been
00:39:49
chopped off. Oh my god. So she's all, of course, in total shock, confused, losing blood, looking.
00:39:54
And this is the most fucked up part of her story. There's more fucked up than that.
00:39:59
It peaks in fucked upness right here. Holy shit. She sees him. She's looking and she can't understand what just happened.
00:40:07
And she's looking at him and he is flicking his arm like this. He's flicking his arm out.
00:40:12
Yes. No. She looks and her right hand is still holding on to his arm. Oh, my fucking.
00:40:19
Ew, I just got, I gave myself chills and I know this story. Because you had your hand in like a claw just now.
00:40:24
I did it. So she passes out. Or she like kind of goes limp. Sure. She's bleeding, obviously, profusely.
00:40:33
Losing blood, lightheaded, laying on the ground. So she just goes limp because she just doesn't know what to do.
00:40:38
No. She's now in the presence of a monster. He thinks she's dying or dead. Yeah.
00:40:43
He drags her body over to the railing and throws her over a 30-foot cliff. On the way down, she breaks four ribs, and he drives away.
00:40:55
Now, later on, when the police catch him, which I'll just let you off the hook now, the police catch him,
00:41:02
and they put together that the reason he did that is because he thought she'd be dead,
00:41:06
and he didn't want them to be able to get her fingerprints. What's the difference?
00:41:13
Did they? Okay. Who found her? How did she get found? I tell you now. Please. So she's down in this fucking ravine, and she's laying there, and she's losing blood like crazy, and she wants to go to sleep.
00:41:30
But she said that there was a voice in her head saying, you cannot go to sleep. You have to get up so they can catch this guy.
00:41:38
So she puts her bloody stumps in the dirt and makes a mud pack. So she stops losing blood.
00:41:46
Oh, my God. On both arms. And then she starts crawling back up the ravine. 30 feet.
00:41:54
It takes her all night Oh no I sorry I sorry That was the morning He dumped her over in the morning So she crawls back up the ravine It takes her all day She finally gets up to the top of the ravine and back onto the road at night
00:42:09
And then she starts walking. Naked, covered in blood, with two stump arms. She walked for three miles.
00:42:17
Oh, my God. The first car that came up was two dudes in a convertible. and they saw her and they fucking sped away.
00:42:26
Yep. Yes. And she said herself in this, I survived. She goes, I looked like something out of a horror movie.
00:42:35
She's like, I didn't blame them at all because it was, I mean, beyond something you'd see in a horror movie.
00:42:41
Yeah. And on a faraway, like a deserted road in the middle of the night where there's no,
00:42:48
this is out where there's no streetlights. She said she was walking by the light of the moon.
00:42:54
It was totally pitch black. And in my mind, too, it's like these two dudes are married men, and they're gay lovers,
00:42:59
and they're on a clandestine romance thing, and if they stop to help her, they have to
00:43:05
call the cops. They're going to get caught together. Yep. That's just in my head.
00:43:09
That's very plausible. So hopefully these aren't monsters. I mean, here's what I'm sure of.
00:43:17
They carry it with them to this day. Yes, they do. Imagine leaving a person like that.
00:43:22
And then they read the newspaper the next day. And they're like, look what we did.
00:43:27
And she could have died. They could have saved her. And then she could have died.
00:43:30
But here's who did save her. Who? She walks a little further. A couple who was on their honeymoon.
00:43:36
Oh, no, no, no. Who took the wrong exit and is driving around trying to get back to the I-5.
00:43:42
Oh, which is close enough so that Mary heard the noise of the I-5 all day and was like,
00:43:48
I just have to get back up because there will be someone if I walk toward that sound.
00:43:53
So that's how she guided herself back toward civilization. These people grab her, put her in the back of the truck and say, we're going to get you help.
00:44:04
And she said she heard them speeding so fast. You could hear the tires screeching.
00:44:09
They get to a phone. Can I say real quick what half the people listening that the murderinos dream honeymoon?
00:44:17
Exactly. exactly like what else are you gonna do if i can play canasta well because imagine you you're like
00:44:27
oh i've married i love him so much yeah he's the man for me now if the man for you was one of those
00:44:33
guys in that convertible right who's like we have to get out of here you'd be like you get out of my
00:44:38
life forever i bet they're still together 100 yeah they get her they get to that pay phone they call
00:44:45
and they airlift her to the hospital. So it wasn't even an ambulance situation. They were like straight in.
00:44:52
Oh, honey, the relief she must have felt. Oh, my God. To be saved. So she, sorry, I'm on the next page already.
00:45:03
Because here's, by the way, I want everyone to know you're like fucking telling this.
00:45:06
You're not even looking at your notes. Because I remember this happening when I was little.
00:45:11
Holy shit. And I remember my mother being so livid. And she would talk about Lawrence Singleton, this disgusting piece of shit.
00:45:19
She would talk about him all the time. Well, because I'll get into it. I have to go fast.
00:45:24
Were all these details on the news? No, but it was a man who raped a girl, chopped her arms off, and threw her into a ditch.
00:45:33
That's enough. That was plenty. Yeah. Because you can't, that's when it was like, oh my God, that could happen.
00:45:40
That's real. Even the word rape, like you don't even talk about, like couples in,
00:45:45
in fucking sitcoms didn't sleep in the same bed right exactly well i'm not from the 50s georgia
00:45:50
oh my god i mean that the brady bunch was the so oh my god so she lost over half the blood in her
00:45:57
body wow uh but it from her hospital bed she described a picture of him so accurately to the
00:46:05
police sketch artist that lauren singleton's next door neighbor saw it and immediately called the
00:46:11
police even though she was friends with him and like knew him for years she was like that's
00:46:17
lauren singleton that's my next door neighbor she's one of us so yes exactly so and i do have
00:46:22
to say this in the article that i found that it a piece of information from for some reason in the
00:46:28
line it said housewife and bowling expert wow i want her life they really described her to a t
00:46:37
I want that life. That's a pretty good life. So they arrest Lawrence Singleton nine days later.
00:46:45
I like to call him Larry. And when he was questioned, Singleton told the police that Mary was a $10 whore, that he was passed out drunk in his van, and that his other friend Larry is the one that attacked her.
00:46:59
And that there were two other hookers in the van at the time. What a fucking monster.
00:47:06
Lunatic. so she testifies against him in court get a girl um with two prosthetic her two prosthetic limbs on
00:47:15
she'd already been fitted for them she was still a teenager i mean that's an that is a hard thing
00:47:19
to do on its own no so this as she walks out after testifying against him shit he whispers to her
00:47:26
if it's the last thing i do i'll finish the job oh i was hoping she'd say motherfucker or like something at him no no poor girl she ran out
00:47:38
so in march of 1979 a san diego jury convicts him of kidnapping mayhem attempted murder forcible
00:47:45
rape sodomy and forced oral copulation and gives him the maximum sentence at the time and i guess
00:47:52
no go ahead sorry i'm just keep interrupting no no no seven years 14 years for all of that
00:47:59
for all of Crimes combined, the maximum legal sentence was 14 years. That's like almost how old she was.
00:48:08
Yes, that's exactly right. So the judge who had to pass that sentence said, if I had the power, I would send him to prison for the rest of his natural life.
00:48:18
so along with the particularly gruesome and callous aspects of the crime the case became
00:48:27
totally notorious because he was paroled after serving eight years in prison i just
00:48:35
can't okay so this is when shit went off because that's when it started on the news every night
00:48:43
this guy got paroled and it was like my parents talked about it people talked about it in the
00:48:49
grocery store it was like how is this happening and you know what happened is in 1983 they passed
00:48:55
a work incentive law kind of quietly passed it so that they could reduce prison overcrowding
00:49:00
where a day was cut off your sentence for each day that the prisoner spent working at the jail
00:49:07
Or you could make pot legal and get a bunch of fucking prisoners out of jail. That's exactly right.
