February 25, 2025 • 43 mins
Kelsey McKinney (host of the hit podcast 'Normal Gossip') joins Arturo as they venture to 1960's London, to meet the notorious burglar, and self-proclaimed Queen of the Underworld, Zoe Progl.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes Show, bringing you the
wildest true escape stories of all time. Now today we're
headed to the nineteen sixties in London for some wild
break ins and a legendary breakout by the first woman
to scale the walls of London's Holloway Prison. I'm Ardro
Gastro and I'm here with the podcasting world's number one
(00:21):
gossip queen, Kelsey McKinney. Wow, I am so excited to
have you as our guests this week. Guys. This is
Kelsey mckinnee. And I'm sorry that it's hard for me
(00:42):
to pronounce English names.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh it's okay. I'm from the South, so the ease
and the eyes make the same sound to me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh my god. Here, So I love I love your
podcast Normal Gossip, and I gotta tell you also, I'm
so jealous of your ease with the English language and
how you just like have just this wide bread that's
a vocabulary, I'm telling you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
My god, thank you. I feel like I have a
small vocabulary, so I really appreciate this compliment, which I
have never received before.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So for our guests that don't know your podcast, with
which they should can you give us a little bit
about what it is?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely so. I host a podcast called Normal Gossip
where we take gossip from the world that listeners send
in and then we anonymize it, and then I bring
on a guest and I tell it to them, and
so kind of the goal is to make it sound
like you're overhearing someone in a bar.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh my god. And I tell you why I'm such
a fan of it because in one Amala, where I'm from,
there is a thing so so gossip and what Demala
slang is called cheese me. And when you like put
out like guys cheesse me on the like group WhatsApp chat,
people go fucking nutey stop they like the doctor start
op stop operating, fucking people on the table. They're like,
(01:48):
oh my god, oh my god, my god, tell me.
And the cheesemade like the juicy heard the cheesemade like
the more like fanfare there is for it, like it's
a it's a national sport. You have to be prepared
to come correct with it. It's always, you know, well
good nature and it's never like gossip being to like
destroy somebody. Yeah, but it is just so juicy because
it's like a Oneama city is like a big small town, right,
(02:09):
So if you date somebody, it's very likely that they
dated the cousin of your friend and they know each
other and they know a story about him, and so
cheese may it's just like just picture all of us.
The analogy would be all of us down by the river,
like just Washington clothes and like turning too. Did you
hear about the cheese me? You know? So that's why
I appreciate your show so much.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Great, I'm moving. Guatemala is a city to the top
of my cities to visit list. Based on this conversation alone,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
They will all be like your English is fantastic. So
I got to ask you, do you do you have
something that you consider your greatest escape. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So I grew up in Texas and I grew up
in a very evangelical household, which was not great, I
would say for me in general. And I was thinking, like, Okay,
do I talk about like going to college or moving
to the East Coast or like what do I do?
And I think, actually, the greatest escape I have ever
made is that my sophomore year of high school, I
switched high schools. So like I had been going to
(03:05):
this like giant public high school, like eight hundred kids
in a grade, huge, like football culture, all this stuff,
and I was like, I can't really find people to
be friends with here. And my sophomore year I switched
to an art's only high school and it was like
a tiny school and everyone only cared about art, and
I was like, this is bliss. And so I created
(03:26):
an escape hatch for myself from the place where I
grew up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Gosh, I would have did. I would have loved that.
Like I had to pretend to care give a shit
about soccer for like five years in my high school life.
I was like, oh the fucking oh yeah, you hit
the ball and then you run out. Oh man, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I love forwards for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah that's right. Let me tell you about our escape
for today, and Ben gave me a little intro. Oh
my god, thank you Ben. So today we start with
a call to the London Office, the London Police Office.
(04:01):
That's what everyone sounds like. It's August tenth, nineteen sixty.
Are you with me?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Okay, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They pick up the line. Yes, they get a tip
the notorious fugitive. So we progul and spotted at a
hotel at the Chelsea area of West London. Do you
know her?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Who is she?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
No? Oh, I'll tell you, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So it just felt like I should gasp.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I got scared. Oh I love it, thank you. So
it's an upscale neighborhood, okay. Everybody's having a good time.
They're like looking their noses out of people. It's a
kind of place where Zoe would have fit in, right
put right in. She was a woman with an air
of luxury. Okay. Old photos show her decked out and jewelry,
cocktail in hand and a perfect blonde quaff Ooh what
a word?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
French?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, French. Perhaps that gives her a Marilyn Monroe kind
of look, so like, go off Maryland and Queen. She's
having the time of her life. It's a sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, I'm seeing like red lipstick. I'm seeing a lot
of like flowing clothing, and.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I love that the cocktail in the hand is so specific.
They're like everybody was like complete alcoholics, but nobody was
there saying anything. They're like, no, they're just friendly kids.
So the police have been hunting Zoe pro Gol for
weeks right, not well, not well, she was just at
having cocktails. So when they heard that she had been spotted,
they sprang into action. They raced to the hotel and
(05:18):
they burst inside following the description that they had gotten
over the phone a woman wearing slacks with her hair
dyed red, drinking gin and a bitter lemon at the
hotel bar. But they didn't find Zoe, no no. Instead,
they found she had left something behind, a letter. It
was addressed to the British Home Secretary. She seems really cool,
(05:41):
but like, like, would you go out on the night?
First of all, the Home Secretary is a fucking terrible
title for any office, the Home Secretary. But from this
first impression, would you go out on a night for
drinks with old soy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Absolutely, I want to try this weird gin bitter lemon drink.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I'm down for that, what it is.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I love the idea of like being out for a
drink with her and her being like, can you just
call the police and tell them that I was here.
I'm just gonna like a dip out really fast.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh man. So the police polite gents that they were right.
They passed the mail along to the Home secretary.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Wow, so considerate.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
They're like, I don't know, we don't want to be rude.
