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[Assistant] The third thing that happened must have felt like a bolt of lightning on a clear day that landed on an already burning house. Martin hadn't been feeling the best for a few weeks and it had become more serious. At first he was having trouble with what seemed like arthritis, but he was a relatively young and healthy man, so that didn't make sense to them.


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[Assistant] The family physician diagnosed him with gastritis, but that didn't do anything to help his pain and fatigue.


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[Assistant] Just a few days after Herman Billock wrapped up his work separating Emma and Joe Cooney, he took one final payment from them and then boarded a train to Cleveland. He claimed he wanted to go visit his mother who still lived there and ran her business as a charmer and enchantress. But the timing couldn't have been more suspicious. Four days later, at the young age of just 47, Martin Verzal passed away.


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[Assistant] The next year and a half was a never-ending roller coaster of agony, suffering, and loss. And I want to walk you through it, step by step.


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[Assistant] Not because I'm a glutton for pain, but because it is within this collection of events that the rest of the story finds its core. So, pay attention. You never know what details you might need along the way.


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[Assistant] The death of Martin Verzal was tragic. There's no doubt about that. Anytime a family loses one of their own, it's painful. And when that person also happens to be the sole breadwinner for a family as large as theirs, well, you can see how this would have been difficult to recover from.


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[Assistant] And there was a cloud of depression over the Versal home for some weeks to come.


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[Assistant] As everyone else mourned, Emma slowly recovered from her forced abortion. But while her body might have been healing, her mind was dark, and she took that out on her siblings. The stories say that she verbally and physically abused many of her sisters.


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[Assistant] Then the next blow arrived. Emma's sister Mary became sick shortly after the funeral for her father. She struggled with pains in her stomach for weeks before being confined to bed due to a lack of strength. A few days later, she was dead. Naturally, the family was rocked to its core. They'd lost their father and now a sister.


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[Assistant] Helpful enchanter Herman Billich was there to assist whenever he could. But there was very little he could do to alleviate their grief. Instead, he helped Rosa put the pieces back together as best they could. And that meant saving the family milk business. Herman had an idea.


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[Assistant] You see, the Versailles purchased their milk from a farm outside of Chicago that was owned by a German man named William Nyman.


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[Assistant] William was in his thirties and widowed with two small children.


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[Assistant] What if, Herman suggested, they tried to marry Emma off to Nyman? It would solidify their milk supply partnership and it would give Emma a fresh start. To Herman and Rosa, it sounded like a good plan.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, Herman and Rosa took Emma out to meet William. Emma seemed invested in the idea, even arriving with a pouch of tobacco as a gift for him. It seemed to set the tone for a friendly, generous partnership, and Emma was immediately hired on as a housekeeper.


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[Assistant] After that it was a simple matter of using a bit of magic.


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[Assistant] Herman visited the farm in the dead of night to sprinkle a mysterious white powder on the road outside the Nyman farm. And weeks later, Emma and William Nyman announced their engagement. This time, it seemed as if Emma was happy with the arrangement, even though it had been Herman's idea.


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[Assistant] It seemed like just the joy they needed, but in December of 1905, another tragedy visited the family. Emma's younger sister Tilly, who was 18 at the time, became sick with a mysterious illness. The family doctor suspected it was typhoid, but he wasn't certain and he did his best to try and treat her condition. It didn't work though. Tilly died in late December and was buried on Christmas day.


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[Assistant] Rosa began to take chloroform as a medication for her nerves and grief. And Herman was there for her and the rest of the family with less traditional powders and potions.


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[Assistant] In fact, Herman's big hulking shape was there a lot, and everyone noticed that. It was almost as if he had stepped into their father's place, at least at home, and that was unsettling.


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[Assistant] That winter, one of the Virzal children went outside to fetch some eggs and found a number of the chickens had died overnight, as had one of their pigs. It felt eerily familiar until one of the children remembered how their family dog had gotten sick and died days before their father Martin had. A dog that had been a gift from Herman Billick. Something was going on.


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[Assistant] I have to believe that most of them could sense it, like that feeling you get when someone sneaks up behind you. There was an obvious answer to the question surrounding their tragedies, but no one could put a finger on it. And then, before they could focus, more trouble headed their way.


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[Assistant] In July of 1906, a neighbor noticed a strong scent of natural gas coming from the Versal house. She rushed out to find a doctor, and when they returned, they managed to revive the girls that had been sleeping inside.


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[Assistant] And there was something else, something even more strange.


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[Assistant] According to this doctor, as he entered the house for the first time, he swore he saw the shape of a tall, hulking man exiting through the rear.


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[Assistant] Two weeks later, two more of the Virzal children became sick. Jerry, the only son, and his sister Rosie were both in their mid-teens and had come down with what the family doctor seemed to believe were heart conditions. After being treated, Jerry seemed to improve, but his sister did not.


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[Assistant] Rosie died in August at the age of just 14 years old.


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[Assistant] This was the breaking point for their mother Rosa. She couldn't handle balancing the normal parts of life with all of the darkness that was being thrown at her. So she sold the milk depot and the adjoining apartment to William Nyman and took her three remaining children to stay at the home of her cousin Kate.


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[Assistant] But you can't outrun grief. Rosa's drinking increased, as did her use of chloroform. But it was all still there, like a dark cloud hovering over her. And it was while she was buried under the weight of that loss and pain that one final tragedy visited her.


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[Assistant] Her 12-year-old daughter Ella was diagnosed with Addison's disease. After weeks of abdominal pain and weakness, she too passed away on November 30th.


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[Assistant] It was Rose's cousin Kate who finally convinced her that something bigger had to be going on.


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[Assistant] Stop wasting time asking questions, she told them all. There's only one person the police should be looking for. And you know it.


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[Assistant] That search for the truth would have to carry on without Rosa though. Just days after the death of Ella, she too took sick and became confined to her bed. On December 5th of 1906, she passed away, setting the police in motion to search for answers with more urgency. And it began with Herman Billich.


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[Assistant] It was actually Jerry Verzal, the only son and one of the only three surviving siblings who set those wheels in motion.


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[Assistant] He was the one to guide the police to Billick's nearby apartment, and once they tracked the man down, things moved quickly. He was brought into the police station and questioned, and in the process he slipped enough incriminating information to warrant taking him into custody.


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[Assistant] Among the items he revealed, he claimed that he often medicated members of Rosa's family, including their father Martin.


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[Assistant] But he told the police that he was a harmless fraud, often administering nothing more than a benign mixture of saltpeter and whiskey. And yes, while he did happen to treat many of the children shortly before their deaths, he swore he had caused them no harm.


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[Assistant] Searches of his house also turned up something else. A bundle of letters written in Czech. What they referred to back then as bohemian.


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[Assistant] These letters turned out to be love letters written to Herman by none other than Rosa Versal.


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[Assistant] It seems the pair had been planning their future, and part of those plans involved conspiring to poison a number of people, including Herman's own mother, in an attempt to gain their wealth through inheritance.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, the general public was consumed with talk of Herman Billich and his murder of the Wurzel family.


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[Assistant] Newspaper articles seemed to condemn the man before his trial even began, and stories about his secret life of money and women became commonplace. But it was the testimony of the surviving Virzal children that ultimately sent him to trial. Well, that and one more thing.


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[Assistant] You see, the moment the police began to suspect poisoning, they started to wonder if there was a way to connect all of the deaths together. A common tool, perhaps. So after examining Rosa's body and discovering a large amount of arsenic in her internal organs, they ordered the exhumation of Martin. What they found was shocking. He, too, had been poisoned with arsenic.


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[Assistant] When the trial began, it had national attention. Both sides spent close to six months preparing their strategy and evidence. And then the official proceedings began.


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[Assistant] Many of the early witnesses were people who might have information about where Herman Billett could have acquired so much arsenic, hoping to nail down solid proof of his guilt. But nothing definitive was ever uncovered.


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[Assistant] Emma Iversall was questioned in July, as well as her brother Jerry and their youngest sister 8-year-old Bertha. And while the siblings hadn't been able to answer questions with authority prior to the trial, once they entered the courtroom, it was clear they all had a similar powerful story to tell.


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[Assistant] Herman Billich, they claimed, had constantly administered mysterious medication to their family, always shortly before their deaths.


