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00:02:19
Hello. Hello. And welcome. To My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstart. That's Karen Kilgara.
00:02:24
And we're here to do a podcast for you. Do you feel like listening to one? Are you ready for one?
00:02:29
Did you accidentally press play? Well, don't press pause now. Yeah, you might as well just keep going.
00:02:34
Keep going. We're going to talk about stuff that has nothing to do with true crime for a while.
00:02:40
We'll carry you like in the sand, like how your friend Jesus did. Yes, my best friend Jesus.
00:02:44
If you see two sets of footsteps, it's because it's me and Karen. And we're walking next to Jesus who has you on his back.
00:02:51
And he's flying. And he can fly. Uh, welcome. Welcome to a podcast. It's this podcast. Um, I might as well just go right into
00:03:04
corrections corner from last week. Do you mind? Or is there anything you'd like to talk about
00:03:08
first? Listen, I get so comfortable in corrections corner. It's like my cozy little spot. That's my
00:03:13
life. I call it home. Um, first and foremost, I would like to apologize because I referred to,
00:03:21
I made a funny reference to a lock-in last week, which is a thing that used to happen when I was in high school, where you'd go and basically sleep in the gym because it was like super spring week or whatever.
00:03:35
It would be like a dance, and then you'd spend the night, and they'd lock you in, and you'd be like, all the seniors.
00:03:39
Your boys and stuff. Yeah, it'd be amazing. Well, I called it a lockdown because it's 2019, and I haven't been to school in a while.
00:03:47
and that just goes to show how horrifying the gun situation is in this country, how recent it is that it is not in my wheelhouse.
00:03:59
It's an easy mistake to make and I didn't hear it. And the person who corrected me was so nice about it,
00:04:06
wrote a lovely email that was like, I know this was a mistake, but you should also realize that it's this bad thing we all live with these days.
00:04:16
that teenagers and young children are dealing with, that the parents, and I just can't even imagine either being a kid right now and going to school
00:04:23
or being a parent of a child right now. I mean, we have nieces and nephews, and it's horrifying.
00:04:28
It's horrifying. My apologies. I didn't even hear it. And, hey, let's get some gun control.
00:04:36
When the country stops spinning out, we'll get a hold of everything. Yeah. Let's fix stuff.
00:04:43
Let's fix it. Let's make it so. Hey, children, children of tomorrow. Yeah, let's do it. We support you.
00:04:49
Okay. Should I do the next one? Absolutely. So I did last week the story of the real life orphan is what I called it. The Natalia Grace story.
00:05:02
And the first thing I heard was a tweet from someone who said, you can't talk about a story that's only sources the Daily Mail.
00:05:11
So we looked it up and on Reddit, people are talking about it and there was other articles about it.
00:05:17
And essentially, a user named Sky Blue Ocean, S-K-Y-E, wrote this. It's critical to understand that Christine Barnett, the ex-adoptive mother of the adopted child, sold her story to the Daily Mail shortly after she and her ex-husband got arrested and charged by the police.
00:05:36
Wow. This appears to be deliberate behavior by Christine as an attempt to generate a sympathy and to provoke the public to be on her side prior to her trial.
00:05:46
Not only is this indicative of careful planning, but her sudden active presence on media regarding this case is highly suspicious.
00:05:53
Is this an attempt to lessen avoid and or delay the date of her trial and perhaps put some of the blame on her ex That just a question that that user was asking Again this is Reddit So
00:06:06
apparently, Natalia Grace has been found. She has been living with new adoptive parents in Indiana,
00:06:13
and the family she's now with maintains that she's currently 16 years old, which means that
00:06:20
she would have been a child in 2003. That's according to an article from Jezebel.com.
00:06:26
And from thecut.com, police say, there's a quote, police say that bone density tests carried out on
00:06:32
Natalia in 2010 showed that Natalia was eight years old then, and that at 2012, tests showed
00:06:38
that she was around 11. So if this is true, that would mean that the Barnetts lied when they said
00:06:43
the bone density test proved that Natalia was an adult. So this story is even worse than I thought
00:06:51
it was when I first read it. And good lesson to learn of if something has a single source.
00:06:57
But that should be interesting to see if we learn anything further from that. And just kind of on
00:07:04
that, on the heels of that, this just broke today that Prince Harry and Princess Meghan Markle
00:07:12
are suing the Daily Mail. Oh, it's one of those. Is it one of those you like sent a drone into our backyard and now we have to move?
00:07:21
Yes, they actually published a private letter that she sent to her estranged father.
00:07:26
So apparently the estranged father, I don't know, sold the letter to the Daily Mail.
00:07:31
So I just thought that was kind of funny timing that I just saw that this afternoon.
00:07:36
Well, speaking of England and the UK. Oh, hello. You guys can get tickets for a couple of the shows, have some tickets left.
00:07:43
Just the most seamless transition. I'm good at this. No, yeah, you really are. I'm getting better and better and worse and worse.
00:07:50
And that's that way, too. Manchester on November 22nd has tickets. Glasgow on the 23rd has a couple more tickets.
00:08:00
I think Dublin on the 25th has a few more. And London on the 28th has a couple more, too.
00:08:04
So, yeah, we're not entirely sold out for that very brief UK and Ireland tour. Right.
00:08:10
So also, my favorite weekend is like a month away. Yes, it's going to be so good.
00:08:15
So good in Santa Barbara, November 1st and 2nd. We'll see you guys there. There's still tickets available.
00:08:20
Go to myfavoriteweekend.com. Oh, I have a like an addition to corner. OK. So a couple of people after I did the Triangle Shortwaist Fire Factory Fire last week talked
00:08:32
about the, you know, dire conditions in factories in the US until, you know, this happened and
00:08:39
things got better-ish. Someone, a couple people pointed out to me that you can, you should still
00:08:46
be learning about ethical clothing production around the world because it is really awful in
00:08:50
certain parts of the world. So to learn about fast fashion and ethical clothing production,
00:08:55
there's a hashtag called Who Made My Clothes. And it just, and on Instagram, it just has some
00:09:00
details about what you're buying, you know, who's making your clothes, what's happening to the
00:09:06
workers. And it's just an important thing. And I want to make sure everyone knows that I know that,
00:09:11
you know, this isn't fixed. No. So no, not at all. Yeah. Yeah. And always good to know,
00:09:16
like further information, further reading, all of that stuff on these topics. We do love to hear
00:09:21
about it. Yeah. It's fun to learn. Yeah. Everybody learning. Are we going to talk at all about other
00:09:26
podcasts that we've been listening to or anything? What? Yeah, I do. Tell me what happened on Do You Need a Ride last week?
00:09:33
Oh, are we going to do Exactly Right first? Oh, wait. What did you mean? Oh, I actually just had
00:09:38
a podcast I can't stop listening to. Oh my god, tell me. I need one. I'm writing it down. You may have listened to
00:09:42
it already because I don't think it's brand new. But it's a podcast called Culpable. It's the first season.
00:09:48
Did you listen to it? Which one is it? The first season is about the murder of Christian
00:09:54
Andriacchio and And his basically his mother's one woman crusade to get because it was one of those things where it was ruled a suicide pretty much immediately.
00:10:09
And then the the city of Meridian would not take the case back up. And it's been broken.
00:10:17
This story keeps getting broken publicly. Crime Watch Daily did a story about it.
00:10:22
And now they made this podcast. And on the podcast, you basically are there as it's becoming more and more public and well known.
00:10:31
Oh, is it so frustrating and angering and all this stuff? It's yes. And it's it's but it is also it's one of those things like when, you know, this is something that when you like true crime, you're kind of in it a lot.
00:10:45
And so I think we take I definitely take it for granted a lot. this woman's son was murdered. And she has an entire town telling her, not only was he not
00:10:57
murdered, he commits suicide, but drop it and no one listening to her. And she just hasn't let up
00:11:04
and has not dropped it and has basically diligently worked to try to solve it. And it's so inspiring
00:11:10
and beautiful. And just this example of what people can get done if they, if they like stick
00:11:17
to it and believe in every single person that comes in to start looking at the case to,
00:11:23
you know, help an expert or these podcasters or whatever. Every single person is like, oh, my God, this story, this has to be solved.
