[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How he even came into this, like what his intentions at first were. Okay. All that fun stuff. Cause it seems like they got lost down the road. They certainly did. Yeah. I don't know a lot about his origin story, so I'm excited to hear. When you hear about him in the beginning, it feels like, and you're just kind of hopeful that it's true that he had these like grand


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And somewhat pure intentions at one point. I think they were lost in this thing where he believed in a time where they believed like talk therapy was the only way to get through mental illness. He believed that it was physical like medical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So his intentions in the beginning were he, he wanted to cure mental illness. Okay. But my goodness, did he go about it the wrong way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And he just kept going, even through his failures, which his failures weren't like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Failing at, you know, you know, creating something entertaining or something and you just keep working at it until you do it right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're failing at human beings. Like you're ruining human beings' lives with your failures. So it's like you can't keep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Portuguese neurologist, Igus Monez, developed the lobotomy, because a lot of people confuse that Dr. Freeman was the one who created the lobotomy, he didn't. Okay. He created the transorbital lobotomy, which is a totally different procedure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Igus Moniz was the one who created the lobotomy. They also called it a leukotomy. Okay. But we know it now as a lobotomy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was in 1935 and it was just a super crude surgery that was developed as a blanket treatment for mental illness. Uh, it involved drilling into the skull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like literally just scrambling the neural connections to the frontal lobe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And they just thought like, yeah, that'll fix it. Just, yeah, just egg beat that person's brain and that'll do. And the thing is all of these ideas have a basis in like reality and you're like, you, if you just followed that in a logical and more like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Normal way, you could have got somewhere, I think, but you followed it down this wild path of just let's scramble the connections. It's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You didn't think of anything more refined here? Cause that's the thing, when you think about it, you're like, yeah, scrambling them will help. Like, I don't know about that. I don't think that's gonna do much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So less than a decade later after Igus Moniz created the lobotomy, American neurologist Walter Jackson Freeman refined? Question mark!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The procedure to, uh, to develop a non-surgical procedure, because that was obviously a very surgical procedure. Uhm, this one could be performed in a doctor's office. That's terrifying. And this is what he called the transorbital lobotomy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how is that not surgical? Well, Freeman's procedure involved inserting a medical instrument very similar to an ice pick into the patient's orbital socket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So eyeball sever, like right next to the eyeball, it would go in. Okay. And it would be used to sever the neural connections without requiring surgery, hospital stays, or long recovery times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was advertised as quick, easy, and a painless solution to everything. Painless? Let me just shove this thing into your eye? They were like, oh don't worry, we'll numb you up. It's fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What? And if you look at patients like afterwards, like their eyes are all black obviously. Of course. It's intense. That's awful. And he said it could cure general lethargy, occasional depression, schizophrenia, violent aggressive behavior, everything on the spectrum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they basically made the procedure a go-to solution for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Slightly effective for a very small number of those who received a lobotomy. It was used indiscriminately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Often without consideration for the increasingly disastrous outcomes that were happening. They were just like, oh, this one will be fine. You know what? Forget that one. We're going to move on to the next and this will be better. Sometimes patients were as young as four or five years old. Are you kidding? Yes. Oh my God. Whose parents I'm like, yeah. So


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The question becomes, was Dr. Freeman an indiscriminate egomaniac or was he just blinded to what he had really done and was looking to be the person to fix it all? I don't know yet. I think it's a good, a good mix of both. I think he is evil villain territory for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think it began as something different and it turned into something fucking awful. I feel like, I mean, that kind of happens with a lot of villains. It's true, and it's unforgivable the way he just kept going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the problem here. When he realized like this is not working. Where he just kept going, he kept hiding results, he was just moving forward, like it wasn't this awful thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's talk about who Walter Freeman is. Who is he? Walter Freeman, Walter Jackson Freeman Jr. was born on November 14th, 1895 in Philadelphia. I think that makes him a Scorpio, so. There you go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was the first of seven children born to Walter Freeman Sr. and Corinne Keen Freeman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walter's maternal grandfather was William, was William Keene, who was a veteran of the Union Army who served in the American Civil War and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walter's earliest years, he was sick a lot. Like practically from the moment he was born. Oh wow. Uh, when the boy was only 14 months old, William Kean, his grandfather,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was called on by his parents to quote, excise 30 enlarged lymph nodes from one side of the baby's neck. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which this procedure ended up causing permanent paralysis of the trapezius and sternomastoid muscles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, yeah, enlarged lymph nodes. Yeah, yeah. Now in the years after that, Walter was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dealing with a wide array of common and also uncommon illnesses at the time. He got diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, mumps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had repeated bouts of tonsillitis and eventually needed a tonsillectomy. Jeez. So he was sick a lot. It sounds like he had some kind of like autoimmune disease. Yea, it sounded like there was definitely something more wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the late 19th century, Philadelphia was a hub for progressive ideas in science and medicine, and a lot of influential people in those fields lived there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was around it all the time. His grandfather, who he really liked, was a brain surgeon. So he was like, what's this all about?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but, I mean, it was all basically just ensuring that he was gonna go right into medicine, like his father and his grandfather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now as a student, Walter was stellar. He was super into academics, he was great at it, but he was less interested in and less, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In tune with was things that little boys his age were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just, I'm like that, they, it's always presented as like, oh, that's his weirdness. And it's like, they're supposed to be interested in part, it should be really the right size here because it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A kid doesn't need to be into sports and girls to be a normal kid. No. Let's not, like let's not do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But of course this made him a little bit of an outsider at school. Especially where the time period was. The time period for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at home, it was kind of a mixed platter for him, because according to writer Jack L. High, Walter contentedly assumed the Victorian role of the distant but dominant oldest brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was distant with his siblings, he acted like the boss, and he was also pretty distant with his own father. His father was not like a lovey-dovey type. Okay. Walter remembered him as, quote, shy, socially awkward, and a humorless father, whose example taught his son to regard emotional expression as something strange and frightening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like that was pretty typical of the time, unfortunately. While Walter's father seemed very uncomfortable in his role as like caregiver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she was pretty much shut out of her husband's life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he was working all the time. And she, so she was kind of also on the receiving end of just being neglected. So she knew what it felt like. But she reveled in motherhood. Aww. Like reveled in it. She went to all her children's events and activities around the city. She was there. She would bring them places. She was always with them. She would arrange little vacations with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their refuge. Yeah. Like she became their like oasis where they could talk about their emotions very freely with her. That's good. She didn't make them sound strange, like she would listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, at least they had that, you know. Yeah, exactly. But of all her children, Walter was still the hardest to reach according to her. Like he was very aloof. Distant even with her. Very much took after the father. Okay. Uhm, and actually Corinne described her, uh, Walter as the cat that walks by himself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and if there was any figure that loomed very large over young Walter's life, it was his grandfather, William Kean, the first brain surgeon. Uh, unlike his father, who, again, very much like struggled to relate to others, which I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he probably had some stuff going on of himself by the sounds of it. Yeah. Cause it sounds like he has some like issues like socially and also just like emotionally. Like I don't even, cause I don't