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[Assistant] Billik denied it all, of course. When he took the stand, he walked everyone through the events of the past few years. He told them of his fraudulent business as a fortune teller and charmer, and of how he was hired to reunite Emma with her lost love, Albert Russ.


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[Assistant] He walked the courtroom through her abortion, the death of Martin, and his love affair with Rosa.


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[Assistant] But it was too little, too late. Even without proof of how or where he acquired the arsenic, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty.


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[Assistant] Herman Billich was immediately sentenced to death by hanging.


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[Assistant] During his brief stay in jail while awaiting his execution, a visiting Catholic priest named Father O'Callaghan spent time with Herman and became convinced that the man was innocent. He began to work with Herman's defense team to request an appeal, setting in motion a legal circus that would take nearly 10 years to come to an end.


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[Assistant] Herman would be given an official execution date, and then the court would issue a stay and request more hearings. Over and over, the case of Herman Bilek was brought back out of the darkness and put on display. And each time it was, new information came with it. Information and doubts.


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[Assistant] The biggest revelation, it turns out, was a letter that Father O'Callaghan received from Jerry Verzal.


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[Assistant] In it, Jerry claimed that he and his sisters had been coached by the police to tell a very specific set of made-up stories. All with the aim of getting Herman Billett convicted for a crime that he actually didn't have any evidence to support.


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[Assistant] After that, Jerry switched sides and joined Billick's defense team, and it seemed to have worked. Sure, it took a lot longer than they would have hoped for, but on the evening of January 3rd, 1917, a brand new governor of Illinois took office and immediately issued a full pardon for Herman. After a decade of fighting for his life, he had won. He was innocent, and he was free.


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[Assistant] It was a cause for celebration, for sure, but as he stepped out of the Joliet prison on January 4th and felt the sun shine on his face, a new, darker question seemed to settle on the shoulders of everyone else involved. If Herman Billich didn't kill the Versal family, someone else had. They'd slipped in unseen, quietly done their work, and then vanished without a clue. Just like poison.


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[Assistant] Poison is frightening because it's invisible. Whether it's added into our food or slipped into a drink, most of us would never know it's there. Arsenic in particular was a favorite for exactly those qualities, being odorless and tasteless. You or I would never have seen it coming.


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[Assistant] Rosa Versal certainly didn't, and neither did the doctors she reached out to for help.


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[Assistant] Historian Steve Schuchus has documented nearly 20 visits from the local family doctor and another 50 visits from a second. None of them seem to suspect a thing and as we've learned, that allow the killer to just keep working. Silently. Deadly.


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[Assistant] Of course, the children were exhumed along with their father, Martin, and just as in his own body, large amounts of arsenic were found inside them.


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[Assistant] Not in their stomachs, though, but in other organs, hinting at a long history of slow, regular doses. Something only a person close to the family might have been able to manage.


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[Assistant] But there are some who think they know who the real killer was, and the proof, they claim, can be found in the timeline and details of those horrible, tragic 18 months between the deaths of Martin Versal in March of 1905 and his daughter Ella in November of 1906.


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[Assistant] Because all of them seem to line up with family gatherings.


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[Assistant] Tilly became sick right after a birthday party for her sister Emma out at the Nyman farm, while Rosie died the day after Ella's birthday. And Ella would later become sick following Rosie's funeral, finally passing away the day after the family Thanksgiving gathering.


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[Assistant] And the one thing all of those events had in common was the food, all prepared by one specific person.


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[Assistant] Food, by the way, that would have left scraps, which were always fed as slop to the animals in the backyard. Animals that eventually died.


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[Assistant] If they weren't out at the Niman Farm, she was visiting them, arms full of items she had prepared and brought into the city as a gift. And that's interesting to note, because one of their neighbors actually stopped visiting the Niman Farm after noticing that he always felt sick the day after a meal there.


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[Assistant] While most didn't put the pieces together, and no more than a few had a hunch, there was one person who suspected Emma all along.


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[Assistant] It happened suddenly, and for a man who was only 39 years old, it was quite unexpected as well.


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[Assistant] According to Emma, he had been complaining of chest pains and difficulty breathing for a while, but it had recently begun to take its toll on him as the weeks went by. Soon enough, he was having trouble doing the most simple things, which had to have been frustrating for a farmer in the prime of his life.


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[Assistant] The doctor examined William's body at Emma's request. I'm sure she pointed out the similarity to the many murders that had already taken place in her family. And maybe she even pretended to be worried that William had become yet one more victim of a mysterious killer.


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[Assistant] The medical exam turned up no sign of arsenic in his stomach.


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[Assistant] Those tests however, ignored one key area of William's body.


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[Assistant] The story of Herman Bilek and the Verzal family is a powerful example of just how vulnerable we all are to invisible forces. And while their story might have played out over a century ago, there's one final detail that touches our very own lives today.


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[Assistant] Stick around after this short sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] There's something powerful about cleanliness. That freshly mopped floor, or the way your desk looks after a good dusting. I think we're hardwired as humans to be drawn to things that are clean and pure and good.


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[Assistant] And that has manifested in our modern society as a focus on a cleaner environment. You can't paint your living room with lead-based paint anymore because, surprise surprise, lead can be toxic.


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[Assistant] We've stopped giving mercury to children for constipation or coughing because, well, it was killing them.


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[Assistant] Today we work a lot harder to make sure the things we put into our body aren't secretly going to harm us. But what a lot of people don't know is that it's not a 21st century idea. In fact, we can find one of the earliest pushes for food safety in a very familiar place. The trial of Herman Billich.


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[Assistant] Shortly after Rosa Versal's death and the discovery of arsenic in her body, the Illinois State Legislature banned the use of the chemical in embalming fluids. And half a year later, on the very same day that the Chicago Tribune ran the story of Emma Versal Nyman's testimony in court, they printed another article right beside it. The headline? Pure Food Rules Put Ban on Drugs.


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[Assistant] And do you know what one of the worst food industries was at the time? Dairy.


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[Assistant] Partly because of an honest desire to help preserve it, and partly out of criminal business tactics. A tall glass of milk had a lot more in it than just bovine dairy.


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[Assistant] In fact, most milk depots, like the one owned and run by the Versals, used a standard ratio of one pint of water in each quart of milk to thin it down and earn more money in the long run. But that made the milk thin and watery, so new things had to be added in to help it look more milk-like.


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[Assistant] Plaster of Paris was often used. Or sometimes chalk. And to add back in that thick frothy layer of cream, Milk Depot's would add a very unusual thickening agent. Pureed cow brains.


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[Assistant] At this point, I'm pretty sure none of us would ever drink a glass of milk if we were to slip through a wormhole and land in 1906 Chicago, but sadly, it gets worse.


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[Assistant] To fight the natural spoiling process, milk facilities also added in chemicals. Formaldehyde was one of their favorites because, hey, if it's good enough for keeping corpses fresh, surely it could help their milk supply. Right?


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[Assistant] Of course, they didn't call it formaldehyde. No, it was given a fancy new name.


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[Assistant] I can't help but think of Sir Isaac Newton again, toiling away in his lab for days on end, and exposing himself to all manner of toxic chemicals in the process.


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[Assistant] Yes, he lived a relatively long life, passing away in 1727 at the age of 84. But if all the historical records are true, it was a life that was deeply affected by his exposure to toxins.


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[Assistant] In the end, I suppose, it's all just one more version of an ancient tradition. How can we transform one thing into another, and at the end, walk away richer than we started?


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[Assistant] Whether it's the stereotypical mission to transmute lead into gold, or the more modern attempts to use chemistry to squeeze a bit more profit out of a commodity, it's really all the same.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Carl Nellis and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Today's episode drew from a lot of different sources, but the most helpful and well-written was the book Poisoned by Steve Shukas.


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[Assistant] If you want to go deep into the life of Herman Billich and the Verzal family, you need to grab this book. I highly recommend it. You can find Poisoned over on Amazon.com and learn more about Steve Schuchus and his passion for this story over at ChicagoTrueCrime.com.


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[Assistant] Of course, lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two amazing seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts.


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[Assistant] Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured and I think you'd enjoy both.


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[Assistant] Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] Those who witnessed it never saw it coming. One moment the two dark figures are standing silently in the midst of a tranquil dawn, and the next, they're stepping off the edge of the wall and plummeting to their death below.