00:49:14
And make the murderers and rapists go there for fucking ever. Why in God's name would you have a work incentive law applied to attempted murderer rapists?
00:49:22
Well, this was back when they were like, rape, eh. It was probably her. She probably asked for it.
00:49:26
She was probably a $10 whore. Right. Motherfuckers. So they announce that his release date, this is Ed Martin, who is the associate warden of the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, where he was serving his time.
00:49:45
His release date, Martin said, if there's continued good behavior and work and no change in his programs will be approximately April 28th, which was eight years, four months of time.
00:49:56
and every one of the barrier went bananas. So here's what happened. They tried to parole him to Antioch, California
00:50:03
and the mayor protests the Department of Corrections and so acknowledging the public outcry,
00:50:11
the Department of Corrections agrees not to release Singleton and Antioch so they try to place him with relatives in Tampa, Florida.
00:50:18
The people rise up in Tampa, Florida and the Tampa chapter of the Guardian Angels
00:50:24
which was a big thing in the 80s. Remember them? They lead these protests and eventually Florida officials
00:50:31
reject the parolee. So he can't go back to Tampa now. If you're, if fucking, if the Hells,
00:50:39
what is it, Hells Angels? No, the Guardian Angels. Oh, what are they? They were this, oh,
00:50:43
they were. I thought you meant the Hells Angels. They were basically, in the 80s when crime was crazy,
00:50:50
it was basically at the end of the recession when things were kind of shitty. It was like back when New York was a total dump.
00:50:56
The Guardian Angels were this group of basically, what do you call them? Like mothers against drug driving type of thing?
00:51:04
No, no, no. These were, I can't think of the term for it. It's your time, by the way.
00:51:10
You're not in any hurry. Well, it's just long. It's long, but nobody. Thanks, cocktails.
00:51:18
Listen, take your time. Everything's fine. No, but it was the, they were like, when you're like a citizen that's taking law into your own hands.
00:51:27
What are those called? Like a citizen that's taking law into your own hands. So they basically were like, we're taking back the streets.
00:51:36
So they would go, they wore red berets and shirts that said guardian angels. They all knew karate.
00:51:41
They were all like muscled out dudes. And they would ride the subway at night. Vigilantes.
00:51:47
Vigilante. There it is. they were total vigilantes and they basically were like their own gang
00:51:53
but a positive gang so they just made sure that people didn't get attacked on the subway and every
00:51:59
city started popping up with their own group of the guardian angels eventually of course
00:52:07
they dispersed because I think they took things a little too far as it usually happens but anyway
00:52:13
they actually did some good stuff in the beginning where people there weren't enough
00:52:17
cops and there was just a lot of crime. So he has to come back from Tampa, Florida, which is where his family was.
00:52:24
But Tampa was like, go fuck yourself. And, you know, Florida's kicking out. You're probably a big, pretty big piece of shit.
00:52:31
So then he, where did he go? So then they try to release him in Martinez, California, which is also in Contra Costa
00:52:40
County. So the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and four city council members win a temporary restraining order from a superior court judge barring the Department of Corrections for placing Singleton anywhere in Contra Costa County.
00:52:56
So they're like, quit bringing that motherfucker back here. He's not allowed. Yeah, ain't going to happen.
00:53:00
So now they try to place him in San Francisco, but Police Chief Frank Jordan at the time, he's told that they're going to bring Singleton to San Francisco for a couple weeks, and San Francisco wins a temporary restraining order barring him from San Francisco.
00:53:20
So then they take him to Redwood City secretly, but reporters find out that he's there in a hotel and protesters surround the hotel and the Department of Corrections has to pull him out of this hotel and get him out before the protesters rip him apart.
00:53:38
What a bummer to be one of those cops and be like, I fucking hate this guy. Yeah, you don't want to protect that piece of shit.
00:53:43
So now a court of appeals overturned that restraining order saying that Contra Costa County and San Francisco couldn't have him there.
00:53:52
So then they tried to place him in El Cerrito which is not in Contra Costa County That a little bit further north I think But the Contra Costa County officials find out that they going to try to place him in El Cerrito
00:54:05
And they tell the El Cerrito, they tell the press in El Cerrito. So then protests begin there.
00:54:12
So basically now, everyone's telling everybody they're trying to place this piece of shit in the North Bay.
00:54:18
And everybody, so then they try to put him in Richmond. but the mayor finds out and the officials are all like, fuck no, get him out of here.
00:54:26
Then they try to bring him to a city called Rodeo, which I've never even heard of before.
00:54:32
Doesn't even exist. But people find out and a mob of 500 people gathers around this apartment and they actually
00:54:41
have to take him out in a bulletproof vest and he's escorted out of town by the sheriff's
00:54:46
department. Holy shit. So this is kind of that thing where, yes, this is kind of the worst story ever, but also the greatest story ever.
00:54:54
We're like just the citizens. We're like, no, dude. Like maybe legislature says that you can get out of jail, but we say no.
00:55:03
So they moved him to Concord. 175 people gather at the hotel where they're keeping him there.
00:55:09
Finally, the governor says, put a trailer on the grounds of San Quentin and he can live there until his parole is over.
00:55:17
Love it. Jerry Brown? George Duke Majin. So that's what he has to do. He has to live on the grounds of San Quentin until his one-year parole is up.
00:55:27
Then he's free to go wherever he wants. And they're not even a track. Well, then there's just kind of nothing they can do because nothing's in the system about him.
00:55:34
So he goes back to Florida. And when he gets there, they find out that he's there.
00:55:44
People protest. A car dealer offered him $5,000 to leave the state. And a homemade bomb was detonated near the house that he was staying in, but no one was injured, unfortunately.
00:55:55
In 1997, a neighbor calls the police after seeing Lawrence Singleton attacking a woman in his home.
00:56:04
And when the police arrive, they find the body of 31-year-old mother of three, Roxanne Hines.
00:56:11
fuck she's also a sex worker but I wanted to say the mother of three part first so that people care
00:56:16
yeah so that they know that she was so hard up for money that financial problems
00:56:22
made it so that she had to do this right and then she got stabbed 12 times in the face
00:56:29
and chest by this piece of shit and when he answered the door he answered the door
00:56:34
to the cops with his shirt open and blood all over his chest so they how many cold cases
00:56:39
can be attributed to him. There's no way that it was one in 78. Well, they say that the reason that he
00:56:46
got parole early like that was because he didn't have priors. Which is not to say he didn't
00:56:54
do anything, but he didn't have a record. Still, I think cutting off a girl's arms
00:57:00
and leaving her for a debt is worse than your prior for aggravated assault or whatever. And I think you're right.
00:57:06
That's not a first crime. No. At all. Especially when you're 60, you know, like you're starting, you know?
00:57:12
Yeah, no way. Okay. So Mary Vincent goes to Tampa to appear at his sentencing and
00:57:21
tells her whole fucking story. She describes her whole attack, the toll that the ordeal has taken on her whole life
00:57:29
because, of course, it's been a terror and she's gotten her life together a little bit, but of course
00:57:37
she just lives in constant fear. when he was paroled. She was doing fine and going to art school
00:57:43
in the Pacific Northwest. Then he got paroled and she fell apart. As he said to her as she left the courtroom,
00:57:49
I'm going to finish this. If it takes the rest of my life, I'll finish the job. Why isn't that considered
00:57:55
when they think he's going out for parole? The jury deliberated for one hour and he was sentenced to death.