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't find anything about him being like aggressive and violent or anything like that. He was just like awkward and didn't know how to deal with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm like, I think you needed a little bit of like, you know, help dealing with that as well. Right. Uh, but yeah, he, he did not, and also his father didn't like attention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he wanted to get through it and he was very uncomfortable with being showered with any kind of attention. And that's funny because it seems like his son didn't end up the same way. Well, because Walter's grandfather, William Kean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He reveled in accolades and attention, uh, because he, he had a pristine, very stellar reputation in science. Like you said, the first brain surgeon. And he was, he was great. So it's like, he loved it. So it was totally opposite. And Walter definitely was drawn more to that side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That many scientists never see. Uh, he was a role model to Walter, like his intellectual.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prowess, her, his social, like his ability to be like socially aware and socially comfortable. Because Walter was still very socially awkward at this point, he was taking after his father. Yeaah. Uh, but he was looking up to his grandfather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in time, Walter became his grandfather's favorite grandchild. Really? Because I think he saw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he was gonna follow after him, but he also saw him as somebody as like, I need to kind of show him the ropes kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and they spent a lot of time together during Walter's formative years as an adolescent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in 1912, Walter enrolled in his freshman year at Yale University. Oh shit. Yeah. Rory Gilmore. Ah, there you go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he actually recalled later, in prep school, a daily stint of 30 lines of Greek translation was standard. In college, it was 30 pages. I can't even imagine a sentence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but Walter struggled considerably during his first year and he barely passed his classes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He also was matriculating at 16 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which was an achievement in and of itself. Yeah. So we have to give them that. But at 16, the rigor was a little too hard. It's like, yeah, we can understand that. That checks. Um, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, also, he's immature at this point. 16 year old boy is not ready for college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but Walter's immaturity and social awkwardness ultimately led to a college experience that he later described as very lonely, intimidating, and not a good time at all. That's sad. Pretty miserable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, during his sophomore and junior years at Yale, Walter continued to struggle in all aspects, socially, academically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He tried and repeatedly failed to settle on a major that he could at least enjoy doing. Like he just wasn't finding his place. Because again, he's 16. Too young. That's hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was right at the beginning of his senior year that Walter actually contracted typhoid and was hospitalized for a long period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that's when he began to talk about going into the medical field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Despite his father's insistence that he avoid medicine. Really? Because his father was like, it is a very demanding, intense career. Right. Uh, Walter kept coming back to the idea of being a doctor and he saw it as, he was like, I think this is a good career.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get a good life out of it. Definitely. It sets you up if you're good at it. And he did have a big interest in poetry as well, but he was looking at it as this is much more of a viable career than poetry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very quickly to medical school. He found that he loved it. He had a real big aptitude for formulas. He loved laboratory work. He just found his stride.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now after two semesters at the University of Chicago, he transferred to the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and many of his fellow students struggled in their first year, but he was like, impressing all his instructors. He was super committed to the hard work. It's in his blood. Yeaah, he was very interested in it, very good at it, they were very impressed by him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the summer after his first year at the University of Pennsylvania, he returned to Chicago for summer studies, and that's when he started his fascination with the human brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Particularly, he became very interested in the intersection between medicine and psychiatry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by his third year in medical school, his studies had come to occupy literally all his time. He was becoming his father. Like he was fully committed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, I was barely aware of my family. Do not recall what they were doing or where they were during this period. That's really sad when you break that down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he was very engrossed in his studies, but he also just really wanted to start his career.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was like, I loved studying, but I was just ready to take the step out of the nest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's, the unglamorous day-to-day work of collecting samples and filling out paperwork was just not something he wanted to do. Listen, we all gotta start as an apprentice, okay? We all do. We all do. Even in a hair salon, you gotta do it. There you go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now during this period Freeman was developing certain, uh, characteristic traits that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, uh, kind of undesirable, but would end up being pretty, pretty relevant or prominent, I should say, during his entire professional life. Yeah, your face told me they weren't going to be great treats. Yeah. So Elhi wrote, Freeman eventually realized that as an intern, he was supposed to be a member of a hospital team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the role of team player was never one that Freeman filled well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So despite studying under some of the literally most highly regarded surgeons in the field, he's like, I'm better. He would rather work by himself in the lab or just standing at an operating table for hours. Wow. Focusing on something, which I can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's an undesirable trait for sure to not be a team player. But I understand that some people just, it's hard for some people. It just is. I'm not a great team player. Like I'm just not. And it is an undesirable trait. But it's one that you should work with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I won't. So that's just the way it is, you know, like if you're not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very excited about team building things, like that's not gonna change. Uh huh. But like you said, you just have to like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to just go with it sometimes. And you're gonna see, I think sometimes it helps to see when something pans out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Multiple points of view and multiple people looking at a thing is what makes you discover things that you never would have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, following his graduation from medical school in 1923.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that place. You done did it. Uh, Walter dove much deeper into his studies of psychiatry and neurology. And he was working with patients that he described as quote, old women worn out in the struggle of life and not ready to take the leap into eternity. Oh shit, never felt more seen in my life. Damn. I was gonna say damn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Walter spent months in France working with patients that struggled to pay for medical treatment and he was working as an intern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And was also studying the brains of animals and honing his skills in the lab. Okay. Uh, his time in Europe was cut short though in the late spring of 1924. What did he contract? Well, I know you would think, but no, he received a telegram from his grandfather letting him know that he'd secured a job for Walter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Escorted through all the doors that were opening for him. The subnepho babies are talented. Exactly. Uh, but this was a psychiatric hospital in Washington DC. Okay. He was going to be a senior medical officer in charge of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So by the time that Walter joined the staff at St. Elizabeth's, Americans were well into a psychiatric crisis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] American psychiatric hospitals more than doubled in size. Some had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thousands of patients. Which is far too many. A lot of this was due to the large number of American men returning home from fighting in World War II and that deep psychological trauma.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but it also corresponded with a pretty significant rise in the number of physical and psychological diseases like syphilis, alcoholism. These were becoming more and more prevalent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the problem was though that diagnosing an illness and housing a patient were not the same as treating the illness. Right. You know, just diagnosing it and sticking them in a room is not treating the illness. Not fixing anything. So a lot of patients received inpatient treatment that would be very barbaric by today's standards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Truly it should be by any standards, but it wasn't. Uh, and these patients were what inspired Walter, uh, to have a feeling he described as quote, a weird mixture of fear, disgust, and shame. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is why I say, like, I think he looked at it and said, this is gross and we need to do something about it. But then he was gross with what he did about it. So it's like, you know, it just didn't go. You, you watch it and you're like, that could have been a good story. Yup. But it's not. It's like, you just went the wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You took the wrong path, my friend. Oh, and it sounds like he was just like overconfident in certain abilities. Yeah, he really thought he had it. He really did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Walter was not a wholly unsympathetic man, like I've been trying to say, in the beginning at least. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lack of treatment and the horrid state of squalor in which parents, patients were forced to live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quote, aroused rejection rather than sympathy or interest. In fact, the thing that basically drove him professionally was a desire to advance the field of neurology and psychology in a way


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That chronically mentally ill patients could eventually be treated


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His whole idea here was I want them to go on to live a fulfilling life. That was the idea, but my goodness, it got lost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Freeman's son, Walter Freeman III, told PBS later he was repelled by what he saw. He saw the nature of illness not as something that required sympathy, but as something that required action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do something. He wanted to solve the problems of psychiatry and he wanted to do it fast. And that's where the problem lies, I think. There are certain things that can't go on a fast track. I think it was his


