Episode 225 - Touch the Mule

They say "if it bleeds, it leads," but what happens when the blood is eclipsed by the spectacle? In this episode, we’re peeling back the curtain on the cases that stopped being about justice and started being about the ratings. From cable news talking heads to the digital mob, we examine how media frenzies distort the truth, turn victims into props, and transform crime scenes into pop culture events. Grab your popcorn—the court of public opinion is now in session.

Research links below!

EBSCO - "Halls-Mills murder case"
A Little History - "New revelations in the Hall-Mills murder mystery"
TIME - "Under The Crabapple Tree"
The New York Times - "J.E. STRICKER DIES AFTER AND OPERATION; Former Middlesex Prosecutor Began Investigation of Hall-Mills Mystery. SIXTH DEATH DURING INQUIRY Rumor of Suicide Unfounded -- Death In Hospital Due to Peritonitis"
Evening Courier - "All Charges Dropped in Hall-Mills Case"
Press of Atlantic City - "Henry Carpender Dies; Was In Hall-Mills Case"
The New York Times - "'Not Guilty' is Verdict in Hall Case: Plan to Free Prisoners on Bail Today and Probably Quash All Other Charges"

Library of Congress - "Trials of the Century: 1900 to 1950"
PBS - "Murder of the Century"
Famous Trials - "The Trials of Harry Thaw for the Murder of Stanford White"
Historical Society of the New York Courts - "Harry Kendall Thaw Had A Problem"
EBSCO - "Harry Kendall Thaw"
Murderpedia - "Harry Kendall Thaw"

Speaker 1: Yeah, their arrivals unspeakable.

Speaker 2: I'm not doing.

Speaker 1: They did want bother. It's got to worry about.

Speaker 3: Something. If I couldn't keep them there with me whole,

at least I felt that I could keep their skeletons.

Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm

VICKI I'm Rachel. You're back again. Hi for another week

of murdering Mayhem, Murder and Mayhem. How are you?

Speaker 2: I'm super good. I've been like slowly losing my voice.

I have that seasonal like allergy.

Speaker 3: I can't hear it.

Speaker 2: So if they sound like really hoarse and like sexy

and like Lana del Rey, it's.

Speaker 3: For your benefit and congested, Yeah, congestines lend. Yeah, Hey,

sometimes a bitch gets sick.

Speaker 2: Never do you love that she married a regular, like

tour guide from Louisiana.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so funny. Regular people are just people.

Speaker 2: I mean, but it's just like so funny that she

went on a boat tour and was like I want

that this big crazy right.

Speaker 3: It's not surprising, it's kind of it like gets her. Yeah,

it's very much yeah, her brand.

Speaker 2: But I'm seeing that headline and I was like, that's

gotta be like pr or something, and then I'm like,

oh no, they really got married.

Speaker 3: Oh good. Okay, Well, if it's your first time listening,

a special hello to you. We are going to head

over to the news room. Let's go there watching today we.

Speaker 1: Had fifty.

Speaker 3: This week. Our news was so to us by friend

and mom of the show, Eileen. Oh yeah, who's been Yeah,

my mother, this is actually so, this is CBS news,

but this is out of Europe. A twelve ton shipment

of KitKat bars was stolen.

Speaker 2: What.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and this happened right before Easter, so there was

actually KitKat shortages in Europe before Easter. Yeah. And KitKat

is owned by Nesle, which is a Swiss company. So

they said that a truck transporting four hundred and thirteen thousand,

seven hundred and ninety three units of its new chocolate

range had been stolen during transit in Europe. Oh my god.

It had left a factory in central Italy and was

heading to Poland when it was stolen. They were Poland

and Poland. They were still trying to figure out where

it was. As far as I know from this article,

I hope it's not melted. Now. The interesting thing about

This is especially with a candy giant like Nestlie right,

they will put identifying information on all of the candy

bar packaging that correlates to like batch numbers. Really well.

They need it in case there's an issue with products.

Very smart I they did that. So they said that

you can scan the unique batch codes that are found

on each kitcat bar and it will basically tell you

if it's stolen candy or not. No, because they have

they know what batches were on the truck, so they

can like flag the batch numbers.

Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie, I have a bag at home

that I am standing. I'll let you guys, it's.

Speaker 3: Probably I mean, they're probably still in Europe unless they

were smart and they moved them overseas.

Speaker 2: But who knows to say, wow, that's so shitty. Yeah,

So all these poor European kids like mama.

Speaker 3: They have I haven't. They haven't figured out who it is,

who's done it, or where they've gone. But they're hoping

by having people scan the batch numbers that they'll be

able to at least put together some sort of trace

on on where everyone stars are being sold or given

out at, or distributed to or whatever it may be. Wow,

there's also a I would say relatively high probability of

this working because there is this thing where people want

to be the ones to find a stolen bar. Right,

I was gonna say, this is gonna be gonna become

a huge thing. Everyone's going to be scanning it.

Speaker 2: So that's what's going on with get here right now,

very Charlie and the chocolate factory, Like does everybody look

for the golden ticket? Like, well, you know, we love

our food crimes, right, Like, Hey, it just is baffling

to me that somebody can get away, and it would

make you think that maybe they were an employee of

the company.

Speaker 3: That's what I think. But then I'm also like, I

feel like a lot of semi trucks and stuff now

at least the trailers have some sort of tracking something

from them right to follow where shipments of things are

going and where they are Maybe not, maybe I don't

know enough about shipping to determine that, but I would

think so, right, Like, it's not like we don't have

the technology, and companies want to know where their product are,

especially if you're a company like Nesley, like I was.

Speaker 2: Going to say, has a bazillion gazillion dollars and it's

probably has to be like a special refrigerized truck, so

it doesn't melt. Could be, wouldn't you think? I mean,

I just don't get as hot over there as it

does here. Oh yeah, I forgot it might be. But hmmm,

I bet it was Willy Wonka. Yeah, I bet he

pulled up with his oob.

Speaker 3: Remember when he died. He's not actually dead, of course,

of course not. Oh wanka. Yeah, remember he came out

of the factory injured and then oh he felt a

little twisty.

Speaker 2: The actor improvised then, yeah, which is so cool. The

actor named Jeane Wilder. Yeah, there you go, Jane Wilder.

That guy from the Bear looks just like him.

Speaker 3: Yeah he does.

Speaker 2: They need to make a biopic like today.

Speaker 3: All right, So we're gonna move on to Netflix and

Kill which this week we are talking about Netflix documentary

and Netflix called Trust Me the False Prophet, which is

are you familiar? Have you heard it is everywhere?

Speaker 2: That sounds so interesting just from the title alone.

Speaker 3: What are the vibes you're getting?

Speaker 2: I'm getting fALS prophet that this is some kind of

like culty thing.

Speaker 1: Maybe.

Speaker 3: So this is about the FLDS. Oh yeah, yeah, the.

Speaker 2: Those wacky Mormons.

Speaker 3: Yeah, the the traditional.

Speaker 2: One hundred wives, long hair dress Mormon sexual.

Speaker 3: Yeah, fundamental fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, I think so. If

you remember, a couple of years ago, there was a

documentary that was released on Netflix called Keep Sweet Prain Obey.

Speaker 2: So good, very very good, one of my favorite's. Very

hard to watch but so well mad.

Speaker 3: In that documentary, it did feature a woman named Christine

Marie who had moved to the creek where they all

live and sort of embedded herself and had been sort

of following them with cameras and really got in the

trust of some of the people in the Yes, like

she let her into her world. Yeah right, And I

respect her a lot because she won. She herself has

background in being in the FLDS and being taken advantage

of by somebody who called himself a prophet, so she

has the experience in that, right. But she also very

much was like, I am not going to turn my

back on these people simply because because they need somebody

to go to when they need help, right, And she

just wants to help people. She has a lot of compassion. Yeah. Yeah,

so her and her husband embedded themselves in that she

is featured in that documentary, although it's it's a lot

of other stuff as well. Right, this documentary trust Me

a false Prophet is entirely the result of their filming

and continuing to film after that. Oh my god. So

when our story ends in the first one, and I

think many people know about Warren Jeff's yes, and he

got sent to prison, and he sort of released this

edict that what one. He was still releasing edicts while

he was, yes, still in prison, and he in the

very beginning, released this edict where nobody was allowed to procreate.

There could be baby is born, You could not have

any sex because obviously he was in prison right not

having sex, So I can't. You guys can't. If you guys,

if I can't have sex with children, you also can't

have sex with children because let's remember the fucking pedophile.

So he continues to release the zidicts from prison for

a while, and people are kind of floundering a little

bit because this person they thought was their profit right

now in jail, and he, after a period of time

sort of stops communicating and really from reporting has kind

of lost it. While he's been in like he's gotten Yeah,

he's going a bit more erratic and his behavior is

just very unusual, and he is kind of.

Speaker 2: Time.