00:58:04
Good old Florida. Good. So, unfortunately, he died of cancer in the prison hospital instead of being fried.
00:58:14
We're being very vicious in this. We really are. Is that terrible? But apparently what he said when he was sentenced, he said he denied mutilating Mary Vincent.
00:58:29
He still denied it. Not killing her? Just mutilating her? No, no, no. Mary Vincent is the girl whose arms he chopped off.
00:58:34
Yes. He denies doing that. But he said about the stabbing of Hayes, I'm sorry about the death in this case.
00:58:41
I'll have to carry it on my conscience the rest of my life. The death. The death and the narcissistic move of this is sad for me.
00:58:49
On me. The Diane Downs move. So just to wrap it, Mary Vincent did win a $2.56 million civil judgment against Singleton,
00:58:59
But she couldn't collect because he was unemployed in poor health and only had $200 in savings.
00:59:06
Of course not. So she did eventually get married. She moved to Orange County. She has two sons.
00:59:12
And she started the Mary Vincent Foundation to help victims of traumatic crime. Oh, sweetie.
00:59:17
Yeah. Oh, that poor girl. Isn't it crazy that, like, she would have been better off stealing a car and getting a misdemeanor than hitchhiking?
00:59:28
hitchhiking. You can't trust old men that look like grandfathers. And here's another thing I was thinking about.
00:59:38
When she had a bad feeling, he stopped to pee and get out of the car. The thing about that is
00:59:45
if you have a bad feeling, do what you need to do and apologize for it later. Steal the car and drive the fuck off.
00:59:53
Apologize later if it turns out he wasn going to kill you Right Right Trust your gut Yeah If you have to blow some guy off at a bar because he giving you the creeps but you don want to be rude blow him off and apologize later if it turns out that he wasn a creep
01:00:06
Because if he's not a creep, it won't be a problem later. Yeah. Yeah. That's intense.
01:00:12
I know. It's crazy. And if you want to see it, you can, you can watch on I Survived at Mary Vincent.
01:00:18
Tell that story yourself. I might have to start watching that. The thing is about true crime shows is that I really don't like reenactments.
01:00:25
There's no reenactments in this. Oh, okay. It's the people telling their story, and they start a segment with a picture of where it actually happened.
01:00:33
Yeah. And it's all straight-to-camera storytelling. Okay. It's pretty brilliantly produced.
01:00:38
That's why I like it. No, I did that. I could totally do that. Yeah. Whew. Yeah, I know.
01:00:42
That was a big one. Yeah. Let's all take a collective breath. Yeah. Anyone needs to use the bathroom, go use it now.
01:00:55
Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill? Because this is our life. Backstage, on the road, it's loud, messy, real.
01:01:04
And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving. Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos.
01:01:11
Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it. That's why it holds up. Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by JD Power.
01:01:22
Yeah, you can tell. 2026 Nissan Rogue built for what really happens. For J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards.
01:01:34
Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Your husband is not who you think he is.
01:01:40
Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.
01:01:45
I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
01:01:53
And just then, we felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle.
01:02:02
Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships,
01:02:09
and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know,
01:02:15
but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything.
01:02:19
and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
01:02:25
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.
01:02:30
Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:02:37
I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt season two podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.
01:02:46
Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.
01:02:58
I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:03:12
Oh, Karen, always one of my favorites. I remember hearing that and I had never heard that story before.
01:03:18
And I was just blown. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. It's, yeah, it is an emotional ride hearing that story.
01:03:26
And that the story is about the survivor, that the story, these stories, I think this
01:03:31
is when I first started learning, being taught by our audience, how these stories are actually
01:03:36
about the survivors or about the victims, the victims' families. Yeah. Mine's a little different.
01:03:43
This is from episode 105, which happened in January of 2018. So we were in the pod loft by then.
01:03:51
Right. And like, yeah, that was that was fun. And the episode was called Proclensity, which I still think is one of the best words I've ever made up in my life.
01:04:06
I mean, you've made up some real doozies, but that one's pretty great. I stand by that one.
01:04:10
And so this is the story of Typhoid Mary, which is just so bananas and so wild. And I just, you know, you can't believe it happened.
01:04:21
And then you watch the Drunk History that came out later of it. Yeah. Betsy Sedaro playing Typhoid Mary brilliantly.
01:04:28
She is one of my favorite comic actors. So hilarious. She's so funny. So funny. Enjoy Typhoid Mary, everyone.
01:04:35
And oh, my God, turns out a global pandemic just happened two years later. Who knew?
01:04:42
All right. My murder. OK, so, you know, I'm obsessed with fucking infectious diseases and plagues and flu epidemics.
01:04:53
You know, I love all this shit, right? Sure. That's my passion. Illness. Uh huh.
01:05:00
Like end of days shit. Great. Level stuff. Mm hmm. OK. And right now, the flu, right now in mid-January 2018, the flu is already an epidemic this year, which is fun.
01:05:15
I just got a shot. Did you get a flu shot? Oh, good. I think it's irritated and I'm going to die.
01:05:22
But anyways. Well, at least you won't have the flu when you die. Exactly. so on that note because it's so fun i thought i would do uh you know our good friend uh typhoid
01:05:36
mary nice okay here we go in the summer of 1906 on long island's oyster bay have you been there i
01:05:48
haven't i think they take one of those little trains a jitney a jitney to get there right i
01:05:54
I don't know. 1906 a Jitney Did they have cars It was made of straw I don know Maybe a horse Jitney So Long Island Oyster Bay is the Tony playground of New York rich and famous Teddy fucking
01:06:09
Roosevelt. None other than had his summer White House there. Oh, it's all fucking rich people.
01:06:15
Sure. And everyone freaks the fuck out when in a span of just one week, six of the 11 people
01:06:21
in the home of a wealthy banker. He's the banker to the Vanderbilts, even. Charles Warren's household comes down with typhoid fever
01:06:30
while they're there on vacation. Typhoid is a bacterial infection. Let me tell you about it.
01:06:36
Okay. Due to Salmonella typhi. And it's viewed back then as a disease of the crowded slums and tenements,
01:06:43
which we love to talk about. Yes. In New York, it's associated with poverty, the lack of basic sanitation.
01:06:50
Immigrants assumed to live in disease-ridden, crowded housing are scapegoats of typhoid.
01:06:56
So when a rich fucking family gets it, it's bananas. Typhoid is one of the 20th century's most terrifying killers because an infection could
01:07:03
spread through a house before anyone knew what was going on. The first week, the infection seems almost, you know, like just a regular flu.
01:07:13
Then there's the fever, some abdominal cramping, but nothing really crazy to show that it's
01:07:18
typhoid. Then during the second week, fever goes crazy. The patient becomes delirious.
01:07:24
Blood clots form under the skin. The entire abdomen becomes distended. The third week, inflammation of the fucking brain and intestinal hemorrhaging.
01:07:35
And the death rate of those infected is anywhere between 1 in 10 and 3 in 10. And so it's really easily spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated with the feces of infected persons.
01:07:50
So think about that in the 1900s, the early 1900s, you know, when they didn't like wash their hands and stuff and like water wasn't, you know, cleaned and shit.
01:08:00
And they all lived in like houses and stuff that were all, you know. Yeah. I mean, that was back still when people get up and just pee in a bowl under the bed.