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[Assistant] Naturally, many people have rushed to find them, to help them, to see if they somehow survived. But every time they do so, they discover the pavement below the wall to be empty. No man.


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[Assistant] It's a story that has happened over and over again, putting it into the realm of local legend. Multiple people, from long-time residents to visitors from out of state, have watched the scene play out over the years, as if it were a real-life animated meme that pops up from time to time.


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[Assistant] Every town in America seems to have a legend like this one. That story a parent might whisper to their child as they drive past the cemetery. The tale that gets pulled out every autumn by the camp counselor around the fire. The rumor that's passed from child to child, like the stomach bug after a school picnic. Every place has its stories.


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[Assistant] But some stories are more significant than others. Sure, the tale of the heartbroken woodsman who may or may not still live in the forest behind the subdivision is frightening, but it's not important. Not like a city-wide disaster or a tragic outbreak of a deadly disease. Some stories leave no impression on the pages of history, and others do.


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[Assistant] And this tale of the father and son who leap from the wall is one of the latter stories. It's powerful and even disturbing. But beyond all of that, it's significant. Not so much because of the contents of the tale, but because of where that wall is located. It's in the American city of San Antonio.


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[Assistant] The wide open plains, dry brush, and flat land of Texas was a perfect substitute for the arid coastline of Spain. And that's where the Spanish got really good at using mounted riders to manage their large herds of cattle. Riders they referred to as vaqueros.


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[Assistant] Of course Spain, like a lot of European countries, they didn't stay in one place. Just like the English and the French, the Spanish explored the world and by the late 1600s they were firmly planted in the new soil of Central America.


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[Assistant] Then, in 1691, a soldier named Domingo Teran de los Rios traveled north from his post in Peru, and as he went, he established seven Franciscan missions.


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[Assistant] They arrived at the banks of a large river on June 13th, which was also the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua. So they named the river after him, San Antonio.


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[Assistant] That same day, one of the friars noted just how big the river was and how it could support much more than a village. It could support a city. And while it would take a long time, those words would eventually be shown to be almost prophetic.


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[Assistant] The Spanish were creeping up the continent into what would later become southern Texas because the French were doing their own expansion. They, however, were spreading westward from New Orleans and selling weapons to the powerful Apache and Comanche people along the way.


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[Assistant] So the Spanish headed north and east, hoping to lay claim to land before the French arrived. And to help, they allied themselves with the smaller tribes of the region, who referred to themselves as friends in their own language, a word that the Spanish recorded as tejas.


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[Assistant] Of course, it was the Tejas who had been there long before the arrival of the Spanish. They had a history there that could be traced back over 15,000 years. But the Spanish moved in at the right time, just as the French-equipped Apache began to raid the Western territories more frequently.


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[Assistant] To help, the Spanish military governors set up fortifications.


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[Assistant] They called them presidios, but don't think of them as a fortress. These were simple adobe structures with thatched roofs, hardly a defensible stronghold. But they were the seed that the larger settlements to come would grow out of. The only problem was that those settlements would be built on the backs of the indigenous people.


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[Assistant] It was slavery. There's no doubt about that. It was painted as a missionary endeavor, but much of their mistreatment put them into a class similar to the African-American slaves that would follow them a century later.


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[Assistant] Still, there was one area where the settlers in San Antonio broke Spanish law. They allowed the Native Americans to ride horses.


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[Assistant] You see, those Spanish friars were working far away from their support network, and they didn't have the manpower to raise cattle themselves.


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[Assistant] So they turn to the Tejas among them, and in an act of disobedience, they train them to be Vaqueros, which is one little detail that I absolutely love.


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[Assistant] In a world where pop culture builds a mythology around cowboys versus Indians, the real irony is that the very first American-born cowboys were Native Americans.


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[Assistant] By 1720, most of those original Spanish mission settlements had collapsed.


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[Assistant] By the time the French decided to move into their territory, the Spanish only had two missions and one presidio left. So a new governor was sent to take charge, Marcus de Aguayo, and he brought reinforcements with him. 500 mounted soldiers and over 4,000 Spanish horses.


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[Assistant] The Spanish won, and the French were pushed back out. And when Aguayo rode victoriously back into San Antonio, he celebrated by kicking off a building project. Two, actually. The first would be a grand presidio for him to rule from. The other would be a replacement for the original mission that was destroyed by a recent hurricane.


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[Assistant] And after that, everything else seemed to grow into place.


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[Assistant] Now that there was a military force there, the settlement blossomed into a city.


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[Assistant] Aguayo recruited more settlers and gave out land grants and noble titles to help them get started. Construction on the San Fernando Cathedral began in 1738, right between Aguayo's palace and the new mission, and it wrapped up around 1750. And by then, San Antonio had become something new. A true melting pot.


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[Assistant] It was a community that thrived on diversity. Spanish settlers lived beside Native Americans on mostly equal terms. They worked together, intermarried, and shaped their own culture around this diversity.


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[Assistant] But in doing so, the city was also carving its own path, and over the years, began to think of themselves as their own rulers rather than the Spanish Empire to the south.


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[Assistant] Which the Spanish fixed by sending a new governor into San Antonio and setting it up as the capital of the entire Tejano territory. The new governor's goal was to bring the city back in line with Spanish standards and culture, but he was met with fierce resistance. The community that had grown up in San Antonio liked their independence and they weren't about to change.


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[Assistant] In fact, they had their own local governments. They didn't need imperial power. They were doing just fine on their own. Never mind the fact that re-establishing the Spanish colonial culture would have meant placing all of those non-Spanish residents on a lower run on the latter, which was demeaning and wrong.


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[Assistant] Because of this, San Antonio in the late 18th century was a powder keg of tension and frustration. The independent and strong-willed people of the city weren't about to let themselves be bullied into a backwards way of life.


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[Assistant] On the other hand, governor after governor entered the city over the years like stormy waves and crashed against the rock of that independent community.


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[Assistant] It was a tension that was unsustainable. At some point something had to give.


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[Assistant] Either the community would bow to Spanish wishes, or the empire would admit defeat and leave San Antonio in peace. Exactly who would win was the question that was on everyone's mind. And only time would provide an answer.


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[Assistant] Looking back, maybe he was well equipped for that sort of environment. He was a soldier, after all. And a good one.


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[Assistant] He was what was known as a lancer, because aside from his rifle, pistols, and sword, he also carried a lance into battle. And because gunpowder was in short supply, and firearms weren't the most accurate or reliable, he used that long spear-like weapon most often.


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[Assistant] Vicente was part of the Second Flying Company, a group of mounted Lancers who were stationed in Spanish Mexico, far from their homeland across the Atlantic.


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[Assistant] Their life was never easy and always dangerous, whether they were engaged in offensive maneuvers against the French or protecting the people of their own territory. The Flying Company was the best of the best, and Vicente was one of their stars.


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[Assistant] For the longest time, they were all stationed at a place known as Alamo de Paras, located south of the Rio Grande. But in 1803, they were ordered to head north to San Antonio, where they would garrison a small outpost in the town.


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[Assistant] He had been married, but his wife Maria had passed away seven years before. So when he rode into San Antonio, he was one of the few with no family around him. But it didn't stay that way forever. A few years later, after meeting a wealthy landowner and city official named Joaquin Leal, Vicente fell in love with the man's daughter, Juana. They were married in 1810.


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[Assistant] Their first son, Manuel, was born a year later, and Vicente began to settle into family life.


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[Assistant] Manuel was even baptized in the local mission where the flying company had set up camp. Actually, it was more complicated than that.


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[Assistant] Ten years before their arrival, the Franciscans had secularized the mission there in San Antonio and sold it into private hands. But as far as I can tell, it was rarely used for anything and just sat empty between the cathedral and the governor's palace.


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[Assistant] So when Vicente and his fellow soldiers arrived in 1803, the abandoned mission looked as good a place as any to set up their new home. And around the same time Manuel was baptized, Vicente received a promotion, putting him in charge of the entire company.


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[Assistant] But trouble was brewing, and Vicente was going to have to navigate those challenges as best he could.


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[Assistant] First, a revolution had broken out in the Spanish capital farther south in modern-day Mexico. It was quickly squelched by the empire, but revolution has a way of sticking around. And within weeks, news of it had spread north to San Antonio.


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[Assistant] Once there, it had inspired a retired military captain named De Las Casas to take up arms and join the revolt.