Speaker 3: I'm sure he is good. In the meantime, you're a

couple of years after this, right, they're still filming. This

guy sort of shows up on the scene. His name

is Samuel Bateman, and he shows up with a wife,

which is weird because there's an edict that says you

can't get married. Hey, that's against the law here, sir.

So Samuel Bateman essentially comes out says, Warren Jeffs is dead,

the person that they have in jail, like it's a

media conspiracy, not actually alive. He's actually dead. I am

the prophet carrying down Uncle Warren Jeff's edicts. Yeah, messages

and claims himself to be the new prophet. Immediately starts

taking all of these wives. He sort of enlists these

three guys into his now sort.

Speaker 2: Of little counsel.

Speaker 3: Yeah, they pledge their daughters to him. In the meantime,

Christy Marie and her husband are gaining their trust filming

all the inside. She is essentially trying to find evidence

of child sexual abuse. She is working with police kind

but they keep telling her she doesn't have enough evidence,

and then finally they you know, you just wait for

them to slip up and say something, and they end

up working with the FBI, and her basically filming built

the case for the FBI to go in and do it,

and they them and there. This is an incredible documentary

because I wait, they they do really get access. I

think a lot of people don't have, right. They managed

to sort of play this role to the point where

Samuel Bateman trusts them and then starts sort of revealing

some of these more you know, weird the moon, yeah,

dark things. She ends up gaining the trust of us.

It was basically one of the it was one of

his wives, but she was the mother of one of

the children or she I'm sorry, she was married to

one of the guys who like in his council, and

her daughter, her daughter had been Yeah, so she felt

like she could leave because she was like, I'm not

going to leave my daughter with this like crazy guy,

and ends up going to Christine for help, working with

Christine about what the fuck is going on in this

house and the signal chats and these messages that they

get and the things they're talking about she's writing down everything.

So like it basically leads to this FBI raid good

on the compound and he gets arrested. I'm pretty sure

he was charged. Yeah. Oh, I'm such a prison I

think he might not free. He might not actually be

in prison yet. But but they're getting there. They're building

the case. Yeah. Yeah, but like things are happening, right, Yeah,

it is super super good. It's not very good, it's

very good. The other thing that I find interesting, and

this is the first time I've really seen this done,

is obviously, when you do something like this, typically you

will blur the faces of minors, any minor involved. Right.

Of course, what they did is they essentially digitally replaced

those faces, so they're not the faces of the children, right,

they're like AI altered versions. Oh, I don't think it's AI.

I don't think it's ACT.

Speaker 2: But they're like digitally replaced, so everybody has a face

interesting but without betraying their identity. Correct, that is I

bet that's gonna be like the new thing to do.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I thought, and they taught they pointed out

in the very beginning, and they say, typically this is

what you do.

Speaker 2: We've decided to digitally alter so obviously, like you said,

it's still obscures idea, it's kind of giving them their

voice back in a way. I feel, Yeah, they didn't

do it for the babies.

Speaker 3: Good, like the baby babies they were still just like

full blur because I feel like a baby face is

more difficult to.

Speaker 2: Well yeah, and a baby is not going to testify

or say anything significant.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway that I also found interested. That's so interesting.

Highly would recommend it. It's like four parts, I think, Okay,

but just simply for the access that they got into talking.

Speaker 2: About investigative journalism Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel really bad because she does, I

mean spoiler, she continues, she wants to continue this facade of,

you know, being on their side, right, not that she's not,

I mean ultimately like her goal is to help them.

She's like, I am on your side.

Speaker 2: She wants to get them out of the cult, right,

but they're in the cultet.

Speaker 3: Well, and they don't know that this whole time she's

been handing evidence over to the police and to the FBI. Yeah,

so she's like trying to be that secret and thank

god they don't have the internet. Well, no, they I

mean they're not they're Mormons. It's not they're not Amish.

Oh they can have cell phones, they have internet, they

have all of this, but they she basically gets outed

by DCFS shit, and because all of a sudden, there

was there's this whole thing about how the FBI when

they did this raid, they were not informed that DCS

had been informed and was going to also come in

and like take the children, like take the minors, which

added another layer, and then they kind of went rogue

and somehow outed Christine and then they started finding out

and so like now all these people are turning on her,

and she's like I was really hoping that they would

understand before they found out that I'd essentially been hinted

the mole Benedict Darnold. Yeah. So it's really really really

really good. So good.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so like I can't, I cannot.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it was when I saw she was involved in

it again and it's it is literally just their footage. Yeah,

so good. It's just it's it's just very interesting, great journalism,

you know, and I love that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, really good.

Speaker 3: This is that part of the show where we say

content may not be appropriate for all listeners. This week

we're talking about murder. We are indeed straight up I'm

talking about straight up murder.

Speaker 2: Mine's got a bunch of shit, Mine's got some drugs,

Mine's got some sexual abuse, some child sexual abuse. I'll

be gentle, but yep, it's.

Speaker 3: It's a thing. This one's kind of a doozy. So

this week we're kind of going in an interesting direction

because I do think just naturally as a podcast we

kind of play into this a little bit. Luckily we

are not like like real time reporting, right, which is

good live on the scene, yes, but we I wanted

to look at a couple of cases that are considered

a media circus, yes, which you know, I think the

idea of having a media circus isn't new, right you

say that, and then they're definitely. I could probably come

up with ten cases at least, oh absolutely, land of

this you're talking things like OJ Simpson and John Mane

Ramsey and Princess Diana is a perfect media circus, like

all of those things where it's like very won the media,

well it's gotten especially works now because the media is

just dround twenty first seven, right and live streaming, you

know what I mean. So there's that, but back in

the day it was a very like tabloidy thing, Like

it was very sensationalized, less about informing and more for entertainment.

Speaker 2: Yeah, very much. So they would just straight up make

shit up.

Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. So, Like I said, while this idea of

like a media circus is not it's not really a

new thing. The term didn't that specific term didn't really

start first appearing until around nineteen seventy. Oh really yea,

even though way before that they had this journalism at

least like wiself correct. Yeah cool. I found as I

was looking into like the history behind like the term

media circus and this sort of idea, I found this

really interesting little tidbit from Wikipedia, which is not a

preferred source, but no, I just thought it was really

interesting to my friends. Media circuses make up the central

plot device in the nineteen fifty one movie Ace in

the Hole, about a self interested reporter who covering a

mind disaster allows a man to die trapped underground. It

cynically examines the relationship between the media and the news

they report. The movie was subsequently reissued as The Big Carnival,

with Carnival referring to what we now call a circus

in the film, The Disaster attracts campers, including a real circus.

The movie was based on real life Floyd Collins, who

in nineteen twenty five was trapped in a Kentucky cave,

drawing so much media attention that it came the third

largest media event between the two world wars, with the

other two, uh being Lindbergh's solo flight and the Lindberg kidnapping.

Oh my god, that's.

Speaker 2: Crazy, so funny where it's like this case, oh, and

the two world wars that were also going on, like uh.

Speaker 3: Yeah, literally but literally it was like World War One, Uh,

this guy getting Floyd Cohn's getting trapped in the cave,

my god, the Lindberg flight, the Lindberg kidnapping, World War two.

That's that's like some big super I know. Which speaking

of the Lindberg kidnapping, actually, what I am going to

talk about today is the Hall Mills murders, which a

lot of people have not heard of and simply because

it was overshadowed by the Lindberg kidnapping just a few

years later. It's like this is from his Yes, So

this story focuses on two people, eleanor Ryan Hardy Mills

and Edward Wheeler Hall, and it takes place in nineteen

twenty two, New Jersey. Eleanor was married to James Mills

and the two had two kids, Charlotte and Daniel, and

James worked as a full time janitor at the local

elementary school and was the sexton at Saint John the

Evangelist Episcopal Church. Wow, that's a mouthful. Edward was married

to Francis No Seasons, and it doesn't appear that they

had any kids. Edward received his theological degree in Manhattan

before eventually moving to Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal Church,

where he was a priest minister minister, so's this guy

leading the masses. On September sixteenth, nineteen twenty two, Eleanor

and Edward's bodies were discovered in a field in Somerset

News excuse me, Somerset County, New Jersey. Both were lying

on their backs and had been shot in the head

with a thirty two caliber pistol. Edward had been shot

once and Eleanor had been shot three times dang Eleanor

had been shot under the right eye, over the right temple,

and over the right ear, while Edward had been shot

over the right ear with an exit wound out of

the back of the neck. Okay. When the bodies were discovered,

it appeared that they had been positioned to be lying

next to each other with their feet pointed towards this

crab apple tree. Edward's hat had been placed on his

face and his business card had been set at his feet.

Speaker 2: Who is this the joker? Like, you're staging this whole scene?

Speaker 3: This is crow? It gets better? OOKI spooky? Just to

add to the dramatics, a series of torn up love letters, oh,

strewn in between the two of them.