01:08:10
Right. Right. just like slosh it back under probably throw it out the window sure where is that when they threw
01:08:15
stuff out the window throw the baby out with the probably i bet it i bet they did let's say yes but
01:08:20
i like the idea that people would do it in rich houses well they didn't so that's the thing okay
01:08:26
like they didn't so it was really weird that this typoid was an outbreak in a rich house so people
01:08:32
were that's why on oyster bay they were like this is a fucking something's wrong um not here not in
01:08:39
my family not in my backyard right not in the tony playground of the rich and famous hell no no
01:08:44
um in 1900 it killed 35 000 americans there's no cure antibiotics didn't exist and a vaccine was
01:08:53
not yet available horrifying so scary so the charles warren's landlord was freaking out that
01:09:00
the family outbreak would prevent him from leasing his summer house again he thought they were burned
01:09:06
to the fucking ground because of typhoid. So he's like, fuck the shit. He hires freelance sanitary engineer, George Soper.
01:09:13
A freelance sanitary engineer. Dr. George Soper. Okay. Which is like, you sound fun at parties.
01:09:19
You sound like you have a made up job. He's called a janitor. No, no. He's like, he investigates sources of typhoid fever outbreaks to determine the cause.
01:09:32
Like he's the dude who is like. House? Dr. House? He's fucking House. He's like, come over to my house, figure out what happened here.
01:09:40
Okay. Like, why is everyone sick? He's the dude who figures it out. Like, what was his name again?
01:09:44
George Soper, Dr. George Soper. Okay. So he's like, he's like, what's his name? The detective.
01:09:52
Columbo. Sherlock Holmes. Can you edit that? You can leave that part in. He's like the Columbo Sherlock Holmes of diseases.
01:10:04
Okay. Okay. of i was gonna say diarrhea what stop it we don't use that word no we do use that word
01:10:11
so everything so sober tests everything he's like super excited about gross stuff apparently
01:10:17
he tests the house plumbing local shellfish company everything comes up negative for typhoid
01:10:22
but then he looks into the cook who had worked for the warrens weeks before the outbreak and
01:10:27
discovered that a female Irish cook who fit the description of a cook who had worked in other
01:10:35
households where typhoid had broke out, broke out, no, broken out in the past, that she had worked
01:10:42
there right before everyone fell ill of typhoid and had also just cooked for the Warrens. So,
01:10:48
I don't know why you'd hire an Irish cook. We can't fucking cook. It's all pot roast and like,
01:10:57
Red potatoes. Yeah, but I think that back then they liked the simplicity of it all.
01:11:01
Oh, man. Such a bummer. I mean, Irish. That sounds fucking amazing to me. That's all I want is pot roast and red potatoes.
01:11:10
Are you serious? With some horseradish. Yes. What about Jell-O with fruit cocktail floating inside of it?
01:11:15
Fruit cocktail? Yes. Yeah. And then, of course, my grandma's special. What did she put on it?
01:11:20
Thousand Island dressing. Yeah. Okay, a hard stop. That's an iceberg lettuce. No.
01:11:27
That's Irish cooking, my friends. Do you know what I want? I want iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island, and I want Jell-O with fruit cocktail.
01:11:33
I don't want them to meet each other. Well, sorry. My grandma says you have to. And that's my job to make it happen.
01:11:39
And you have to finish it. You do. I mean, fair enough. She forces us to eat spinach as tiny babies, and very few of us have ever broken a bone.
01:11:51
Spinach. But you fucking twist her ankle all the goddamn time. I roll it, but it don't break.
01:11:57
Grandma. Okay. Grandma. Ba-ba-ba-ba. He was okay. So we can't find her because she'd left after the,
01:12:03
after every outbreak begins, she fucking later's out of there and doesn't give a forwarding address.
01:12:08
Soper learns of an active outbreak in a penthouse on park Avenue where two of the household servants were hospitalized and the young daughter of the family
01:12:16
had died of typhoid. Oh no. And she just, and he discovers sober discovers that the family cook was the same woman who
01:12:24
had cooked for the other families. It's 40 year old Irish immigrant, Mary Mallon.
01:12:30
oh mary wash your hands mary there we go what are you doing mary what does she say and she says ah
01:12:37
i just need to start the soup with my hand real quick i can't do it no you're gonna do it this
01:12:42
whole fucking story we need it okay so first starts stalking mary mallon and tells her and he tells
01:12:50
her she's transmitting disease and death by her job but he sounds very bad at like telling people
01:12:55
things and explaining in a calm, like, you know, self-possessed manner to an Irish immigrant,
01:13:01
probably because he had some prejudices against Irish people. So do you think he was like too nervous to tell her or he was like screaming?
01:13:07
I think he was screaming in her face, this thing of transmitting disease and death.
01:13:11
And she's this like Irish immigrant. Like, what are you talking about? So he didn't explain to her how she, as a woman who was perfectly healthy, could be
01:13:23
infecting others with typhoid. he attempted to get and then and then he goes on to attempt to get samples of mary's feces
01:13:29
urine and blood i think just by yelling in her face that he needs samples of her feces urine and
01:13:33
blood jesus mary and joseph man get away from me yeah not surprisingly this just pissed mary off
01:13:40
and one time she chased him away with a large kitchen fork when he tried to come get her
01:13:44
get out of here i don't know that's my irish get out of here get out of the kitchen now you always
01:13:51
have to start way high and then go down really low. Okay. Since Mary refused to give samples,
01:13:57
he decided to compile a five-year history of her employment. He found that of the eight families
01:14:03
that had hired Mary Mallon as a cook, members of seven of those families claimed to have contracted
01:14:09
typhoid fever, even though Mary had never shown signs of the ailment. And with this,
01:14:14
Soper becomes the first author to describe a healthy carrier of salvanilla typhi in the United
01:14:20
States. So the person who can carry it never get ill by it, but pass it on to other people.
01:14:25
So she's basically immune to this thing she has. But she has it and is giving it to everybody else.
01:14:30
And she and part of her argument is like, well, I'm fucking fine. It can't be me giving it to
01:14:34
anyone. Right. So also and let me use my whole arm as a stirring. And I just want to stir this
01:14:41
fucking stew. I just want to touch the bottom of the pan with my fingernail. Let me put this under
01:14:46
my fingernails and put it into the stew. What's the big deal? What is the problem? My fingernail ladle.
01:14:52
Right, without washing my hands. Okay, let me tell you about Mary. Mary Malin was born in September of 1869
01:14:58
in Cooks County, Cookston County Tyrone, Cookston, let's call it. A small village in the
01:15:08
north of Ireland that was among one of Ireland's poorest areas. She immigrated to the United States in 1883 at the age
01:15:14
15. Her aunt and uncle who she had been living with died. So she was living in swallet housing
01:15:20
in the Lower East Side, fending for herself. She found work as a domestic servant. And
01:15:27
apparently her proclensity in the kitchen led her to be a cook. So she was somehow good.
01:15:34
Her what in the kitchen? I don't know. I've copied and pasted a word that I never use. Proclensity.
01:15:38
Propensity? Clensity. Proclensity. That's a word. I don't think it is. Hold on. I refuse.
01:15:47
I copied and pasted it. No, no, no, no, no, no. It sounded so good. It kind of was like
01:15:53
the combination of propensity and declension, but I'm almost positive. Your search
01:16:00
propensity did not match any search. Her propensity. Is that right? Well, I'm never copying and pasting
01:16:08
from Wikipedia again. The grammar's odd. It's propensity. Or that's like the correction.
01:16:16
The correct. Oh, yeah. Maybe they just. The correct word is propensity. Fuck. All right.
01:16:22
I'm not adding that out because this is who I am. Look. I'm going to fucking show.
01:16:27
Sometimes we get words wrong. It's okay. My Proclenston in the kitchen. It sounds like Proclenston sounds like for men who are losing their hair.
01:16:39
Yeah. Like a shampoo. Take mint Proclenston every night. Right. Okay. In 1900, she worked in Mamoronic, New York. Heard of it?