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[Assistant] Locals flock to his message, and honestly, knowing the history of San Antonio, it makes a lot of sense. They were independent people who didn't care for imperial rule, and rebellion was their path to freedom, as far as they were concerned. And surprisingly, a number of Vicente's own flying company soldiers joined in.


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[Assistant] Before he knew it, the rebels stormed the city, freed a handful of political prisoners, and took the governor and Vicente captive. Then, at the last minute, the rebels flinched and set Vicente free, who immediately turned around and led his loyal troops into battle, ending the rebellion.


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[Assistant] But that episode planted a seed of change inside him.


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[Assistant] The rebellion returned a few years later, and this time those rebels were incredibly diverse. They included Spanish settlers, Native Americans, and rebel soldiers from the neighboring United States. And when they marched into San Antonio this time, Vicente joined them.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was his insider view of how the Spanish Empire was treating its people.


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[Assistant] Or perhaps the independent spirit of the city had infected him over the years. Whatever his motivation might have been, he became a rebel and sent his life into a tailspin.


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[Assistant] An army of over 2,000 Spanish soldiers arrived and destroyed their forces. Rebel families were scattered, their possessions were confiscated and many women and children were imprisoned.


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[Assistant] Among them was Vicente's wife, Juana. When she was finally released, Vicente was gone, presumably killed by the empire. She went on to raise Manuel herself, telling him stories of his father and the rebellion, and the evils of an empire that wanted to rob them of their independence. And then the unthinkable happened.


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[Assistant] But like all important achievements, it had come at a massive cost. The people of the former Spanish territory there in modern-day Texas had suffered through incredible loss of life, and that had decimated their economy. Yes, they were free from imperial rule, but they were also destitute, and it would be a long, hard road to rebuild their lives.


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[Assistant] He had escaped to Louisiana for a time, plotting his return. Sadly though, he arrived back in San Antonio just in time to pass away surrounded by his family.


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[Assistant] Which is probably one of the things that inspired Manuel to follow in his father's footsteps.


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[Assistant] In 1830, he was old enough to join the flying company as a lancer. He even served under the leadership of one of his father's fellow exiles, José Francisco Ruiz. I don't get the impression that Manuel was as much of a soldier as his father, but what he lacked in ability, he more than made up for with passion.


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[Assistant] At the same time, American migrants that were crossing the Mexican border south into Manuel's territory had been declared illegal by the Mexican government. This was largely done to enforce the anti-slavery laws that the Americans seemed eager to ignore, but it also forced the people of San Antonio to pick sides.


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[Assistant] Manuel was part of the group that chose independence over Mexican rule.


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[Assistant] It seems that the people of San Antonio had one more rebellion to throw their weight behind. And this time, Vicente's son would take part in it. But no one, not even Manuel himself.


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[Assistant] Could have imagined just how significant that rebellion might be. Or how dearly it would cost them.


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[Assistant] Some cities have a neat and tidy bit of history behind them. Settlers arrived, a community was started, and they persevered through a few small tragedies.


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[Assistant] But San Antonio is different, and that's why you're getting a deeper tour. Because some marks left on a city aren't simple to explain. They're complex and interwoven with a number of larger issues.


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[Assistant] By the end of 1835, a group of Mexican rebels, Manuel among them, had joined forces with some local Tejanos and a number of settlers from the United States, and together they had retaken San Antonio.


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[Assistant] The city that had changed hands so many times before now belonged to a small collection of rebels. And of course, we all know what happened next.


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[Assistant] Manuel, along with Davy Crockett, James Bowie, William Travis, and others, defended themselves from inside the Old Spanish Mission, known by then simply as the Alamo.


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[Assistant] The siege lasted thirteen days, and when it was over, all but one of the rebels inside had been killed. Their bodies were stacked like firewood, and burned a short while later.


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[Assistant] Afterwards, Mexican General Santa Anna moved on to stomp out other rebellions in the area, and San Antonio was left to pick up the pieces. And it's this one battle, a battle that arrived like an explosion after a century of buildup, that most people can still feel echoes of today.


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[Assistant] Over the years since that infamous battle, the land around the church that had once been part of the mission compound was eventually cleared and developed.


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[Assistant] The city kept growing, surrounding the old mission like the rings of a fort, but parts of modern San Antonio give residents and tourists alike the chance to stand right on the bones of history.


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[Assistant] Today, the Alamo is a museum, and the centerpiece of the city. But that hasn't always been the case. In 1871, the chapel inside the Alamo was used as a local police station, tucked into a pair of rooms on either side of the main gate.


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[Assistant] Visitors to those rooms today had reported seeing ghostly figures that moved about and disembodied voices have been heard.


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[Assistant] Others have seen figures walking around the outside of the Alamo. Some witnesses have described them as very uniform in their behavior and appearance, as if they were soldiers marching on patrol, on the lookout for the enemy.


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[Assistant] And along with the sightings, visitors have heard the distant rumble of gunfire and the shouts of angry men, as if a battle were still raging on inside the old mission.


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[Assistant] Nearby, the cathedral is home to its own collection of sightings and experiences. Many modern visitors have seen mysterious figures in old clothing, including a man dressed all in black and a woman in a long, old-fashioned dress. Some tour groups have witnessed these figures following them from place to place inside the old building.


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[Assistant] The most common sightings inside the cathedral, though, are of shadowy figures that move about the back of the main worship space. They are said to flicker in and out of sight, but those who have managed to get a good look at them claim they resemble Franciscan monks, perhaps like those that founded the mission all those years before.


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[Assistant] One story stands out among the rest though, passed on to us by historical preservationist Adina D. Zavala back in 1917.


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[Assistant] According to the records available, Santa Anna left San Antonio to go fight other pockets of rebels, but left behind a small garrison of soldiers, along with strict instructions to tear the old Alamo mission building down.


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[Assistant] After pulling the outer walls down manually, they prepared to detonate the interior, but they quickly encountered a problem.


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[Assistant] According to the legend, as the first group of men approached the building, armed with a healthy supply of explosives to help them do their job, they stumbled upon something otherworldly.


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[Assistant] It was a gathering of six mysterious figures who stood between them and the entrance to the interior. As the soldiers approached, each of the figures reached down to their side and drew a sword. A flaming sword.


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[Assistant] Understandably, the soldiers were terrified and they immediately rushed back to their commander with a job left undone.


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[Assistant] The commander was reportedly furious that his orders hadn't been carried out, and he demanded to know why. The frightened men proceeded to tell him all about the ghostly figures with their fiery swords. But their commanding officer refused to believe such a fanciful story, so he went to do the job himself.


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[Assistant] It's said that he arrived to find the same six figures standing guard in front of the Alamo. Apparently more courageous than his men, the commander called out to be allowed to do his job, but one of the figures spoke in an eerie, hollow voice, refusing him entry.


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[Assistant] Over the next few minutes, it's said that the officer explained his purpose and bargained with the ghosts who eventually agreed to a compromise.


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[Assistant] Rather than detonating the building itself, the commander was allowed to disarm the cannons so that they could never be used by the rebels again. His work was carried out under the watchful eye of the six otherworldly guardians, and when he was finished, they carefully watched him leave. The old mission, it seems, had been saved.


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[Assistant] One year after the Battle of the Alamo, the Republic of Texas was formed, pushing the Mexican forces back into action.


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[Assistant] Santa Ana returned twice over the next decade to reclaim San Antonio, but by 1845 it was the United States and not Mexico that controlled the city. After a century and a half of bouncing from one government to the next, stability had finally arrived. However bitter the cost.


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[Assistant] In the end, I find it a bit ironic that the Alamo was saved by figures with swords, whether or not they were ghostly and on fire.


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[Assistant] Because ever since its early beginnings, San Antonio has had swords and lances and rifles all pointed at it. In fact, some historians consider it to be one of the most fought over cities in America, right up there with New Orleans.


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[Assistant] A city that was carved out and shaped by the sword was eventually preserved by one.


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[Assistant] A lot of us have memories of visiting an amusement park as a child.


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[Assistant] Growing up in Illinois, I have distinct memories of family trips to the local Six Flags, and I can still remember shooting the air rifle in the saloon in the arcade area. But I'll be honest and admit that I never stepped back and considered what the name actually meant. Why Six Flags?


