When the Vow Breaks

Today's tour through the cabinet lands us in court for a variety of things, with curious results.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
In the nineteen eighties, America fell under a dark spell.
I know because I was there. Neighbor accused neighbor of
worshiping the devil, while parents fretted over their children playing
such demonic games as dungeons and dragons. The Satanic Panic,
as it came to be called, was the result of
faulty psychology and fears of abuse allegedly being perpetrated by

(00:59):
members of the occult. That fear spread across the US,
but it had rooted itself deepest inside Ralph P. Forbes
of London, Arkansas. Now it's fair to say that Ralph
had a bit of a problematic past. When he was
younger and living in California, he registered as a member
of the American Nazi Party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell.

(01:20):
Forbes had actually worked his way up fairly high in
the operation as a rally organizer, so much so that
Rockwell himself had given him the task of establishing a
Christian identity group, a type of hate group with misguided
notions about the Bible. But that was the nineteen sixties,
a wild time for many Americans, even though Forbes had
ignored the flower power of the Hippies, instead choosing the

(01:44):
bigotry of the Nazi Party. He eventually left Rockwell's group
and started referring to himself as a former Nazi, despite
turning around and working alongside KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.
Once a bigot's always a bigot, I guess. But there
had been a thorn in four side for a long time.
It tormented him every year, and worse, it had captured

(02:05):
children all over the country in its fiendish claus, leading
them ever closer to the dark side. And this profound
evil that Ralph was worried about Halloween. He'd been running
for a seat in the United States Senate in nineteen
eighty six when he decided to take measures into his
own hands. On October thirtieth of that year, days before

(02:25):
the election, Forbes filed a lawsuit against the person that
he deemed responsible for corrupting the nation's youth. Satan, the
wannabee senator named three plaintiffs in his suit, all Christian children,
Jesus Christ, and of course himself. As for the defendants,
Satan was only one of several. Forbes also listed the

(02:47):
Arkansas Department of Education and I quote high priests of
secular humanism. The case found its way onto the docket
of Judge George Howard Junior. Howard would go on to
play a part in the Whitewater Ill Estate trial of
the nineteen nineties, which involved President Bill Clinton and First
Lady Hillary Clinton. That case was subsequently lead to the
president's impeachment in nineteen ninety eight. But in nineteen eighty six,

(03:11):
Judge Howard was overseeing the trial of the Century between
Ralph Forbes and the Prince of Darkness, and representing Satan
on this day in courts was Attorney John Wesley Hall Junior,
who had decided to take on the case pro bono.
According to an article in the Los Angeles Times from
November of that year, Hall argued that, and again this

(03:32):
is a quote. The devil doesn't do enough business in
Arkansas end quote, and therefore should be dropped from the suit.
In addition, Satan owned no property and committed no chorts
against the state. But perhaps Hall's greatest argument was that
any legal dispute between Jesus Christ and Satan couldn't be
litigated in federal court because it was a First Amendment issue.

(03:55):
He went out to claim that Halloween was not a
holiday about or in support of devil. It had been
adapted from a New Year's festival years before and was
now celebrated in the United States as a secular holiday. Well,
clearly mister Hall was good at his job, or maybe
the plaintiff just didn't have much of a case to
begin with, because the whole thing just kind of fizzled out,

(04:18):
much like Forbes's political career. In addition to embarrassing himself
in federal court, he also lost his race for the
Senate and a presidential bid a decade later. Ralph Forbes
didn't accomplish much during his life. He was a Nazi,
a failed politician, and now a laughing stock in the
Arkansas legal system. Maybe if he'd spent less time worrying

(04:40):
about silly dress up holidays, he would have seen the
real evil living rights under his nose. It was a

(05:00):
beautiful day for a wedding. It's just a shame that
the marriage would end in only a few days. On
April twenty first of nineteen oh nine, Percy Redwood and
Agnes Ottaway were married in Port Molineau, New Zealand. The
Ottaway family house, usually used as a popular boarding house,
had turned into the most picturesque wedding venue, and it

(05:21):
really was a show stopping event. Local papers gushed about
the fine wine and champagne served at the reception. The
local MP, along with two hundred other neighbors and friends,
showed up to celebrate. The groom's family didn't ever make it,
but that faux pas was easy for the guests to
forget about as they watched him shower his bride with jewelry, silver,
and other expensive gifts. He was someone who could afford

(05:43):
to spoil his new wife, and he made sure everyone
knew it. Percy Redwood had made his fortune as a
successful Canterbury sheep farmer. He hadn't been in Port Molina
for long, but he had quickly won over his new
neighbors with both his money and his charm. He was,
by all accounts, wonderful. Addition, to the town. His wealth,
of course, meant that he only had the best manners.