Passed where they gave a statement to the press. It
seemed that Sowe had wanted to be seen, right because
the letter she left behind was an offer to bargain. Oh,
she would turn herself into the police if they would
lighten her sentence. But you see, the authorities felt like
she was making them look like fools.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
They were because she was.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, you were like dropping the letter off, like not
even checked. Just to the Home secretary.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
She's like, I don't want to pay for postage, so
I called the police to come pick this up.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I have a package. So they started a kind of
thing that you always hear, right the Queen's officers do
not bargain with escape criminals.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Sure, sure, yeap, so.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Soey stayed on the run, right, But that wasn't the
first time that Sooey taunted the cops were chasing her.
Spoiler alert after she escaped from prison and we're getting
into that story in a second.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Escape from prison.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, great at escape is what we're
all about. Give me okay, thank you. Now, many months
before her letter at the bar, she had send the
authorities a mysterious package. Okay, what's in the box, Kelsey,
what's in the box?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh my god, Yeah, what's in the box? Is it
a tape recorder?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It would have been a gramophone maybe back at that point.
It's a massive gramophone in a brown paper bag which
is a really.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Coiddage bunch of bitter lemons and a jar. What's in there?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
No? No. When they opened it, they found her prison armband.
In the uniforms she had worded side this woman rules.
So you gotta admire the audacity here is here. They're like,
fuck you, and here's your folded clothes. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
She's like, I escaped from prison. I have no need
of these. They're very ugly. I'm returning to my wardrobe.
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It had it seems like just like suggestions as to
how to make it warm.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, She's like, you know, I recommend like tucking the
waste a little bit. It's a little on flash.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Not very form fitting you guys. So when news got
out that she had somehow given back her prison uniform,
the press called her an honorable jail breaker. Very British.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
She didn't want to steal she just wanted to leave prison.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
She's just she wanted to leave prison. It wasn't a
great place to be. Police were enraged, but obviously a
lot of people were having a lot of fun with
the fact that she was leading the authorities on a
Mary chase. Yeah, it wasn't the first time. Over the
years Zoe had gathered an admiring audience. She had learned
how to put on a show. Right. That was specifically
true for her longtime passion and pursuit of burglary. We're
(08:44):
going really back in time, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So who was Zoe? Zoe was born in London in
nineteen twenty eight, and she got started on her career
really early, right.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Her career burglary, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I just wanted
to make sure I was following correctly.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, her career of mixing gin with lemon and bitters.
Her family, the Tilda Sleys, Am I saying that, right, overlord,
it is as as bright as anyone can get it.
It is. We're just making it up now, Okay, fine,
over lord, I love it. They were poor and her
father was an alcoholic, so the family often went hungry.
(09:25):
So we started stealing from her classmates at school. Smart
she was rummaging through lunch boxes and pickpocketing school kids,
but she knew that wouldn't feed her family right.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Right, school kids don't have that much money. They don't
even have jobs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's a sandwich. Hello, How often are you going to
feed a family six? So she started swimming in the Thames, right, ok,
carrying a sack.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
This seems really dangerous. I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I know she's like a child, and so that she
could climb onto the barges passing by and float away
with nuts, bananas and canned fruit like genius. This is impressive.
It's pretty bad, aus, isn't it? As a kid? Would
you have had the guts do this kind of stuff
when you were like ten?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I could barely climb a tree when I was ten.
I was like, I was a scaredy cat, to be honest, But.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I have such terrible, like leftover catholic guilt, like I
am not good at stealing because I was just like
confessed to my crimes and the crimes of everybody I've
ever met.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You know. Also, I'm like not a good swimmer. So
I don't think it would have worked out well for
me trying to scale a barge.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I still can't figure treading water successfully. I can't do
it no way. During World War Two, when Zoe was twelve,
she was sent out of London.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Oh right, because of the bombings.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, exactly. So wealthy foster family would take her in
out in the countryside.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Okay, so she leveled up during the war.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
She's like, glow up, it's my mom man. London was really,
but it was for kind of a sad reason because
London was being bombed so often by the Germans that
the UK got together to try to keep kids alive
by sending them out of the city. Right, But the
kids are like, yeah, I'll see you later, guys. Yeah.
With her foster family, she was well fed, given plenty
of clothes, and was generally given everything that she felt
like that was missing from home.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
She developed taste for luxury.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I'll taste for luxury. So when she got back to
London a year later in nineteen forty one, Zoe was
determined to live more like the foster family that she
had than her real family.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, best, she was.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I mean, what trauma it must be to like have
to go back. Yeah, you know what, I'm saying you like,
you like go back to like your London basement plan.
You're like, well, when is the horse carriage coming for
me again? Like, you know, are we having a ball again?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Okay, cool, But now she knew where to get the
things that rich people had in their houses.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Right. And also she's a teen now, right, so she
has like a little more dexterity, a little more yeah, smarts.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So at thirteen, she broke into a house for the
first time. Okay, yeah, she was like, fucking, I'm starting early.
She came away with a pocket full of stolen coins
and paid for pictures to be taken of herself, like
I love. Her first act of self care was with stoleation.
And she's like buying me a headshot.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know. Yeah, well, you know, she knew what she wanted.
She stole those coins to her.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You're like whatever, yeah, and now they are hers by
property law. Somewhere in the nineteen fifties. So in nineteen
forty six, when Zoe was only sixteen, she thought that
she saw a way out of her life in poverty. Right, Okay,
she marries a US sergeant named Joe Prago. Thank you.
Here is what America sounds like, and she went back
to the US with him. Okay, but Sooe was basically
(12:18):
still a fucking child. Man. You know, she wasn't really
happy being so far from home. She wasn't happy being
married to Joe, and she definitely wasn't happy spending her
days doing all of his cooking and cleaning, which is
apparently all that he expected.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Right, Yeah, I mean also, like, no fourteen year olds
in the whole world are happy. So like adding moving
across an ocean to live with an old man who
makes you do chores. No, yeah, it's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Like different times and all that, But seriously, do not
marry a fucking child to dig into a different country.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I agree you shouldn't marry children.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We are firmly on the side of not marrying children yet,
just so we're clear. Yeah. After a year of enduring
the marriage, Zoe told Joe that she wanted to take
a holiday back to England. Same everybody, So if you
if you hear around and listening, please send us all
to and too. So he sends her off, but once
she was back in the UK, she cut ties. She
was never going back to America. Bon boyas Joe peace out,
(13:11):
hie bony, Thank you Ben for that. So Zoe said
that she left basically because the life of a housewife
was too boring and which, to be honest, that was
That's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
For a kid, you know, also a kid that is
used to doing like crimes, being a housewife is not interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
She's lived the high life. She doesn't want to be
stuck in the middlebu fuck nowhere. So back in England,
Zoe kept their last name in Progel. She swapped Joe
for another soldier, a more adventurous chap, a Canadian gunman
nicknamed Johnny the Junkie.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Incredible name.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, so together they launched a life of serious burglary. Okay,
what is it what Canadians in these over the top
names like like like Johnny the Junkie or Dudley doul Right,
or like Ryan fucking Reynolds. You know, if you were
to day a Canadian in this time and age, how
good of a nickname would they have to have?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Better than Johnny the Junkie?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think one hundred percent. I always like to imagine
that he was the most polite burglar of his era.