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To crash through and be the one who fixed it all. And it's like you could have if you just took the time and the patience and the care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But while his motives may have been to advance his career, like in some way, and to, and there were parts of it that were to reinforce his ego, essentially. Yeah, self-centered. There was part of him, like we're saying, that didn't want to see people suffer unnecessarily. Of course. So it was a lot of things. It was amalgamation of reasons. And especially if he could be the one to do something about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as far as Walter could see it, mental illness had a negative effect on society as well, because he said it removed otherwise very capable individuals from the workforce and made them a burden to themselves and, according to him, a burden to others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he wrote, I looked around me at the hundreds of patients and thought what a waste of manpower and womanpower. Which,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is kind of a dark way of looking at it. It's a pretty dark way of looking at it. Like for the time period, I suppose that's a very like, just black and white way of looking at it. Like you could be working and you're not. It's very sterile. I don't like the idea of calling these people a burden to others. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, you know what I mean? Like that, that takes away any of the care that you put into your previous statements of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't want to see people suffer unnecessarily. Like that, all that stuff, like I want them to live fulfilling lives. I want them to be happy. Like stop there. I want them to be able to work if they want to work. Like sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the early 1930s, he had spent years studying schizophrenia and other chronic mental illnesses and concluded that such afflictions were organic and not societal or environmental.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he figured they could only be solved through medical procedures.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Despite those feelings, he had to entertain the nation's growing interest in psychoanalysis in order to succeed in the hospital in university settings that he was really drawn to work in. Right. Because this was around the time when it was really booming that, you know, like psychoanalysis, like Freud, all that stuff was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walter was really one of the few voices that were advocating for medical explanation and solution for the symptoms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, by the mid-1930s, his routine had him waking up at 4am. He began the day with writing. Then he would split his time between private practice, his work at the hospital labs, and a teaching position at George Washington University.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And working as a member of the Mental Health Commission of the District of Columbia. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was every day. It's an overloaded plate right there. And during this period, his work was focused on charting activity in the brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the 1950s in the United States it was banned because studies found exposure intravascularly to this cause, to this, uh, to this solution causes liver tumors and inhaling thorium dust can create


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now although he had been steadily increasing his reputation in medical circles around the country,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fortunately, Freeman's ideal partner arrived at George Washington University in 1935. He was a young neurosurgeon named James Winston Watts, and like Walter,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] James Watts came from a pretty prestigious medical family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had quickly risen to the top of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and then he had transferred to Washington DC as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But also like Freeman, Watts believed in psychosurgery, which is what is now known as neurosurgery. It was known before as psychosurgery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he believes that was the key to treating and eradicating mental illness. So they were on the same wavelength together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the meeting of these two what would be pioneers in neuroscience coincided with a growing scientific interest in the function of the frontal lobes of the brain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they were on the right path. They certainly were, because in fact, in the 1930s and 40s, the frontal lobe was considered to be the most important part of the brain throughout your lifespan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not just in childhood development. People believed any injury to the front lobe in adulthood even could be a problem for ethical behavior, like, you know, uh, control, like willpower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but research, particularly D.O. Hebb's paper from 1945, which was called Man's Front Lobes, a Critical Review.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They later began to see through research that the front lobes are very important to development.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they are vital for building a framework of intelligence, skill building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But once you're developed, that's kind of it. Right. Uh, they don't play as huge a role anymore. Not to say they don't play any role. That's just not as big as once thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so he said large frontal lobe lesions in children were very much something to worry about or keep an eye on. But in adults, they didn't super affect IQ or ability to make like ethical moral decisions to the extent that could be considered the sole issue. Do you know what part of the brain does? Uhm, no. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but remember, we're in the era where they believe this is the most important thing about the brain, the frontal lobes. We know different now that there's many different things that come together to do that. But back then, frontal lobe was it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Regardless of your age. Frontal lobe or bust. Truly. So in their earliest work together, Freeman and Watts conducted experiments that not only confirmed their belief about the function of the frontal lobes, but also what could happen when that section of the brain became impaired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They wrote, with an intact brain, an individual is able to foresee, to forecast the results of certain activities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when the frontal lobes were damaged or moved surgically, they said, the person affected shows a lack of initiative and a tendency to procrastinate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Interesting. It is interesting. While they may have been at the forefront of their field, Freeman and Watts weren't alone in exploring the ways in which the brain could be surgically altered to correct undesirable behavior.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in 1935, Igus Moniz, who we talked about at the top, a Portuguese neurosurgeon,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he believed that the surgery would force the brain to develop new neural pathways and more beneficial emotional responses. So if you sever those ties, it's like forcing a river another way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I can see where that thought does come from. If you build a dam, it's gonna have to go a different way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, although Walter was skeptical of Moniz's theory that simply severing the connection would cause the brain to regrow healthier connections, he couldn't argue with the Portuguese neurosurgeons' published results claiming five in six patients were cured of their affliction through lobotomies. Some years later, though,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Moniz would clarify that only about 35% of his patients were cured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. Also, he rarely followed up with patients beyond a few weeks after their surgeries, so if there were any negative effects from the surgeries, he wouldn't have heard about them and he definitely wouldn't have included them in his research. Fantastic. So we're gonna go with that's a way less number than even 35%. Yeaah, sounds ethical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So frustrated by American medical industry's increasing interest and reliance in psychoanalysis over medical treatment for mental illnesses, Freeman and Watts began considering how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alice had suffered from anxiety, insomnia, and depression for as long as she could remember. That's true, like really sad. She had been hospitalized for nervous breakdowns in the past, but she said nothing alleviated her symptoms. She had tried everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So steadfast in his belief that all mental illness was organic and medical rather than social and behavioral.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Walter deemed Alice to be a perfect candidate for the first ever lobotomy performed in the United States.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In reality though, Alice's afflictions were likely, definitely, mostly behavioral as, as well as medical. And society. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had apparently grown up very well off, very spoiled. Like she herself said I was a very spoiled child. Okay. She would throw tantrums to get her way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was given everything she wanted when she did that. So when she entered adulthood,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She didn't have coping skills or an ability to express her wants and needs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a healthy way, she would just get mad, upset and anxious about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and again, at this time, society was not super comfortable with negative emotions. Uh huh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Learned to keep those anxieties all inside which led to a long history of having a lot of acting out publicly issues