Speaker 2: Okay, this guy had a Pinterest board for sure. Yeah,

the nineteen Yeah, which is just a cork board. It's

just a vision board. Yeah, this is what I want.

Speaker 3: To portray, so at all. An officer who had arrived

on the scene noticed Eleanor's throat had also been cut

and there were actively live maggots inside, meaning that they

had been killed at least twenty four hours earlier, if

not longer. Wow, because it was like long enough for right,

you know, buggies to come. Yeah, which is gross, very cross.

I mean, just sign a sign of yeah helps them

determine when the rice is gross, but it is useful. True. True. Obviously,

once the bodies were discovered, they called the police. Oh good,

I would found called police. Nice. They were called to

the scene to investigate. This caused a slight issue though,

because the crime scene was right on the border between

Somerset and Middlesex County, Okay and the so the New

Brand Police, which is located in Middlesex, were the first

to arrive at the scene. But it turned out that

the crime scene itself was actually in Franklin Township, which

is in Somerset.

Speaker 2: So this is like a jurisdiction issue, right, okay, Oh,

already getting off to a bad.

Speaker 3: Start, right, So before they could even do like a

full investigation, they had to there were all these discussions

about like who was actually supposed to be use working

the scene? Where's the line?

Speaker 2: I wouldn't think that would have been such a big deal,

like back then, you know.

Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, maybe it's interesting

that it is. Yeah. Meanwhile, while they're trying to figure

out what's going on, what is happening with like who's

working the scene? Right, word had sort of spread that

they found these bodies in the field, and soon after

nosey bystanders began to appear our ancestors. Yes, literally, I'm like,

this would have been me if I was in the twenties,

and as it so happened, as it happens so often

in crimes of the early nineteen hundreds especially and like

eighteen hundreds. Oh, people just started walking all over the

fucking take and shit, they're trampling evidence. They picked up

Edward's business card and we was like passing it around

so everybody could look at it. They're taking souvenirs. Like, yeah,

that pisses me off so bad. Because the police were like,

this is our seat. No, it's our seat, right, they

should cover it. And then they're like, hey, is anybody

watch on those bodies? Nobody, nobody was. They were just

they were arguing over the jurisdictional issue, and people were

just like, look at this crime scene. Who full with

the body? Yeah?

Speaker 2: So disrespectful. That's horrible.

Speaker 3: Yeah, so it severely compromised the scene. I can guess that,

which made the investigation even more difficult. Bad start, because

also it's nineteen twenty, so it's not like the investigative

techniques are the most uh right, modern boy, they sure

are on the ground. Look at all the footprints, let's

go hold.

Speaker 2: So once they were able to figure out who should

actually be handling the scene, they were able to identify

the two bodies as belonging to Eleanor Mills and Edward Hall.

Speaker 3: Okay. Further investigation of the bodies revealed Eleanor's brown silk

had a brown silk scarf had been wrapped around her throat,

there was an additional bruise on her arm and a

cut on her lip, and her left hand had been

positioned to touch Edward's right thigh geez. Edward's right arm

had been positioned to be touching Eleanor's neck, and he had,

like I said, the hat covering his face. He also

had an additional marks, including a bruise on the tip

of his ear, abrasions on the right index and left

little finger, as well as a wound on the calf

of his right leg. So it almost seems like there's

a bit of a scuffle, right I was gonna say,

or like a knocking out or something. Yeah, Edward's gold

watch was missing, but the coins were still in his pocket, Okay,

which is also weird now that I think of, I

mean not now that I think about it, I thought

it was weird at the time, but for reasons that

would become clear, I'm like wondering. Seems we'll talk about

it later.

Speaker 2: Yes, seems not random, I would say, right.

Speaker 3: It seems like the only real lead they had was

from the soul witness, a woman named Jane Gibson, aka

the pig Woman. Oh what poor woman. She's loggedad now obviously,

but I feel kind of bad because she has literally

gone down in history as the yeah why. Gibson lived

with her son in an old barn that had been

converted into a residence that was near the field where

alan Or and Edward had been found, and they referred

to her as the pig woman because she raised hogs. Okay,

not that she was a pig, but she raised. Best

case scenario as to why she's called the pig woman. Yeah,

like not a great nickname, has great. Gibson told authorities

that at about nine pm on the evening the murders happened,

her dog started barking, so she went outside to see

what was happening. When she saw a man standing in

the cornfield, Gibson decided to ride her mule to go

in front the man. Could it be a pig and

stud could you change it?

Speaker 1: No?

Speaker 3: I love the idea of her riding away on a mule,

me too, But she's the pig woman not because it's

not it's not like a horse is. I'd imagine it

being like like you know. So she gets on the mule.

I love it to go get in front. But as

she got closer to the crab apple tree, she realized

that there were actually four people standing there.

Speaker 1: Oh.

Speaker 3: Gibson then claimed to have heard gunshots, saw one of

the people fall to the ground, hearing a woman's scream

don't three times, don't, don't, don't. At that point, she

decided to turn her mule around to go back home.

Speaker 2: I love her.

Speaker 3: But as she's writing her mule back home, she looks

back one more time and she says that she saw

a second person fall to the ground and a woman

shout the name Henry. Ah. What's interesting, But this is

basically the only witness. This is like the middle of

the night, in the middle of the field, right right,

you know, let's talk about potential suspects. Okay, the first

and most obvious, if you could guess the mule was

Francis nol Stevens Hall francisinal Stephens Hall. Obviously she was

married to Edward. The inclusion of the love letters at

the scene would naturally point to like the spouse of

one of the people dead also, And this is why

when I mentioned the watch, I was like, oh, that's

really interesting because if it was his wife, I could

see her taking that as like a I don't know,

like a souvenir from her husband, or maybe she had

gifted it to him, and she's like, I'm taking this back, yeah,

like something, or it was maybe like an heirloom or

something that she's taken.

Speaker 2: Like.

Speaker 3: I could see that the.

Speaker 2: Crime has so many like I don't mean this in

a positive way, but like romantic little details. It seems

very personal. And who's more personal to you than your wife.

Speaker 3: Right, So obviously they were investigating her good. In a

later trial, the prosecution would allege that she set the

ball in motion to have her husband murdered after discovering

that he had been having an affair. To do this,

they said, Francis enlisted the help of her brothers, Henry

Hugil Stevens and William Willie Carpenter Stevens as well as

a cousin, Henry de Labriere Carpenter. Oh. Brother Henry was

a retired exhibition marksman.

Speaker 2: Although okay, well, okay.

Speaker 3: Although he claimed that he had been on a fishing

trip on the night of the murder, which was something

that was confirmed by three other witnesses. Okay. The other

brother owned a thirty two caliber like what had been

used to murder Edgar and Eleanor, and the prosecutors would

also claim that his fingerprints had been found on the

calling card, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. Okay, Yeah,

we'll talk about that in a few minutes. Put a

pin in that, Put a pin in that. Yes, Francis, Henry,

and William all went to trial. They arrested them. So

they do this initial investigation in nineteen twenty two, and

at that time they were like, we do not have

enough evidence to press hume. Yeah. They didn't decide to

brandy charges against them until nineteen twenty six during a

second investigation. Wow to the case, and I'm honestly not sure.

I mean, by that point, you know, they had different

investigators on it. I think the prosecutors had changed over

you're talking about eight years or excuse me, four years

and that's like so long. Yeah, what they bring these charges,

these murder charges against Francis, Henry and William. They go

to trial on November third, nineteen twenty six, okay, which

is really sort of like what kicked off the firestorm

of media coverage. Okay, it's not only the posing of

the bodies and the love letters, like that's all a

very alluring tale, like very much. You know, it's like

lovers fighting. Yeah, theng you know, see and yeah, like

all stuff that makes for good entertainment.

Speaker 2: Yeah, reporting because it sounds like a movie. You're a play, right, right,

And people love a scandal, yes, we do.

Speaker 3: People love us. I love scandal. Me I do, me too.

But both the Stevens and the Carpenter families were both

also very wealthy, and they had this like very high

social status. Oh okay, oh there's another at the time,

so the fact that the Stephens and Carpenter family relatives, Fransiss,

Henry and William were being charged with murder was like

society society, right, which is again like perfect for media

coverage at the time.

Speaker 2: It was like if Kim Kardashian was a murderer. Yeah,

which she might as well be. Yeah, I'm not ruling

it out.

Speaker 1: Uh.

Speaker 3: The case itself was covered by the likes of the

New York Daily Mirror and the New York Times extensively.

The New York Daily Mirror especially covered the trial in

this sort of very tabloid headline. The titles they honestly,

we're not the worst that I have seen, Okay, to

be fair, Uh, but there they had a couple. There

were titles like made says Missus Hall new reactor was

to meet singer hands from doctor Hall's grave to fix

guilt of those who murdered him. Oh and doctor Hall

was tenant of Love Firm.