01:16:50
No. Where within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1991,
01:16:55
she moved to Manhattan, where members of the family whom she worked for developed fevers and
01:16:59
diarrhea. That's a bummer to have at the same time. Yeah, that's horrible. You don't know what's happening and you have diarrhea.
01:17:04
Right. Jesus. Laundress died there. Oh, no. Whose name they don't mention anywhere, which is like, listen, she's someone too.
01:17:11
That's right. And then Mary Mallon goes on to work for a lawyer. She left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill.
01:17:20
She fucking laters. Why does she keep leaving, though? I don't know. She thinks she's so innocent.
01:17:25
Well, it's so it's hard to tell because it's like, did she leave because everyone got sick?
01:17:29
And so the house stood still and they didn't need anyone? Or what did she know? Isn't that when you need help the most?
01:17:35
It's true. Chicken soup doesn't cook itself. Yeah, that's right. Chicken soup doesn't use its own arm to stir itself.
01:17:42
Jesus Christ. Okay Chicken soup can stir itself without an arm And it can walk upstairs Exactly So Okay so then in 1906 she goes to Oyster Bay And within two weeks 10 of the 11 family members are hospitalized with typhoid Changes job again Same thing happens Cooks for the Warren Same thing happens Blah blah blah
01:18:05
Okay. Doctors theorize that Mary Mallon likely passed typhoid germs by failing to vigorously scrub
01:18:13
her hands before handling food. Usually the elevated temperatures of cooking food would have killed all the germs and bacteria
01:18:24
and shit. But then they found out that Mary Mallon's like most popular dish, her specialty, her specialty was ice cream that she cut up raw peaches into and froze.
01:18:35
So nothing had gotten cooked. Oh, can you imagine those wet fucking peaches with her little like cutting knife under and all the nail under her nail stuff?
01:18:43
As she's cutting peaches, she's also cutting a little bit of her finger along with it.
01:18:50
Oh, God. she had a real poquensity for cutting up her own flesh I can't believe I
01:18:57
got that word wrong okay the New York Health the New York City Health Department
01:19:05
finally they try to get her to chill the fuck out and she won't finally they send
01:19:11
position she won't she's like fuck you to everyone I must cook yeah she's like an
01:19:15
angry an angry woman she had to fight for her like her life livelihood I didn't have anybody.
01:19:23
Nobody. It reminds. So I just started watching Alias Grace, which you had talked about liking.
01:19:28
And it reminds me of like she came over on a ship and that fucking in that nature of absolute bullshit.
01:19:35
And she's like, fuck you. I'm working to like live my own life. I mean, it's those the ship journey alone.
01:19:41
So upsetting for most people coming to this country. Traumatizing. Just horrifying.
01:19:48
And then they show up and then it's like, I hope you have a job. Yeah. Good luck with that.
01:19:51
Yeah. Also, you don't wash your hands enough. Yeah, that's right. What are you talking about?
01:19:54
You know what that reminds me of real quick? Yeah. When I lived in Scotland, there was a commercial that was on like UK TV and it was, are you
01:20:03
a washer or a walker? And it was just a, it was pretend camera, like hidden camera in a bathroom to see if
01:20:11
people walked up, check their face and walked away or wash their hands and walk away.
01:20:15
And since that commercial, I think before that I was very like, nah, who cares one way
01:20:20
or the other? I know if I need to wash my hands or not. Since that commercial, I wash my hands every single time, no matter what.
01:20:26
You just can't trust doorknobs. You just can't trust door handles. You just should wash your hands as much as possible.
01:20:33
And I do. I mean, don't go out of your fucking mind. And I do. But, like, do your best.
01:20:40
Don't be a walker. That's all I'm saying. My dad, he won't sit down. We'll go to lunch anywhere.
01:20:46
He had just gotten out of his car. He hasn't touched anything. He won't. He's kind of has OCD, though, but he'll go wash his hands before.
01:20:53
Like every time you can't even start talking to him. Oh, wow. Wash his hands. I wonder if that's like his parents were really strict about that, like before eating.
01:21:01
Yeah, maybe. It's a good idea. Every once in a while, I'll look at my hands, especially when I was wearing cheap jeans.
01:21:07
Oh, no. There's nothing worse than having dirty hands as an adult at like a meal.
01:21:12
There's nothing worse than like putting a food thing into your mouth and being like, when was the last time I washed my hands?
01:21:17
that's my fucking thing of like and then you there's only so many times you can go well i'm
01:21:22
strengthening my immune system right no most of the time you're not you're just putting someone
01:21:27
else's fucking urine hands in your fucking mouth and i mean from the doorknob okay so new york city
01:21:33
sends in physician sarah josephine baker to talk to mary so the singer yeah right almost
01:21:42
That'd be amazing. At night, she was this amazing dancer. She's like, hey, I'm so gross.
01:21:47
That's not good. Baker said that by the time she was, she said, quote, by that time, she was convinced that the law was only persecuting her when she had done nothing wrong.
01:21:56
So Mary was like, hardcore, fuck you. We're like that. Yeah. Baker's, so this chick, Sarah Josephine Baker, her own father and brother had died of typhoid when she was young.
01:22:09
And so she had felt pressure to support her mother and sister financially. So at 16 years old, she decided on a career in medicine.
01:22:16
Wow. And this is like the early 1900s. This chick is a badass motherfucker in her own right, and people should fucking study her, etc., for feminist reasons.
01:22:26
She's fucking awesome. So she goes to find Mary Mallon, and with her help, the New York City Health Department takes Mary into custody in 1907
01:22:37
and places were into forced confinement inside a bungalow on 16 acre North Brother Island off the Bronx shore.
01:22:45
So if you live in, have lived in Manhattan or been in Manhattan, you see a fucking Island over there,
01:22:50
like off the shore that you can like see it's almost like Alcatraz in San Francisco.
01:22:54
Right. So it's all the only thing, only companion she has. And tell me if this doesn't sound amazing,
01:23:00
she's in confinement and all she has is a Fox Terrier and you're like living the life.
01:23:05
Can I please? So wait, I think I'm in that confinement right now. You put yourself in Mary Mallon's fucking confinement.
01:23:13
We're all, all Irish women are doomed to live the life of Mary Mallon. It just repeats itself.
01:23:21
Damn it. Okay, so she, it's at, so they, on this brother island was the Riverside Hospital, which is where she's at.
01:23:27
It's founded in the 1850s as a smallpox hospital to treat and isolate victims of that disease.
01:23:32
So they just fucking put them on this tiny island outside of Manhattan. and you can see Manhattan and you're like, oh, I want that. And they're like, no, you're sick.
01:23:40
Too bad. It eventually expands to other quarantainable diseases like leprosy and
01:23:47
venereal diseases. So they just like later people onto that island. Did they really? Yeah. So you get
01:23:52
you get some venereal disease Yeah So like go stay here until you in the same room with all the other people with venereal diseases Yeah that sounds like a party I mean those are the people that party Yeah
01:24:06
A lot of great personalities in that room, I bet. I mean, I'm sure. Okay. With her forced confinement,
01:24:13
Mary Mallon, everyone, the media goes fucking nuts because this woman has been spreading this disease
01:24:19
and killing people with it. So media goes nuts. Eventually in 1908 in the Journal of American Medical Association. She is nicknamed Typhoid Mary.
01:24:29
That's where she gets her name. So the professionals really came into shit on her.