00:11:30
This has to be we have to figure out what really happened. And it's just amazing listening.
00:11:35
It's beautifully produced. I think it's Payne Lindsay's production company. It's really well done.
00:11:41
I'm going to check it out. It's called Culpable. I'm just in season one night now.
00:11:44
I think they have a couple other seasons. I'll check it out. But I'm thrilled for them.
00:11:49
It's such good work. I love it. I need a new one. Yeah. What's going on in your other podcast?
00:11:55
There it is again It a beautiful transition into the TV Guide Time exactly right network we have the Perkast
00:12:05
of course Stephen Ray Morris' podcast and our friend Deanna Rooney is on it this week
00:12:09
talking about the race for the rescues that she's doing on October 12th that I love
00:12:13
that we're sponsoring her in the race it's really awesome is it actually like a long race Stephen?
00:12:19
it's like a 5k or something right? yeah there's a I think there's a 5k a 10k and like a 1k
00:12:23
and you can bring your dogs I don't think there's any cats running. I would hope not.
00:12:29
It's actually a bull run, like a bull run with cats. It's going to be great. It's really angry cats.
00:12:35
Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah. And then you guys do a Q&A on Do You Need a Ride? On Do You Need a Ride, we drove around and answered people's questions that Stephen got from the Internet.
00:12:45
And we did it for so long that I drove into and past Alhambra. I don't know what I did, but we were so far away.
00:12:52
Because usually we just kind of like drive around Glendale and Burbank or whatever.
00:12:56
We were deep into the, what is that, the San Gabriel Valley? What do you call that area?
00:13:03
I don't even know. Inland Empire? No, we were like further east than the east side.
00:13:09
Yes, we went past the east side. And then we were in, and kind of past Elhambra.
00:13:13
It was fascinating. We took pictures. Learning your city. Yeah, really. I don't know how I did it, but I was truly lost.
00:13:20
I had no idea where I was. That's how you know. If you like listening to people get lost in the car and answer questions about, like, do you want to fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
00:13:32
I mean, we really get into that stuff. That's a good one. Yeah. That's a great question.
00:13:37
Yeah. It's one horse-sized duck, right? Yes, it is. Okay. That's the correct answer.
00:13:41
I knew it. Yeah. And then, of course, Murder Squad this week. They did the really super important Indigenous women episode about the, you know, missing and murdered Indigenous women.
00:13:52
And at an insane rate, they go missing and murdered. Yeah. And bringing attention to that.
00:13:57
And again, we tease this all the time, but there are more coming and we can't wait to tell you what they are.
00:14:03
Yeah. And then the Fall Line and this podcast will kill you. Check out their they're on a hiatus for the season.
00:14:08
but you can catch up now and there will have new season soon. Yeah. It's exciting.
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Data accurate is of 2-20-26. Um, am I first this week? Yep. Okay. This kind of, this is similar to the one I did last week, but different.
00:16:36
And it's one of my favorite stories to tell at parties to seem like I'm really excited about something.
00:16:42
And then people realize what I'm excited about is something morbid and horrible.
00:16:46
Okay. And do they still want to be friends with me? Right. It's the ultimate test.
00:16:49
Yeah. Or they say, oh, I've got to go have a cigarette and walk away. And you're like, you don't smell.
00:16:54
You don't even smell? I'll come with you. So this is the story of the Radium Girls.
00:16:59
Oh, it's so good. Yeah, this is like fucking next level. It's so similar. And while I was working on the Triangle Shortwaist Factory Fire, I was like, I should do the Radium Girls.
00:17:10
Didn't expect to do it so quickly, but sometimes you just do it. Well, it's fun to do things that you get excited about.
00:17:16
It's a good way to follow. Right. This was like really easy for me to do because I know it and I love it.
00:17:23
Yes. tried to do it for Drunk History, but I think they got someone else to do it.
00:17:27
So, fuck you, Derek Waters. No, I'm kidding. I love him. Okay. So, I got a lot of information from a CNN article by Jaco P. Price Prisco.
00:17:42
I'm sure I got that wrong. A BuzzFeed article called The Forgotten Story of the Radium Girls by Kate Moore.
00:17:47
An article on todayifoundout.com by Dave and Hiske. and the book The Radium Girls The Dark Story of America Shining Women by Kate Moore So oh she also wrote that article the BuzzFeed article Yeah I wonder if they went ahead and just took parts of her book and then made an article about it
00:18:06
They did. So aside from The Radium Girls by Kate Moore, there's two books that I fucking adore that have some of this info.
00:18:13
And like, if you're into this shit more. So The Poisoner's Handbook is a really incredible book by Deborah Blum.
00:18:19
and The Disappearing Spoon, which I've listened to fucking so many times by Sam Kean, K-E-A-N.
00:18:27
It's true tales of madness, love, and history in the world from the periodic table of elements.
00:18:33
So like every fucking element has some insane story behind it. And he tells them all.
00:18:37
Oh, that's such a good way to learn. And it's a really great book. And I've listened to both of them and they're great on audiobook too.
00:18:43
Very cool. Yeah. So, okay, let me tell you real quick about Radium. Great. Radium is a radioactive chemical element.
00:18:51
Karen. Georgia's eyes just got so big. They've always been big. He was just like, did you know?
00:19:01
Karen, it was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie. Oh, yeah. You know, our girl.
00:19:06
And OK, so this is at a time when like the X-ray had just been discovered. This is all like brand new fucking crazy like radiation had just been discovered.
00:19:16
So this is all really exciting and new. Five years after they discovered it, it won.
00:19:21
And they won a Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery, making Marie the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
00:19:27
Hell yes, Marie. Yes. Good job. But not for this one, because this one sucks. Yeah.
00:19:31
Okay. It was quickly put to use as cancer treatment. And that fact, the fact that it was used to treat cancer, made people believe it could be used as an all-healing health tonic.
00:19:41
They're just like, great, let's use it. In the same way that people are like, heroin?
00:19:45
Let's put it in baby formula. it makes me be so quiet when did they do that and then like turn of the century
00:19:51
like heroin and cocaine were like drugs you could buy in little like medicine things we're like
00:19:56
yes i swear no no no i believe you okay put a picture of a little bottle with heroin like it says heroin put a pep in your step
00:20:07
i swear sleep sleep sounds little baby with your heroin bottle sleep like a baby when you put your
00:20:14
baby on heroin okay so uh it was all the rage because they were like this is the fucking like
00:20:21
literally the pep in your step um it was used as an additive in a bunch of everyday products like
00:20:26
toothpaste cosmetics high-end spas that we always talk about used it in their waters they had like
00:20:32
radium radium waters oh dude yeah it was added to beverages and even butter and it was like it was
00:20:37
touted as this fucking like snake oil tonic because they didn't know how it worked yet so
00:20:43
So why not have everyone drink it? Just use it then. Drink it up. Some really rich people even got it injected into them.
00:20:49
I'm serious. I believe you. I live in Los Angeles. Injected right into their forehead.
00:20:56
I have a face of Botox. Who am I to fucking speak, you know? Radioactive tonics began to be used for any ailment, including fever, gout, and constipation,
00:21:07
as well as any issue the sufferer needed an extra pep from like fatigue and impotence.
00:21:13
Oh, it was kind of like, you know, here we go. We'll jazz it right up. They called it liquid sunshine.
00:21:21
And actually, because it stimulates the red blood cells, it actually does give an illusion of health like rosy cheeks.
00:21:28
So it does like people are like, it's working. Yeah. You know, yeah. And then their cheeks explode.