Speaker 2: I feel like we need like organ like yeah, yeah,

like I said, not the not the worst I've heard,

but still pretty But it was like, okay, like the

things that they are choosing to report on are these

very like it almost seems like people are coming to

them like I heard a rumor without the maze like

being substantiated, right, and then they'll just print that there's

a pulling this out of their ass.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. The prosecution brought in a fingerprint

expert who testified that the fingerprints on the calling card

belonged to William, although I wanna really quick show you

a picture of them, because when you look at the

picture of them, I'm like, how can you even tell, okay,

one fingerprint from another, because they're all one.

Speaker 2: You had come over there.

Speaker 3: You gotta remember, no, no, no, I'll show you, okay that

this was from uh people handing the card around in

the crowd, right, smudging it all around. Yeah, so these

were the fingerprints that they got whatever.

Speaker 2: Okay, So audience at home, what we're looking at is

a bunch of fucking black smudges. Like I used to

at being a weird little child. I would look like

in books, like when they would have stuff like that,

like oh, this is the fingerprint that was found at

the scene, and this is the person's fingerprint, but.

Speaker 3: It's like really clear.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have so much trouble identifying, like are

these the same with very clear illustrations? These are the blobbyist.

Speaker 3: And to be fair, like, I'm sure this photo is

not taken of the highest.

Speaker 2: Quality, right, Oh no, I'm sure it looks like it's

been xerox to thousands, especially the back where it's like

it's almost like, you know, fifteen people touched the card

in the same spot right right.

Speaker 3: Almost it would be literally impossible. That's why I'm like,

I don't know how they could tell that his specific

fingerprints were on it. I think they couldn't. I think

they made it up. Probably they probably did, you know what,

you know what. So the pig lady was also there

to testify, and when she came to testify, the prosecution

painted her as uneducated and crazy. Well, the story she

told the police, the story she told to the media,

and then the story she told at trial all had

differences that were like it's it was enough to sound

like she was making it up, Okay, it was enough

to be like, oh, you're kind of nerve incredible. Well,

I mean, you know, you never know, You're like, this

thing is happening on my property, let me get involved.

Speaker 2: I could be Jane Gibson's pigs the sight of this

crazy murder.

Speaker 3: Well and just being able to, you know, get the

attention from the media discovered the murder tuckies, uh, you know,

like roadside attraction. There could be a little bit of

that going on, Yeah, you know, wanting fame. Who knows. Yeah,

Because I will also say to add to the drama.

She was wheeled into the courtroom in a hospital bed,

from which she gave testimony. Okay, Jane, so listen. Oh yeah,

although I'm like, if I give testimony, I kind of

would want to be in bed. Make me the most comfortable.

Oh I love that, and I can just fall asleep

when I don't want to answer. I'm not putting on

like a real clothes. I want to go in a

hospital gown mostly naked. That sounds nice. Sign me up.

They also had William testify at trial, which was a

highlight of the trial. Okay, not only because he had

been accused of this murder, but he had been described

as credible and not unsympathetic. Okay, he is a good witness. Yeah,

he went to the jury. He sort of described how

William spent most of his time at the firehouse. He

wasn't able to hold a job. He was kind of

just this guy floating through life who was a bit eccentric,

and like this, this eccentricity really came through on the

stand too. He's like, it's kind of a weird, dude.

Now they think that the eccentric personality was actually high

functioning autism. Ag Gangang. But there was not a diagnosis

for that at the time. But they're like, no, we

think he.

Speaker 2: Was like a highly trains for like fifteen minutes and

he did not ask him about which I'm like.

Speaker 3: Makes sense as to why he would seem eccentric. He

probably couldn't hold down a job, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2: That's always interesting, like looking back at old stories with

like a modern lens. I feel like every story I

look at, I'm like, ah, the tism, yes, I.

Speaker 3: Can see and I see that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: But they had no idea, so they were like, that

guy is weird.

Speaker 3: No, so they would they sympathized with the jury sympathized

with him a lot, yeah, after, which is kind of

nice because I'm like, it could have got the other

way where they're like, this dude is a freak, you know,

like he's our freak. Yeah, but we love the freak. So,

after almost exactly five hours of deliberation, all three of

the accused were acquitted of all charges and release. Okay.

The cousin, Henry dla Breer Carpenter, who hadn't gone to

trial with the other three, he was like a waiting trial. Okay,

he was charged and he was set to go to trial.

But after this verdict they dropped all the charges against him.

Oh well, makes sense. An article from the Evening Courier

had some maybe juicier quotes I would say about the

acquittal and subsequent dismissal of charges, including quote Simpson. So

they talk about Simpson. Simpson is the special prosecutor that

they brought on to handle the case. Okay. Simpson's letter

to Governor Moore, withdrawing from the prosecution in the Hall case,

formed a bitter attack on alleged flagrant activity by politicians

of Somerset County in connection with the trial, and suggested

to the governor, in the event that the prosecution was dropped,

that you embalm Jersey Justice and sent her to the

British Museum whoa. The article then goes on to publish

Simpson's entire resignation letter. He sent it to the media

and was like, here, put this in your article. Oh

my god, sends his entire prince's entire resignation letter that

he said to the governor in the article of the paper.

It was kind of crazy because that's iconic.

Speaker 2: Y'all are insane. Yeah, I'm going back to private practice.

I don't want maybe too, Oh.

Speaker 3: My god, Uh that's fun. Yeah. Now, following the trial,

Francis brought a defamation suit against the New York Daily

Mirror cool, which was settled out of court for reportedly

like an exorbitant amount of money. Whoa Francis is rolling

in the benjamins, which I mean her family was already

like a wealthy family, right, So I'm sure she had

very good lawyers. I'm sure she did too. Interestingly enough,

they the New York Daily Mirror, they did not even

provide the largest amount of coverage. Really, it was just

the most salacious and the most defamatory, like they were reporting.

Like we said, I'm like the rumors and the nast

unless they had to pay her because I hate that. Yeah,

all that. Yeah, The New York Times actually had much

more coverage, like volume wise, like a higher volume of

coverage were trying it. It wasn't as slantin right. Yeah,

And the Hall Mills murder received more space than any

other trial in US history until it was overtaken by

the Lintenberg kidnapping. Well there you go. There have been many, many,

many more mentions and references to this case in both

fiction and nonfictioneaver of the years, including a nineteen sixty

four book from liberal activist William Neusler called The Minister

and the Choir Singer, in which he proposed, then maybe

they were murdered by the KKK. Wow. But he goes

on to be like, because they're like, what evidence do

you have of this? And he's like, I thought it

would be cool. No, it's not, it's really not. It's like,

maybe it was the KKK. They were active in New Jersey.

Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, that's like pretty much no one else

is active in New Jersey, the Jersey Devil. Maybe it

was the Jersey Devil who did it.

Speaker 3: And you're I mean, you're also talking you're talking about

two people who are clearly part of the Episcopal Church, right,

both white. I was gonna say, why K do that? Yeah,

one is from like this wealthy family, like they're both married,

Like I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 2: I'm also like, it's a weird. It's just a weird

idea to vote to me, because it's not like they

were like they it's not like they they were like

civil rights activists or anything. No, you know, there wouldn't

really be any tie.

Speaker 3: No, and it seems even just like taking the victim

part of it aside, right, that they are not the

ideal victims for an organization like the KKK. It seems

way too staged for something that a member of the

KKK with Dom Hicks. Yeah, they would like figure they

can't read, putting these love letters in between them and

leaving the business card. Yeah, no, no, no, d you

know what I'm like, this seems like something I'm not

sure why he decided to put that in his book.

It just seems like a.

Speaker 2: Weird probably because like like just like what happened when

you told me, I was like, ooh, it sounds exciting

until you think about it, right, because I hate the

KKK and I know that they do terrible crimes. Why

would they have done this one? I don't know, but

I'm sure we're funny to read about.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and it would make for a good like byeline

when you're trying to addize like was it the KKK

find out it's this book? It wasn't.

Speaker 2: That reminds me of like the like the first season

of American Horror Story when they're like they had the

Black Dahlia in like as a character. It's like wouldn't

it be cool if she was killed by ghosts and

like an abortionist and such?

Speaker 3: And it's like, what fucking evidence do you have of that?

Because it's on my cool show and I'm Ryan Murphy. Yeah,

I'm just pulling shit.

Speaker 2: Out of my ass.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So there's that theory, which is not really a theory.

I mean, it was pretty much dismissed a beating. But

I just think it's such a.

Speaker 2: Weird that's like a fun pin note. That'd be like,

what if Hitler did it? Like well, one time he

wrote about New Jersey. It was probably Hitler. You probably

thought about mystery at some point. I'm still betting on

the Jersey Devil. He's swe down from his tree with

his love letters, so he betrayed me.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So even with that very plausible theory. Oh yeah,

no additional charges have ever been brought in this case.