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[Assistant] Well it turns out it's because of the story we explored today. The land that is now the state of Texas has been the center of a massive game of tug of war for centuries. Since the early 1700s, it's been under the control of Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and even the Confederacy during the Civil War. Six nations.


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[Assistant] But even though you can experience tiny parts of that history inside one of their amusement parks, the real history, as you know by now, is a lot darker than roller coasters and saloon shootouts.


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[Assistant] It's a legacy of oppression, betrayed loyalties, and social division. A legacy that isn't entirely something to be proud of.


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[Assistant] There's still work to be done, of course. The non-profit organization American Indians in Texas is actively working to locate the remains of dead Native Americans that were once excavated by archaeologists and then put into storage. They seek to unbury the past, dust it off, and help us respect it and understand it more clearly.


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[Assistant] And that's a mission I think we can all take refuge within.


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[Assistant] But the buildings and history of Spanish Texas continue to rise up through the stonework of San Antonio.


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[Assistant] There are more stories told around the Alamo than rumors of ghostly footsteps or of the six guardians and their flaming swords.


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[Assistant] Tourists and residents alike have reported one particular vision that has left a lot of people with questions.


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[Assistant] They claim to have seen the lone figure of a man in the uniform of a 19th century Mexican military officer. He's been seen walking along what would have been the outer wall of the old Alamo compound, hands held behind his back, with a serious but disappointed look on his face. And some believe they know who he is.


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[Assistant] Almost two centuries ago, when the Mexican forces were gathered outside the Alamo, Santa Ana was said to have gotten into a heated argument with his aide de camp, a man named Manuel Fernandez Castrillon.


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[Assistant] Santa Anna had the intention of killing everyone inside, including those who surrendered, but Castrione disagreed and begged Santa Anna to be merciful. The general refused.


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[Assistant] Rebel forces had never shown mercy to his own men, so why should he do any different?


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[Assistant] Castrillon, however, still believed that he could be a better man. And so one night, a handful of prisoners were brought to him just outside the gateway of the Old Alamo mission.


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[Assistant] Castreon was said to have taken pity on them, and he promised that he would protect them.


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[Assistant] Somehow though, word made its way to Santa Anna, who quickly arrived to confront Castrillon. He demanded that the prisoners be executed, but Castrillon refused, sending Santa Anna into a fit of rage. Drawing his sword, he stepped forward and hacked each one of them to death, one after the other, until none remained standing.


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[Assistant] But there are some who believe the soldiers are still there, despite Santa Anna's best efforts. Because there's one more detail that seems to draw a connection between those prisoners and the ghostly guards who would prevent the destruction of the Alamo a short while later. There were six of them.


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[Assistant] The history of San Antonio is long and painful. That much is obvious. But there's more to the haunted side of the city than just the Alamo. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to get a guided tour of one of the city's most infamous buildings.


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[Assistant] Whenever I take you on a guided tour through a city, I take a lot of pleasure from opening windows for you into as many places as possible.


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[Assistant] So many of the cities we think of as haunted have a plethora of locations that seem to drip with story and rumor. Some of them are long gone, lost to time and modern development, while others are still there, waiting for one of us to explore it with fresh eyes.


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[Assistant] While I enjoy both types of locations, it's the latter that I find most powerful.


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[Assistant] They put us in the driver's seat of history and allow us a chance to stand right inside the story. And while we haven't traveled all around San Antonio today, there's one historic location that is just waiting for a visit. And if you get the chance, you really shouldn't pass it up.


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[Assistant] If you remember from earlier, the Alamo that we know today, the stone structure with the tumbled down walls, was once a Spanish mission. Think of it as sort of a hybrid between a school, a place of worship, and a monastery with some agricultural management thrown in.


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[Assistant] And because of all of that, there was more to the mission than the building you see today. An entire compound that surrounded and supported it.


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[Assistant] After the mission was secularized in 1793, it was abandoned. But a decade later, it became home to the soldiers of the flying company, including Vicente Tarrín. And as the decades rolled by, pieces of that larger mission compound were cleared and developed.


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[Assistant] Today, if you stand at the intersection of Houston Street and Alamo Street, you're standing inside the invisible walls of the old mission compound.


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[Assistant] But don't assume that all of the buildings in that area are brand new. In fact, one of the most popular is also one of the oldest, the Manger Hotel. It sits slightly south of the Alamo Museum on Crockett Street and was built in 1859 by a local brewer and boarding house owner named William Manger.


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[Assistant] Today, many people consider the Manger to be the most haunted hotel in Texas, and maybe that's because of its legendary history.


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[Assistant] By 1877, a decade after it had gone up, the railroad arrived in San Antonio, making it a destination for a lot of people. And because it had been built so well and appointed so luxuriously, there were many who declared the Manger to be the best hotel west of the Mississippi.


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[Assistant] In 1877, that very well might have been true.


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[Assistant] There are some tantalizing rumors about the building itself. Some say that there's an ancient tunnel beneath it that runs all the way to the Alamo building. What purpose it might have served is unknown, but you can't deny that everyone seems to love a good tunnel legend.


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[Assistant] Those rumors also say there is a large room beneath the hotel cellar and inside that room is a large metal door with multiple locks upon it.


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[Assistant] But it's the history of the hotel above ground that is the most fascinating.


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[Assistant] U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the hotel at least three times in his life. In fact, it was during his stay there in 1898 that he and a fellow military officer used the bar of the hotel as a recruitment area for a unit of soldiers that would become known as the Rough Riders.


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[Assistant] And they were the perfect sample of Texas society at the time. Vaqueros, gamblers, trappers, Native Americans, and even gold prospectors.


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[Assistant] That diverse and flavorful group followed Roosevelt to Cuba and were part of his famous charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War.


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[Assistant] He returned a few years later for a sort of rough-writer reunion party, and that's about all it took to cement his legendary status inside the hotel. Ever since, many people have claimed to have encountered a strange man at the bar, always late at night when the staff are closing up.


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[Assistant] They say he approaches people and asks if they would like to join his military unit. Some people have been left with a feeling of deep fear, while others just find themselves smiling at the exchange.


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[Assistant] But I want to introduce you to someone else. Someone you've probably never heard of before.


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[Assistant] Way back in 1876, the first demonstration of the usefulness of barbed wire was conducted right outside the Manger Hotel. What better place to do it, too? With all the ranches and vast properties, people were looking for a better way to manage movement on their land. Barbed wire offered a new solution.


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[Assistant] One of the ranchers who purchased barbed wire that day was a man named Richard King. He owned a small one million acre parcel of land in southern Texas known as the King Ranch, but spent so much time at the Manger Hotel that he had his own private suite on the second floor. Thankfully, the staff loved him.


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[Assistant] So much so, in fact, that when he passed away in 1885 in his room overlooking the Alamo Square, the hotel allowed his funeral to take place right in the lobby.


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[Assistant] His belongings were cleared out of his room and returned to his family, I would imagine. But after that, the housekeepers just sort of cleaned the room, changed the sheets, and made it available for future guests.


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[Assistant] Most who have stayed in the King Suite, as it's known today, have probably had a normal stay in the hotel. And you certainly can't beat the view from the balcony. But many people have reported unusual experiences over the years. Experiences that leave folks wondering if there might still be a bit of Richard King living with them in the room.


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[Assistant] The most common sighting by far typically happens in the middle of the night. Guests have reported waking up with the feeling that someone was in the room, watching them sleep.


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[Assistant] Disoriented and a little frightened, these guests have all sat up to peer into the darkness to reassure themselves that, no, there was no one else in the room. But they found no such reassurance.


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[Assistant] Multiple guests have reported that those tense moments in the dark have all ended in the same way.


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[Assistant] As their eyes adjusted to the lack of light, all of them claimed to have seen the figure of a man standing at the end of the bed, staring down at them. He's silent and unmoving.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Carl Nellis and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want a bit more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts as well. Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured. And I think you'd enjoy both.


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[Assistant] Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] Then you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] He boarded the plane in an era that would look alien to most of us. There was no long wait for the security line or full-body metal detectors. There were no checkpoints where ID cards were scrutinized over. He simply paid cash for his tickets, mentioned a fake name, and then stepped on board.


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[Assistant] Shortly after getting into the air, the man handed one of the flight attendants a note, which she quickly tossed unread into her purse. Man drinking alcohol handing out phone number was probably something she'd experienced dozens of times before. But this man shook his head and gestured toward her purse. Miss, you better look at that note, he said. I have a bomb.