He's always like sorry, sorry, sorry, story, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
but my stepdad's Canadian. I can say that to be honest.
When I moved to New York at nineteen, I had
this weird Hispanic slash Canadian accent. It was totally true,
and it's sounded like, Eh, what's up man? Yeah, I
don't know what that's about, but like I'm fucking like,
(14:29):
you know, ready to go chill in the house and whatever,
and people were like, what are you? In her first
big heist, Zoe was the getaway driver. Is Johnny the
junkie and a friend broke into a luxury store. They
stole check this out seven thousand dollars seven thousand pounds
sorry of furs. Now by one estimate, that's over three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars of merchandise in space money.
(14:52):
Isn't that wild?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Incredible heightsts?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Also like how expensive or fucking furs? Man? Likely very
I've never bought one. I guess I don't.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh yeah, I have no idea, but I love this.
I love the idea of them running out of a
store carrying these giant furs and like shoving them into
the back of a car.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
If it were just like wearing them and trying to
act really chilling, like like Joey and like friends, wearing
all of Chandler's.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Clothes, just like walking by folks seem good.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So to Zoe this was like the thrill that she
had been missing. You see, her only regret was that
she was left out in the car while the boys
were having all that fun. Right, so she was actually
driving a stolen Jaguar. But so Sooe decided that she
couldn't miss out on the excitement anymore. Oh, a little
further in time, does it tell me we're in the fifties?
Is that it been getting there? Great? Okay, late forties.
(15:41):
Let's say. Next, Zoe and the boys broke into a
post office where they grabbed a safe. Oh.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I was like, what's in the post office? I know?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
They just really loved stationary love letters. They love leaving
letters for the police to carry. Okay, so safe. Yeah,
And they herited out and cracked it open. They found
that they had made a huge haul. It was full
of fucking cash, banknotes and the other government documents worth
about six hundred thousand in today's money. Wow. I mean,
(16:11):
imagine you were an eighteen year old and suddenly you
have about two hundred thousand from the split dropped into
your lap? What would you like? What did you like
at eighteen? What were you like? Oh my god, this
is the best.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Ooh, that's a great question. Like concert tickets. I would
have wanted my own apartment at eighteen, right, I would
be like, I'm going to get my own place.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wow, that's so industrious of you. I would have just
been like, I don't know. When I go see death
Cap for Cuties or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
God at please let me see Connor overs, I'll die.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Also, is it just me or does Zoe and the
Boys sound like a great British invasion band that never was?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You know, Yeah, it sounds like a punk band.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So it seemed like the world was Zowe's oyster, right,
But the heist actually got Zoe caught the post office heist, yeah,
cracking open the safe Okay. In nineteen forty seven, while
she was still eighteen, Zoe was arrested for the first time.
She was also three months pregnant with Johnny the Junkies baby.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Not good to go to prison if you're pregnant.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
O Johnny the Junkie Junior. I don't know JJ. So
she was using four checks and trying to trade with
stolen post office documents like great, like what like stamps?
Like what are you like? You got a stapler? Like
I don't know what you're fucking thinking, Zoe. So the
judge on her case decided that Zoe wasn't responsible for
her actions. So since she was a woman, he said
(17:31):
that she was easily influenced by the men and that
they were the ones who were responsible for her actions.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's She's like, oh yeah,
I didn't even weird, like misogyny in the justice system.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Misogyny that's actually like moonlighting is feminism, right, because it's like, well,
she couldn't have done a crime.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
She couldn't have done this, She stuppure, Yeah, I don't, officer.
I thought they were just buying me a bunch of furs.
It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
They love me so much.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Have you seen my koit quaff quaff, my koi quaff.
So the judge, the judge sentence man the Oxford dictionary
people are just going to be calling me your priory
very angrily. Not my fucking problem, you guys. So the
judge sentence Zoe to three years in a reform school
and juvenile detention center, which British called Borstals.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh this seems like a place you don't want to go.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, well you would think, but the school was supposed
to be a place where crooked girls were straightened out, okay,
where they learned new habits and took on domestic skills. Like,
holy shit, man, I apologize that this is what they're like.
As for all men, they all called me. They actually
signed a release for me to be able to speak
for all men. Thank you. Is so fucked up that
it's like reform means teaching women domestic skills, you know
(18:39):
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yes, it's one of those things where it's like it's
fucked up to have to learn domestic skills to reform
from your criminal life. And also if someone offered me
to go to a reform school for three years and
learn to sew, I would be like, is it free?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, it's what's the food? Like? Yeah? Yeah yeah No
bores to the Borstals that summer. Zoe's son Tony was
born in the born Tony. She's like Zoe, Johnny des.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Like, I'm a criminal? What am I supposed to name
my son? His name's Tony went.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
To Tony you really lost your way, man. So the
pressures on her grew, right, but not in a way
that made Zoe decided to live you know, lawfully.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, no right.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And then, with flawless comedic timing, Joe Progele arrived in
England looking for his runaway wife.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
She's like, this is your son.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
He's like, I don't know of the math a, but yeah,
take him. I apologize to every person in the South
that ever existed. But when when he found that she
was locked up, he abandoned her and that was the
end of Joe. He's like, you know, I will marry
a minor in an instant, but a criminal, nay, sir, nay,
I've got morals. So Zoe got to know the other
(19:49):
girls in the prison and they became something of a
new family for her. Right, many of them were young
mothers like she was.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, because they all needed to be reformed, and.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Many of them came into the borso pregnant. Yeah, like
those are such a fucking wild trend, right, Like, so
we're going to president okay, cool, we got about thirty days, you.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Know, No, it's probably like, oh, you got pregnant and
you weren't married. Reform school for you, reform school for you,
our little husky, get.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Out of here. You need some Jesus. So we learned
a lot of things from there, things like shoplifting tips,
how to better pose. Really, he's like a training grapher.