00:21:32
Yeah. Then the cheeks fall off. Right. Red and then gone. it becomes the new wonder drug
00:21:39
it's the most expensive substance in the world at the time costing the equivalent of
00:21:44
2.2 million per gram in today's money holy shit I don't know how much cocaine is but I'm guessing it's not that much
00:21:50
no it really isn't okay not the kind I get what you don't pay for cocaine stop it I get it free all my dealers
00:21:58
love true crime but one of the most successful radium products was the radioluminescent paint that
00:22:05
was made from it. So look, I'm not getting into the fucking deets of the science and
00:22:09
shit. Obviously, this isn't about that. We don't do it here. No. So basically, they made this luminescent paint, which worked by converting the
00:22:17
radiation into light through a fluorescent chemical, and it provided a pale glowing paint. So think of that this Halloween when you see glow-in-the-dark shit.
00:22:26
You know what it makes you think of is my grandma's clock. That's exactly it. Right? That's the old... Does she have an old-timey clock?
00:22:34
Yeah. I mean, I don't think it was true radium, but it was like the kind of thing where you'd
00:22:38
wake up in the middle of the night and that would be the only light in the room.
00:22:41
It might. It was made before 1968. It could have been radium. Oh, shit. Yeah. No wonder we're all so fucked up.
00:22:47
Yeah. And the heroin. She'd always make us touch this clock. Lick the clock. What?
00:22:53
Grandma, why do we have to lick the clock? I don't want to lick the clock. Do it.
00:22:57
Karen. Marie. Curie. Curie. Lick this clock. the paint was used for clock hands and instrument dials.
00:23:05
So that's like, that was the biggest, most exciting use of them. It enabled like watches and pocket watches and clocks and shit to be right in
00:23:13
the dark, which there weren't pocket lights or pocket watch lights at the time. You know,
00:23:17
like this is, you had, this is the only way they could be right at night. Sorry.
00:23:20
Have they still not invented pocket lights? Because what a time to live. What is the true dark ages?
00:23:29
Literally the dark ages. Literally. But they had heroin at least The dark pocket age of shit
00:23:34
Forget it Don't edit that up So close So okay this is one of my favorite facts The reason this became popular
00:23:42
The watches being illuminated Is because during World War I When military maneuvers required
00:23:48
Precise synchronization They needed those lights Those watches to light up at night
00:23:53
And in the dark trenches And they needed it to happen without the enemy spotting them
00:23:58
And like you know shining a fucking torch on their like on their watch and at the time um wrist watches was for like ladies mostly
00:24:06
but during the world war one they became popular with men and soldiers um so once the war was over
00:24:13
soldiers came back with these fucking newfangled wrist watch slash illumination watchy times
00:24:19
and everyone lost their shit yeah i fucking need that i need that that's right um you need to lay
00:24:26
lay in bed at night not sleeping and staring at my watch. Exactly. Light pollution, man.
00:24:33
It's a real bitch. The dial, so basically every little number and every little line
00:24:40
and second line and the hands and shit were all painted with this illuminating paint, guys. You get it.
00:24:46
So it's shown all the time, didn't require charging and sunlight. Everyone's like,
00:24:50
this is fucking magic. Yeah. Now we have heroin, cocaine, and fucking nice watches. And time.
00:24:56
And time. And just time anytime we want to look at it. That's right. We're living, truly living.
00:25:02
Truly madly. Also, smoking was healthy back then. Yeah. What a time. And now we're vaping.
00:25:08
I'm vaping. I should say I'm vaping. Please stop vaping. And I have Botox in my face.
00:25:12
Oh, but speaking of, sorry, sidebar. Go. But Steven sends me a fucking, we should post this.
00:25:17
Steven sends me a picture of a vape the other day and goes, is this yours? Did you leave it at the studio?
00:25:23
And I'm like, no, it's not my fucking vape, Steven. Who do you think I am? I took a real gamble with who I texted first
00:25:29
Yes, I am proud that I was not the first person to be texted I'm so mad I was like, fuck no
00:25:36
What did I write you? I was so mad I think you were just like, hell no And then you were like, do you think it's Georgia's?
00:25:41
And I just didn't answer You picked me as a vaper first I feel like Tori spelling right now
00:25:47
I'm just like, Donna I'm like, Donna Martin graduates I don't get picked for the vape
00:25:52
This is the fucking best I seem like an innocent girl But really, I'm stealing I don't even know who I am then
00:25:59
Because Jesus Christ, I was just like Have I ever vaped in front of you, Steven?
00:26:04
How dare you? I am not a fucking DJ Get away Stop making fun of me It was mine Was it really?
00:26:13
Oh, yeah You didn't know that? This is my vape fan It's CBD and just a smooch of THC
00:26:21
Oh, I thought you figured that out Oh, shit Am I allowed to announce that AI vape and...
00:26:29
But please don't do that because it's going to kill you. It's so bad for your lungs.
00:26:34
I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm trying not to. You just rub the cream on your arm, so you'll be fine.
00:26:38
Okay, thank you. It's mostly CBD. It was her! You son of a bitch, Steven. And I was so nice about your haircut.
00:26:46
Oh, I'm so sorry. I got the text and I was like, God damn it! Okay. Oh my God. I literally thought it was going to be like, someone left their vapor.
00:26:57
Billy Jensen. Billy Jensen. He stays up at night solving crimes and vaping at his desk.
00:27:03
He's like a detective, but it's not so cool. Modern. One of the factories to produce these watches that we were talking about opens in Orange, New Jersey in 1916.
00:27:16
So it's like they had gotten the military contract to make these luminescent watches for soldiers.
00:27:22
So that's a big deal. They're called the U.S. Radium Corporation, and they hire about 70 women and girls, some as young as 14.
00:27:30
It's the same situation as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where, you know, young girls worked and they worked in these big, you know, factories all set up together.
00:27:39
But it was actually a well-paid, glamorous job. And like the girls who got – and I'm going to say girls a lot, and I know I mean young women, but just please bear with me.
00:27:50
It was a glamorous job. It paid three times as much as a regular factory job. Okay.
00:27:56
And then also they were listed as artists in their town directories. So it was like kind of a prestigious job.
00:28:01
Nice. Yeah. And they told their friends and sisters and they all got hired for it as well.
00:28:05
So like everyone was stoked on this fucking position. It was, quote, the elite job for the poor working girls.
00:28:11
It paid more than three times the average factory job. And so if you're making five bucks an hour and suddenly you're making like it was like 15 to 18, it's bananas.
00:28:20
And they got to work with radium, which in their minds was like the healthy fucking tonic.
00:28:25
It was like that vitamin C stuff that you pour in water when you go on a plane. That's right.
00:28:31
That actually doesn't do anything except for make you feel better. That's right.
00:28:35
That's just harrowing, Karen. I wish. Okay. And they soon became known as radium girls.
00:28:44
And they ranked in the top 5% of female workers nationally. And eventually, an estimated 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. and Canada.
00:28:53
A lot of them were U.S. Radium Corporation workers to paint watch faces with radium between 1917 and 1926.
00:29:01
So this was a big fucking career move for women. Can I give you a prediction that I have for this story?
00:29:08
Okay. By the end of this story, the U.S. Radium Corporation is going to change their name.
00:29:14
Oh, no. Believe that. Just believe it. Okay. So this is at a time when women are slowly gaining financial freedom.
00:29:23
The boys are all the way at war so they can have these fucking awesome jobs. And this is like the best one.
00:29:27
And it's a time of growing female empowerment. So this is like changing the way women live and work.
00:29:34
And that's an important step in it. Except it's radium. So, well, another perk of the radium paint that it made everything it touched shimmer and glow in the dark.
00:29:44
So after work, so like they turn the lights off and they'd sprinkle it on their heads and dance in it.
00:29:50
They'd wear their fanciest dresses to work so that it can glow. And after work they go to the speakeasies they go to the dance halls and they be the glowing girls And they look you know effervescent Yeah Yeah that a great word
00:30:05
Thank you. Illuminescent. Yeah. Illuminescent. But I bet you they were like so thrilled.
00:30:10
It was like they got to be a part of the new wave of something. And it's like you go out and it's like, oh, that must be one of those girls who has that fucking tits job.
00:30:18
Yes. I'm going to go borrow $7 from her. That's right. That's what I would be thinking.