01:24:33
Yeah, they were doing top-notch journalism. Good job, everybody. So it turns out Mary Mallon is immune to the disease herself. She's the first person in the
01:24:44
United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen, which is pretty fucking
01:24:49
cool. While in custody, Mary Mallon, Typhoid Mary, let's call her, admits to poor hygiene. She's like,
01:24:56
yeah, what of it, motherfuckers? Oh, no. Say it in my Irish. Ah. Ah. Ah. I can't say.
01:25:04
That was all you should say. Ah, who cares? Ah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, there's other things to worry about.
01:25:12
Exactly. There's people starving in my country. She said she did not understand the purpose of hand-washing
01:25:18
because she did not pose a risk. Girl, you're the cook. You're the cook. You pose a risk.
01:25:25
It doesn't matter how healthy you are. Authorities are like, let's get rid of your gallbladder
01:25:30
because that's where they believe the typhoid bacteria resided in. And she was like, fuck no, fuck you.
01:25:36
I don't even have the disease. And she wasn't willing to cease working as a cook, too.
01:25:41
So, like, we'll let you go. Just don't work as a cook. And she's like, nope. I won't wash my hands.
01:25:45
Go fuck yourself. Fight, fight, fight, fight. fight Mary fight we're so angry it doesn't make sense Irish women Irish women fight fight fight
01:25:55
and then a herky herky she uh is forced to give 163 samples of various bodily substances to the
01:26:04
doctors there 120 of which tested positive for the bacteria she was teeming with this disease
01:26:12
To the gills. To the gills. To the gills. So Mary stays there for three years until test results from a private laboratory.
01:26:22
Yes, I said that. Came up negative for typhoid. And with this information in 1909, Mary sues the health department for her freedom.
01:26:30
But everyone's like, where did she get the money to sue the health department? And then it's like a secret thing that maybe William Randolph Hearst was like, well, I'll give you the money if you give me like an interview.
01:26:39
So like he was like springing people. so genius yeah so smart but the new york supreme court's like go fuck yourself no but then in 1910
01:26:48
there's a new health commissioner he lets her go if she promises never to work as a cook again and
01:26:54
she's like okay great she's like fine i didn't like that much anyway yeah um so in february of
01:27:00
1910 uh mary agreed that she was quote prepared to change her occupation and would give assurance
01:27:06
by affidavit that she would, upon her release, take such hygienic precautions as would protect those
01:27:12
with whom she came in contact from infection. Meaning, wash your fucking hands. Oh, wash my fucking hands.
01:27:18
No, I just, I felt like I wanted to defend, but there's, it's indefensible. Go ahead.
01:27:23
No, I can't. Some people don't think it, some people think what, that her being locked up is indefensible.
01:27:29
No, she killed a ton of people because she refused to watch. She wouldn't, it's like she wouldn't give in anything.
01:27:34
Right. Where it's like, okay, Well, if you're the cook, you have to admit hand washing is kind of key.
01:27:40
I realize it was that was kind of a new idea back then. But still. Well, the thing is, so she thought they were all out to get her all this shit.
01:27:47
You're like decades later. They're like, well, if she had typhoid her whole life, maybe it fucked her brain up a little bit.
01:27:53
And she was paranoid and crazy. Oh, yeah. But wait, it gets worse. OK. OK. So they let her out.
01:28:01
They lose track of her. Goodbye. Bad idea. Cut to five years later in 1915, a typhoid outbreak happens at Manhattan Sloan Maternity Hospital.
01:28:12
Struck 25 workers and killed two of those workers. When Soper, our friend George Soper's back, he looks into the outbreak and he's like, this looks fucking familiar.
01:28:23
Oh, no. Traces it back to the cook, who's an Irish woman named Mary Brown this time.
01:28:28
She changed her name. She found a good man. nope she changed her name so she could become a cook like she was doing it now now she's
01:28:37
responsible for it now she's being a dick you know what i mean yeah now it's criminal i think
01:28:42
um it's mary mallon blah blah blah turns out she changed her name and during her years of release
01:28:47
she had cooked in hotels restaurants and institutions wow so she was like she'd gotten
01:28:53
they'd given her a job as a laundress you make no fucking money it's really hard work doesn't
01:28:58
smell good doesn't smell good she was like fuck this shit and went to cook wherever she worked
01:29:02
there were outbreaks of typhoid however she changed jobs so frequently so she had eluded the
01:29:07
blame she's captured and again confined to north brother island where she continued to refuse to
01:29:13
acknowledge that she had any connection between uh herself and the typhoid cases well at that point
01:29:19
it's so stacked up against her yeah but she might as well just do that because she's so guilty that
01:29:26
the second she breaks, it's over. Yeah, exactly. So after the second apprehension, she spends the
01:29:32
next 23 years of her life as a prisoner in forced isolation. Hundreds, if not thousands,
01:29:39
of asymptomatic carriers who had been identified were allowed to walk the streets of New York
01:29:44
freely, but Typhoid Mary lived alone in exile, partly due because the public were fucking pissed
01:29:51
at her because she wouldn't stay out of the kitchen. Like if she had just not gone back to
01:29:54
cooking. Yes That second time around Exactly She I mean I didn it sad that she lived in isolation But why are you being so stubborn Yeah Calm down
01:30:06
Karen? Uh-oh. Oh, Karen's having feelings. My face just starts to fall apart. I don't want to do it. It just comes out
01:30:16
of me. Your typhoid tears just start running out of your face. There's the devil inside
01:30:20
me. He's so bad. But state of the kitchen on November 11, 1938. Mary Mallon dies of pneumonia at age 69, still in captivity.
01:30:34
An autopsy found evidence of live toy toy foes, typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder.
01:30:40
So they were right. Yeah, they were right. Her body's cremated and ashes were buried at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.
01:30:47
So Mary Mallon, it's thought that she infected 51 people and three of those illnesses resulted in death.
01:30:55
And that's based on George Soper's, you know, looking into it. But she she used so many aliases that it's thought that the true death toll could have been way fucking higher.
01:31:06
Some estimated that she had made it have caused 50 fatalities, which I just saw that in a random article.
01:31:11
So I don't know if that's even true. Historians say she contaminated at least 122 people and killed five, which sounds a little more likely.
01:31:19
So crazy, though. So throughout the 20th century, typhoid fever steadily declines due to introduction of vaccinations and improvements in public sanitation and hygiene, a.k.a. wash your fucking hands.
01:31:32
And today, typhoid fever is considered a rare condition among developed countries.
01:31:37
Rate is approximately five cases per million per year. uh as your fucking brother island and riverside hospital real quick this fucking island of disease
01:31:47
off the yeah manhattan which sounds amazing right sounds amazing the island has been abandoned since
01:31:53
1963 after it was a detention it was last a detention facility for juvenile drug offenders
01:31:58
in 1963 how badly do you wish you could go and just sit on the wall and like stare at people
01:32:02
there you know there's some black light posters in that building that you know there's some people
01:32:07
out there who have stories of like they were like because you know my mom working in the mental
01:32:13
she worked at a hospital called Langley Porter in San Francisco it's up on the hill yeah and um
01:32:19
and people in the 60s used to send their kids they got caught smoking pot one time no they sent their
01:32:27
kids to the mental hospital so she said they were in this in the like mid to late 60s all these kids
01:32:35
there was like an influx of kids are like they're incorrigible and they're drug addicts
01:32:39
where they had only done like smoked one joint or whatever we're saying no to things exactly
01:32:44
but they were housed with people who are legitimately in need of mental mental health
01:32:49
health issues and i'm sure those kids were like well i'm never doing anything bad again
01:32:54
yes the shit that they saw like yeah or they were like i don't know she just said it was really sad
01:33:00
and bummed her out a lot. It's clearly complicated. Yeah. So these kids got sent there in 1963.