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[Assistant] What happened next has gone down in aviation history. The man who identified himself as DB Cooper demanded a ransom of $200,000, worth roughly $1.2 million today. And then, after landing to collect the money and unload the passengers, he had them take off again.


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[Assistant] The story of DB Cooper defies explanation, and yet that's all people have been doing for the last 50 years. Crafting theory after theory to explain how it all went down, and what happened to the man when it was over. Some say he died, while others believe he lived out the rest of his life slowly spending his small fortune.


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[Assistant] There have been other legends like his over the years. Wild West outlaw Jesse James is another. Although most historians agree that he was killed on April 3rd of 1882, there are many who think that he escaped death and lived into his old age under an assumed identity. And a similar story has surrounded a contemporary of his, Billy the Kid.


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[Assistant] But whether or not these rumors are true, they highlight an undeniable fact.


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[Assistant] We are obsessed with the idea that we can reinvent ourselves. That through the sheer power of our intellect, we might be able to put the past behind us and craft a new self and a new future. And that in the battle between who we are and who we wish we could be, we can actually win. And when we hear about it, it almost seems like magic.


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[Assistant] Right up there with all the great tales of supernatural transformations. Except sometimes, it actually works.


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[Assistant] Madame Delacroix was a mystery. That much was certain. She was, according to many, born in the middle of the Atlantic while on board a French ship headed toward the British colonies in the New World in 1775, which must have been quite tumultuous for her mother.


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[Assistant] What Rhode Island was like when she and her mother arrived wasn't clear, but war was brewing in the colonies, so it couldn't have been relaxing. Still, those who tell her story also add that her mother passed away shortly after giving birth, leaving her newborn daughter in the care of a stranger. That's one version of her story.


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[Assistant] Others disagree and instead claim that she was born in a Providence, Rhode Island, poorhouse to unnamed parents before being adopted by a local family. Still others have a different take on Madame Delacroix's birth. They claim she was born inside one of the busiest brothels in all of Providence, where her 18-year-old mother had worked for about five years.


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[Assistant] Those that tell this version of the story go on to claim that Madame Delacroix's father was never in the picture and her mother married another man a few years later before moving the family out of Providence.


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[Assistant] Years after that, they would move again to North Carolina, but not Madame Delacroix. No, she was destined for greater things, and so she headed southwest to New York City.


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[Assistant] Of course, she wasn't born Madame de la Croix. No, she picked that name up sometime around her arrival in New York.


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[Assistant] That was where she met Peter Delacroix, the captain of a merchant ship that sailed a route between New York and France. In fact, we're pretty sure that Peter took his mistress to France at least once, where she would have been given a taste for French culture. It certainly instilled an amount of European sensibility in her. That much is clear.


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[Assistant] While they were there in New York City, though, the couple lived at the corner of 5th and 34th, close to where the Empire State Building stands today. Their home was described as a handsome wooden structure, which makes it sound like one of those tiny cabins you might see on Instagram. I'm guessing it was a lot less quaint than that, though.


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[Assistant] She and Peter never married, but many people referred to her as Madame de la Croix because that was the name written on a portrait that she sat for in 1797. And perhaps she dreamed of making that official, of marrying Peter and accumulating a lifetime of Atlantic crossings and stolen days in France. But sadly, Peter died before that could happen.


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[Assistant] After his death, she began to go by a different name, Eliza Brown. It was a play on her hidden past. Brown was close to her birth father's name of Bowen, and Eliza was a more elegant version of her own name, Elizabeth, although her mother had always called her Betsy. And it was Eliza Brown that built a brand new reputation for herself.


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[Assistant] It said that she was known all throughout New York City for her beauty and talents. She found work on the stages of many theaters and became a popular entertainer. By all accounts, she had skill at it too, and that helped her climb the ladder. But she was also favored by the wealthy men who attended those performances, and it was attention that she welcomed.


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[Assistant] It earned her a bad reputation though. Let's just say that she wasn't viewed as a particularly virtuous woman. But for Eliza, that didn't matter. What mattered was that she was meeting people from a higher social station than her own, and they liked her. It was the access that she had been looking for. An open door to climb higher and keep reinventing herself.


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[Assistant] Not that the past didn't rear its head from time to time. There's at least one story of some men from Providence visiting New York and attending a performance, only to spot Eliza on the stage and recognize her, according to one historian that resulted in the sort of whistles and shouts that suggest that she had a similar reputation back home. But then, things changed.


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[Assistant] Sometime around 1800, she met a wealthy wine merchant named Stephen, who had his own story of growth and reinvention. He had previously lived in what is now Haiti, but had been forced out by revolution against the French. And so he had resettled in New York, where he was rebuilding his business and making new connections. And one of those connections was Eliza.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was her familiarity with French culture, or her reputation as a stage performer. Whatever the reason, the pair met and fell in love. And after four years of public courting, they tie the knot on April 7th of 1804.


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[Assistant] Stephen was 50 at the time, and Eliza was just 27, and while that's a big gap in time and life experience, they seemed destined to be together. Romance, they assumed, would patch up the rest of their differences.


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[Assistant] Eliza wanted to make something of herself. I think we can all relate to that, can't we? That desire to grow beyond the soil we were planted in, to leave the path we were set on and blaze a better one.


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[Assistant] If you've ever dreamed of attending your high school reunion and impressing people with all that you've accomplished, that's our desire to reinvent ourselves, hard at work, driving you forward. And for Eliza, that desire played out in a couple of ways.


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[Assistant] At home, it centered around impressing the crowd she aspired to mingle with, to climb up the ladder until she was their equal.


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[Assistant] The problem was, nobody had forgotten where she came from. Whether the story was that she was born on a ship in the Atlantic or in a Providence brothel, it didn't matter. She hadn't been born into a wealthy family with political power, and that was seen as a handicap among the New York City elite.


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[Assistant] Eliza and Stephen tried their hands at all sorts of social tactics, but they continued to be shunned. Then, in 1810, they made a decision that changed much of that. That was the year they bought a new house. But it wasn't just any old house. This was the Roger Morris house.


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[Assistant] It was a whole estate, actually, known as Mount Morris. If you can imagine a time when Manhattan wasn't covered in a seemingly endless grid of busy streets, try to picture the northern end all covered in fields and trees. And there, just across the Harlem River from the modern Yankee Stadium, was the country estate of their dreams. And it came with social clout, too.


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[Assistant] After it had been built in 1765 by a British military officer named Roger Morris, it was confiscated as part of the Revolutionary War. It was even used by American forces for a brief period of time in 1776, and General George Washington himself moved in and planned his first military victory there, the Battle of Washington Heights.


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[Assistant] Sure, the House spent time in British control too, but in 1790 Washington returned, this time as President of the Nation, and held his first cabinet meeting there. Yes, there were a lot of other historic homes in Manhattan and elsewhere, but it's hard to blame Eliza and Stephen for wanting to buy Mount Morris. After all, it must be nice to have Washington on your side.


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[Assistant] But Eliza was also chasing her dream of a better life outside the newly formed United States. Her husband Stephen was a wine merchant with a fleet of ships that bounced back and forth between America and France. And the couple often took trips across the Atlantic to stay in one of his houses there. But that didn't always work out as planned.


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[Assistant] You see, France wasn't the most stable of places at the time. When they arrived in 1815, for example, Napoleon had just been defeated at Waterloo. According to the story, Eliza and Stephen possessed so much wealth that they had an unusual level of access to the defeated former emperor, and even extended an offer of asylum in America to him.


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[Assistant] Napoleon was said to have politely declined, but as a way of saying thanks, gifted the couple with his own royal carriage.


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[Assistant] Months later, while trying to leave Paris inside that carriage, the Napoleonic symbols on it were enough to get them arrested and thrown into prison. It took the work of the American ambassador to France to free them, but the coast wasn't entirely clear.


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[Assistant] Being well loved by the nobility made them targets of the working class. And with all of that stress swirling around them like a storm, it naturally caused a strain on their marriage.


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[Assistant] In December of 1816, the couple reportedly had a fight, and when it was over, Eliza boarded one of Stephen's ships without him, returning home to the United States with a fire in her belly.


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[Assistant] Over the next decade, the couple would spend most of their time separated by the Atlantic, while Eliza managed and grew their wealth. In fact, Stephen slowly deeded almost all of his American properties and funds to her, something that was highly unusual for the era that they lived in.