At this point, all of the original investigators and suspects

have died. Yeah, and the Hall Mills murder continues to

remain unsolved. That sucks. Sorry, girl, I didn't tell you

at the top. This was an unsolved the story my

least favorite. But yeah, it was like a real and

this I find so interesting because again, like it has

all the elements of something that's like very juicy for

the media. The only reason it sort of got uh

fell out of interest is because of the Lindberg kidnapping.

Like something that just came along that was juicier.

Speaker 2: That's always so sad. Yeah, media circus. Who doesn't love

a circus, Well, probably people who are afraid of clowns.

I happen to quite enjoy them, but I totally get

why they freak people out.

Speaker 3: You know what scares me.

Speaker 2: More than clowns is reporters, not like small town plucky

like case solving ones. We're talking like paparazzi. Okay, I

honestly would never ever ever want to be famous like it.

Speaker 3: The idea scares me although now and we've been talking

about this recently in like personal group chair with the

TMZ DCT and it's like TMZ reporters harassing politicians. I

want to do that. Love that, I want that job.

You just want to go and yell at politicians? Oh yes,

I sure do.

Speaker 2: As random the idea that I could get paid to

be like you bitch, I do love that, Oh love

the idea of that. Hire me es TMZ higher us.

We would be great assets to your team. I could

do that because then I'd be behind the camera. But

like I feel like, especially like we grew up in

like a big time with like celebrities getting harassed by

the paparazzi. Like I remember like Lindsay Lohan and like

Paris Hilton and stuff like getting like their windows beaten

in and like poor Britney Spears, they're following her around

like that always like just struck me as like so horrible.

Speaker 3: I hate that.

Speaker 2: I don't think they should be able to get away

with that. I think it's too much. Here's the thing, Like,

god forbid, I feel sorry for a billionaire, But like

at the same time, I'm like, I think they're allowed

to have a little bit of privacy, like they have

to hurt the quorum. Sure, follow them, I guess, but

don't like shove a camera in their face and like

yell at them and be like oh ummm okay.

Speaker 3: So here's the thing, right, this is this is the

legal braid in me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you are

in a public space, you have zero expectation of privacy.

See I understand that, and you wanted to be famous.

I do get that I do get that, and I agree.

I'm not saying it's the best and I'm not saying

but yeah, I agree when it becomes harassing and you're

getting in their physical space, like okay, here's blocking a

car or black.

Speaker 2: You know, this is one that like people always bring

up one of my favorite people on Earth, Buyork. I

God damn love Byork. If you Icelandic singer, we love her.

There's an old like two thousands. If you type Byork

into anything, this will pop up two thousands. Think of

her being in an airport and a reporter goes like,

welcome to London or wherever she was, and b York

turns around and beats the shit out of her. She

whales this woman out, And it's like it was portrayed

at the time as like Buork is nuts because she's

a very eccentric character, and like why did she that

lady just said. What really happened is that woman was

a reporter for like a specific magazine, yeah, and had

been harassing Byork. Buorck had been on tour, had given

birth on tour and had her son and was like

had all this shit going on, and this woman had

invited her like to have an interview, and she was like, Hey,

I'm really sorry.

Speaker 3: I can't.

Speaker 2: I have all this stuff going on. And this woman

had made it like her life's mission to fuck with

Buorke had come to all of her events had been

like screaming explotives at her, had been following her around.

When she got to the airport, she had threatened her,

We're not gonna let you get in your car, followed

her all throughout the airport, yelling expletives at her, and

then ran through the airport to be like where she

was leaving and was like, Hi, welcome to London. She

beat that she should have. I'm glad she beat the

hell out of her.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I am you doing that? These people

are crazy, I understand, and when it when it reaches

into like harassment, that's why I have an issue crazy.

And however often does you can't get mad if you're

walking down the street and somebody who's filming you and

ask is it annoying? Yes? But when you're in public,

do not have an expectation of privacy?

Speaker 2: And I do, Like I get sad whenever, like it's like,

oh I tried, I was walking down the street and

I saw you know so and so, and it's like, hey, man,

I'm a big fan. They're like, fuck you, yeah, don't

do that, like they're excited to see you. Like I understand,

But it's like, I just think everyone should have some decorum.

Speaker 3: That's all.

Speaker 2: That's all. Like I think being like eleven and seeing

like vagina shots of like underage Lindsay Lohan like upset

me a lot. I'm like, why are you taking pictures

up her skirt?

Speaker 3: Maybe she should not have been No, it's gonna be.

Speaker 2: She wasn't wearing underwear and she did a full spready

glow out of the fucking car. Don't publish it. Everybody

has wardrobe malfunctions. But it's like she's an underage girl.

Speaker 3: You're right. Was she under age at the time, Yeah,

she was like sixteen, Okay, that's fair. Yeah I don't

like that. Yeah, Like I get it.

Speaker 2: If you're like Tara Reid on the Red carpet and

her dress falls off because she was obviously fucking wasted.

She's an adult and you're on the red.

Speaker 3: Carpet, I just feel like it is one of these

gray It really is.

Speaker 2: Every area keep bringing up like all these examples, but

like the thing is with human beings.

Speaker 3: We love drama.

Speaker 2: We do. It's so fuck human interest, and it feels

safe to be like.

Speaker 3: Well, this isn't my drama. This is somebody who's like

far away. Why I love Housewife so much?

Speaker 2: Absolutely, That's why I love Jersey Shore because it's like

it and a lot of it is like, well, you know,

it's just like human interest.

Speaker 3: Nobody's really getting hurt. Sure, you know, it is what

it is, but it's like, I just think I don't

like paparazzi. I don't like them.

Speaker 2: They don't care about the human lives that will be affected.

It's all about a paycheck. It seems safer to look

at somebody else's problems and talk about what you would

do if you were Chapel Roone from the comfort of

your kitchen table.

Speaker 3: Yeah you know, yes, you know, I don't know. It's

the same with sports teams. Oh totally totally guys watching

sports and being like, why do you do that? Why

didn't he do this?

Speaker 2: Why didn't we so funny and we make fun of it,

But I do that too. Everything I didn't show, it's like, idiot,

you didn't temper the butter as I eat my like

microwave hot pocket like an idiot.

Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to add that while you stir, what

are you doing?

Speaker 2: It's human human nature very much. So the trial that

I'm going to do today. So I also did kind

of like a vintagey one, kind of like a nineteen

twenties one, and this one at the time was called

the Trial of the Century. Okay, so this was like

a big, big, big one. Okay, this case is nuts.

This case has everything, This case is nuts. Everyone in

this case is an asshole. I'm ready, get ready, I'm ready.

Speaker 3: I just said that.

Speaker 2: Okay, ready, I am ready. I don't put the deal.

So this is the case of Harry Kendrel Harry Kendall Thaw. Okay, yeah,

there's a lot of consonants in that, Okay. So Harry

Thought was born in Pennsylvania on February twelfth, eighteen seventy one.

He was one of eleven children between two marriages.

Speaker 3: Sounds about right, pretty crazy.

Speaker 2: He had kind of a bad childhood, I think at

least yeah one, so he had there was kind of

a controversial case in his childhood where he had a

baby brother who had died because the mother had fallen asleep,

like with him in bed and like so there was

kind of like back and forth about whether it was

neglect or whether it was accident, and it wasn't helped

because she was a very like mercurial woman and was

known to like beat her servants great. So they were

like love that great, and he obviously uh inherited a

lot of that because in childhood he was a complete terror.

We were just talking about the last case about like

like we were talking about somebody who it's like, oh,

in retrospect, they probably had like autism or they had

some mental issues. This guy clearly had shit going on,

and it's fascinating to think about. But I'm not one

hundred percent sure what was going on with him, So

I wonder, I wonder what you guys are gonna think. Yeah,

so he had very bad, like they say temper tantrums,

but like big blowouts for no reason, huge temper tantrums.

He had long bouts of insomnia, which kind of sounds

like it's something that you'd be like, oh, okay, you

know he has trouble sleeping, but like early childhood insomnia

is like a big deal that means that there's something wrong,

but almost always, and he had a strange way of

speaking where he would kind of like he would kind

of babble. He would kind of baby babble on the

and he retained that into adulthood. Okay, yeah, Like and

he was able to speak, but he would kind of

break off.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: So it's like there's obviously some kind of almost like

a vocal stem or something. Right, That's what I'm wondering.

That's what I'm wondering.

Speaker 2: This is this is a quote from one of these

articles that I was just like, Oh, his chosen form

of amusement was hurling heavy household objects at the heads

of servants.

Speaker 3: Oh, I love that, right.

Speaker 2: Pastime, which was a simpler time. So he his family

was pretty wealthy. I think his dad was. Oh his

dad was just a huge business man. So he was

pretty wealthy. Uh so he was His parents were able

to get him some education, but he kept getting like

expelled from from these private schools just kind of like

do do do bouncing around Pittsburgh. The teachers described him

as a troublemaker. And they also said, so I talked

about like he had speech problems. Yeah, they said that

he walked in like a weird zig zag everybody else,

you know, in a hallway. It kind of minutes the road.

