Prison Break

Sometimes people just don't stay where they belong, which leads to some very curious situations. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed. Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. In nine, George Romero released his classic zombie
film Dawn of the Dead. In one particular scene, a
character utters the line, when there's no more room in hell,
the dead shall walk the earth. An ominous statement, to

(00:49):
be sure. But while there's no risk of zombies coming
to eat our brains anytime soon, at least I hope not.
There was one incident almost a hundred years ago when
the dead did rise from the grave, and nobody had
any idea what sort of event it would lead to today.
Her name was Emma Crawford and she was born in
Massachusetts on March eighteen sixty three. Emma had a passion

(01:11):
for music, which her mother had fostered in her at
a very early age. From the time she was three,
Emma would sit at the piano and listen to her
mother to play Beethoven, sonatas. Over time, she picked up
a few things from her mother, leading to an almost
prodigy like talent. By the time she was twelve, Emma
started giving others piano lessons and performing recitals for her neighbors,

(01:32):
impressing them with her masterful technique. Her skills even earned
her an invitation to perform in Boston with other famous
musicians of the time. Sadly, Emma was not well though.
She'd been sick from the age of seven with tuberculosis,
and her mother had tried everything to help her, so
in eight nine, the two of them traveled to Manito Springs, Colorado,
home of mineral springs that were thought to have healing

(01:54):
qualities to cure her condition. They rented a house there
and Emma fell in love with the area. Ah the mountain,
air and the sunshine boosted her spirits, and she was
often spotted climbing the nearby Red Mountain, and her spirits
weren't the only thing that were boosted. The Crawfords believed
that they were in tune with the ghosts and they
were being protected by Native Americans from the other side

(02:16):
in their day to day lives. On one of her
excursions up the mountain, Emma felt summoned to the top
by a Native American spirit. She told her mother of
her intention to ascend the mountain and meet him, to
which she was told no. Mrs Crawford felt it was
too dangerous with her illness, but Emma refused to listen.
One day, while her mother was given a piano lesson,

(02:36):
Emma snuck out of the house and climbed Red Mountain
all by herself, and she made it too, marking her
success at the top by tying her scarf to a
small pine tree at its peak. It was at that
moment that she decided that she would be buried underneath
that tree upon her death, and Emma passed away in
two years after her move there to Colorado. Following a

(02:59):
small funeral service at her home, as per her last request,
her coffin was carried up Red Mountain to the tree
where she had tied her scarf. She was buried beneath
its branches, her grave side marked with rocks. Some years later,
construction began a top Red Mountain and Emma's grave was
moved to another location. It was placed within some loose
gravel and a solid block of concrete was laid on top. Unfortunately, though,

(03:24):
that wasn't enough to keep her remains in place. Two
major storms swept through the area, unearthing her coffin, which
slid down the mountain like an Olympic luge. In August
of two small boys playing at the bottom of the
mountain found her skull, the only part of her that
was left. They took it to the police, along with
the name plate from her coffin. Today, Emma Crawford now

(03:45):
rests in an unmarked grave, but her memory lives on
in a very unique way. You see in the Manitude
Chamber of Commerce started what would become an annual Halloween
tradition called the Emma Crawford Coffin Race to honor the
late pianist and nature lover and her historic ride down
Red Mountain. Folks gather in Manitou Springs in homemade coffins

(04:08):
decorated based on the themes of their costumes. When the
race begins, for runners push the coffin down the streets
while another person, the Emma of the group, sits inside
the first coffin over the finish line wins. It's a
morbidly hilarious way to remember a woman who lived life
to the fullest and didn't let anyone keep her down,

(04:28):
not even her grave. Yoshi Shira Tory was born in
Japan in h seven, and as an adult, he bounced

(04:48):
from job to job until he realized that having a
job wasn't really for him, even with a family to support. Instead,
he began a new career as a professional gambler. But
if you think that's the most interesting twist in his life,
you'd be wrong. In the mid nineteen thirties, Shira Tory's
life took a drastic turn when he robbed someone who
accidentally died during the incident. He was convicted and sent

(05:10):
to prison, where he spent three years. Now, he wasn't
sentenced to only three years behind bars. That's just how
long it took for him to break out. You see,
Shira Tory was highly observant, watching the guards each day
and memorizing their routines, and when the time was right,
he placed a few pillows under his blanket to make
the guards think he was asleep. Then he pried off

(05:31):
a loose wire that him and wrapped around his bathing
buckets and used it to pick the lock on his
cell door. From there he was able to climb up
and escape the prison through a broken skylight. He managed
to evade the police for three whole days, but was
eventually recaptured and sentenced to life in prison for his stunt.
They transferred him to Akita Prison, which was better equipped