Her she was how to better pose. This is an
important one. How to better pose as an upper class
woman to con shopkeepers.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, this is the problem. You put all these really
smart women together and you're like, learn to sew.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
They're going to learn immediately.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
They're going to be sewing up a storm. Like have
you ever stolen forty five thousand dollars in gyms?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah? I love that. You're like that you wove in
sewing up a storm. I'm going to keep that. We're
gonna re record it as as as an album after this.
So I also love the idea of this, like karate
kid like montage of training somebody. How to be more
British upper class? You know, like, all right, now you
have to fund your cousin more attractive, more attractive, whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Your cousin more attractive.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
But you know how British row with you, old Mary
within cousins.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know, I'm like, how to give your dynasty a
habsburg jaw hurry.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So the Vorstol became sort of finishing school for shoe right,
just not the one that.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
The finishing for criminals.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, exactly, It wasn't the one that the judge expected. Instead,
she came out at the end of her sentence like
as a well trained burglar and connorist, and she was
finally ready to strike out on her own. Let's go.
(21:40):
So we had a lot of classroom learning, but she
wanted to put her knowledge to good use. After all,
she was a mother now. So with her second son, Paul,
Zoey now had multiple mouths to feed, it was time
to make some real cash.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Okay, Yeah, multiple mouths to feed, and also a whole
slew of new skills you got to try out.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, she's got to put them to the test. And
with that motive, alongside the skills that Soe learned in
the Borstal, Zoe became extremely successful for real like she stole.
She stole from luxury stores by posing as a wealthy
woman and writing bad checks for jewelry and for clothing
that's beautiful, check this out. Eventually, Zoe was running a
mail order shoplifting business.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, mail order shoplifting. Uh huh uh huh, okay, explain
it to me.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So when an order would come in, Zoe would figure
out where the item was Plan A Heights, then scam
con burgle and otherwise absconmed the item, and then mail
it onto her satisfied customers.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And then did these customers pay her for this service?
Just a reduced price?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
A reduced price. But imagine like you're just going around,
be like I want this, You tell her where it is,
and then she would like.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You're like, I want a back laptop. I have one
hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
She's like on it. Yeah, So business was booming, right, ben,
can we get a little recks of riches, fifties bread?
Dance to halltoon right here?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know, imagine her shopping down the street. You know
she's like saying waving hello to people. You know, Joe
Progo is still writing her let us I come back
to me. She's like, fuck no. So a lot of
Sooey's jobs who were jump ups, right. She would steal
loaded trucks around London then sell their cargo. Fucking Zoey,
Holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have a whole truck, then it's easy to run away,
she's going to the wholesale she she believes in recycling
costco but for stealing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, that's right. So she at least had one regular accomplice,
almost like an employee, and she even had a regular
spot where she would meet with the buyers at Tuffnell
Park in North London. So, for one of her most
dramatic heightsts, Sooey and a couple of lock pickers travel
out to Oxfordshire, where they spotted a likely mansion. They
broke in and drove out in a stolen Jaguar loaded
(23:48):
with their loot.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Genius. I love the idea of being like, let me
just get my two buddies who are locksmiths, let me
just get just all my friends who are lock pickers.
We'll just go on a little adventure.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, we have a little book club that we also
like just like share our skills with it.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, my friends don't know how to lock pick. Maybe
I need to get some new ones.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I know. So Zoe was not always able to escape
the police, right, But because she was often caught for
only small time, small time thefts like shoplifting or whatever,
she was hit with a variety of small sentences, sometimes
like just a few months once when Zoe and some
other of her friends stole massive safe. This is so
fucking stupid. The police were able to easily follow them
(24:26):
back to their hideout because the safe was so big
that it had scraped a trail and the fucking payment
as they dragged along. This actually happened. That is the
sound of it actually happening. It took a while.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, okay, it has like the vibes of going to CrossFit,
right of like having to drag this safe, like to
toe it together as a team.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, so let's push this tractor wheel. Yeah, oh my god,
As the story goes, once they were arrested, they made
a phone call to a lawyer asking for help. Help,
but he told them that he was the one that
they had robbed. They had stole stolen safe with his
I'm fucking dead. Oh my god. That sounds like not
that true to be honest, but it's fucking hilarious. Like
I love it when you hear these stories, Like how
(25:12):
believable do you think these accounts are back then?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I think they probably are. You know, it's really hard
to steal things now in the world because there's so
much CCTV.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Everywhere we used to be so much easier, like trains
for a whole thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But also just like if there aren't cameras everywhere, you
can just break a window and go in.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, and they'd be like it was you, and you're like, no,
it wasn't. Like what's your proof, and they're like, god,
damn it, we have no figure drawing him exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And all of our money now is on like those
plastic cards, fake money where it's like if you if
there's cash to steal.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Right, yeah, exactly. So I believe that she was just
is this how we form a crime syndicate of our
own benchuck, let's play music over that when we when
we edit this over. You got it? So without a
good lawyer, Zoe was convicted for stealing the safe and
she got fifty But I'm sorry, just one last about.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Having a good lawyer and for attacking a lawyer. None
of them judges are going to go easy on you
if you've stole from a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
The last thing I'll say about this fucking safe. But
I love like one of the robbers and be like, no,
they'll never know, buddy, No, they're not saying it. It's okay.
What is this like scraping thing? They're like, nah, dude,
they won't catch it. Right.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It's like if your dog steals food and then leaves
like a trail of like, you know, food, You're like, oh,
was it you? Was it you? There's chips all the
way to you.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, like the dogs that giving you that look of
like what like who it was it? I don't even know.
So Zoe got fifteen months in London's Halloway Prison for women.