00:30:22
It's a fortune. And the radium dust was in the factory air itself. It was like glowing.
00:30:28
So they even rubbed it on their teeth to like freak each other out. And they painted their nails with it to make them glow as well.
00:30:36
They became known as ghost girls because they would be walking home in the dark and just be fucking glowing.
00:30:42
They're the first goths. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They blow their noses and their tissues would glow.
00:30:48
That's like my sister. sorry but my sister texted me one time and she's like i just blew my nose and glitter came out
00:30:54
because i teach kindergarten i love that that's exactly what that is so here's the thing though
00:31:02
obviously that's all bad because now we know radium is fucking toxic but they didn't at the
00:31:07
time um and the technique they'd been taught to get these teeny tiny numbers on wrist watches
00:31:13
painted small enough the tiny dials which sometimes were only 3.5 centimeters wide
00:31:18
was called lip pointing. After painting, each number of the girls were instructed
00:31:24
to slip the tip of this teeny tiny paintbrush between their lips to make it a fine point.
00:31:30
So you'd paint the one lip point. You'd paint the two. Yeah. Let me go through the dial.
00:31:37
Count me up to 25. Have you been fucking with my vape? You wouldn't. You know, conceptually, yes.
00:31:48
So it was known as the lip dip paint routine. So with every digit, the girls swallowed a little bit of radium.
00:31:55
And the women were not stupid. They were like, yo, is this fucking safe? And the managers were like, no, it's totally safe.
00:32:02
It'll put a rosy glow in your cheeks. It's fine. Even though the like big wig men were wearing like fucking lead, you know, jackets to work with it.
00:32:11
And we're very careful with it. And I'm sure already knew that it was, you know, radioactive.
00:32:18
When did they when did they truly know? Pretty is a good question. Pretty early on, I would say.
00:32:23
Yeah. So and it's only a 20 year, 20 year old element. So like what, you know, even if they knew they didn't know the long term effects of it at all.
00:32:32
Yeah. But just like vaping, just it's almost exactly the same shit. In fact, Marie Curie herself had suffered radiation burns from handling her own fucking finding.
00:32:43
Yeah. And Pierre Curie had once said that he would not want to be in a room with pure radium because he believed it would burn all the skin off his body, destroy his eyesight and, quote, probably kill him.
00:32:55
But they're like, no, but put those fucking pain brush chips in your mouth. Yeah. As you can imagine, since it's fucking radioactive, the women started to experience side effects of fucking unknowingly feeding themselves radium pretty quickly.
00:33:08
In the early 20s, 1920s, some of the radium girls started developing symptoms like chronic exhaustion, tooth and jaw pains, even stillborn births.
00:33:18
22-year-old Molly Magia, M-A-G-G-I-A, Magia. Magia or Magia? Yeah. She had to quit her job at the radium factory because of the aching pain in her limbs that were so agonizing that they eventually left her unable to walk.
00:33:35
And that's in the early 1920s. And this job wasn't that old. So she had been erroneously diagnosed with rheumatism and had been prescribed only aspirin at first.
00:33:48
But quickly, she had lost most of her teeth. It was the thing was that the teeth would come out and in their place, these agonizing ulcers would grow.
00:33:56
And the teeth would just come out. And then her entire lower jaw and the roof of her mouth and even some of the bones of her ears were said to be one large abscess.
00:34:07
Oh, God. Yeah. And this is after a couple of years of this. So her entire lower jawbone had become so brittle that her doctor removed it simply by lifting it out.
00:34:20
Oh, my God. Yeah. This is like. Bad news. Uh-huh. Yeah. Intense. Yeah. Her jawbone was found to be riddled with teeny, these teeny tiny holes.
00:34:29
And this is because the body actually treats radium as a calcium substitute. So it, you know, absorbs like it would absorb calcium.
00:34:38
It absorbs radium into the bone. Right. But instead of strengthening the bones like calcium, radium kills off the bone tissue.
00:34:45
But the women weren't yet aware of the culprit. Of course, that's because the specialist who'd begun to help the women who were suffering,
00:34:52
Dr. Frederick Flynn of Columbia University. After declaring there was absolutely nothing wrong with them,
00:34:58
he turned out not to be a licensed physician, but a toxicologist working for the very radium factory
00:35:04
that the women worked for, the U.S. Radium Corporation. Boo. And the man who was introduced as his colleague
00:35:10
was actually a vice president there as well. So they were like, yo, we're doctors.
00:35:15
You're fine. Don't worry about it. It's horrible. So the U.S. Radium Corporation also paid off local doctors and dentists to tell the women that they were suffering from syphilis.
00:35:27
And partly, like, they told them they were suffering from syphilis. And it was also, like, shaming them to not talk about it.
00:35:34
Yeah, to shut up. And that was being written on their charts and written as eventually their cause of death, which was shameful to the family.
00:35:41
And they could use it against them in court if they had to later down the road. What a fucking dastardly move.
00:35:47
This is only a hundred years ago. Fuck. That's not that long ago, guys. So when the girls started dying from their radiant poisoning,
00:35:54
first with Maggie on September 12 1922 she just 24 years old The list of cause of death is syphilis 18 Grace Fryer she had started to work as a dial painter on April 10 1917
00:36:10
just four days after the U.S. had joined World War I. She wanted to do all she could to help with the war effort,
00:36:16
which I think a lot of women getting these jobs felt they were doing all they could.
00:36:20
Yeah. But by the time Maggie had died, Grace Fryer, too, was having trouble with her jaw and suffering pains in her feet.
00:36:28
And so were her colleagues. And their legs broke underneath them. Their spines collapsed like these were they were bedridden and soon more were dying.
00:36:37
Oh, my God. Yeah. The United the U.S. Radium Corporation denied any responsibility for the deaths for almost two years.
00:36:44
But when their bottom line was threatened by the shrinking sales due to the rumors that were spreading about the dangers of radium.
00:36:52
So finally, people aren't like buying it anymore. And they're like, all right, we got to do something.
00:36:55
Yeah. In 1924, they commissioned an expert to look into the rumored link between the dial painting profession and the women's deaths.
00:37:02
The independent study confirmed the link between the radium and the women's illnesses.
00:37:05
But instead of accepting the findings and making the changes that had been suggested.
00:37:13
Thank you. The company paid for new studies that published the opposite conclusion, and they also lied to the Department of Labor, which had begun investigating about the verdict of the original report.
00:37:24
Bastards. Totally. So in 1925, a doctor named Harrison Martland devised tests that proved once and for all that radium had poisoned the women.
00:37:33
Fucking finally. Martland discovered that when radium was used internally, even a tiny amount, the radium had essentially honeycombed the women's bones.
00:37:42
Oh, my God. I know. It's so dark. It's so dark. It's so dark. In 1925, Grace Fryer, her spine was essentially crushed and she had to wear a steel back brace.
00:37:54
She decided to sue, finally, the U.S. Radium Corporation. But she would spend two years searching for just a lawyer who was willing to help her.
00:38:04
That's like two years of that. But she said, quote, it is not for myself. I care.
00:38:09
I am thinking more of the hundreds of girls to whom this may serve as an example.
00:38:13
Yes. Because remember, there's like 4,000 of these workers out there. And like, it's, as you said, just the beginning of this kind of empowerment where women are like, I can have a job.
00:38:23
I can get paid decently. Yeah. Like all these ideas where it's almost like this is the, you know, they could interpret it as like, oh, this is what I get for trying to leave the kitchen.
00:38:34
Right. So it's like, thank God. Yeah. And it is this thing of like these women stood up to ship being unfair.
00:38:41
Like it's straight up like that's not fair. It's like basic fucking fairness. It's not.
00:38:46
Yeah. It's not only not fair. You must be psychopaths to do this and then try to justify it.
00:38:53
Totally. And lie about it. Yeah, exactly. So other women's legs were shortened and they spontaneously fractured.