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[Assistant] By 1825, she had full control of just about everything, including their Mount Morris estate near Harlem. Back in France, Stephen was becoming less and less wealthy, and he wrote home often asking for Eliza to send funds.


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[Assistant] She refused though, claiming that if they waited just a little longer, their assets would sell for so much more.


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[Assistant] In May of 1832, Stephen was mortally wounded in a very suspicious accident. The 77-year-old is reported to have fallen out of a hay cart onto a pitchfork, which honestly seems incredibly fortuitous for his estranged wife.


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[Assistant] There's even a rumor that she visited him on his deathbed, where she removed his bandages to speed up his death.


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[Assistant] And although there is no concrete evidence to back up that legend, it certainly illustrates how history has come to view her climb to the top. But what isn't up for debate is the outcome of Stephen's death. On May 22nd of 1832, Eliza Jumel became the richest woman in America.


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[Assistant] And yes, by this point they were her peers. Not only had she managed to climb from obscurity to become the richest woman in the country, but she had also established a reputation for herself as a smart businesswoman.


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[Assistant] She was to be envied and admired and as far as Eliza was concerned, she had no complaints about either.


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[Assistant] In the years that followed Stephen's death, she transported the remainder of his belongings back from France. And soon enough, that historic mansion was becoming a palace. Her obsession continued to be Napoleon. And everywhere you looked, there were traces of the former emperor. Artwork that had once belonged to him.


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[Assistant] Clocks, chandeliers, you name it. Mount Morris had become a little slice of France in America.


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[Assistant] Eliza had reinvented herself, proving that the dream is possible.


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[Assistant] But she wasn't finished quite yet. Because while she was applauded for her business mind and admired for her bank account, she wasn't yet respected for her power. And the only way she could think of to attain that power was through another marriage. Marriage to someone who could finally give her the access she wanted. A place in the highest levels of society.


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[Assistant] In 1833, just a year after Stephen's death, she found that useful man.


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[Assistant] He was much older than her at roughly 78 years old, but that was alright. To fully reinvent herself, Eliza needed to focus on his power, something he had plenty of. After all, he had served the nation in one of its loftiest positions and was one of the most respected attorneys in the country. His name? Aaron Burr.


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[Assistant] Yes, the Aaron Burr who served as the vice president to Thomas Jefferson.


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[Assistant] And yes, the Aaron Burr who squared off with founding father Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. A duel that ended with Hamilton's death. He came with baggage, for sure. So much baggage. But he was also the sort of powerful figure she needed to climb higher.


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[Assistant] But their marriage wasn't smooth sailing. It became very clear early on that Burr was in it for the money. Slowly and sometimes without permission, he tried to take control of her finances. And after a number of months of fighting him off, she ended up taking him to court over it. A short while later, she filed for divorce.


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[Assistant] Eliza would go on to spend the next 30 years of her life spending her money, wielding her power, and traveling between her many homes. There is a lot more to it than that, of course, but in general, she was a woman on the move, who had reached the top of the mountain through sheer tenacity and the power of her will.


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[Assistant] But one thing she stopped doing was staying at Mount Morris by herself.


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[Assistant] It seems that when she and Steven purchased the estates all those years ago, she had negotiated a lower price because of the rumor that it was haunted. Back then, it was a convenient piece of leverage to use to her advantage. Now though, it had come back to haunt her. Literally. And the experiences had frightened her out of the house.


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[Assistant] The rumor had been that the ghost of a Hessian soldier could be seen on the main staircase of the house. And that made a lot of sense. The house had been under British control at certain points of the Revolutionary War. And Hessian soldiers were mercenaries hired by the British to bulk up their forces. So it wasn't an out of context idea.


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[Assistant] Whether or not that was the source of her hauntings won't ever be proved, but that's what the legend says.


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[Assistant] Eliza Jumel passed away in July of 1865, at the age of 90. She had refused to take the path life had given her, and instead blazed her own. And while the journey had been challenging, the reward had been more than worth it. She never gave up, and all of that tenacity paid off. Even after death.


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[Assistant] You see, in 1904, her former mansion became a museum. And today it's not known as Mount Morris, but as the Morris Jumel Mansion. And ever since, it's been filled with unusual experiences. Lights that turn on and off on their own. Strange sounds that come from seemingly empty rooms. And mysterious lights that float through dark hallways.


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[Assistant] In the 1970s, someone held a seance inside the mansion and they claimed to have heard from Eliza herself, who confessed to removing the bandages from Stephen's wounds, which led to his death.


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[Assistant] Another seance, this one broadcast over the radio, resulted in a flurry of foul language that got the program shut down. And of course, some people still claim to see that Hessian soldier, slowly moving up and down the staircase at night.


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[Assistant] But one experience in particular stands out above all the rest. In 1964, a school brought their students to the mansion for a field trip. It was the sort of barely controlled chaos you might expect if you've ever seen a group of young students led through a museum by a handful of teachers. But something more unexpected also took place.


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[Assistant] While the students were gathered outside the front door, waiting for their tour to begin, some of the students claim to see an older woman exit the house onto the balcony above the front door. They say she was dressed in a purple gown, and when she reached the railing, she leaned over and shouted down to them.


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[Assistant] A short while later, one of the students brought it up on their tour, but were told that the balcony was locked and no one lived in the house anymore. It wasn't until later in the tour that the answer appeared in front of them.


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[Assistant] Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. It's the notion that pressing needs or desperate times often lead people to fresh, creative ways to climb out of the box they're in. And we can see that idea prominently in the folklore surrounding people who transform themselves.


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[Assistant] To this day, no one knows if D.B. Cooper survived his jump from the airplane. Tantalizing clues have been discovered over the years, such as a few of the bills that were part of the ransom money, found in the woods beneath the path of the plane. But the rest of the fortune, and the man who stole it, seem to have vanished.


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[Assistant] Jesse James could have been another of those inventive figures. In the late 1940s, a man named J. Frank Dalton claimed to be the infamous outlaw, who had slipped away and lived in secret for decades.


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[Assistant] But later DNA testing on the body buried in Jesse James Coffin confirmed it was really him, putting that legend to rest.


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[Assistant] In the case of Billy the Kid, the questions have remained unanswered. A number of people came forward in the decades after his reported death, and two of those claims had been taken seriously by historians. Unfortunately, DNA tests haven't been able to settle the matter for good.


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[Assistant] But that's the goal of reinvention, isn't it? To paint over the past with a new, brighter future. To escape the gravitational pull of family or station or whatever other circumstance might be holding you down.


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[Assistant] And it would be more than a little discouraging to think that no one has ever been able to slip those bonds and soar above it all, wouldn't it?


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[Assistant] Thankfully, Eliza Jumel has proved us right. People can change. They can alter their path and steer towards something better. Yes, her story is fun and gritty and full of so many neat historical references. But it also gives us hope. Something that often seems to be in short supply for many of us.


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[Assistant] The presence can still be felt around the mansion she once owned. Aside from the sightings of what many assume are her ghosts, sightings which include children too frightened to enter certain parts of the house, there are other, more worldly reminders of her life.


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[Assistant] Today the Morris Jumel Mansion is the oldest house in Manhattan, and as a museum, it's home to valuable glimpses of the past. Perhaps that's why Lin-Manuel Miranda spent time there, writing portions of his musical, Hamilton.


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[Assistant] But the reminders are outside too. According to those who live in the area, if you know where to look around Highbridge Park, the long strip of green space that runs between the mansion and the Harlem River, you might just notice some wild grapevines. They are remnants of the vines planted by Eliza's first husband Stephen to remind him of his home in France. If you ever visit, go exploring. You never know what you might find. Oh, and one last thing.


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[Assistant] Eliza married Aaron Burr in 1833 and filed for divorce a year later. The legal process took another two years, but when it was finished, Burr was devastated. He died the very same day the divorce was official. And I can't help but wonder if that had anything to do with who Eliza's attorney had been.


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[Assistant] History is full of stories of inventive people. Those who refused to play with the cards they were dealt and instead made their own. But sometimes those changes were forced on them by circumstances so unusual that the results have become legend.


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[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break and I'll tell you one more tale of transformation.