It wasn't her first day there and it wouldn't be
her lost. Those fifteen months in Holloway didn't stop Zoe
right once she was out again, she went right back
to work. After all, she had an operation to run man.
(26:53):
I mean, yes, I mean when she gave birth to
her daughter Tracy in nineteen fifty seven, she only rested
for a few weeks before her next heist.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Listen, if you have a passion, you have to pursue it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And who are we, the lawful system of society, to
keep you from it? You know what I mean? Come on,
We're not gonna hold this one down.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So this was about the time that Zoe moved to Clapham,
where she went to the garage to pack full of
her stolen goods, so she would get frequent visitors from
across the London underworld and supply thieves and black market
dealers with tools and items to sell to someone else. Great,
So that's September. Okay, we're in nineteen fifty eight now,
okay with me? And so he was recruited to be
(27:31):
the getaway driver for a jail break and what must
be London's most ridiculously named prison, Wormwood Scrubs. Do you
feel like the British like have the most random names
in fucking places.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah. I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Like, I feel like their marketing team is like, right, right,
we'll call this town Soaky Bottoms. Well there's no like,
you know, there's no there's no workshopping it. They're just
like fucking first pitch always goes. So God bless you guys.
So the escape from Warwood Scrubs wasn't, at you all
that complicated. The gangster inside Jumbo Parsons had been assigned
(28:04):
to the prison construction crew, which seems like a stupid
idea to me, but yeah, okay, okay, prison, Okay Bottom's
worth whatever you are. So one day when he was
working on one of the building roofs. He hid from
the guards behind one of the smokestacks, then climbed down
the drain pipe and made for the prison wall. So
was that a drain pipe, buddy, that was a drain pipe.
Oh my god, man, I love you dude. He's like
(28:26):
just like the smallest clank.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Zoe and the other accomplices were waiting outside, right, so
they tossed the rope over and Jumbo fucking nickname was
able to climb up the rope over the thirty foot wall.
Okay athlete, Yeah, okay, buddy. The big reveals they're all
CrossFit athletes and also really into part core. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Imagining a version of this where I am escaping from
prison and then I'm just like looking at.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It, like, well.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
We tried.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
The good thing is we put in effort, guys, and
it means a lot to me that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You came for me exactly. So Jumbo does half this
problem despite his nickname.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
He just wore no, no, no, no no. He left
the letter. He had the audacity to leave a letter
for the prison officials. I oh my god, it's so British,
isn't it that said that he enjoyed his time inside
and he was only sorry that he had to leave
in such a hurry. Yeah, like ooh you got you
gotta love the dry English humor. Yeah, just being getaway
driver had never been Zoe's style, right, boring? Yeah, she
(29:23):
didn't say it's boring for her. So when she received
her next conviction for housebreaking larceny in nineteen sixty and
sent to Holloway Prison again, she was finally able to
show off. Oh now we're in the sixties, you feel that,
I love it? I feel that changed. Inside Halloway, Zoe
(29:52):
spent her first few weeks cooperating with the guards and
making friends. They liked her attitude, you know, she was sas,
she was cool, and they were convinced that she was
going to be a model prisoner. They made her, uh
this is what they were called a trustee, which basically
was an inmate trusted by the prison officials, which again, this.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Girl came in there. She flirted for two weeks and
they were like, here's your badge, honey, have fun.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Can you imagine the lifers there being like, what the
fuck does she look? I feel like her?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
She's blowing kisses.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's right. That's the fucking quaff, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I love prison.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So she was giving a special armband to Markish status. Ooh, like,
how petty is that that. They were just like, here's
a special arm by that you can show off to
everybody else. And so it basically meant that she had
lighter work duties.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
She was like, I'm too pretty to do hard labor.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, but you have fun though. In fact, for her
first work assignment, they made her a janitor and she
was tasked with keeping the prison offices spick and span. Okay,
any idea of how this is going to go to
allow her to escape? Ooh, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Going to guess she's not really cleaning. That would be
my first guess. My second guess is that offices you
just go through their shit, right, like, oh I'm cleaning.
I'm just looking through this pile of papers. Oh, here's
the key to the prison. I'll simply let myself out there,
you go.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
So she had access to all the offices, including the
warden's office, including the warden's telephone. Yep, okay, So as
soon as she had the chance, so he gave the
phone to try and found that it had a direct line.
She gave a try. She was like, hoping, pick this up.
It's a decorative, but I love that. We're so impressed.
(31:35):
Like she figured out how to pick it up and
dial the number. It was a direct line to outside
the prison.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So if you're in prison and you have the chance
to make it, so you get phone call to plan
and escape, who would you call? Is there somebody in
your friend group that you're like, they'd fucking do it? Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, I mean definitely there are people in my friend
group that I could call and they would come get me.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I think I would just be afraid that they'd be
like too stoked about it. They'd be like, oh, like
like I'd be afraid to call some of my friends
because they were great, but they would like never let
me live it down like that they had to help me.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
You know, you need a friend who is responsible but
not responsible enough to blab right. So it's like a
very specific type of friend, right, It's like, are you
going to be here to pick me up from prison
after I've escaped on time? But then also not tell anyone.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
They're like, I'm just gonna like wing it. I'm just
going to organically feel when to show up if that's
school with you, no, So Zoe was able to reach
her boyfriend and the two of them cooked up a plan.
In fact, the basics of the plan had been laid
before Zoe's conviction the last days of her trough, so
when Zoe was still free, she had taken a walk
around the prison walls with her boyfriend and they had
taken measurements and even tried skeleton keys on some of
(32:40):
the most remote outer doors of the prison. I tell you,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know, like when you go to a party and
you think you might want to leave early because you're
not sure you're going to have a good time, and
so you're like, Okay, what's our strategy, what's our strategy
for leaving this party?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
In their life, they're just like, let's go ahead and
have a strategy for you getting out of this prison,
just in case.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
What's your strategy for leaving a part? What do you
use often?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Irish goodbye?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Goodbye? You just get the fuck out of there. Yeah?
Oh man, I err on the side of like over
explaining my lie. Like I'll be like, oh yeah, yeah,
I have to go. I have to go to the
doctor because on my knee. My knee is bad, Like
you want to see my knee, like I have a
cut in it. They're like, just fucking go dude. So
the keys that they tried they didn't work. So they
agreed that Zoe would get out over the wall. Again.