00:38:59
sometimes the moment a woman realized she even had radium poisoning was when she caught sight of
00:39:05
herself in a mirror in the middle of the night as the radium had embedded itself in her bones
00:39:11
and had caused them to glow from the inside out oh god so she'd walk by a mirror see herself glowing
00:39:17
and be like fuck and like all of her fucking friends and co-workers were dying they literally
00:39:22
were and falling apart yeah so by then dr martlin had also found that the poisoning was fatal because
00:39:29
there was no way to remove the radium from your body. So Grace was finally able to find a lawyer named Raymond Berry, who, along with Grace
00:39:37
and four fellow workers, Catherine Schaub, Edna Hussman, Quinta McDonald, and Albina
00:39:45
LaRice, accepted their case in 1927. Wow. Yeah. They were seeking $250,000 in damages, which is about $3.4 million today.
00:39:54
Good. But they wanted to just fucking pay their increasing medical bills. They wanted, they couldn't work, so they wanted money for that.
00:40:01
And eventually they needed the money for their own funerals. And they knew it. Isn't that fucking horrific?
00:40:06
Yes. That you need, you're suing this company because you need money for your own funeral.
00:40:10
Which is probably right around the corner. Yeah. So keep in mind that some of the women are still employed at the fucking factory.
00:40:16
But even with a lawyer, they had a huge fight ahead of them due to the two year, there was
00:40:20
a two year statute of limitations on occupational poisoning, which is like, huh?
00:40:26
Fucking statute of limitations. Who passed that law. And so most of the girls didn't start to get sick from radium poisoning until at least five years after they started work.
00:40:36
So that was already gone by the time they fucking realized they were even sick. Yeah.
00:40:40
The rich and powerful radium corporations, of course, they had to fight them. And the fact that they had to fight a legal battle that necessitated the overturning of an existing legislation, which is huge.
00:40:51
Like, it's not just like I'm suing based on this. It's I need to turn this over.
00:40:55
So I have the right to sue. Yeah. Crazy. But Grace was the daughter of a union delegate and she had chutzpah.
00:41:02
Badass. Totally. By now, the fight had become internationally famous. And there were all these people who were on the women's side and couldn't believe this was happening.
00:41:10
And there were a lot that were like, this is starting to be during the downturn of the Great Depression.
00:41:17
And so they were like, you know, some people were against them because they were like, don't fight the people who are giving you jobs, which is ridiculous.
00:41:24
Yeah, well, and it's very much like keep people in power who will kill you for money.
00:41:30
Right, exactly. Yeah. We just need jobs no matter what they are. No. No. So the U.S. Radium Corporation, of course, wanted to delay the trial as much as possible
00:41:39
with the hope that all the women in the case would die before the outcome would be reached.
00:41:43
Oh, wow. Yeah. So they just kept, you know, being like our executives are on vacation for months and
00:41:50
they kept calling these long recesses for like months and months. And I think that was pissing a lot of the public off because they could tell what was happening So they kind of rallied around the women In fact by the time the women finally appeared in court to testify in January of 1928 none
00:42:06
of them were able to raise their arms to take the oath. Oh, my God. And two were bedridden.
00:42:13
And these are young women. These are young fucking women. As some of the women had just been given four months to live and the company seemed intent
00:42:20
on dragging out the legal proceedings. The case was finally settled in the women's favor in 1928,
00:42:27
and it became a milestone of occupational hazard law and raised the profile of radium poisoning
00:42:33
just as Grace had wanted. That was her whole fucking point. I think she knew she wasn't going to survive.
00:42:38
In all, by 1927, more than 50 women had died as a direct result of radium paint poisoning.
00:42:44
And despite denials of any fault by the U.S. Radium Corporation, after the lawsuit,
00:42:48
they and other factories that dealt with radium laced paint, they changed the working conditions
00:42:54
quickly. I think they were like realizing this was going to be fucking bad. They
00:42:59
they banned the lip pointing so you couldn't put the brush. Okay, good. Thank you. You were telling
00:43:05
us to do it. Now you don't want us to do it. Great. And they gave them protection,
00:43:09
protective clothing to minimize exposure. And after these simple changes were instituted,
00:43:15
which actually had been suggested and ignored years before by that independent study,
00:43:20
the health issues among dial painters quickly went away. And it's likely that at least some of them still got cancer later in life as a result of working with the radium paint.
00:43:32
Right. But significantly lower amounts. By the time of Grace's settlement, the dangers of radium were publicly known.
00:43:39
People stopped fucking bathing and drinking in it, buttering their toast with it or whatever the fuck.
00:43:44
Health toast. Yeah. More women sued and the radium companies appealed several times.
00:43:53
But in 1939, the Supreme Court rejected the last appeal. So finally that happened.
00:43:58
The survivors received compensation and the death certificates of the women who had been put as syphilis as all these other conditions that weren't real and true.
00:44:08
They were changed to radium poisoning, which I think is a big, you know, a big deal.
00:44:13
Yes, that is such an invasive, shitty move. Like, what sinister mind was behind that?
00:44:20
Yeah, and they actually resurrected Maggie's body. Sorry, I'm listening to an 1800s New York resurrectionist book right now.
00:44:29
Oh, they disinterred it? Yeah, and dug it up. And she was glowing. Like, it lasts lifetimes.
00:44:38
Yeah. Um, the Radium Girls case was one of the first in which an employer was made responsible for the health of the company's employees.
00:44:46
And it led to regulations that saved lives and ultimately to the establishment of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which now operates nationally in the United States to protect workers.
00:44:58
Before OSHA was set up, 14,000 people died on the job every year. Wow. Today, it's just over 4,500, which is a fucking lot.
00:45:08
But yeah, I mean, it's a lot. That's a lot. The women also left a legacy to science that's been termed invaluable as it revealed the dangers of radium.
00:45:19
So thankfully, people stopped using it. Yeah. In fact, Marie Curie's notes from the 1890s are still considered too dangerous to handle without protection due to the high levels of radioactivity and are stored in lead line boxes.
00:45:33
Her notes about this. About radium. Yeah, and she died from aplastic anemia in 1934, resulting from long-term ionizing radiation exposure.
00:45:45
So she died fucking from radiation exposure as well. Yeah. But I think clearly Grace Fryer is a fucking hero.
00:45:52
Hell yeah. And cheers to her. Yeah. Oh, my God. And that's the story of the radium girls.
00:45:59
You know, first of all, amazing. and also don't you think could it be that because of the triangle short waist fire
00:46:08
and the results of that that when they finally did get caught they actually that's the difference
00:46:15
there's a tiny bit of an improvement where the triangle short waist fire guys were just like now we're going to open another
00:46:22
factory everything's the same you can't touch us and in this one at least they were just like
00:46:27
okay shut all that down make these fixes. Let's do a couple changes. And this is also in New Jersey
00:46:33
around the same time. So it's like, I'm sure they were following. Tri-state area.
00:46:37
Tri-state. It got around. That was great. Wow. Thank you. So yeah, next time you're at a party, give it a
00:46:43
shot and say, have you heard of the Radium Girls? Hey, I just want to talk to you.
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Data accurate is of 220-26. Well, this week I'm going to do my friend Bradford's hometown, actually.
00:49:07
He is from Bradford Berluski. He's from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And he told me about this a while ago.
00:49:16
But he kept saying, did I ever tell you about the Dairy Queen murder? What? And then I was like, no.
00:49:23
And he's like, I'll send you the article. And then he didn't do it for like years.
00:49:27
And he finally sent it to me. What it's really called is the murder of Lisa Sahaski.
00:49:33
So classic. Yeah. So it is. It's just it's a classic one. I got the information from an article from the Chicago Tribune, CBS 58 WDJT, Milwaukee, which is the local news and the Wisconsin State Farmer.
00:49:52
there's a book called Killer Women that you know every once in a while you'll look up
00:49:57
a story and it'll just show you pages from a book but it'll only show you a certain amount of pages
00:50:02
you have to read the whole thing whatever there's a book called Killer Women Devastating True Stories of Female Murderers
00:50:11
by Wensley Clarkson and so I read a couple pages of that book until they wouldn't let me read anymore
00:50:16
but there's a lot of good information in that And OK, so on the morning of September 21st, 1989, Shirley Sahaski realizes that her daughter, Lisa, who works as the assistant sales and catering manager at the Howard Johnson Hotel, has not come home from her night shift.