You go left, you go right.

Speaker 3: He would be like just going to get a zag.

Speaker 2: Guessing which I wonder is it like that's so interesting?

Is it like like an involuntary like brain thing where

it's a physical problem, or is it that he doesn't

care about other people and he doesn't care that he's

getting in their way?

Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2: So it's like very interesting. Somehow, he was admitted to

the University of Pittsburgh to study law, okay, where he

did nothing. Uh, and then he was like, I'm really

rich and like come from kind of a famous family.

So I feel like I'm going to go to Harvard.

What Like it's hard, I'm gonna go to Harvard. Okay,

So went to Harvard. He said quote that he studied

poker at Harvard because he didn't do shit.

Speaker 3: He just went I like that. I like that. That's

like I studied drinking in college.

Speaker 2: This is like I'm not gonna go into it because

it's literally gonna take a million years.

Speaker 3: Because this guy is nuts. This guy is nuts. So

this guy is a huge problem.

Speaker 2: Like this is one of those people who could have

easily coasted to adulthood and like not done anything much

because his parents had so much money and influence. But

he was like, I'm just gonna fuck with everyone I meet.

Like he's holding up cab drivers with a shotgun because

he thinks that they cheaped him out of like ten cents.

He's getting into fights with students and teachers. He's bouncing,

so he's nuts. Okay, he's fucking nuts.

Speaker 3: Looking for something to do.

Speaker 2: It sounds like, yeah, And unfortunately he would get even

more money at the age of twenty two when his

father would die, leaving him the equivalent to like one

hundred million dollars.

Speaker 3: Wow, well, okay, and so would be that yeah.

Speaker 2: Because he was at Harvard. His mom like took custody

of the money and gave him a monthly allowance of

the equivalent of oh, you know, just a low sum

of like almost three hundred thousand dollars, like one hundred

thousand dollars.

Speaker 3: She was so much with that amount of money a month,

and you know.

Speaker 2: What he did trouble, of course, of course, bad shit.

But his mom he seems very much like the mama's boy,

and she was not helping. She was enabling him. Every

time there was a scandal, she would kind of cover

it up, so he would kind of go and do

all of these crazy things that he gets charged with

kidnapping at some point because he like was in a

hotel and took a like a nineteen year old bell

hop and locked him in the bathroom and beat him

with a writing crop, Like what he's fucking nuts nuts,

so crazy, crazy, crazy crazy. So at some point he

had to kind of dip from Harvard because he was

causing too much trouble naturally, like I'm gonna go fuck

up Europe. So he went to Europe, went to Paris,

was like just in like prostitute city, like hiring all

of these prost place, hired a military band for a party,

which was like thousands and thousands, thousands of dollars. At

one party, he gave everyone like as a favor, like

a thousand dollars, like an a thousand dollar piece of jewelry.

Speaker 3: Like this guy is nuts. I never get invited to

parties like that where they're like, I know, here's the

party favor. It's a thousand dollars.

Speaker 1: I know.

Speaker 2: So this is disputed, but the term playboy came into

like the common talk at that time, and it is

rumored to have been inspired by this guy saying because

he was such a slut. Okay, yeah, okay, so he's

messing around. He's going from he's partying in Europe, but

he's still hanging out in America.

Speaker 3: Coming back.

Speaker 2: He there are all of these like gentlemen's clubs, like

not like stripper places, but like you know, you know

what I mean, like high society male clubs, and he

was rejected from like all of them because they were like,

you are a lot reputation. Yeah, he did get accepted

to a club called the Union League Club and they

were like, hey, we're having a meeting tonight. Why don't

you come on by. And he was like absolutely, I'm

going to ride a horse into your building. Get out,

and they did. They said, get out of our club.

And he said his behavior was quote unbefitting.

Speaker 3: Okay, that one. I do kind of love that. I

love it too. It's so funny.

Speaker 2: Yeah, let me bring my horses whatever. And it's just

a regular building, Like, dude, what are you doing.

Speaker 3: Lease make sure there's an opening large enough for me

on the back of the horse.

Speaker 2: So obviously all of these all of these things are happening,

Like he seems to want to be in these clubs

and they're rejecting him, and he wants to go to

these bars and they're like, dude, you can't drink here

because you're an asshole, like go away, and he instead

of being like, boy, I really should reflect and change

my behavior, he is like, this is all the fault

of this one guy. This one guy is doing. This

is all a conspiracy. He is talking to all these

people and getting me kicked out of all this shit,

and this is this motherfucker Stanford White. Okay, Stanford White.

Now what did Stanford White do to him? Well, let's

get into it, Okay, So like is he just catching

strays or like kind of see okay, but you know

when two men fight, I think the kind of thing

is like is it over a woman? And this time

it was so what Stanford White did was he was,

I think at the time, married to a woman that

Harry was in love with named Evelyn Nesbe. Okay, so

evelyn nesbit is I'm not going to get into her

too much because again, very interesting in sad life and

would take me fifteen hours to talk about. But if

you've ever looked up, Like the term Gibson girl is

like a whole thing in the twenties. It's an art movement,

sort of like like a nouveau art. If you look up,

just like twenties illustrations, you'll come across And Gibson girl

was a type of model of the time. She was

known Evelyn Nesbitt was known as one of the world's

first supermodels because she sat for paintings for all of

these advertisements, for all of these things, and she had

such a beautiful face and like beautiful wispy hair and

dressed in like very whimsical clothing. So she was like

the Gibson girl.

Speaker 3: So she was very very famous yea.

Speaker 2: And she also did things like Broadway and vaudeville and

all this other stuff. She was like beautiful, beautiful.

Speaker 3: I feel like back in that day we did everything. Yeah,

you were a model and an actress and a dance

and like totally the vaudeville thing was very much many.

I feel like I remember not long ago listening to

like a podcast or an interviewer where somebody was talking

about vaudeville and how different it is now totally to

be a sort of specialist. But you're starting to see

a resurgence in multi talented. It's a recession indicator. That's depressing,

sure is.

Speaker 2: But so that was so he had this hatred for

Stanford White because he was in love with his underage wife.

Speaker 3: I mean, welcome. So that's neither here nor there, Okay,

in this time, it was fine, look at my lovely

twelve year old. So she was at this time about

now come, it's always underaged wives and not underaged husbands. Anyway,

you know, we know why.

Speaker 2: That's a different podcast. Yeah, So how he met this

girl is being a high society man. He's going to

the theater and probably like shooting people and such. But

he went to a play called The wild Rose, which

was a like vaudeville show, and Evelyn Nesbitt, who already

was fairly famous at about sixteen or seventeen. Yeah, she

was a featured player. Ooh, Harry Thaw liked it so

much that over the next year he went to forty

more of her performances. Oh my god, I'm like, bro,

she is in high school. I mean she wasn't, but

she was high school age. Yeah, she obviously wasn't at school.

Speaker 3: Right, She was in vaudeville, the school of Vaudeville.

Speaker 2: So he was like, I must, I must meet this girl,

like right after like the first show. He was like,

introduced me to this girl.

Speaker 3: Such a as you're telling me this, uh huh, this

is such a trope Like this idea of the first

thing that came to my mind is one of my

all time favorite movies, Mulan Rouge, where it's this like

wealthy guy who sees an act a beautiful actress or

a beautiful stage performer, and he's like, I must have

that's her at any cost. Yes, like I will own her.

And that's what it is. Like, it's that other pretty

which is a trope that you have seen in movies

many nights. That's just the first one I could think of.

But I actually kind of think that this story helped

inspire mluge thin Yes, good, Yeah, Okay, it's inspired many

many modern works. Okay, it's a big, big, big case.

Yeah Okay. So I it's actually really funny that you

brought that up, because as I was reading this, I

was like, this is Mulon Rouge. No, literally one of

my all time favorite movies. I too stage shows, yes,

which is highly recommended if you ever get to see

it in like Chicago or something, I want to highly

recommend it. It's a fabulous show.

Speaker 2: But yeah, this this is very much, very much say

me that kind And it's that like rich men want

beautiful things. Yeah, you know, and who cares that she's sixteen?

Who cares that she's already married? I want that right,

And it just so happens. There were plenty of other

girls in the chorus who were beautiful and gorgeous, but

she was the most famous one. Yes, so he was like,

I want that one. So right away as he gets

like an audience with her, he's talking to her about

He's like, you know, I know you're married to that

architect guy, Sanford White. I'm like really concerned about you

being around him because you know, he's a grown man.

Speaker 3: Said the grown man. Oh my god. You know this

guy's just like no good for you. Yeah. So he's

like kind of talking to Evelyn Nesbit and kind of

trying to like ingratiate himself towards her. She was probably

freaked to shit about this old man coming to forty

of her shows and like demanding these audiences with her.

So he's and he there's this whole thing about how

he originally like had lied about his identity to get

an audience with her and then had revealed his eye.

Speaker 2: This guy is just like crazy, yeah, crazy, terrible and stupid.