(33:23):
These fucking parkcore people making us all look bad. They
were just like practicing jumping all the up. Kill. Yeah,
so they were following the pattern of wormwood scrubs escape
right right right. So on the morning of Sunday, July
twenty fourth, nineteen sixty, Zoe took advantage of a five
minute gap between the end of her work duties and
the time that she was supposed to a ride back
at the cub block for breakfast.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Okay, and so she scaled the wall.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
So well in that gap, Zoe walked calmly across a
prison yard. I think this is the trick where you
got at calm. She climbed up a mount of coal,
that's a mounta cole, thank you Ben, that was piled
up against the inner wall, and slipped over the top.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So see she didn't have to climb the wall. She
had a strategy.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
No, no, no, here we go She was faced then
with the outer wall prison twenty five feet high. When
she reached it, she heard a ladder hitting from the
other side. Oh. The boyfriend peeked over from the top
and tossed her down a rope ladder. Zoe climbed up
with him, but as she reached the top, the two
of them heard a commotion down in the street. Yeah,
that they did. Yeah, two of the So two of
(34:23):
Sony's friends had arrived to watch her escape, and they
had pulled up an incredible style. Okay, they were driving
a fucking pink forward Sapphire complete with leopard print seat covers,
and it parked right in front of the main gate.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Like those are the friends?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Like, Hey guys, a lot of asking me how I'm
going to bring my friend out.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
They're going live to Instagram, they're like are girls back?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Like lol list Obviously, after they had been sitting there
for a fucking while waiting for the show, the prison
guards had gotten suspicious. Right, So, just as Zoe was
actually escaping, a few guards had come out to ask
the why they were sitting outside the prison in that
fucking car. Right, The spectators in the car were able
to keep the guards occupied but they didn't spoil the escape.
(35:08):
They didn't actually spoil escape.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, decoy.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, they're like, do you like my red low seats?
You like this music? Yea, I don't know why. There's
so many Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
You want to see the trunk, let's look in it
really carefully.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So fun fact, this was the first this was the
first time that a woman had escaped hall away over
the wall. Woww Yeah. A few guards actually did see
Zoe leaving, but they later told newspapers that it was
so funny watching Zoe climb over the wall that they
couldn't even talk because they were laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Are you a relatable that's you know, just they don't
pay you enough to be a prison guard, Like, you
don't need to tackle that woman.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. They're like, well, we'll get to it. We'll get
to the catching you arb, but for now.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Also, you already mentioned that she had like befriended all
of the guards, so they're like, oh, yeah, we thought
it was so funny.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
They're like, look at her, she's just being our Zoe.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Zoe. Yeah, they're like, look at our Zoe.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So eventually they did go back to the prison to
send up the alarm. But by then, by the time
they led the other guards of the spot, all they
found was in the banded ladder. So again they don't
you know they recycled. They're like, if you guys need
this ladder, it just fucking had katehd use it. H
Zoe and her accomplices had disappeared, and the police swept
London for Zoe. They really did. This was when she
(36:19):
wrote her letter to the Home Secretary and called the police.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
She's like, I can't go to any bars. There are
cops everywhere.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Please fucking leave me alone. I'll negotiate, right.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I can't steal anything.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Plus I do really well in prisons. People really love me.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
She's like putting in She's putting in a request, like
for a dorm. She's like, can I go to Halloway
all my friends are there.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Halloway House, you guys, So for a while she was
able to stay ahead of them. Right. Zoe had called
her hair, she picked up a new wardrobe.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
They do seem stupid to be honest. Yeah, they were like,
it's sound a good look on the London police of
the time. She picks up her daughter Tracy and they
hid in the countryside for a couple of weeks. Then,
together with her current boyfriend, they spend some time relaxing
along the beaches of England's South Coast.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay, I wish I knew were little Paul and TONI
were at this point, but there's not a lot of
news on those guys. She was just like, trace me
my favorite. Fuck you guys, like you know, you're figuring
out crimes. That's right. They send him back to They
send him to reform school.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
To learning like I was treading water in the tens
at eight years old.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You guys got to get it. Yeah, figure it out, guys. Eventually, though,
after the beach get away, Zoe was captured when police
caught her using get this nineteen to fifty eight license
plates on a stolen nineteen to fifty nine car. So
they tracked the car to always hide out, and at
the beginning of September they launched a night raid on
the apartment she and her boyfriend were caught sleeping. So
(37:42):
Zoe sat out her final sentence in Halloway, where she
was very popular.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So, yeah, she's having a great time in Holloway. She
loves it there.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
We're not worried about her. So eighteen months on top
of her earlier sentence. There's no record of any more
escape atents, and nothing else that would risk her future
of freedom with her children. Zoe did have one more
victory over the police. Though they had seized her belongings,
including an incredibly valuable ring, and even though she was
locked in Halloway, Zoe sued the police demanded that they
returned the bucking ring, and representing the police was the
(38:12):
sergeant who had taken all the belongings when she was
arrested in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Uh huh, so Soe and the sergeant started yelling, I
stole that ring fair and yeah, yeah, you get me
back that show and ring the ustall for me.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
So Sey and the sergeant started yelling accusations at each other,
bakering so furiously that the judge immediately ended the session.
He ordered the police to return the ring to Zoe.
And I love that the judge just being like totally
not giving a fuck about the case and just giving up, like, please,
I got other shit to do.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Can you just I have a headache, I.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Have a five pm meeting at Soggy Bottomsworth. Please let's
get this going. Okay. So, after her release, The Tabloi
writer worked with Zoe to ghost write a memoir that
was published in nineteen sixty four called Woman of the Underworld. Ooh, okay,
great title, it's great. That's a good title. It brought
Zoe plenty of press attention and a few TV appearances
in the sixties. And why wouldn't it, you know? The
(39:02):
memoir included some really wild stories of orgies and various
night clubs across London, of the drug culture, of the
club scene, and much much more. Right, Yeah, So recently,
Zoe's family has said that none of that was actually true,
and that was actually made up by a coast writer
who worked with Zody to make sure that the story
would sell. But I would like to believe that there
were a bunch of orgies that she attended.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Well, okay, one her family would say that that's right, Yeah, okay,
sure we know Zoe. And two okay, so she embellished
a little, so what she stole some ideas whatever, But like,
this woman is a seasoned criminal, right, Like, why would
you tell the truth in your memoir? What's the point?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Who's going to check? There's no receipts back then? You
know what I'm saying, So it's just like, have at it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
What You're going to pay someone to fact check your memoir?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, I go, well, yeah, you guys couldn't even catch
me while starting drinking martinis and bars and shit.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Prove I didn't have an orgy.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Prove it, prove it. Ask everybody in London if I
haven't had sex with them. Of course, her memoir ends
up with how deeply Soy regretted her crimes, but her
family actually says in this I believe that that was wrong.