00:50:38
So Shirley drives over there to see if Lisa is still at work or what's going on.
00:50:44
And when she gets there, she sees that her daughter's car is still in the parking lot.
00:50:48
So she's really relieved. And then she goes, walks up and looks inside her daughter's car. And after that, nothing would be the same for her again.
00:50:58
So Lisa's has key is the daughter of ginseng farmers and Burnham Wood, Wisconsin. Lisa's an ambitious, smart, popular girl.
00:51:09
She was the 1986 homecoming queen at Wittenberg Burnham One High School. And when in 1984, she started dating a local dairy farmer named Bill Buss, who was five years older than her.
00:51:25
So this is this is like upstate Wisconsin, basically very rural. It's rural and it's very and agricultural.
00:51:35
And so that's, you know, that's what a lot of people do up there. Like a normal life.
00:51:44
Exactly. Yeah. And so a lot of farming, a lot of cows and dairy. Smelly. The smells are amazing.
00:51:53
You know. And of course, what was Wisconsin's famous for? Cheese. So Bill, the guy she was dating, he had also gone to the same high school.
00:52:03
but he was about five years older, as I said. So after graduation, he took over running his parents' 50-acre farm.
00:52:11
Nice. And he ran it by himself. So he had to do all the work on the farm, did everything.
00:52:13
Oh, my God. Fuck that. So he was a real, you know, salt-of-the-earth kind of person.
00:52:21
So Lisa dates Bill for around three years, but they break things off in 1987 because Lisa wants to become a travel agent.
00:52:30
So she that's what she's planning to do. And Bill wants her to basically settle down and start a family with him and live on the farm.
00:52:40
And he's, you know, like doesn't like that. She doesn't just want to do that. So they decide to end it.
00:52:46
And soon after, Bill starts dating other people. And he eventually starts to seriously date another local beauty queen, 18 year old Lori Esker.
00:52:59
So Lori grows up in Hatley, Wisconsin, on her family's 450 acre farm. His was 50?
00:53:08
His was 50. So it's a big old, a big old ranch. I grew up in a condo. I can't even imagine a fucking farm.
00:53:17
I grew up in a plain old house next to a very small farm that had no output. It was just kind of for fun, essentially.
00:53:24
Love it. For 4-H, essentially. but yeah these are people that like farm they sell milk
00:53:32
they don't complain how do they never complain well who would they complain to no one gives a shit
00:53:39
they don't have a boss it's their the boss it's my worst nightmare the cows are like you think you have it bad
00:53:45
look at that machine hooked up to my udders I live to complain that just kills me
00:53:51
that's what people are sowing at night at the kitchen table I live to complain So Lori Easker goes to the same high school that Lisa and Bill went to
00:54:05
She's a year younger than Lisa. She was a member of the National Honor Society. She was the president of her local chapter of the FFA, the Future Farmers of America.
00:54:15
Got it. She's also pretty. She's also ambitious, like Lisa. And after her graduation in 1987, she goes away and studies at the University of Wisconsin River Falls to to study agriculture journalism.
00:54:32
So during her first semester of her freshman year there in 1988, she starts dating the newly single and now 24 year old Bill Buss.
00:54:42
So the next summer, she's actually crowned the Marathon County Dairy Princess. it's a very high honor
00:54:51
it's a very big deal Marathon County is the most dairy intensive county in the state of Wisconsin
00:54:56
so that's really saying something calm down and I guess if you're named the dairy princess
00:55:02
your family has to be involved in dairy production you're like you're in it not just any old pretty face
00:55:11
you're up to your teeth in dairy you gotta know your shit your cow shit So essentially, things seem to be all coming together for Lori until June of 1989.
00:55:28
And that's when Bill breaks up with her. So she's devastated. And she basically thought she was going to settle down with Bill and raise kids and be on his farm.
00:55:42
her family kept several head of cattle on his farm that's like how she knew him that's how you know you're serious
00:55:52
right he's like the hot older farmer that was like around and she would come over to feed her
00:55:58
her cows oh my god how are your cows mine are good okay so he breaks up with her and
00:56:06
she loses her shit because then relatively soon after this breakup, she hears that Bill and Lisa Zahasky have gotten back together
00:56:18
and that he is planning on proposing to her, to Lisa on Lisa's 20th birthday, which is October 25th.
00:56:25
Oh, shit. So according to Lori's college classmates, she was obsessed with Bill.
00:56:31
She talked about getting back together with him constantly. She also told her friends that she hated Lisa Zahasky.
00:56:37
She actually one time they were in the same bar together and she's like called her a bitch and a slut like made a scene at this bar.
00:56:45
So it's very well known around the area that like this that Lori hated Lisa. And a lot, you know, a lot of people knew that Lori was kind of on the edge, but nobody understood how far she would go.
00:57:00
Oh, fuck. So. So one night it's just past midnight. Bill has had to stay up till the way it's explained is that he had to stay up till midnight because that was like the most productive time that he could milk his cows.
00:57:16
So he had to stay up and do it all himself. And then he finally gets back into his house to go to bed at 1245 because he has to get up again at 530 in the morning to start working again.
00:57:27
No complaints. I mean, you just can't. and right as he's trying to go to sleep, 1245, he hears a knock at his front door,
00:57:35
and he tries to ignore it, but it's not going away, and he knows it's not going away,
00:57:40
because the person on the other side of the door isn't going to leave, because she's done it before, and it's Lori Easker.
00:57:46
He had broken up with her three weeks before, but she would not leave him alone,
00:57:52
and she kept driving down from college to his house to talk, to beg him to get back together with her,
00:57:59
trying to have sex with him, saying, you know, like, you know, we need to get back together.
00:58:05
You ever been there before? Oh, my God. You mean pathetic? Yeah. Yes, of course.
00:58:10
It's the worst feeling. It's terrible. And it is that thing of when you're in it,
00:58:16
it is like this is the only person that I will ever have these feelings about. Yeah, you have this adrenaline
00:58:21
and you have this, like, fucking... Well, you have like a dopamine. Yeah. They gave you this dopamine hit and they're not giving it to you anymore.
00:58:30
Totally. So you're like a drug addict that can't get, that's jonesing for your job.
00:58:33
And if you can't get that person back, it proves something about you and you can't let that be proved about you.
00:58:38
So you have to fucking make this work and it's like the only thing you think about.
00:58:41
Yeah. And you could, I think you could put together with those facts about her life that clearly she was an achiever.
00:58:48
She was, you know. Used to winning. Used to winning. Pretty, you know, smart. You know.
00:58:53
used to being the president. Yeah. Used to getting her way. Get through your 20s and your dopamine just kind of levels out.
00:59:01
Yeah. Pretty low. You know what it is? When you're in your 20s, try not to make any big moves.
00:59:06
Yeah. Because although you know you're right. Yeah. And you can believe you're right.
00:59:10
Yeah. A hundred percent. You're not. Yeah. Move in slow motion. Yes. In your 30s.
00:59:16
In your 20s. And if anybody is like waving their arms over their head going, please listen to me.
00:59:20
Yeah. Just do it. Yeah. Just try to listen to them. Especially if it's your sister.
00:59:24
I know she was an asshole when you were young. Right. But she does care about you.
00:59:28
She doesn't want you to look like a fucking idiot. She really is trying to do. She's trying to run interference for you and just save a little bit of face.
00:59:35
And look, we've all been there. If you've made a fool of yourself, you are not alone.
00:59:39
You have just become one in the brotherhood of man. That's right. And the sisterhood of women.
00:59:44
That's right. And also because here's the thing that, you know, it does suck when people are basically like,
00:59:51
well I was going out with the girl I loved but it not working out now I going to shop around and see how I feel forget it I going back Yeah Because and that just what happens sometimes So it can be this point of pride because everybody loses in love until the one time they win
01:00:07
Exactly. It's how it is. Oh, that's lovely. Everyone's a loser until they're not one time.