(05:51):
to handle someone like him. There, he was placed in
a specifically designed cell that was thought to be escaped proof.
It was small, only big enough for one person and
at a time, and had smooth copper walls that rose
high above him. Embedded in the ceiling was a single,
tiny skylight covered with bars to let in the fresh air.
To make matters worse, Shiratry had no bed and no blanket,

(06:13):
and the guards kept him handcuffed the entire time. Even
when he was alone in his cell with six years
to himself, though, he had a lot of time to
think and observe, which is how he noticed that the
frame around the bars over the skylight was made of wood.
As before, Shiratory came into possession of some wire, which
he used to unlock his handcuffs each night. Then, by

(06:35):
stretching his arms out, he would climb the walls to
the top of the cell, where he would pour miso
soup his meal that day into the wooden frame, and
he did this for over eight months, slowly warping the wood.
Once the frame was loose enough, Shiratory waited for a
night when the weather was stormy, allowing the thunder and
lightning to hide the sounds of his movement, and just
like that, he slipped out through the skylight and escaped

(06:59):
once again. This time, he managed to stay away for
three whole months, but something compelled him to come out
of hiding. It was his treatment at Akata prison. The
guards had abused him and tortured him daily. Only one person,
the head guard, Kobayashi, had treated him kindly, So Shiratry
went to Kobayashi's home and explained the whole situation. He

(07:20):
would have stayed in prison had it not been for
his poor treatment by the other guards, and he wanted
to speak with someone about having those guards punished for
their behavior. Unfortunately, he never got a chance. Kobayashi called
the police after Shiratory excused himself to use the restroom.
They were already there by the time he emerged. Shiratry
was given another three years for escaping and transferred to

(07:42):
yet another facility. Aba Shiri Prison. Now this one was
considered inescapable. No one had ever pulled it off. It
was located in the far north among the mountains and
heavily guarded, and just like at Akata Prison, Shira Torri
was tormented there. He was cuffed around his ankles and
wrists at all times with his hands behind his back.

(08:03):
The cuffs couldn't be taken off by anyone except two
skilled blacksmiths, a process that took at least two hours
to complete. But despite his limitations, the ingenious escape artist
quickly got to work on getting out. Shira Tory was
served miso soup each day through an opening in his
cell door. He would squirt the soup onto the joints
of his cuffs, as well as around the metal meal slot.

(08:26):
After a year, his shackles had weakened enough for the
salt content to eat away at the metal and he
was finally able to get his hands and legs free.
Then he dislocated his shoulders and squeezed through the meal
window before fleeing to the roof and away from the prison.
The guards didn't spend much time looking for him either,
since the temperatures were frigid and he was alone in

(08:47):
the wilderness. They just assumed that he would get eaten
by something bigger than him pretty soon, but as always,
shia Tori survived. He lived in a cave for two years,
subsisting on whatever vegetation and small animals he could find.
By the time he left that cave in nineteen forty five,
everyone had forgotten about his escape and Japan had surrendered
to the Allies. World War two was over, and shira

(09:09):
Tori headed home to find his family. Hungry and desperate,
he wandered onto a farm and he stole a tomato.
The farm's owner caught him and attacked him with his plow,
which shira Toriy wrestled away and used against the farmer,
killing him. Shiratry plained self defense, but he was sent
to jail for a fourth time, given the death penalty,

(09:29):
and assigned to a cell watched over by a team
of six guards at all times. And just as before,
the cell walls were smooth and the ceiling was too
high to reach. In addition, the windows and the meal
slot were too small for him to squeeze through. The
only thing he was given was a mattress to sleep on,
since he was being watched seven. The guards didn't bother
leaving cuffs on him when he was in his cell,

(09:52):
but perhaps they should have. One night, they peeked in
on Shira Toriri only to find his cell empty, but
he hadn't gone through the windows or the skylight. The
guards lifted up his mattress to find that their prisoner
had dug a tunnel beneath it using the bowls that
they had served his soup in Shiratory. Disappeared for a
year until one fateful day when a police officer sat

(10:13):
down next to him in a park and offered him
a cigarette. Shia Torri wanted to believe that not all
police officers were cruel, and so he turned himself in
yet again, claiming that he didn't hate prison, he just
hated the abuse that he suffered while inside. The officer
arrested him and presented him to the court, which took
his death sentence away. He was transferred to Tokyo Prison,

(10:35):
where he spent the next sixteen years confined without incident,
and after he was released in nineteen sixty one, Shiratry
reconnected with his family and he never went back to jail.
It's curious I think that the man who was so
good at escaping finally found a way to stay right
where he was. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

(10:58):
of the Cabinet of cur Piosities. Subscribe for free on
Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all

(11:20):
about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,