One writer interviewed Zoe's daughter and granddaughters in twenty nineteen.
Oh yeah, and they said that she was proud of
her exploits to the end of her day. Yeah, but
(40:16):
she was. And as for Holloway Prison, it closed in
twenty sixteen to be rebuilt and transformed into a rehabilitation
center and housing center for women as a part of
a transformative justice campaign, which is kind of cool. Oh. Also,
you'll be happy to know that the rope ladder has
since been removed. That's our story, Kelsey. What do you think?
(40:43):
What do you think of Shoe?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I loved it. I think she's an icon. I think
that it's too hard to do.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Chris a mother, She's a sister. She is an Ica.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Bitch lover her child mother beef.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
To be honest, I'm not promoting Burglary, but.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I want to be clear that I am promoting Burglary.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Cosey and in different sizes of the coin on this one.
We've been debating for decades over this.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, but but she did what she thought she could
under the circumstances that she was adult and for and
I see this a lot with these stories that we tell.
If there is a level of genius to all these
heists that they pull off, and so you know, for
a woman of that time, fighting against misogyny and fighting
against like having to escape her husband, I think there's
(41:28):
a real resilience in her that I very very vaguely admire.
I'm sorry, Lenda Police.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, she made it work, you know, she figured it out.
And I also think like she was clearly good at it, right,
Like that is a skill and she.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Was actually the originator of parkour. Yeah, legend has it.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And you know, it is a great lesson to take
away from this to leave the police a note, like
I think if you're going to do a crime, you
should leave the police a note that's funny, like do
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I would leave it in German, just confuse the funk
out of them. They're like, god, damn it. There it
is translated. They're like, oh my god, his hipsn't lie.
What does this mean?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
What does this mean?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Kelsea? Thank you so much for being on this show
with us. It is such a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I'm such a fan of your podcast. And also I
can't wait to check out your new book, which is
out right now and it's called you Didn't hear this
from me? Mostly two notes on gossip. It's available anywhere
you get books, Kelsey. Where else can listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, I'm on all the social media's unfortunately met at
McKinny Kelsey and I am the host of Normal Gossip
as you can find wherever you listen a podcast, wherever
you got this one.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
There we go. Thank you so much, Kelsey. We'll see
you next time. Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio
and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our
executive producers for me or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and
Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew chug and Donaldson
(43:00):
from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show
is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb,
who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music Overlord.
Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who's our other overlord.
Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson.
Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner,
(43:21):
Nicki Stein, Oliby Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you
so much for listening, and if you're enjoying the show,
(43:42):
please drop a rating or review. My mom will call
you each personally and thank you, and we'll see you
all next week
Hey, guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes Show, bringing you the
wildest true escape stories of all time. Now today we're
headed to the nineteen sixties in London for some wild
break ins and a legendary breakout by the first woman
to scale the walls of London's Holloway Prison. I'm Ardro
Gastro and I'm here with the podcasting world's number one
(00:21):
gossip queen, Kelsey McKinney. Wow, I am so excited to
have you as our guests this week. Guys. This is
Kelsey mckinnee. And I'm sorry that it's hard for me
(00:42):
to pronounce English names.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh it's okay. I'm from the South, so the ease
and the eyes make the same sound to me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh my god. Here, So I love I love your
podcast Normal Gossip, and I gotta tell you also, I'm
so jealous of your ease with the English language and
how you just like have just this wide bread that's
a vocabulary, I'm telling you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
My god, thank you. I feel like I have a
small vocabulary, so I really appreciate this compliment, which I
have never received before.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So for our guests that don't know your podcast, with
which they should can you give us a little bit
about what it is?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely so. I host a podcast called Normal Gossip
where we take gossip from the world that listeners send
in and then we anonymize it, and then I bring
on a guest and I tell it to them, and
so kind of the goal is to make it sound
like you're overhearing someone in a bar.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh my god. And I tell you why I'm such
a fan of it because in one Amala, where I'm from,
there is a thing so so gossip and what Demala
slang is called cheese me. And when you like put
out like guys cheesse me on the like group WhatsApp chat,
people go fucking nutey stop they like the doctor start
op stop operating, fucking people on the table. They're like,
(01:48):
oh my god, oh my god, my god, tell me.
And the cheesemade like the juicy heard the cheesemade like
the more like fanfare there is for it, like it's
a it's a national sport. You have to be prepared
to come correct with it. It's always, you know, well
good nature and it's never like gossip being to like
destroy somebody. Yeah, but it is just so juicy because
it's like a Oneama city is like a big small town, right,
(02:09):
So if you date somebody, it's very likely that they
dated the cousin of your friend and they know each
other and they know a story about him, and so
cheese may it's just like just picture all of us.
The analogy would be all of us down by the river,
like just Washington clothes and like turning too. Did you
hear about the cheese me? You know? So that's why
I appreciate your show so much.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Great, I'm moving. Guatemala is a city to the top
of my cities to visit list. Based on this conversation alone,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
They will all be like your English is fantastic. So
I got to ask you, do you do you have
something that you consider your greatest escape. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
So I grew up in Texas and I grew up
in a very evangelical household, which was not great, I
would say for me in general. And I was thinking, like, Okay,
do I talk about like going to college or moving
to the East Coast or like what do I do?