01:00:13
It's true. It's so true. And I'll say this. I only learned, understood that like when I was like 47, like it took me way too long to get it.
01:00:20
But I think you can win more than once. Definitely. if the winning eventually becomes losing yeah eventually look we are all gonna lose aka die
01:00:31
so or divorce i'm not getting divorced i don't want this to seem like i'm announcing my divorce
01:00:37
if you were to get divorced i would not let you announce it on this podcast that's not how you do it um love you then you have to i love you vince too please don't leave us
01:00:48
so okay but everyone's had this kind of freak out and made an asshole of themselves you have
01:00:55
to know when to drop it especially when like this evening in particular Lori knocks on the door goes inside says
01:01:03
we I know you want to get back together with me it was so good between us begins
01:01:07
taking her clothes off she's wearing lingerie underneath her clothes she's doing
01:01:11
a big sexy presentation he's kind of like what in the hell and he's like I'm not doing this
01:01:17
with you. I'm too tired. No, go home and goes into his room. He goes to bed. She stands there
01:01:24
because she can't believe it's not working. Then she goes into his room, gets on top of him and is
01:01:30
like, I know you want it essentially. And if basically forces him to yell, I don't love you.
01:01:37
I love Lisa. Get out of my house. Give up. And basically he has to like scream it in her face.
01:01:46
she makes him scream it in her face don't make people scream it in your face don't make people scream anything in your face
01:01:52
don't make people suggest it in your face just get away don't let people in your face
01:01:57
there's an amazing when people you can pick your friends screaming faces it's a Nina Simone quote
01:02:09
singer Nina Simone she said you have to learn to get up from the table when love is no longer being served
01:02:15
Nina! Beautiful! Okay, so she finally stops and without a word she gets up and walks
01:02:23
out the door and slams the door and Bill thinks, thank God I finally got rid of that crazy ex-girlfriend.
01:02:29
Guess what? But sadly that was not the case. And two months later on the morning of September
01:02:34
21st, Shirley Sahaski would find the body of her daughter lying dead in her car in the parking lot at
01:02:43
her work. So the police are called to the scene. They determine Lisa's cause of death to be strangulation.
01:02:49
Holy shit. And they announced that they're on the lookout for either a male or a female.
01:02:55
So everybody keep your eyes peeled for everyone around you. Wow. When Bill Buss is questioned by
01:03:01
the police, he brings up the fact that on June 23rd, Lisa had a loud argument with a woman on
01:03:07
his farm after Bill had said that he wanted to end his old relationship and that that woman
01:03:14
was Lori Easker. So, eight days later, police arrest Lori Easker. She's brought in for questioning
01:03:24
on September 29th, 1989. She gives her account of the evening of September 20th,
01:03:30
saying that she had rented a car. She was only 20, so she actually had to convince the rent-a-car person.
01:03:37
And she told this big lie about a thing she needed to go... Grandma died. Yes, she had to go help her
01:03:42
mom or grandma, I can't remember, move and that she really needed it and please and she just charmed her way
01:03:49
into renting a car. That's bananas. Super bananas. She drives the 150 miles northeast
01:03:56
to the Howard Johnson Motel where Lisa works. When she gets there she waits for Lisa in the parking lot.
01:04:03
She sits and waits for Lisa to get off work and then when Lisa walks outside she's standing there and she's like
01:04:11
we need to talk. And she says, we need to talk, get it. We need to get into your car.
01:04:17
Yeah. So once she's inside, the, um, Lori tells Lisa that Bill is hers and she needs to leave him alone.
01:04:25
And Lisa tries to reason with her. Uh, she says, look, it's, it's, you have to give up.
01:04:31
It's not like this anymore. Like you've, it's crazy now. And this is when Lori drops her bombshell.
01:04:38
She tells Lisa that she's pregnant with Bill's baby. And she's expecting Lisa to start crying and break down and get really mad at Bill.
01:04:45
They broke up three weeks earlier. Yeah. And she's basically, this is her thing of like, I'm going to make her like get mad at Bill and freak her out and then break them up essentially.
01:04:56
But instead of that, Lisa tells Lori she knows she's lying. She says that Bill would never betray her.
01:05:03
and that if for some reason he had like been seduced and gotten Lori pregnant, that he would have told her by now because that's the relationship they had
01:05:13
because he really loved her and that she's known Bill for a really long time and Lori has it.
01:05:21
And she basically says she trusts him and she knows that he loves her and not Lori
01:05:26
and that Lori needs to accept it. And this is when Lori snaps. She tells police.
01:05:32
now she tells police that she and laurie um started fighting they got into an argument in
01:05:37
the car that then um basically got out of control and fearing for her life laurie acted in self
01:05:45
defense by grabbing a belt that she found in the backseat of the car and wrapping it around lisa's
01:05:52
that not self no it is not holy shit so the officer that was questioning laurie his his name is Sheriff Deputy Randy Hohenich You got it Sorry Randy
01:06:05
It probably is not. But that's as close as I can get. He asked Lori to demonstrate the strangulation so it could be on record.
01:06:15
And he says that Lori, quote, was not shy or hesitant as to how she did this. As a matter of fact, she had me off my chair and up against the wall in the interview room.
01:06:28
Holy shit. And he said Lori was, quote, a strong, powerful woman. It takes a long time to strangle someone to death.
01:06:35
It takes over two minutes. So the idea that it was an accidental death is impossible.
01:06:41
That's a sustained fucking experience. Like you're not trying to calm someone down.
01:06:48
Well, no. And even if you are. You could use the excuse of like, we got to this site and I was so angry.
01:06:55
I was in a rage. Yeah. But then you then count out two minutes on your watch. Yeah.
01:06:59
And at some point the person's unconscious and you still don't let go. No. And they're fighting you.
01:07:04
Right. It's horrific. Lisa had scratches on her own neck trying to get the belt off of her neck.
01:07:12
Yeah. Oh, my God. So Lori claims she never intended to kill Lisa, that at the time of the strangulation,
01:07:17
she didn't even know if Lisa was dead or just passed out. so she says that she went into lisa's purse took out her makeup bag pulled out uh like a compact
01:07:28
mirror and held it to lisa's mouth to see if her breath would create like steam on the mirror
01:07:34
make sure she was dead yes and then she when she saw that she was not breathing she said that she
01:07:42
told the police that she thought oh my god i've killed her i don't know what i'm going to do i
01:07:47
didn't mean to hurt her. Her parents are going to think I did it on purpose. Honey.
01:07:53
Then she took the belt and she took a ring off of Lisa's finger. What? She leaves the car.
01:07:59
She throws the ring away in a convenience store garbage can and she throws the belt down the incinerator
01:08:05
chute in her dorm. Fuck. Incinerators, man. How much evidence has been fucking burnt to
01:08:11
shreds in dorm incinerators? For real? How about we just close off any kind of access
01:08:16
to an incinerator. To fire. Yeah. Fire of any kind. So, in court, Marathon County District Attorney
01:08:24
Greg Grau argues that a death by strangulation of this fashion could not be accidental,
01:08:31
that Lori would have had the belt in place around Lisa's neck for at least two minutes.
01:08:36
The jury agrees, and after a seven-and-a-half-hour deliberation, Lori Easker is convicted
01:08:42
for the first-degree murder of Lisa Sahaski. She's sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 13 years and nine months on July 16th of this year.
01:08:54
13 years? That's nothing. July 16th of this year, Lori Easker was released from the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove.
01:09:03
She is 50 years old and she is now free on parole. Holy shit. In 1995, the story of Lisa's Haskey's murder was turned into a movie entitled Beauty's Revenge.
01:09:15
starring Tracy Gold and Courtney Thorne-Smith as playing the part of Laurie Easker.
01:09:21
Wait, which one was Laurie Easker? Is the murderer. Courtney Thorne-Smith. Oh, yeah, I see that.