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[Assistant] Surprisingly, we don't have to look too far from today's story to find another example of possible reinvention. But this story doesn't center around Eliza Jumel, but her second husband, former Vice President Aaron Burr.


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[Assistant] I think it's safe to assume that his marriage to Eliza at the age of 78 wasn't his first. Indeed, his first marriage happened when Eliza was just eight, way back in July of 1782. They had a number of children together, but only one of them survived to adulthood, a daughter named Theodosia. And that must have been difficult for Burr.


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[Assistant] Yes, I imagine he was grateful that she survived when her siblings did not. But she also shared her name with her mother, who passed away when Theodosia was just 11. So I can see how she was this little reminder to Burr of all that he had lost.


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[Assistant] Over the years, he was a highly protective father to her, and she, in return, filled in for some of those socially necessary Lady of the House roles, such as hosting parties and important guests.


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[Assistant] And then, in 1801, she married a wealthy man named Joseph Alston. Although looking back through the lens of Burr's financial problems, it does make me wonder if the marriage was just about love, or something more spendable, as it were.


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[Assistant] Alston wasn't a slouch though. He would go on to become the governor of South Carolina in 1812. Although the road began just a year after their marriage in 1802 when he was elected to the state's House of Representatives. So after a brief honeymoon at Niagara Falls, he and Theodosia move south.


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[Assistant] Of course, living so far from her father in New York meant that travel was an order.


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[Assistant] Today she would just board a plane and be eating dinner with him a few hours later. In the early 1800s though, that sort of journey required sailing up the coast. And I have to imagine that she would have made that trip more than a few times had her father not been in a sort of self-imposed exile living across the Atlantic in England.


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[Assistant] But in 1812, all of that changed. Fikidosha's father had just returned home, and she was anxious to see him. There were delays through most of that year, thanks to the outbreak of the War of 1812, as well as the death of her son, Aaron, from malaria. But finally, at the end of the year, she was ready to set sail.


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[Assistant] The ship was a schooner named the Patriot, but thanks to the ongoing war along the coast, it was disguised to look a little bit less official. Historians say that it's imposing cannons. Cannons that might have appeared like an effort to pick a fight were stowed below deck, and the name of the vessel was also painted over.


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[Assistant] Theodosia boarded the ship on December 31st of 1812, along with two friends, and then it sailed north, out into waters known to be home to privateers. And tragically, it was never seen again. Although, if the stories are true, that might not exactly be the case.


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[Assistant] And there were theories about the loss, of course. Aaron Burr himself believed it was a tragic shipwreck, but others whispered about an attack by a group of smugglers known as the Carolina Bankers who worked out of Nag's head.


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[Assistant] It's said that they worked by luring ships toward the coast at night, where they would crash on the sharp rocks. Then the bankers would just sift through the wreckage for valuable goods.


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[Assistant] It's a story that was shared by a Native American warrior in a community along the Gulf Coast. This warrior claimed to have stumbled upon a shipwreck along the coast, suggesting that the patriot might have changed course and headed south instead, perhaps to outrun pirates.


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[Assistant] Before journeying off to find a settlement, she gave him a gift as thanks.


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[Assistant] A gift that the warrior would wear for many years to come.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Marset Crockett and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.


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[Assistant] Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over at the brand new home for my new production company, GrimAndMild.com


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Have you ever known someone who was just too smart for their own good? You know the type, right? They're brilliant and a natural at just about everything they do. But they tend to use their brains for less than typical things. Usually to get up to trouble.


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[Assistant] Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, Frank was a textbook example of this. He was a bright kid with a couple of uncanny skills. He could learn enough about anything just by observing how it worked, and he could find creative ways to use that knowledge for his own benefit.


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[Assistant] Honestly, there was very little he couldn't do, if he put his mind to it.


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[Assistant] For Frank though, that meant becoming a master con artist. His first con was stealing from his father, using a credit card meant to buy gas for his work truck. After that, he spent time figuring out how to write checks for cash he didn't have, and eventually how to do the same off other people's accounts.


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[Assistant] But he also expanded his horizons. Between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank used a forged pilot's license to travel around the country, logging roughly a million miles. After that, he pivoted to medicine, spending time in a Georgia hospital as the chief resident pediatrician, overseeing half a dozen interns and countless patients.


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[Assistant] He even managed to forge a Harvard Law School transcript and use it to get a job in the Louisiana State Attorney General's office, something that required him to take and pass the state bar exams.


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[Assistant] And even after his criminal career ended in arrest and prison time, Frank Abagnale Jr. was so good that the FBI would ultimately hire him as a consultant on fraud.


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[Assistant] Most people have heard Frank's story, thanks to Steven Spielberg's hit film about him, Catch Me If You Can. But even if you haven't, it's easy to see just how much trouble someone can get up to when they've got a sharp mind and a natural understanding of the assumptions people make.


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[Assistant] For as long as humans have been around, there have been people gullible enough to believe anything, and others who are willing to take advantage of that.


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[Assistant] And while modern con artists tend to focus on fraud of some kind,


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[Assistant] Their predecessors sometimes leaned heavily into a different world altogether.


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[Assistant] A world where anything was possible and we're understanding what made people tick.


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[Assistant] It's easy to imagine the fear they must have felt. This was 1804, after all. There were no electric streetlights to chase away the darkness as the sun set on the Yorkshire town of Cowood. And so fear was always there.


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[Assistant] On this particular night though, that fear took on a shape. As a local farmer looked out his window on his darkened property, he caught a glimpse of something in the shadows. Something with the twisted shape of a goblin-like face. And the folklore he'd been raised on allowed his mind to put the pieces together. What he was looking at was a barghast.


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[Assistant] It's a creature that owes some of its identity to the accent of Northern England. Instead of ghost, people there would say ghast. And this legendary creature, the barghast, certainly was ghost-like. It was a shapeshifter, sometimes taking on the form of a black dog, while other times looking more like a goblin or apparition.


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[Assistant] And the folklore was clear about how dangerous the bar guests were. They were often seen as an omen of death, as seeing one with your own eyes could prove disastrous. When they took the shape of a black dog, they were often accompanied by the sounds of rattling chains. And if they got inside your home, they were known to steal your valuables.


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[Assistant] So on this night, the farmer who saw the mysterious shape outside did what any good person might have done in that area at the time. He ran away.


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[Assistant] Fearing for his life, he bolted out of his house and ran as fast as he could toward his nearest neighbor. We don't know if the barghast gave chase or if it remained behind.


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[Assistant] But when the farmer returned, he found his home ransacked and robbed. But at least he was alive.


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[Assistant] Later that night, far from the farmer's house, the bar gas stopped at the edge of the road. Reaching up to its neck, the demonic figure slowly peeled off its mask, like something pulled straight out of an old Scooby-Doo cartoon, and then tucked it into his bag.


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[Assistant] As he stepped out of the shadows and onto the road, the barghast was no more, and in its place was the real thief, a local man named Joseph Brown.


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[Assistant] Brown was a young man, perhaps 30 years old at the time, and he was a con artist. We don't know a lot about his early life, like who his parents were, and while we can assume that he had many siblings, as most people did in those days, we only know of one of them by name, a sister named Mary.


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[Assistant] But we certainly have a bit of information about his early adulthood. Joseph Brown worked most of the time as a flax dresser, someone who processed fiber from the flax plant so that it could be used in textiles. In Joseph's day, it was common for flax dressers to develop lung disease from their work, so it's easy to understand why he might have wanted out.


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[Assistant] Joseph was described by newspapers at the time as a pretty unattractive man.


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[Assistant] His rather brutish face made him difficult to forget once he was gone. And while he was in front of you, he was beyond charismatic. It was a paradox that he was well aware of, too. This idea that he looked rather unintelligent on the surface, but was actually brilliant in a lot of ways.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of con artists before and after him, Joseph understood people and what made them tick.


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[Assistant] For example, he knew that the people in town were obsessed with a tradition called porch watching.


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[Assistant] It was an annual event, always on the night of April 24th, known as St. Mark's Eve, when locals would sit inside the church porch and keep watch for ghostly visitors. If the spirit of a local man or woman was seen between the hours of 11pm and 1am, those people were said to be destined to die in the coming year.


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[Assistant] It was a position with a lot of power. And because of that, individuals who volunteered for the task were often paid by locals to reveal who they saw that night. Partly for the easy coin and partly for the power it gave him over others, Joseph was said to love the job.