01:33:06
Finally, it closed. It's now uninhabited and designated as a bird sanctuary. But wait, it's illegal for anyone
01:33:14
to go on the island without permission from the city. All the buildings, though,
01:33:17
still fucking stand. And these photographers sometimes go on there and take photos.
01:33:21
And you can see a bunch of the photos. We should put them up on Instagram of these gorgeous,
01:33:25
like brick buildings that are falling in a disrepair. And you can see the rooms where Mary Mallon was fucking housed
01:33:31
and you can see the typhoid wing and you can see the fucking crematorium and it's like, it's insanely gorgeous.
01:33:38
I am asking any murderino who works for the city of Manhattan to please let me and Karen
01:33:43
come see the fucking island. Come and get a disease of our own for ourselves. And since it's like under, you know,
01:33:51
under watch and you, it's really hard to get on there. Everything is still there.
01:33:55
So like people haven't graffitied and people haven't stolen shit from the island.
01:33:59
That's amazing. You need to see the photos. Everything is covered in wildlife. It's gorgeous.
01:34:05
Oh, I want to see that. It's amazing. It sounds like the island they threatened to send or that they promised to send Dr. Lecter to in Silence of the Lambs.
01:34:14
That ends up to be that they were like. Fakesies. When she recites that thing, you are allowed to walk on the beach every day or whatever.
01:34:23
I want to read that. It's so good. Do it again. And you will be allowed. One. You will be allowed one day a year where you can walk freely on the beach with armed guards or whatever, snipers.
01:34:38
Oh, God. I don't know. And she didn't know it was fake either. I know. My friend Amy, who you met when we were in Wisconsin, she has science lambs memorized.
01:34:51
I love that. I've watched it with her, and she'll just say the line real quick before.
01:34:54
It's my favorite thing in the world. Oh, I love it. You will be allowed to walk.
01:34:59
She'd be able to do that speech right off the dome. It's so good. I love it. Oh, these domes.
01:35:06
Okay, it's illegal, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you can still see the room where Typhoid Mary spent the last 23 years of her life.
01:35:14
What is she doing there? Oh, man, she was bummed. But it's just like there's varying accounts where it's like some say she was like actually helping out there and like a maid.
01:35:23
And some say that she was just like in seclusion and they abandoned her and used her as like a look at typhoid Mary, you know, when people would come to the island.
01:35:30
Yeah, it's like that kind of thing. So you don't really know. I hope there was a fox terrier.
01:35:34
I hope so. Yeah. And then I also want to mention there's a podcast. If you're into this shit like I am, there's a podcast that's kind of new.
01:35:44
It's hosted by two these two young ladies who are grad students in disease ecology.
01:35:50
It's called This Podcast Will Kill You. And it's just about infectious diseases from history.
01:35:56
And every episode is that. And these two girls are named. both named Erin are like, it's just an awesome podcast.
01:36:03
This podcast will kill you. Yeah. So this podcast will kill you. Love it. I like to imagine that Typhoid Mary sat in seclusion in her room on that
01:36:12
island and fantasized of all the different things she'd like to put her hand in.
01:36:17
So then like, she'd be like corn chowder or whatever. And then just like mashed potatoes.
01:36:23
And then both hands, the fantasy is just like both bare arms go all the way in. And then, like, she cleans her fingernails in the chowder.
01:36:30
Yes. I wonder if she, like, requested, like, cooking magazines and, like, read recipes and was like, stick your arm completely in.
01:36:38
She'd be like, this looks good, but you know what it needs? My arm. My arm. My fingernail clippings.
01:36:46
It's not funny. It's disgusting. It's terrible. But isn't that amazing? It's incredible.
01:36:53
Also, the idea, did you watch The Nick when it was on? Yeah. And they have, uh, there's an episode involving her. I watched the little, the little, um, scene where they, they, and yes, where they confront her. Yeah. It's, that was such a good show. And they did that. She was great, but they did that where they would take those things out of history and be like, this is what, where you don't have any sense, like things before modern medicine and modern stuff. It's just the weirdest idea where they'd be like somebody coming in, they'd be like, well, we tried to stick it out.
01:37:26
a tube in their arm and then they died like the end or it's just it was so crazy precarious the
01:37:32
nick is such a great show i love that yeah if you're into that kind of thing you should definitely
01:37:36
watch it it was great also if you've ever taken cocaine to the point where it was a problem for
01:37:42
you i warn trigger warning huge cocaine trigger warning for the nick opium too like i could be a
01:37:48
doctor and do coke all the time no maybe you're into opium dens too trigger warning
01:37:53
true warning if you love to lay back with a bunch of people dressed in a traditional chinese garb
01:38:00
yeah then it'll this will be hard for you to get through it's gonna make you nuts but if you love
01:38:05
surgery without gloves or anesthesia oh this is the show for you let a show or clive owen
01:38:10
right um that was great thank you that was fun i love to learn i love i love teaching
01:38:16
no i love saying words wrong i love teaching i love to learn i love to lie i love to make up
01:38:25
new words i love to just have fun with it just say shit that and you know don't have any uh
01:38:31
for clensity for caring i mean i have a real for clensity to just say what i want
01:38:37
and i think we all do there's a freedom in that in these preclensities we all have in this
01:38:43
prequelnsiest time there's a freedom it's so the funniest thing about typhoid mary is she um
01:38:50
she had a real problem with prequelns cleanliness no i love it it was a fucking valiant effort i
01:38:58
tried but you could see me you can see me making that u-turn for miles away would you have made
01:39:03
that attempt two years ago before this podcast absolutely not not at all so i'm real biased
01:39:09
against puns, as you know. And so I applaud you. And no, I think it's the effect that we're that
01:39:14
you have on my life. I'm I'm making you stupider. You're breaking down those pun walls. I am
01:39:21
stupidering you hard, you know, real hard. Yeah. Well, great job. 2018, Georgia. Thank you. Thank
01:39:30
Yeah, 2020, Karen. I remember hearing that back then and being so shocked. Like, the details of that story are so much more ridiculous than you even think they are.
01:39:45
It's kind of insane. Just the storyline of that, of her and that. It's just spread.
01:39:53
It's one person. It's one person's fucking refusal to see reality. and refusal to fucking take responsibility for themselves that kills people and like
01:40:06
changes the course of history because they won't just simply wear a mask. Oh, wait, what?
01:40:15
What? Sorry. What are we talking about anymore? Oh, Jesus. All right. Should we wrap it up with some fucking hooray Let do it And then also make sure to stay tuned for the tenfold more wicked preview after the fucking hoorays This first one is from precious dot
01:40:34
gore grind. And it says my fucking hooray is that after I lost my job and insurance due to COVID,
01:40:42
I was not too quietly freaking out. I'm a type one diabetic and was very close to running out of the
01:40:47
two insulins I take daily, because it would have cost me literally 1000s out of pocket.
01:40:52
I decided to ask the world of Facebook and Instagram if anyone had any to spare.
01:40:57
A sweet baby angel came to the rescue and was able to provide me with enough insulin to last several months.
01:41:04
I can't say thank you enough to that kind stranger for helping me quite literally stay alive.
01:41:11
That's incredible. That's beautiful. I wish our world wasn't, our country wasn't like that, but it's incredible.
01:41:20
Seems like we need health care. It seems like everyone deserves it. Yeah, I think everyone does deserve it.
01:41:27
This is from Instagram. It's from Katie B. Click. My fucking right is that after Hurricane Zeta threw a tree on top of our house, totaling our car and barely missing our little girl's bedroom window, our neighbors and friends fully restored our faith in humanity.
01:41:44
A neighbor we hardly know found us huddled in the basement and drove us out to grab breakfast.