So and Evelyn lived in like a small apartment with

her mother, who was like a pretty notorious like stage

parent and was like allowing all of this to go

on and reaping the benefits pretty to again another very

common trope right allah everyone in Hollywood. So because her

mother was not taking care of her, he could very

easily sort of like worm his way in and get

access to her. So like he's like, baby, you are

like so exhausted, you've been to all of these shows

that I've also come to. Why don't we all take

like a fun trip to Europe. Evelyn had just had

like appendicitis, so she had to take a break from

the stage anyway. So he was like, you know what,

We're gonna take you to the sea to regain your

of course, as they do, but this trip was really

a way for him to sort of begin to separate

and her mother, because since he was there on this trip,

he could be like, girl, she said this about you,

Oh she said this about you, and the women began

to fight. They'd always been close, but he was kind

of like pushing them apart, very calculated.

Speaker 3: And she was married to Stanford White at this time. Yes, okay,

So they.

Speaker 2: Ended up ditching her mom in like London, and he

took Evelyn to Paris, and during.

Speaker 3: This time, he's like, just bro, be my wife. Bro,

come on, come on, just get divorce. Be my wife.

Speaker 2: Be my fucking wife. And she's like, eh, I don't

want to.

Speaker 3: We're just friends.

Speaker 2: We're just friends, yeah, just to Europe friends. Yeah, And

he's like he's like, I know this Stanford guy. And

this is kind of interesting because he kind of turned

out to be a little bit right in that. Stanford

also was not good for her, who knew that an

old man would not be good for of course, of course,

but he ended up getting her to tell him because

he's like, how did you end up with this guy?

And Stanford White had gotten her drunk and drugged her

and raped her and then been like, will you have

to marry me? Because now you're ruined? Wow?

Speaker 3: What a piece of shit. Yep, they're all shitty in

this story. She was unconscious shitty all around in this one. Yep,

that's what I told you.

Speaker 2: That's what I told you, and he and he used

that as well to be like he was like, your

mom knew about that. Your mom's a real piece of shit.

You probably should never talk to her again, and you

should only talk to me.

Speaker 3: I'm so good.

Speaker 2: So she was like, okay, crazy shit. He ends up

taking her to like the birthplace of Joan of arc

and was like, look at this, because she was a

beautiful virgin, and you could be a beautiful virgin if

not Stanford White had ruined you. Okay, very very discussed

this guy fucking cray Z.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: He takes her to this weird castle in Europe, ends

up also raping her over a two week period. He

kidnapped her, kept her.

Speaker 3: In the castle. Wow yep, and uh.

Speaker 2: She and up being like all right, all right, fine,

what else am I gonna do?

Speaker 3: All right? Fine, so a divorce, Stanford married this Guy's

like okay, all right, But.

Speaker 2: Being married to him, she was like, this sucks because

remember his like terrible mother. She had to now live

with the terrible mother. And so she went from this

like amazing, like Hollywood life to being controlled by this

crazy lady in the house not good. And through this

you would kind of think that Harry would be like,

I won, I got the girl. You would think so

you Stanford, and Stanford would just become a distant memory.

Not so, he continued, and she was always telling him like, dude,

let it go. He's not my husband anymore.

Speaker 3: You're my husband. Let it go.

Speaker 2: He doesn't have anything to do with me anymore. Couldn't

couldn't do that, could not do that. What's even funnier

is that Stanford White was like totally unaware of him,

like him, he was like, Okay.

Speaker 3: Yeah, dude's just going about his life.

Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, I'm just gonna get another hot teenage wife.

I don't know, man, I don't care girl. So at

this point, being married, Thaw and Nesbit were they were

going to take like this European cruise, but they did

a quick stop in New York to see a show

called Mademoiselle Champagne.

Speaker 3: Oh sounds high end the night.

Speaker 2: So this was in June, and it was suffocatingly hot,

very very hot, so everyone was kind of like dressed lightly.

Thaw went to the show and wore a long black

overcoat over his like three piece tuxedo.

Speaker 3: Everyone was like, dude, why are you wearing that? Aren't

you like super hot? And he was like, no, this

is what I'm wearing. It's fine. Now, it's the style.

It's fine. I'm like, I look so good right now. Yeah.

So they were like, Okay. Something I also haven't mentioned

is he is heavily on cocaine and morphine at this time. Okay,

and I have just assumed like.

Speaker 2: Sodoms one of those things were at the time there

were like little bottles and you would take like a

little sip. Evelyn later would testify that he would take

the whole bottle. He was just like, uh so that's bad. Wow,

lodum folks.

Speaker 3: You up, yeah, dude, you up.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So Evelyn and Thaw are sitting at their table, they're

enjoying the show, and who's but a couple of tables

down but Sanford White. Oh wow, what are you doing here? Well,

it's ties to say, of course, you know, and and

like it's kind of really not because they're all like

high society whatever. This is a high society event. So

it's like kind of like, of course he would be there.

It wasn't a big deal, No big deal. Okay, whatever,

We're just gonna get through it. It was said that

Thaw tried to like approach his table a couple of

times and would kind of like backtrack, so it was like,

really weird. It's like, dude, are you gonna say something

or what.

Speaker 3: But then during he wanted to do say something and

he would like kind of shove it out.

Speaker 2: But then during the finale of the show, Thaw stood up,

reached into his long, heavy, seasonally inappropriate overcoat, produced a pistol,

and fired three shots at White, killing him instantly. Okay,

it was said, seems extreme. These shots were so violent

that it like tore his like face apart.

Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's not I feel like guns at

the time, Oh, they had gotten better, right, but you're

still talking of an era where like shrapnel was like

a oh absolutely, you know, just like yeah, it's like

buck shot, yeah, kablau Right, that's crazy.

Speaker 2: And then it's leading to the theatrics of the evening

as everyone's like.

Speaker 3: Oh, oh no, is this part of the show.

Speaker 2: He climbed over his body, pushed the gun in the

air and said, quote, I did it because he ruined

my wife. He took advantage of the girl and then

abandoned her.

Speaker 3: Ummm I feel like that's a slight mischaracterization. I mean, yeah,

so this is this part I only. Why isn't that

when anybody kills somebody in like a theater or like,

they get swept up, they want.

Speaker 2: To like shout something because literally, monologue, this is my moment.

Speaker 3: I better not mess it up?

Speaker 1: Is it?

Speaker 2: Though?

Speaker 3: Is it your moment?

Speaker 2: Like you should probably leave. So at first the crowd

was obviously afraid, but they were like, is this part

of the show because that kind of thing was very

common in that kind of like theatrical setting. It was

almost like a practical joke. They were like okay, and

again these were like famous people, so you're assuming like, oh, it's.

Speaker 3: It's just a part of the show with really good effects.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So he still had the gun, so he grabbed his

wife and was like, come on, let's go, and they

went to the elevator and she was like what because

she had no idea, she was like what the hell

just happened?

Speaker 3: She's like, what what have you done? What did you

just do?

Speaker 2: And he goes, it's all right, I probably saved your life.

Speaker 3: Cool, cool, cool, Well thanks, I guess.

Speaker 2: Thanks he was obviously charged with murder.

Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously.

Speaker 2: Yeah. He was like, don't even worry about it, I'll

bail out, and they said no, yeah, we're actually denying

you bail because we know that you have a lot

of money.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and the means to get out of the country release.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 3: Yeah, So this is this is.

Speaker 2: Starting like kind of the whole media circus bit because

this was a very famous dude. Yeah, this was a picture.

So this kind of started the whole thing. You know,

the fancy restaurant Delmonico's, but okay, it was like a

fancy New York restaurant, like an okay restaurant. Knowing he

was in jail, Delmonico's catered Oh my god, his meal.

So he's sitting in jail.

Speaker 3: It's literally a picture of him in jail at this

table that has a very nice table cloth and.

Speaker 2: All this front like a picture of water, and like

you are in jail for murder and this very absolutely

absolutely so that kind of like stirred the public up.

The twenties obviously is this huge time of like economic

inequality and here's this asshole eating you know whatever. Filet,

mine On and Cavi are in jail after having just

murdered a guy blew his face off, like hello, wow. Oh.

And he also didn't sleep on he saw the jail

ben and he was like, I think not.

Speaker 3: I only sleep on goose down right.

Speaker 2: He slept in a brass bed.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 2: Wow. He was allowed to wear his own clothes, and

he was allowed to drink during the day. He was

allowed wine and champagne. Okay, uh huh, So that's good,

that's normal and nice. The news coverage went insane, insaney

like this was this was enormous, it says quote facts

were thin, but the sensationalist coverage was crazy. This is

what they called at the time yellow journalism. Yes, have

you heard that term before? Very interesting where it's like, yeah,

you know, it's journalism, but it's really like making it up, yes,

which is very common narrative of course. His So I

feel like a lot of these like high society families

are like whenever some like big scandal happens, they either

lean away from it and are like, oh my god,

we could not be associated with this, and they like

shun the people involved. Oh, they're not part of us.