(06:05):
It also meant that he had the very best suits,
and the very best stories and the most interesting letters
of business from all over New Zealand. He was a
small man, but his diminutive size and rather high pitched
voice didn't exactly make for a commanding presence. But when
have the rich ever needed to cut an impressive figure
to make friends for people in this small community, Percy

(06:28):
was a very exciting newcomer, and it didn't take long
for the daughter of the local guesthouse owner, Agnes Ottaway,
to notice him, or for him to notice her. The
two quickly developed a friendship that blossomed into love. When
he proposed with an expensive five diamond rings, she immediately accepted,
and after news of their engagement spread, Percy's mother wrote

(06:49):
to Agnes's saying that she would give the young couple
four five hundred dollars so they could settle easily into
their new marital home. Agnes, elated, prepared herself for a
comfortable life as the wife of a wealthy businessman. The
wedding went off without a hitch. It was only afterwards
that things began to sour. After the reception, one of

(07:10):
the groomsmen walked Percy to the newlywed suite. He was
astonished when he watched Percy put his pajamas on over
his wedding clothes. Of course, most rich men have a
few eccentricities, right, This was probably just one of those quirks,
or maybe not, because things got weirder and weirder in
the days after the wedding. You see, that extravagant wedding

(07:31):
hadn't been paid for upfront. Instead, Percy had gotten everything
on credit, promising to pay all the vendors back after
the big day, And after that day had come and gone,
the money never materialized. Agnes's father, suspicious of the grumblings
around town that Percy wasn't paying anyone back, made it
clear that he would not consider the marriage valid until

(07:52):
Percy could prove that he was financially stable. The couple's
honeymoon to Melbourne was delayed as Percy's good standing in
the commune unity unraveled. Creditors traped in and out of
the Ottaway house looking for the money they were owed.
People started going to the police when the money didn't materialize,
and it all came to a head when four days
after the wedding, a detective and a constable showed up

(08:15):
at their door. When Percy greeted them, the detective said, well,
he said something very very unexpected. You are Amy Bach,
and I arrest you on a charge of fraud. It
was absurd, but Percy didn't deny it. Instead, he simply replied,
I see you know all you see he was actually

(08:36):
a she. Percy Redwood's real name was Amy Bach, and
she was a woman. And it turns out that she
had been a prolific fraudster for most of her life.
All of the letters that Amy Bach had allegedly received
while in Portmolino, letters from her wealthy mother or letters
making important business offers, had all been fake. Everything she

(08:57):
had bought since arriving in town had been purchased on credit,
and none of it had been paid for. Yet Amy
was broke. In fact, she was drowning in debt. A
life of running from the law had not been kind
to her wallet. She had never tried to marry into
money before. That was a new scheme. Really. Amy had
started small, just lying about how much money she had

(09:18):
buying things on credits, and then disappearing. She had been
convicted of fraud numerous times throughout the years as she
bounced from city to city. She had even been sent
to prison several times for conning people out of their money,
but that never stopped her. Her scams had gotten bolder
and bolder over the years, though at one point she
had talked her way into owning a chicken farm. That

(09:39):
another she had convinced the Salvation Army to lend her money,
which she used to buy a house. Unfortunately, her years
of scheming eventually attracted a more intense police scrutiny than
she had ever had before, and now the law had
finally tracked her down, Recognizing her particular brand of fraud,
which I suppose could be some as leaving a huge

(10:01):
number of people high and dry. The detective and constable
who had found her arrested her and that Amy was
taken to the Dunedin Supreme Court to await her trial.
The Ottaway family, of course, was shocked that their daughter's
new groom was actually a bride, but Agnes's father, who
didn't seem all that torn up about the arrest, was
reported to have said, well it might have been worse.

(10:23):
Amy of course pled guilty to all the charges, and
she was sent to prison for three years. Agnes Ottaway,
who claimed that she had no way of knowing that
her husband was actually a woman, applied for an annulment.
Thankfully for her, it was granted and she went on
to Bury twice more before she died in nineteen thirty six.
Amy was released from prison three years after her conviction,

(10:44):
and she returned to the outside world as Amy Bach,
not as Percy Redwood. Amy never went back to prison
after the Redwood debacle, but she also never gave up
on her little scams at cons Thankfully for the local
single population, she refrained from marrying anyone else aner false pretenses,
but even so she was occasionally appearing in the New
Zealand courts for fraud until she was seventy one years old.

(11:08):
And that's, my friends, is what we hear call curious.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. 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

(11:31):
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 about it over at
the worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.