01:09:27
Yeah, from Melrose Place. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is very funny because it's such an old, I mean, now to me it feels antiquated,
01:09:36
that idea of like, can you believe two beautiful girls, like a beautiful girl would do this
01:09:41
where it's like, yes. Yeah. Yes, sociopaths, they are good at being beautiful. It's part of the masking, cloaking technique.
01:09:48
And you don't need a Melrose Place actress to fucking seem evil and beautiful. It's like you can be Tracy Gold and be fucking.
01:09:55
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The thing that when Bradford was telling me about the story, the reason he knows it is because it was, of course, on the news because it was like huge news where he lived.
01:10:08
Yeah. When it happened. And then, like, very, very soon after, like, the trial took place, the TV show Twin Peaks premiered.
01:10:19
And when it came out, his whole family assumed it was a docu-series about this murder.
01:10:25
So they watched it as a family. They watched the first episode of Twin Peaks as a family when he was in high school.
01:10:33
Did they have a fucking carbon monoxide leak or something? Jesus Christ. Because they just assumed it was like, oh, it's this story, the way the promos came out.
01:10:42
They just assumed, oh, it's a murder story of this thing that happened. So the whole family sits down to watch it.
01:10:49
And then I go, so did your parents freak out? And he goes, no, we all loved it. Then we all watched it every week.
01:10:54
Even though me and my brother were teenagers, it became the thing my family did.
01:10:59
Wow. And that's how he got into Twin Peaks. Holy shit. And found out about... You guys send us your hometowns of weird shit you watch with your family.
01:11:07
We're inappropriate stuff that you watch with your family. And mistakes you made like this because that one is like,
01:11:12
because they were basically they were inundated with the story of this local, the Dairy Queen murder.
01:11:18
They called it the Beauty Queen murder at the time. And so they thought, and I think that's the way Twin Peaks was promoted.
01:11:24
Because she was, you know, Laura Palmer. Yeah. She was the homecoming queen or whatever.
01:11:30
So, yeah. So that's the story of the murder of Lisa Sahaski. Great job. Thank you.
01:11:39
Cool. Good job. Thanks. Do you have a fucking hooray? Yes, I do. Well, this is my secret fucking hooray.
01:11:50
So I didn't get a mammogram until this year. which is bad. When are you supposed to get them?
01:12:04
You actually, I looked it up, and the Mayo Clinic website says that they recommend women start getting them when they're 40.
01:12:13
Okay. You should definitely get them. By the time you're 45, you should start getting them regularly.
01:12:19
But it's good if you start getting them when you're 40 because then you have a baseline.
01:12:24
Don't be like me, who when you have your first one, you're 49. There's no baseline.
01:12:29
So if they find something irregular, they immediately panic and you have to go back and get more mammograms and ultrasounds and then ultimately a biopsy, which was what I had to do last week.
01:12:44
And for, you know, I was pretty sure I didn't have breast cancer. It does not run in my family.
01:12:50
It just isn't a thing. And I just kind of was pretty sure I didn't, but scared the shit out of myself for like a good 14 days waiting to find out if I did or not.
01:13:02
And I will tell you this for the people who are like, I'll just do it later. Get them early so that you can create this baseline because biopsies are the most awful things.
01:13:14
It is really nasty. They put a big, long needle into your boob. Don't do it to yourself.
01:13:21
If you can be preventative and like take care of yourself, just do it. I highly just as a person who just went through a little mini quiet drama that I told you about and about three other people.
01:13:35
I'm honored to hold that with you. You really did hold it with me nicely. And you kept saying, do you want to?
01:13:44
What did you say? You sent me a text that was like, do you want to be emotional about this or something?
01:13:49
You kept asking me these hilarious questions. I'm fine. Everything's going to be fine.
01:13:52
I was like well if you want to be a moat if you don want to be fine I here for that too You allowing me to not be fine And my answer was let save it for when there actually for sure a reason to not be fine
01:14:05
And so luckily, luckily, luckily, there is no reason. But I will just take that as a little piece of wisdom to pass on to the younger listeners.
01:14:16
Please, please get just get your baseline mammogram. Just do it. You know, you should get your baseline everything.
01:14:22
and like just make sure that you're healthy. Yes. Pay attention. Yeah. You don't understand how important your health is because you take it for granted when you're
01:14:29
young. So, you know, do it. Okay. Okay. In eight months, I'll do it when I turn 40.
01:14:37
That'll be my present to you is I'll drive you over. Will you hold my hand? Yes.
01:14:41
And while some strange lady with gloves on just smashes your boob. And look, you get your boob smashed.
01:14:50
It's a rite of passage. it's not so painful that you cry but it does hurt your feelings
01:14:55
a lot it hurts your feelings that you're like who made this machine why do they hate
01:15:01
women so much why can't we update these machines good one well I can't follow that up
01:15:08
come on mine is that you got the okay everything's fine right yeah no it is I don't know I had Rosh Hashanah
01:15:18
dinner at my house with my whole family And it was lovely. And the only political talk was when I wasn't in the room.
01:15:24
So nice. That's a bonus. The brisket came out beautiful. Thanks to Vince. Yeah. It was like a really nice time.
01:15:30
Oh, that's good. Yeah. I was going to send you a Rosh Hashanah gift because there's a ton of them.
01:15:36
Yeah. There's one with a shofar and some apples and honey going down a river. And I was like, what's this about?
01:15:43
I had to look it up. If you ever need a gift to send to me on a Jewish holiday, there is an Siamese cat dressed in like our Jewish garb.
01:15:53
Just send me that photo If you look it up online the one for you look up Hanukkah Siamese cat what about the one that i sent to you nor on that day that the um it the guy that in like uh hasidic
01:16:06
jewish clothing that's on a motorbike that skids up to the camera and then it just says jewish in
01:16:11
all caps that was my favorite one so far gifts man gifts that's my fucking hooray they're great
01:16:17
you can use them for anything people who have lived only in the time where gifts existed you
01:16:22
I have no idea how sad it used to be. You know that you could only say to other people when you were shrugging your shoulders saying, oh, you had to say that.
01:16:30
There was no gift to send them. It was like, oh, like conveyed. No, you had to be like, you had to say it out loud.
01:16:38
Yeah. You had to say it as yourself. There was no witty child. Right. That got captured on camera.
01:16:44
Right. Do it for you. Eating a fucking corn dog. Yeah. The one I love is that little boy that's holding the cup and looking around like, what the fuck?
01:16:52
You know that one? You can use it for anything. What about the little girl that's holding the cotton candy at a baseball game and just goes fucking crap?
01:16:58
Yes. She is like on a sugar high. There's actually one and I can't find it anymore.
01:17:03
It's that same little girl. She goes crazy and then takes off like a rocket and goes up out of the GIF.
01:17:08
It's so funny. Guys, tweet us your favorite GIF at myfavemurder on Twitter. And we don't want to hear if you pronounce it GIF.
01:17:17
Oh, it's not GIF. It's not GIF. It's GIF. It's GIF. They came in too late with the connect pronunciation.
01:17:28
Oh, man. I have not touched that vape. That vape is getting to you. I knew it. There's just vapes all around our feet on the ground around here.
01:17:36
Steven just keeps trying to give us vapes. Is this either of your vapes? You guys need to chill the fuck out.
01:17:40
Don't you feel like you want to vape? No. No vaping. You guys are the best. We're happy to be here.
01:17:46
Thanks for listening, you guys. Yeah, we're very grateful. we have a very good time on this podcast
01:17:51
and we are happy that you do too and that just what we going to assume is happening I mean why would you get to this fucking insane point in the podcast if you weren stoked You better be Yeah Are you vaping or what
01:18:04
I mean, you got to be. Do not vape. Don't vape. I won't. We won't. We won't. We promise.
01:18:09
No more vaping. We're all promising. OK, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
01:18:13
Elvis, do you want a cookie? Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill?
01:18:20
Because this is our life backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real. And that's the best part.
01:18:26
Whole crew, no plan, just moving. Good thing Nissan builds for that kind of chaos.
01:18:31
Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it. That's why it holds up.
01:18:38
Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. Power.
01:18:43
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.
01:18:54
Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn.
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