Speaker 3: Very allah.

Speaker 2: The Kennedy's were just going to institutionalize them and put

them away and never look at them again and continue on.

Not this family, They were like, that's our beautiful baby boy.

Speaker 3: Circled the wagons a bit.

Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, especially his mommy of course, who was running

smear campaigns against both his wife and Stanford White, being

like it was that evil teenager.

Speaker 3: One of the.

Speaker 2: Headlines from that time from just like a local Pittsburgh

newspaper quote woman whose beauty spelled death and ruin. Dude,

she was a teenager. She did not do anything.

Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's always the woman's fault, I know, but

I don't always like she was too beautiful she made

men murder that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So obviously, you know, as we've been talking about this

guy's insane life and all of his weird choices, you

would think that they would be like, let's just get

him declared legally insane.

Speaker 3: So that was a big part of what the defense

was doing.

Speaker 2: So the defense, which makes sense, and honestly, I'm kind

of like, well, he was kind of nuts.

Speaker 3: Nah, he sure knew what he was doing.

Speaker 2: I don't think that like a legal definition of a

sandy would have held.

Speaker 3: Up, but there are definitely I don't even think a

non legal definition of insanity would hold up at all totally.

Maybe unstability but right, but it's like it does not

have unstability in instability, yes, you know that unstable.

Speaker 2: So the defense was coming to him and they were like, hey,

this is our idea, Like, obviously you are a little

fucking crazy, so we're gonna lean into that and that

way there's no way you'll get the death penalty.

Speaker 3: And he went, no, that will make me look crazy.

Speaker 2: That will make me look look crazy, you guys, and

they were like they're gonna kill you, like this is

they're all we're talking about, like hanging and all this stuff.

They were like, we're scared. He was like, nuhuh, well

I don't want to look bad. So they were like okay,

we'll go to your mother and he was like she

was like, don't make my beautiful baby boy look bad.

Speaker 3: He's not crazy, right. They're like okay, well okay.

Speaker 2: So she like was hiring all of these uh specialists

and all who were all kind of coming back to

her and being like he he is pretty crazy, and

she was like, no, away with you another specialist. Yeah,

like dude, he's pretty nuts. Yeah, he's pretty nuts.

Speaker 3: Oh.

Speaker 2: During this time, whether this was his own brain or

something that he was doing for the press, or whether

he was able to differentiate between the two. He was

saying that he was hearing choruses of young girls voices

in his jail cell, championing him, champion, champion ning. They

were like, yeah, you can do it. Do you want

to try that one more time?

Speaker 3: I know, I really don't championing, championing got it. They

were like, you got this. We believe in you.

Speaker 2: You're gonna like win, You're gonna win in court. We

are under age, by the way, we're underage angels.

Speaker 3: Of course, like, of course he's so gross.

Speaker 2: So he ended up being tried twice for the crimea

I will explain to you. So the first trial proceedings

started on January twenty three, nineteen oh seven, and the

jury went into deliberation on April eleventh, So like kind

of a long, kind of a long trial.

Speaker 3: There was like a shit ton of evidence.

Speaker 2: After forty seven hours of deliberation, they deadlocked. Okay, m hmm,

So seven had voted or no, I'm sorry, five had

voted not guilty, seven had voted guilty. He responded to

that with outrage and had a lot of interviews about

how like I am a chivalrous night protecting the innocent

very next hour, yeah, whenever, because he had tons of

interviews in jail like of course, what is this? And

he would literally when they would be like, hey, what

did you think about, like they were trying to say

that you were insane and stuff, he would literally throw

himself to the ground and like have a fit, like

have a temper tantrum, which is like he was like,

wouldn't insane man do this?

Speaker 3: Ah, Like yes they would.

Speaker 2: So since the jury deadlocked and like couldn't do it,

they were like, we'll have another trial. Uh so January

nineteen oh eight, they're like, we will start the second

trial trying to figure out if you did this. So

this time he was like, no, I'm crazy. I had

temporary insanity. Yeah, I was just crazy at the time. Sure,

so he had because he had a new like defense council, right,

and he had been able to be like do you

want to be dead?

Speaker 3: Yeah?

Speaker 2: Or do you want to be temporary? I love that

now it's temporary insanity. I was just crazy then, but

now I'm like so normal and cool.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: Of course, Unfortunately this worked really he was found not

guilty by reason of insanity okay, and he was sentenced

to incarceration for life at the Matarian State Hospital for

the criminally Insane in Fishkill, New York, Okay, a very

cushy place where he was allowed.

Speaker 3: That's like the ideal outcome for him, honestly, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well he didn't stay there. It was not for life,

but he ended up getting out and doing all kinds

of other crimes like a dickhead.

Speaker 3: Great, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2: There was all of these other cases that were brought

to him. Of course, Evelyn herself went to court and

had to testify and was saying that he was threatening

her this whole time, that she had to testify in

his behalf, and that if he was exonerated, she would

get a ton of money, and if he wasn't, he

would take.

Speaker 3: All her money.

Speaker 2: Like she was this young naive girl. He was really

taking advantage of her when he was in the the

insane asylum. They ended up getting a divorce, so she

ended up splitting for hid But like they're this should

have been the end, but they're just dragging these things out,

dragging this out, because of course he's like, I don't

want to be in here, Well, let me out of here.

So they're trying to have him released on a writ

of habeas corpus. But they're trying so like all of

these people from his past are coming. So this is

this huge, insane, lurid trial that is just dragging on

and dragging on while he's continuing to be in this confinement.

So at this point, while this trial is going on

in nineteen thirteen, he just like leaves the asylum. He's like, bye,

I'm gonna leave, and he went over the Canadian border,

so he's like, I'm just dipping where he was immediately

recognized and arrested because he's like one of the most

famous people in the world at this time. He tried

to stay in Canada, ended up being deported back to US.

Now all of these people around him are getting in

trouble because they helped him with this escape where this

is even more media circus, and then somehow on July sixteenth,

nineteen fifteen, Jerry determined him to They were like, no,

you're fine now, actually this was the working of a

sane man. So they're like, bye, you can go home. Yeah,

set him.

Speaker 3: Free, okay, the end, Okay, yeah, oh wow, wild, isn't

that bad? Yeah? So he uh, there was all of

this like.

Speaker 2: This is one of those things where like I get it,

but I find I always find this so hard to

like swallow. He had so many supporters who were like,

he's just our beautiful baby boy. There was a there

were letters written in support of him as a defender

of American womanhood growth, which like get the hell out

of here, very very bad. So this was like a

huge this is one of the first like huge, crazy,

big media circuses. All of these headlines were like it.

It felt like most of them were based on like

poor Evelyn, Like she is this young temptress tempting these men,

when I'm like, she really needed to like go to school, Like, girl,

what were you doing there? A contemporary reporter. I'll kind

of tie this up with a quote by a reporter

explaining kind of why this trial had.

Speaker 3: Such a hold on people. I thought this was really fun,

he said. This is Irvin S. Cobb, a reporter.

Speaker 2: He said, quote, you see it had in it wealth, degeneracy,

rich old wasters, delectable young chorus girls and adolescent artists, models,

the behind the scenes of theaterdom in the underworld and

the Great White Way, which is Broadway, the abnormal pastimes

and weird orgies of overly esthetic artists and jaded to

Bao cheese in the cast of The Motley Show, where

Bowery tufts, Harlem gangsters, tenderloin panderers, Broadway leaning men, Fifth

Avenue club men, Wall Street manipulators, Uptown voluptuaries, and downtown thugs.

Quote Wow, he was just like this murder has everything.

I mean, it does had everything. I highly recommend looking

into Harry Thaw's life because he is fucking nuts nuts,

so crazy. That's so crazy, crazy boy, what a fun story.

You can still check out Evelyn nesbit On like every

nineteen twenties illustration. Ever, she's the Gibson Girl, so at

least she was able to have some fame after that,

but the media kind of like drove her into drug

addiction and she ended up having like a pretty hard

time in her life, which is Yeah, I don't like

the paparazzi.

Speaker 3: They an interesting story a lot. Yeah, I don't have

to tell.

Speaker 1: You things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.

Speaker 3: It's a depression.

Speaker 2: Everybody not.

Speaker 1: Losing their job.

Speaker 3: Well, that has been our episode. Yeah cool, it sure was.

Do you have any final thoughts before?

Speaker 2: We still don't want to be famous? They keep calling

me and asked king in him.

Speaker 3: Yeah no I can't. I'm sure the same calls. I'm kidding,

I'm sure all right. Our sound and editing is by

to Fullman. Our music is by Jason Zashevsky fo Enigma.

This has been the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. We will

see you in two weeks. Goodbye.

Speaker 2: Left along the highway.

Speaker 3: It was as if a wave of the people washed

over with town. You were wearing some form, wearing another