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, it got worse and worse, her mental illness, where she was exposing herself to the neighbors. Oh no. Verbally abusing her husband and she started relying on tranquilizers just to make it through the day. Oh man, cause that's the thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You push those anxieties down and you don't talk about them. You keep pushing them. Exactly. They explode. They do damage inside. So by the time Alice came to the Freeman and the Freeman and Watts, she was anxiety walking at the end of her rope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they said she wrung her hands, she thrashed around during the examination, like she was just, um, she was anxious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So at first, the procedure seemed to be a success. Alice was recovering pretty well from surgery. Uh, six days later though,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She didn't seem anxious, but she was having trouble speaking and writing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that she was quote, almost too placid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So fortunately, once the swelling in the brain subsided, which took several weeks, of course, very intense procedure, she did return more or less to normal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess, I guess throughout the remainder of her life though, even though her anxieties were less, like it did lessen a lot of that, she did experience a lot of symptoms that were very much probably related to the surgery, like convulsions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that very much negatively affected her quality of life, but even through all this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It did sort of help? Yeah. In a way? Yeah. But it created more issues. Yeah. Because I think it kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me it almost feels like it dulls the senses a bit, so her anxieties just weren't being felt as intensely. Like it's just dulling a feeling, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Scary. That's very scary. But he became determined at this point to refine the procedure because he wanted to reduce those side effects to make better success rates.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he didn't want to lose momentum, so Freeman and Watts began looking for a second candidate for surgery just weeks after Alice Hammett.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like Hammett, she had struggled with anxiety and depression for most of her life. Her symptoms were so extreme at times that she suffered hallucinations. She had a profound and irrational fear of being poisoned. That was something she was dealing with. And apparently during the procedure,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it almost looks like a syringe type shape with a long protrusion at the end that gets inserted into the hole in the skull and then into the brain itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a syringe, there's a plunger on the back and this is used to kind of like send the wire thing into the brain to do the work. Okay. Then the doctor uses it to rotate it and that cores out some brain tissue. Oof.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but he said, although entirely lacking in spontaneity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the success of Emma Ager's surgery very much encouraged Freeman and Watts, and they wanted to continue employing Monez's Leucotomy, which Freeman had rechristened the lobotomy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder what made him want to change it. Yeah. I think he just wanted to make it his own. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. He wanted to change it to be the transorbital lobotomy so he could do it quicker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why he changed that. He didn't want the like recovery times. He didn't want certain hospital stays. He wanted to be able to do this inpatient.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do a lot of them. And there's just certain things that you can't do like that. And after this success, patients were lined up to receive what Freeman and Watts were touting as a groundbreaking treatment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It shows you how bad mental illness can be that people were so desperate to get their skull and brain dug into just to get relief. Yeah, it's horrible. That should show you how bad it can be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, cause people were, they were desperately asking to have their skull opened up. And their brain scrambled to get relief. When people say crippling anxiety, I don't think they necessarily understand crippling. Like, willing to have your brain scrambled with a random tool. Just for relief. That's like an electric toothbrush.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completely out of control of my own body and to feel like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It didn't, and they were getting successes out of it, what they were deeming as successes and reporting as successes. And it didn't take long though until these perfect outcomes turned into bad outcomes. Uh, for instance, one early patient who received the surgery to treat chronic depression was transformed into a chronic talker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another patient seen, um, for treatment of her anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder came out of surgery, cured of her symptoms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But just a few weeks later, both her depression and compulsive behaviors returned stronger and more disabling than they were before. Really?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is just the lobotomy. Okay. The lobotomy in and of itself is absurd. Like it's just in wild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the winter of 1937, Freeman and Watts had begun making the rounds on the lecture circuit, talking about their successes, the potential of the technique to eradicate mental illness, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while some in the field were pretty receptive to the experiments and results,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of people in the fields of neurology and psychiatry were very skeptical and suggested that the positive results could just be as easily be as a result of surgical shock.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Freeman and Watts continued right on though in their work of psychosurgery, quote unquote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were very confident that they were on the verge of a major advancement in this field.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in the late 1930s, the medical and psychiatric fields were very split among the majority who believed that the mind


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A nebulous concept referring just to like thought and cognition. That's what the mind is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Could and should be treated as separate from the body. And then there were those like Freeman and Watts who were convinced that medical science, not talk therapy, was the only way to address mental illness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the problem wasn't that one was right and one was wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Freeman and Watts revisited some of the earlier cases in which the patient showed no signs of improvement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and this wasn't really helping their argument that like, it was working. And in one case, there was a woman who was plagued with fears of germs and contamination.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the second surgery on her frontal lobes led to a very difficult recovery for her and her thinking was confused and inattentive following the surgery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In another case, it was a woman who had been struggling for years with suicidal ideation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's bad now. And it's like, now it should, this should have been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like this is showing you, you're ruining people's lives here. Like you're not helping. This is not helping. You have a former patient coming to like express his not in a correct way, but this should tell you something. Now Freeman and Watts experienced another major setback in the summer of 1941.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When a very infamous lobotomy was performed on a very well known family member.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In part two because I really want to get into that one because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's pretty horrific. I only know, I would say like the baseline of that entire story and what I do know is horrible. It's horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a fucking cool chick she looks like. There's a picture of her like smoking a cigar and she's wearing this like fedora and she's just like, she's also a knockout. Oh yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stunning. Stunning beauty. And it's like, and she had every way, and obviously we'll get to it in part two, everyone who knew her in her personal life said she had one of the most likable personalities. I remember hearing that. She struggled, and we'll talk about why she struggled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone who knew her in her personal life said like, yeah, she struggled. She had some issues, you know, of course she could be a little unpredictable because of her issues, but they said her personality was fucking top notch. Like, like teachers loved her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People who knew her loved her, like she was just a very likable human being and she was funny. She had like a good sense of humor. Right. And she was just like a badass, like she was going to be a cool chick. They killed her without killing her. Oh, 100%. And as we'll see, she knew what happened later and she, yeah, it's heartbreaking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we will get into that in part two because it's a pretty heavy part. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Hopefully you guys are, are finding this as fascinating and horrifying as I did. I find it super fascinating, especially even what we've covered in part one. So, um, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have the paperback version of my book coming out July 26th. I would say that's something going on. You should go buy that. Go pre-order it. It's fun. Paperbacks are great. You can stick them in your bag and you can flip-flop them around. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's Ash's rock voice is like, world tour. It sounds like a ship horn. It's like, world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I'd be like, you gotta talk to your friends, Carl. You better set them straight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you just said the supernatural experiences continued. Yeaah. I was like, what does that sound?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something fell off of something else and it made a weird noise. So I stopped and I listened and I watched.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are we keeping this in? Eh, why not? Something supernatural just occurred, I'm pretty sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a Johanna that wrote a diary and then hid it under the floorboards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's her pushing Janet down the stairs. Let's not blame him. Sounds like a man. Well, right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it was like, oh, it'll come back. Right? And be like, hey, I'm home. But then it was like, it has seven assholes with them. Yea, you don't want that. Like, no, I don't want that. And then I also don't want anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds awesome, a warning sign that says like, warning, spectral danger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Followed the playtiff to de men's party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soundly kicked, complaints, drunk, caboose. Caboose. I'm pretty obsessed with them. Demen's potty. This is my favorite part. This is reckless. This is my favorite part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I literally have never even, I don't know a damn thing about him except for this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With more twists and turns. Than anything. Than I could have ever expected. And like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weirdly fun. There's so much fun hauntings. The true tragedy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, I just looked up a picture of him. He is the scariest looking motherfucker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should get your priorities in check, baby. Don't be a duck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. But, uh, Deb Deb put together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A good group and a little listener tales here. Doesn't she always pour one out for Deborah Deborah. Always pour one out for Deb Deb. Deborah Deborah. And I think you're gonna start, right? No. No. Well shit, we're just gonna sit here in silence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did, I wasn't like a, I didn't stay forever, but I like Will and Grace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your hair looks great though. I gave my hair to my kids. I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, that's horrifying in every way that it can be horrifying. All the ways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really sorry. That like broke my heart to think of you like apologizing for just saying a sentence. Like, ugh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second being whacked in the face with a brush because you spoke to your mother. Yeaah, I'm sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of that. I love you Esmerelda. I think you are amazing. That was such a story. That was, that was incredible. And I believe you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so my next one, because Esmeralda just really laid the groundwork for a great episode here. Truly. My next one is entitled, A Forest Full of Bodies. Oh, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Haley Nanash, I've attached my 14-point font PDF of a listener tale. It's a weird one, and it's long. What? You said PDF. Because it does not say Potipha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It says PDF. It always says Butterfly. But I know that if you read it, you won't cut it down for time because you're great like that. Thanks for all you do. I'm horrified. Let's see. You'll get over it. I know it. Oh my god. Do you hear me? Do you hear?