01:41:50
A murderina from across the country sent us a DoorDash gift card and another sent us groceries through Instacart.
01:41:58
Neighbors have offered their cars and helping hands. And even though a tree falling on our home is totally on brand for 2020, I am so damn thankful for the people holding hands metaphorically anyway and helping one another through it.
01:42:13
Damn. Fucking rough year. Love it. I know. And it's really nice to hear those stories and to feel that kind of like when people are given an opportunity, they will help other people out.
01:42:28
Totally. I think it's an important storyline that doesn't make anybody any money to talk about these days, but it should happen much more.
01:42:38
Yeah. Okay, this one's from Bethany.is.killing.it. my fucking hooray is actually a follow-up earlier this year i sent in a fucking hooray
01:42:51
i don't know if we read the other one i just love it like don't worry about it i'll do both now
01:42:59
earlier this year i sent in a fucking hurry about how i had been selected to become
01:43:03
a naval officer well just last week i graduated from officer candidate school i am now the first officer ever in my family's long history of serving in the military
01:43:14
I've also had many sailors from throughout my 10-year enlisted career reach out and express their excitement.
01:43:21
I hope to use my influence to help my sailors. And like I said months back. I think we did do this one.
01:43:28
I think we did. Okay. Well, here's the update. Great. I hope I can continue to show all of my sailors that a woman can kill it in this career.
01:43:38
Congratulations, Bethany. Way to go. Keep kicking ass. Way to go. And thank you for your service.
01:43:43
Yes, yes. Okay, this one is from Lisa Horton 76. I have a bittersweet foster care fucking hooray for you. Mostly sweet. My husband, daughter and I got to be a foster family for the best baby ever. And during the 14 months we had him, his dad was able to make some huge life changes, including getting sober and get to a place where he was able to care for his son again.
01:44:09
So we recently had to say goodbye to our boy, which was so hard, but also so sweet and inspiring to see this man who has had a very hard life completely turn his life around for his son.
01:44:19
We are still very close and he FaceTimes us at bedtime every night so we can tell our boy we love him.
01:44:25
It's a major success story. And even though we didn't get to keep our favorite boy forever, fucking hooray that we got to be part of such a beautiful process.
01:44:33
If anyone out there has ever considered being a foster parent, now is the perfect time.
01:44:40
Isn't that beautiful? Yes. That's lovely. Yeah. I can't. I, what an amazing, what an amazing thing to do.
01:44:50
Um, I guess I I just have one I mean one thing to say And it just on Halloween this year my very good friend Patty Riley died of cancer
01:45:08
And you guys might know her because she is my roommate from college, my friend from high school.
01:45:13
I've told tons of stories about her on this show. And she was battling cancer for a while.
01:45:20
And it seemed like she was going to be okay. And she just took a very sudden turn.
01:45:29
And I guess I just want to say, first of all, I haven't really processed it in any real way because it happened really fast.
01:45:37
But I know a lot of stuff is going on in the world right now. And everybody is stressed and freaked out.
01:45:44
And there's tons of anxiety and whatever. But you are alive. and you're lucky. And Patty was the kind of person who made sure every day
01:46:03
that she impacted the people around her, whether it was her two boys, her family, her good friends,
01:46:11
which she had tons of. She really, really cared about being a good person. She's also one of the funniest people I've ever known,
01:46:19
But her whole goal in life was to just always really be caring toward other people.
01:46:27
So as much as her death feels like just a complete injustice and it's such an intense loss, the way she lived was such an amazing example of how you can be.
01:46:43
And it's something that's always impressed me and has always inspired me. So I just wanted to say that.
01:46:54
We'll miss you, Patty. Your death is a huge, huge loss to so many people. Thank you, Karen.
01:47:02
That's beautiful. I'm so sorry for her family and for you and the world and who doesn't get to know her.
01:47:12
Thanks. Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody's dealing with so much stuff right now.
01:47:17
It just feels like then on top of that, when regular, you know, tragic life events happen, it's just like, it's just, it can be so overwhelming.
01:47:27
But I think it's important that everybody just kind of, you know, is grateful. That's what I'm trying to do, I guess, is what I should be saying.
01:47:37
Yeah. Is I'm trying to focus on the positive. I'm trying to be grateful for what I have, which is so, so much.
01:47:45
And I'm trying to, you know, I don't know, be a better person. I think we all are.
01:47:51
Yeah. And it's it's noble in and of itself. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. To Patty. To Patty.
01:47:59
Well, thanks for listening, you guys. Thanks for being here. We hope we hope and we hope you hope to.
01:48:08
Yeah. We have so much hope. Despite it all, there's just still hope. There is. And with that, stay sexy.
01:48:17
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Okay. Let me tell you this story.
01:48:29
In upstate New York, there's this little village called Dryden. And for centuries, the people there have welcomed strangers into their churches and into their homes.
01:48:40
It used to be one of those places where everyone in town was invited to a wedding.
01:48:46
So it was a really close, really trusting community. In 1842, a stranger arrived.
01:48:55
He was a handsome, charming, brilliant scholar named Edward Ruloff. He found work with a local farming family,
01:49:04
a very prominent family. Their home was always open to anybody that needed a place to stay
01:49:10
or passersby, you know, they were just that kind of people. But something about Edward Ruloff was just troubling He was arrogant he was snide and he was sometimes really cruel And he was absolutely obsessed with his own academic research He seems like what you would call an incredible narcissist
01:49:31
He's very hostile to people who don't appreciate his own genius. He seduced the family's teenage daughter.
01:49:39
And from the very beginning, their relationship was unstable. Their fights were vicious, and then they were deadly.
01:49:46
There's a story about him taking her away and her turning around and waving, and that's the last memory like her mother and some of them had of her.
01:49:56
It was a terrible tragedy. It's not that we hadn't had murders here, but not a murder like that.
01:50:04
Edward Ruloff killed at least five more people over the next 25 years. Now, this is the beginning of the time when railroads make it possible to move around.
01:50:14
It was not particularly uncommon for people to carry on double lives. People fall for the snake oil salesman.
01:50:23
They actually enjoy the snake oil salesman. He had everybody fooled for a long time.
01:50:30
Sort of like a Ted Bundy. He's confusing to me, and he was the boogeyman of state New York.
01:50:37
He's not confusing to me. He's a psychopath. When Ruloff was caught, it seemed like he would finally be punished.
01:50:47
But that's not what happened. Scholars and scientists jumped to his defense. Ruloff claimed that he had made this groundbreaking discovery in the field of linguistics.
01:50:58
And a lot of people believed him. They argued that his mind was just too valuable to waste on the gallows.
01:51:05
Yeah, if there was a kind of magical key to understanding these languages, and that would have made a lot of people's lives a lot easier.
01:51:13
Would his brain really save his life? Are there some ideas so astounding, some minds so brilliant,
01:51:21
that they should allow a killer to get away with murder? People really think that the brain can justify behavior.
01:51:30
And this is totally mistaken. Edward Ruloff's brutal crimes and his incredible brain would make history
01:51:37
by marking the birth of modern neuroscience. This is just a world-changing difference in how we think about brains.
01:51:46
It's right up there with understanding evolution. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, and this is Tenfold More Wicked,
01:51:53
a podcast about the most intelligent killer in American history. Tenfold More Wicked premieres on Monday, November 23rd on Exactly Right.
01:52:04
Subscribe now on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. Oh, 2026 Nissan Rogue, built for all of it.
01:52:37
Auto Pacific Segmentation, 2026 Rogue versus latest in-market competitors in the ex-SUV
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mainstream mid-sites class, excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites.
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