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hi, Elena and Ash. I feel very unqualified to write in because the stories you read on the show are always so well written. But this story is so crazy. I've never heard it covered on anything other than local news, and I think it's right up y'all's alley. Ooh. My name, you can use it, is Erin. Hi, Erin. I like how you spell it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I grew up in a small town in Northwest Georgia. Just in case you read this on the show, I feel obligated to say that there are some really nice things about growing up and living in a small town and that the South isn't a monolith. There are so many good people here and some of us have chosen to stay so that, so that we can bring out the best parts of our communities and squash the yucky parts. I love that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I traded my original small town for another one when I moved to Alabama for law school, and I love my people here. Sorry for my tangent, but it makes me sad and a little frustrated when people paint the south with a broad brush and assume we're all intolerant backwards assholes. Well thank you for painting it another way. Anyway, my listener tale is about a backwards asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The jury is still out on which one he is because he's never given an answer for why he did what he did. But boy, did he do it. Uh oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was about 6 or 7 in 2002 when the news first broke that almost 350 bodies had been discovered in the woods in a community so small it doesn't have its own zip code. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What the fuck?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some deputies went out, but apparently didn't find anything weird. It's unclear what he saw that was alarming, but I've always wondered if it was him who called in the anonymous tip to the EPA in Atlanta in early 2012.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either way, someone called in the tip telling the EPA that something was seriously wrong at this crematorium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After receiving it, the agency set officers out to investigate and they found some skeletal remains. That was just the beginning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Officers returned to the crematorium after that. This time, they discovered much more than a skull and some other bones. What they found would change the lives of thousands and would rock the community forever. What did they find?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He would simply give them an urn full of concrete dust. Oh my god. 113 sets of family and friends will never know if they received an urn full of dust. Oh my god. That's fucked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marsh was charged by the state of Georgia with 787 separate counts, including abuse of a corpse. If the internet is correct, the county DA even created a new law in order to prosecute him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marsh pleaded guilty but never offered an explanation. When entering his guilty plea, he said, to those of you who may have come here today looking for answers, I cannot give you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's like real body farms though, that do it with people who have volunteered to do that after death. Exactly. And have written it down and have given their consent. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I don't know how true that is. There were lots of rumors about the situation including one that his father, from whom he inherited the crematorium,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And who also installed septic tanks put bodies underneath those too. Did people investigate that? It's all even more confusing when you consider that it would have been easier for Marsh to properly cremate the disease than it was for him to do what he did. Apparently he claimed at one point that the crematorium wasn't working, but he was, but it was tested and found to be working fine. And even if it wasn't proper maintenance would have kept it in good shape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But five years later, Marsh's lawyers claimed that Marsh was suffering from mercury toxicity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cremated there. Thought they did. And you don't know if what you have is concrete dust.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or your loved one, and if your loved one is possibly one of the ones that just decomposed in the wood somewhere. No, that's so horrific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was recently denied an early end to his probation which put him back in the news. I scrolled through the comments on one of the news stories and saw person after person commenting about how they still lacked closure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they still didn't know if the urn they were given contained their loved one's remains or concrete dust.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know how you heal from that but I hope time is making their grief a little more manageable. That's how I feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you've read this far, thank you, and thanks for telling the whole world about the 113 people who will never know. They deserve to have their story told.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And to do it that many times and forever long he did it? And then to say you don't have an answer as to why you did that? And no offer of like, I'm so sorry for what I've done, even though that never helps, but it's like, try it, man. Like seriously? I'm, I wanna look further into that case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I want to talk about that more. Cause that's- Wow. That's a wild one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's gotta be more, like I need to know all about this. Seriously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There must be a way that you could test it, I would assume. Right? But I don't know how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I love that so much. That's beautiful. Like I love that so much. I do too. That was a delightful tale. It really was. Wow. Dang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The night my husband became a Scooby-Doo villain. Yeah. Which is always a welcome thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey weirdos, I've got a tale for you about the night that my husband was possessed by a Scooby-Doo ghoul during an attempted break-in. I'll attach the story and also a super creepy photo. Much love to you ladies, hope to hear this on the podcast one day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here it is! Oh my goodness. Oh, that's a fucking terrifying photo. Oh my goodness, what is this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I found your podcast a couple months ago and now it's my current binge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm one of those crazy people that can only listen to shit in order, so I'm furiously consuming your podcast practically the entire day so that I can catch up. Damn, that's gonna do something to you. I know, I'm sorry. Somehow keeping an earbud in one ear all day to listen to you ladies talk about murder and or spoopy shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keeps me sane while I'm doing my day to day mom stuff. My husband is terrified of me laughing my ass off. We relate to that sentiment. Let's dive into it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel compelled to tell you to feel free to trim down as much as you would like, but I know you ladies prefer to get all the tea. So I guess just hold onto your butts, because I tend to be long-winded. I feel that too. It's a problem that I have absolutely no intention of working on. Me neither!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, on the night in question, he and his partner made a last minute change of plans and said, screw hotels, we'll stay- we'll s- we're sick of them. Let's drive the three hours home to see our families for even just a little bit. This was obviously a break from their norm. So this person may have been watching your house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The night that we got the rudest fucking awakening ever was in September of 2021. Ooh, recent. Yeah, being Minnesota, there was already a chill in the air, leaves changing and falling. You know, that good shit we were, it was like... Hell yeah. This night, however, was warmer than it had been lately. My ass was helter sweltering and it was making me cranky as fuck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sorry my mans, I know you just drove all those extra miles to see me tonight, but don't fucking touch me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I got up to open up one of our bedroom windows, the one on my husband's side of the bed, and that is perpendicular to our garage door outside. I know, I know, fresh air is for dead people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, I only had the window cracked a few inches, but I also had the blinds up a bit too because although I love my cats down to the very depths of my soul, those dicks will 100% shred the blinds trying to sit in the open window. Wow, yup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At around 4.15am, I was awoken by a banging sound. I had figured it must have been either the chipmunks that live in our garage, despite our best live trapping and relocation efforts, or a squirrel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arm leaning against the window, just peering in, looking like this is the most normal fucking thing for a person to be doing right before the butt crack of dawn. Oh my god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like we should pause and listen to it cause she sent us the ring, the ring video and she did not say we could share it. That's why I'm not going to play it here. We should listen to it and react. We need to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two? No one wants to see a person at their window. Of course not! And he's trying to protect you, so he's just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll show it to you in a second. That's really scary. So there I am, now awake enough to be terrified by the man fucking watching us sleep, and I hear, what are you doing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now Frank is fumbling with the combination to the lockbox he keeps next to his side of the bed that contains his firearm, and I'm immediately dialing 911. Now you'd think this shit stain would try to book it after being called out, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm assuming that Einstein here has finally decided to hoof it, so I tell the operator that I'll go peek out our living room window so I can tell them which direction he's headed so they can hopefully nab the bastard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, I've always been pretty proud of myself for the fact that every time I've ever needed to call 911, I've been super level-headed and calm on the outside despite being in a panic on the inside. But when I pulled back that curtain,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see which way he went down the sidewalk, this absolute, to see which way down the sidewalk this absolute crumb went, I all but shit myself because he was standing directly outside the window peering in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I cue the highest amount of dread I have ever felt yet tonight because now I am standing in our living room wondering if our old ass door that is difficult to latch thus easy to open was double checked before we went to bed that night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Frank runs to the front door and flips on the entryway light. My mind is thinking, yo, what the fuck, Frank? I don't want him to see us. But then I see how he's trying to scare away numbnuts. He holds his firearm up to the small window in the front door and aims it directly at the man's face. There is no way he doesn't see that he is literally staring down the barrel of a gun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Side note, as I'm writing this, I'm realizing what a turn on it is for me to have my husband protect our family. Hot damn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hell nah. We have no idea what this man wants, what type of weapons he might have on him, and what his intentions are for trying to enter our home after watching us sleep and being caught. Like he knows you see him. Isn't there like a stand your ground law?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Despite Frank's serious warning, Stupid Face here is still rattling the doorknob, which means he is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bro, there is a real life literal actual gun in your face. Probs not the best time to go throwing out dares, huh?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thankfully, during this absolutely supercharged, intense moment, multiple police cars arrived coming in hot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The 911 operator gets their wish as soon as we see the lights, and Frank unloads his firearm and returns it to his lockbox. When our perp notices the lights, he goes flying towards the backyard. Guys, it was straight up like a scene from any cop show ever watching him be taken down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Turns out this asshat lives two blocks from us. Stop. He tested, I'm not shocked, he tested positive for drugs, although what drugs in particular were not shared with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just seemed so unhinged, like, to fight the officers like that, and the fact that they had six people who had to hold him down, like, something was off here. Yeah, definitely. Once he came down a bit, he told officers that he was just at the wrong house. Nooo. Okay, sure. I call BS on that, but cool, cool, cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Makes sense. I also behave this exact same way when trying to enter my own home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I guess because of the drugs, it's definitely possible. But I can't shake the fact that my husband was not supposed to be home that night. It's so scary. I was, it was very out of the norm. And unfortunately, it wouldn't have been hard to figure that out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't let my mind go there too much though. I don't even want to imagine what could have happened that night had the kids and I been alone. Since then I keep my own firearm close to my side of the bed at night. I don't blame you at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He faced gross demeanor, trespassing and resisting arrest charges and a couple other misdemeanors. He was already on probation after causing a car accident while under the influence and he was still let out on bail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's wild to me that the kid, it's always the cause of like, well did they hurt you physically? Like did they break into your house and like try to murder you? Well sorry, we can't stop him from doing that again. Until he tries to kill you or get, like, we can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well that's my story about the night my husband turned into a Scooby-Doo villain. I'll attach the most bone-chilling photo of this dingleberry looking in through our window and a brief clip of Frank's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good point. Thank you so much for sending all of those in because those were truly iconic. I am truly obsessed. Yeah. That was, that was a really wild episode of Listener Tales. Absolutely incredible. Keep sending them in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is so, like I'm just getting right into like how crazy it is, cause I can't, can't stop won't stop. It's similar to Jack the Ripper, but not at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They need to double check because like, so many different stories were told and newspapers ran with certain things and like, he told so many different stories and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, investigators are wrong on certain things, so you have to like keep checking things to be like, did that happen or did that happen or which one happened? What happened? Very confusing. He has many, many wives. He has many, many business scams. He has many, many states in which he does these things. It's like a TLC show, kind of. He is just so much. So I figured,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to like just like crush all the information into as little episodes as possible. I'd rather have more episodes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being able to coherently discuss what's going on so that we can move on to the next one knowing where we are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gets it, like part four, I think we're gonna get into, you know, the business associate, uhm, his, Benjamin, it's, I've heard it two ways, it's Pitezel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pitesel or Pitzel. I like Pitesel and you've been saying that the whole time. Pitesel sounds right to me. Yeah. Uhm, but he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That his whole thing with his family, that's what we're going to talk about in part four. When we get to that, it's very confusing, very...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ship manifests and some other things to try to see cause he was in, in the UK at a time. You love a ship manifest. I love a ship manifest. Where do you go to find them? On uhm, ancestry.com you can find them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ancestry's got a lot of cool shit, like little offshoot things that you can do. Yea, you can find marriage and death certificates, you can find births, you know, divorces. In fact, Ancestry has been


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the things with Holmes is like, he married people, but he didn't always legally marry people. So he was married, you don't know how many he was married to legally, and how many he was, and it was wild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we last left you, we had talked about, uhm, Emeline Sagrand, the secretary that he had hired on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The one that Benjamin, his assistant there, had found so remarkably beautiful and told homes about. Uhm, he had definitely murdered her. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we knew that because, you know, he claimed that she went and got married to a guy named Phelps. Phelps was a known alias of Benjamin Pitesell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, she disappeared and the guy that he had hired before to articulate skeletons for him, he had come and picked up a trunk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, like not suss at all. Lots of other things, you know, the LaSalle Medical College of Chicago received a delivery of a nicely articulated skeleton right after this. Yeah, not at all related. Yeah, and they found that footprint, a woman's footprint in that airtight vault that he had built in his castle and it was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it was made with so much force in the wall that they said they couldn't even wipe it off. She was trying to get out of there. That part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just like, stuck with me. That's fucking terrifying. Yeah. So that's where we had last left you, and he is also still married to Clara, and he is still married to Murda.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. So he still has Robert, his young son, he still has Lucy, his young daughter, and he has murdered several people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you know the story of H.H. Holmes, I think we mentioned this before, you definitely have heard of the World's Fair, and that being inextricably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was waiting for you to bring it up and I kept wanting to ask last episode and I was like, don't do it, she'll get there. Well that's the thing, so the last episode I mentioned the World's Columbian Exposition, that's the same as the World's Fair. I'm gonna call it the World's Fair from now on, but they are the same thing, they're just called those things interchangeably.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yeaah, they are linked. A lot of people think that he made this castle in response to the World's Fair coming because it was going to be such an easy thing. He didn't make it in response to it. He was planning to do it all along. It just helped him out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But for him, there was something he did do in response to the World Fair coming to Chicago, and after it had been announced, he decided to add a third floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holmes was really able to use this to his advantage when he was making his castle because he got a ton of furniture, a ton of fixtures, and he could do it all without any intention of actually paying. He just did it with credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he did this using the name H.S. Campbell by most accounts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So by the time construction of the third floor was finished, that was around the end of 1892, early 1893. Creditors were catching on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they started filing lawsuits against him basically for theft, because he had stolen things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it got so bad that the sheriff and other creditors actually descended upon the castle, demanding payment or they wanted all their items back. But when they got there,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Homes was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Come in. I don't have any of that stuff, you liars. What? He had sold off all the furniture or he hid them all in the secret chambers in the castle. Basically being like, you can't prove anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, something where he could store his scams essentially. Scam chambers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What he did was he essentially turned the second floor, the third floor became more the apartments, and the second floor came...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More and more macabre and used as that really scary part of the castle. The Chicago Tribune later, the way they described this, I was like, I have to bring this in. I found it on newspaper.com, my favorite place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they wrote, oh what a queer house it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In all America, there was none other like it. Its chimney stuck out or chimney should never stick out. Its stairways ended nowhere in particular. Winding passages brought the uninitiated with a frightful jerk back to where they had started from. There were doors that had, there were rooms that had no doors. There were doors that had no rooms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A mysterious house it was indeed. A crooked house. A reflex of the builder's own distorted mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds like the Winchester Mystery House. Thank you. That's literally what he was doing. He did the same kind of thing where you would open a door and it would just fall down to the basement. Right. Or you would, there was uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I'm going to bring up right now, I took a screenshot of the floor plans of the house that they had laid out and especially the second floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just some of the things that they had written in this newspaper article for what these things were. Lots of things labeled secret rooms. Um, mysterious closed room was one of them. Dummy elevator for lowering bodies. Hey. Sealed room all bricked in. Trap lead down to secret chamber. Uh, this, the hanging secret chamber.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was that like a hanging room or that's where he hanged people? I have no idea. It's just labeled the hanging secret chamber. No thank you. One is called the blind room. One is called the dark room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Asphyxiation chamber. No light with gas connectors. So he had an actual room that was like the gas chamber.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was one called the Death Shaft, where he would throw people down alive. There were things called the Maze.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, room of the three corpses, one was called. Okie dokie. The black closet. Oh, I don't like that. Yep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, another secret chamber. It's literally labeled another secret chamber. Uh, one room is called- Another one. Another one. Another one is called the five door room. No. It was a room with five doors in it. No, that's too many doors. Yeah. And then in the front of it is just like waiting room, reception room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, it's the black closet. The black closet. I think that's where I would hate the most. Well, I'd hate it all the most. This is one, the steel bound chamber. And those are those airtight chambers that he would have, which


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the outside it looked like a regular door. Sure. Like and you would open the door and then there was a steel door there and he would open that door, shove you in, shut that steel door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he would just shut the regular door and lock it and no one would hear you. No one would think twice about it. They'd walk past that door while you were slowly suffocating in there and they would never know it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a lot of the bones were found in the basement, so I'm assuming he used those shafts to just... Dispose. ...usher them in. Because a lot of the times, he would bring them in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, even with women he really wasn't, he was, sometimes he was, but mostly he tried to incapacitate them first in some way. But the floor plan just shook it. Really shows you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thought process behind this house. And the level of evil. The level of evil is something we will never fully comprehend. Insurmountable. Insurmountable evil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, unfortunately, so the World Fair is here, we just had him, he just murdered Sagrand, but he's gotten away with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Holmes' next victim, Minnie Williams, unfortunately came right to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no. Uh, she was actually someone he'd met years earlier while he was on a brief trip to Boston, Massachusetts. No, get out of here. I know, I was like, bye.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Minnie Williams was actually born in Mississippi, but shortly after she was born, both her parents were killed. So she and her sister Nanny and her brother were orphaned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's also referred to as Nettie, Nanny and Nettie. Nettie is one of my favorite names. Really? I think Nettie is the cutest name. Oh that's funny, I like that name too, it's cute. And like sometimes you'll see her


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Referred to as Annie in like some newspapers. I think they just removed the N. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nanny or Nettie. Basically, I'm gonna call her Nanny because that's what I saw mostly. They were split up when the parents died and ended up being kind of shuttled around to a few guardians over the years. But Minnie, they all ended up finding permanent places and Minnie found a permanent home and guardian with an uncle in Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The uncle treated her very well, was like a very kind guardian, a very good guardian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in doing so, he left her an estate valued at $50,000 to $100,000, which was $1.5 to $3 million now. Well, shit. Yeah. So she inherited property as well on top of that estate. She inherited a property in Fort Worth, Texas as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's just that. Uh, cause I want to know who he was. I was like, who is this man?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was at a party in Boston while she was there and finishing school and it was thrown by one of the city's big fancy leading families. You know, I love that. In the late 1880s that Holmes met Minnie Williams. No thank you. Because of course he was, he was pretending to be very high class himself. I just have to ask before you get too far into it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like, is this in the AHS the one that the maid was based off of?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The one that the maid was based off of? Yeah, the maid in the, in hotel. No. No? No. This all sounds so familiar to me. Maybe I just heard it. I mean, Ms. Patrick March was based on H. H. Holmes. That I knew, yeah. But I don't, I don't think Minnie was, uh, huh, cause she wasn't a maid. Oh, okay. So she, like, she was like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a high society. Yeah, exactly. So uhm, no, it sounds familiar, but maybe I've just heard her story. I'm sure little bits and pieces of that definitely probably got sprinkled in there. Yeah. But when he met, when she met H.H. Holmes at this party for like fancy people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in the late 1880s he introduced himself as Harry Gordon. That's not your name. It's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Minnie herself was very charming. She was essentially a socialite. A search in newspapers back then in Boston shows that she was in attendance at a lot of big parties and events. Hell yea girl. She was always listed among the guests. Pinkies up baby. There you go. And she was an actress and very interested in the theater. She was a very interesting person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But she wasn't his type. Ah. Physically, she was not his type.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She wasn't, according to newspaper reports, she wasn't the classic beauty of the time, which is generally what Holmes went for. Okay. He was very shallow. Uh, he would usually go for like only...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty ladies. Sure. Classically pretty ladies. Right. You know what I mean? She was described, which I think is mean because there's photos of her and I think she is very pretty. I'm gonna look her up. She was described as plain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's fucked. Immediately no. And they literally wrote that she had full cheeks. And I was like, I'm sorry, what should your cheeks be? I was gonna say, you mean like how people shove fillers into their cheeks to look like? I'm like, also like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What should sheiks be? Like I feel like that, like should they be sunken in? I wonder if back then did they want them to be sunken in? Possibly. Cause that's the thing, we're talking about like a standard of beauty that is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definitely different than what we are doing today. A hundred percent. Uhm, and that's what they're talking about though when they were mentioning that she was not a classic beauty. She was apparently not fitting into the beauty standards of that time. Oh, I think she was really pretty. Right, she was so cute. Yea. And she looks sassy. She does look sassy. Right. And she has great hair. She does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now despite the fact that she wasn't exactly his type, Holmes gave Minnie a lot of attention. She got money. Exactly. He took a very perceived liking to her and showed her his interest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anytime he came back into Boston for quote unquote business, he lavished her with attention. He would take her to dinners, he would take her to the theater, he would extend his stays longer just to spend more time with her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He acted like he was in love with her. It seemed like he was straight up courting her. And she was thrilled. Of course. She very much loved him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, knowing she wasn't his normal type and knowing how hard he went at her,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very likely he was drawn to her massive inheritance. Remember he's a monster, he has no feelings, so he definitely didn't love her. He courted her for some time, but after a while...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just became bored. And he started making the visits less and less. And then he just ghosted her completely and stopped visiting at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or communicating to her. I wish that was the end of it. Like, I hate the heartbreak for her, but then we- You're better off. You're better off, exactly. And she was devastated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had really fallen for him, she felt like he was the one who got away, like he just- Ghosted her. Yeah, totally ghosted her. That's fucked. Wow, even-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She could not stop thinking about Harry Gordon. You can never get your mind off the last man that ghosted you. No, and he had...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Love bombed her. He had showered her with attention, with affection, with gifts, with dates, with everything. He had acted like he was courting her to lead up to a proposal. That's what he had, and in that time period, you court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To lead up to a proposal. There is not like this, it's not like now where you're like, I don't know, maybe we'll go on a third date. We're talking. Yeah, like we're talking, we're fucking each other, whatever the fuck that is. It's like back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, as far as many knew at this point, Harry was living in Chicago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Chicago was obviously getting a lot of news around and newspapers and everything because of the World's Fair being hosted there. TM. So to Minnie, she was like, you know what, Chicago does sound pretty exciting. And the World's Fair would be...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a lot of opportunities for me, like you know, there's a lot of things there, there's a lot of people, there's connections, you know, she's like awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in February of 1893, she decided she was packing up and moving to Chicago. She said, let's go. And on her way there, she was just determined. She was like, I'm gonna reconnect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With Harry. Aww, baby. Now, Minnie settled on Chicago's north side when she arrived and she took a job immediately as a stenographer for a local law firm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but almost immediately she did get in contact with H.H. Holmes. Of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So although she was already gainfully employed with a law firm, he was like, you have to come work for me. You have to be my personal secretary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's a retroactive warning to everybody. If H.H. Holmes ever asks you to be his personal secretary, RUN the other way. Run for the hills, bullseye. Anytime he asks someone to be his personal secretary, they were gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no. And he also put a little bit of sugar on top of this and he said, be my personal secretary, I'll pay you a lot more. And then he was like, we can also spend a lot more time together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which was, he knew was the way to get Minnie, like, oh my god. So Minnie is so happy. She has, the dream has been realized. She has moved to Chicago to reconnect with the love of her life, which she thought got away. And she was meant to be with him. She contacted him and he was thrilled to hear from her. And he's saying, come spend more time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the saddest thing to me is that like, she's like, fuck, like, yes, I did it. Imagine how she felt, like, the excitement, like, especially like when you've like lost contact with somebody you thought was really cool and then you regain it and you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In her head she's probably like, this was meant to be. Of course she was. It was not. Because she was probably thinking, there was probably thoughts in her head, okay, I'm gonna move to Chicago, I'm gonna contact him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This could go one of two ways. He's gonna be psyched and my whole life is gonna lead up to this moment and it's gonna be great. And we're gonna get married. Or he's gonna say...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, psychologically he loved to fuck with people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he was like, yes, absolutely, come, come work with me, we're gonna spend all this time together. He did have a couple of stipulations though, some little things. I bet. Uh, one of the most important ones that was, he said, uhm, I'm gonna insist that you never refer to me as Mr. Gordon. Cause, uh, that's not my name. Only refer to me as, uh, Holmes. Just call me that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and don't, don't ask me why. Just, just do that, okay? And she was like smitten, so she's just like okey-doke. Okay. And she just, alright, sure, why not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So just a few weeks after moving to Chicago, she left the boarding house she was living in and moved into the apartment in the castle. Arnar. She was just so happy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a lot of compromising positions with customers or other random women. She's like, Hey, why are you like stealing from people? Yeah. And also he would just be like, like sexually like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, with women all over the place in that, in that castle. Oh, and then like his wife down the street. Yeah, his wife down the street and the other one across the country. Yeah, that whole thing. Uh, yeah. So he was just constantly, like she would walk in and find, cause at this point he's moved her into the apartment. They are together. Yeah. Courting has begun again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The promise of marriage has begun again and she's walking in finding him like on top of another woman all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not to not do that. Instead, he had a buzzer installed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that it ran from the second floor to the third floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that way, whenever someone traveled from the third floor to the second floor where he would carry on his shenanigans. Sure. Mainly Minnie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1893 he did propose to Minnie. You fake as fuck bitch. And they began wedding planning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On another level when it comes to like, his stuff is gruesome in a different way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because we don't have all the details of the things he did to people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Surprised what he has done. And we can see his plans for people and we can see the bones that are left there and we can see all that evidence. But what was really fucked up about him is the way he laid out long cons and had like 18 going at once. And had no remorse about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't care how long it reached. I hate a con man. Fucking, like, it rattles my bones. So he's having her plan a wedding. Starting to plan a wedding. Remember, his wife is living in Wilmot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, just over with his daughter. Right. Just fine. And then his other wife is across the country with his other child. Oh yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the same time, Minnie had begun reconnecting with her sister Nanny. Yeah. Oh, I love that. So, who at the time was working as a school teacher in Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in her letters to her sister in late spring 1893, Minnie was just gushing about Chicago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Minnie wanted her sister to come see the World's Fair and she wanted her to come for the wedding, so Nanny Williams waited until the school year was done and then she headed out to Chicago on a train. Now, Holmes married Minnie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was not recorded, so it was not legal. But he did put her through a wedding ceremony. To her, she was, they were married.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, again, not recorded. I searched fucking high and low in the Illinois cook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Registry, there is nothing in there that says that they were married, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nevertheless, falling in with Minnie so quickly, so fast, so closely, that gave him access to Minnie's inheritance. Right away. Made her a very, very valuable tool in all of his scams as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had many right to the man in charge of her estate, the one she inherited, and requests $3,000 be sent to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he also convinced Minnie to sign over the deed to the entire property. Oh, I knew that was coming. To a man named Alexander Bond. Who's that? Which she did in about April, uh, 1893. And a few weeks later, Bond signed the deed over to another man named Benton Lyman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What she didn't know was that Alexander Bond was H.H. Holmes. Yea, I had a feeling that was an alias. And Benton Lyman?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uuuh, fucking A. I knew that estate was going, you're saying these other things first and I'm like, I know the estate is next, I know what's next. And he convinced her to do it like, rapid. Sign over this deed, put this in your name, like that's, he was able to do this shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So easily. Well, and the thing that sucks, like back then, like I'm sure some people in their head are like, oh my God, why would you ever do that? But women weren't educated about deeds and trusts and estates. They weren't allowed to be. Exactly. And it's one of those things where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Men were in charge of these kind of things, so you just went along with it. And also, on the other side of this, it's a simple thing where she was madly in love with him. And trusted him. And he made her trust him, and he made her feel like this is forever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And made her feel like she made this right decision by changing and uprooting her life to come here and that the universe had put them together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then Nanny Williams, her sister came, arrived in Chicago. This was in June after the school year had ended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a few weeks later, their aunt Lucy, the two girls' aunt Lucy, received, uhm, a letter from Nanny saying, I have taken in the fair to my heart's content and have enjoyed it so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she said that she was going to be going on some trips with Minnie and H.H. Holmes and they were going to go to Milwaukee and New York and all these other places and she said, then we sail for Germany by way of London and Paris. I can hardly realize that I'm going to have this great adventure for which I have wished to for so long. Brother Harry, Harry Gordon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she wrote to her aunt saying like, don't ever worry about me financially or otherwise because Harry's gonna take care of us. And also, we're going to Germany.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why you won't be able to get in touch with us ever again. Yep. Now on the evening of August 13th, 1893, a fire broke out in the Holmes Castle. A real one? Uh, yeah, an actual one. And many of the residents there immediately said that they believe that Holmes set the fire himself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of the things on the third floor. He had literally taken all his clothing, personal papers, the furniture, the fixers. He had removed door handles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anything that was worth anything, he had taken out the day before the fire. And in the months after the fire,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they had hired a handyman named Joe Owens, and he told the fire inspector that the fire had definitely been set to, for insurance money. Of course it had. And he said quote, some things that were in that building, Holmes never wanted known.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what he told the fire inspector. That's an eerie fucking quote. And apparently the thing that kills me is Owens, Joe Owens, the handyman who said that, was never followed up on later. Like they never asked him anymore about that. I'm like what the fuck? Doesn't that make so much sense though? It does and it infuriates me because I'm like guys!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Together and very, uh, like controlled in the beginning with his schemes and with everything that was going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as he started getting more and more intense with it and adding more and more layers onto his chaos, he was losing it a little bit. Like he was starting to get chaotic, he was starting to get aggressive, he was starting to be reckless a little bit. This fire is a perfect example of that because he was caught very quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this one shows, so a crew came a few days later to clean up the aftermath of a fire and they were throwing debris into, uh, off the roof and into a tenement home next door. Oh damn, that's kind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like they weren't using like a chute to like put it into a dumpster or something. Right. And it was into the home of John S. Nichols who lived there with his family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nichols was pissed because now there's like soot and shit all over his home, so he asked for the janitor of the castle, the castle, to complain about it. And when Holmes found out about this, he told someone he was gonna fix that man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So apparently he waited for days, pacing the alleyway between his home and the castle, waiting for Nichols to come out.