And I think, actually, the greatest escape I have ever
made is that my sophomore year of high school, I
switched high schools. So like I had been going to
(03:05):
this like giant public high school, like eight hundred kids
in a grade, huge, like football culture, all this stuff,
and I was like, I can't really find people to
be friends with here. And my sophomore year I switched
to an art's only high school and it was like
a tiny school and everyone only cared about art, and
I was like, this is bliss. And so I created
(03:26):
an escape hatch for myself from the place where I
grew up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Gosh, I would have did. I would have loved that.
Like I had to pretend to care give a shit
about soccer for like five years in my high school life.
I was like, oh the fucking oh yeah, you hit
the ball and then you run out. Oh man, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I love forwards for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah that's right. Let me tell you about our escape
for today, and Ben gave me a little intro. Oh
my god, thank you Ben. So today we start with
a call to the London Office, the London Police Office.
(04:01):
That's what everyone sounds like. It's August tenth, nineteen sixty.
Are you with me?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Okay, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They pick up the line. Yes, they get a tip
the notorious fugitive. So we progul and spotted at a
hotel at the Chelsea area of West London. Do you
know her?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Who is she?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
No? Oh, I'll tell you, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So it just felt like I should gasp.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I got scared. Oh I love it, thank you. So
it's an upscale neighborhood, okay. Everybody's having a good time.
They're like looking their noses out of people. It's a
kind of place where Zoe would have fit in, right
put right in. She was a woman with an air
of luxury. Okay. Old photos show her decked out and jewelry,
cocktail in hand and a perfect blonde quaff Ooh what
a word?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
French?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, French. Perhaps that gives her a Marilyn Monroe kind
of look, so like, go off Maryland and Queen. She's
having the time of her life. It's a sixties.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, I'm seeing like red lipstick. I'm seeing a lot
of like flowing clothing, and.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I love that the cocktail in the hand is so specific.
They're like everybody was like complete alcoholics, but nobody was
there saying anything. They're like, no, they're just friendly kids.
So the police have been hunting Zoe pro Gol for
weeks right, not well, not well, she was just at
having cocktails. So when they heard that she had been spotted,
they sprang into action. They raced to the hotel and
(05:18):
they burst inside following the description that they had gotten
over the phone a woman wearing slacks with her hair
dyed red, drinking gin and a bitter lemon at the
hotel bar. But they didn't find Zoe, no no. Instead,
they found she had left something behind, a letter. It
was addressed to the British Home Secretary. She seems really cool,
(05:41):
but like, like, would you go out on the night?
First of all, the Home Secretary is a fucking terrible
title for any office, the Home Secretary. But from this
first impression, would you go out on a night for
drinks with old soy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Absolutely, I want to try this weird gin bitter lemon drink.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I'm down for that, what it is.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I love the idea of like being out for a
drink with her and her being like, can you just
call the police and tell them that I was here.
I'm just gonna like a dip out really fast.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh man. So the police polite gents that they were right.
They passed the mail along to the Home secretary.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Wow, so considerate.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
They're like, I don't know, we don't want to be rude.
Passed where they gave a statement to the press. It
seemed that Sowe had wanted to be seen, right because
the letter she left behind was an offer to bargain. Oh,
she would turn herself into the police if they would
lighten her sentence. But you see, the authorities felt like
she was making them look like fools.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
They were because she was.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, you were like dropping the letter off, like not
even checked. Just to the Home secretary.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
She's like, I don't want to pay for postage, so
I called the police to come pick this up.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I have a package. So they started a kind of
thing that you always hear, right the Queen's officers do
not bargain with escape criminals.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Sure, sure, yeap, so.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Soey stayed on the run, right, But that wasn't the
first time that Sooey taunted the cops were chasing her.
Spoiler alert after she escaped from prison and we're getting
into that story in a second.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Escape from prison.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, great at escape is what we're
all about. Give me okay, thank you. Now, many months
before her letter at the bar, she had send the
authorities a mysterious package. Okay, what's in the box, Kelsey,
what's in the box?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh my god, Yeah, what's in the box? Is it
a tape recorder?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
It would have been a gramophone maybe back at that point.
It's a massive gramophone in a brown paper bag which
is a really.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Coiddage bunch of bitter lemons and a jar. What's in there?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
No? No. When they opened it, they found her prison armband.
In the uniforms she had worded side this woman rules.
So you gotta admire the audacity here is here. They're like,
fuck you, and here's your folded clothes. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
She's like, I escaped from prison. I have no need
of these. They're very ugly. I'm returning to my wardrobe.
Thank you for your service.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It had it seems like just like suggestions as to
how to make it warm.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, She's like, you know, I recommend like tucking the
waste a little bit. It's a little on flash.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Not very form fitting you guys. So when news got
out that she had somehow given back her prison uniform,
the press called her an honorable jail breaker. Very British.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
She didn't want to steal she just wanted to leave prison.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
She's just she wanted to leave prison. It wasn't a
great place to be. Police were enraged, but obviously a
lot of people were having a lot of fun with
the fact that she was leading the authorities on a
Mary chase. Yeah, it wasn't the first time. Over the
years Zoe had gathered an admiring audience. She had learned
how to put on a show. Right. That was specifically
true for her longtime passion and pursuit of burglary. We're
(08:44):
going really back in time, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So who was Zoe? Zoe was born in London in
nineteen twenty eight, and she got started on her career
really early, right.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Her career burglary, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I just wanted
to make sure I was following correctly.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, her career of mixing gin with lemon and bitters.
Her family, the Tilda Sleys, Am I saying that, right, overlord,
it is as as bright as anyone can get it.
It is. We're just making it up now, Okay, fine,
over lord, I love it. They were poor and her
father was an alcoholic, so the family often went hungry.
(09:25):
So we started stealing from her classmates at school. Smart
she was rummaging through lunch boxes and pickpocketing school kids,
but she knew that wouldn't feed her family right.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Right, school kids don't have that much money. They don't
even have jobs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's a sandwich. Hello, How often are you going to
feed a family six? So she started swimming in the Thames, right, ok,
carrying a sack.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
This seems really dangerous. I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I know she's like a child, and so that she
could climb onto the barges passing by and float away
with nuts, bananas and canned fruit like genius. This is impressive.
It's pretty bad, aus, isn't it? As a kid? Would
you have had the guts do this kind of stuff
when you were like ten?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I could barely climb a tree when I was ten.
I was like, I was a scaredy cat, to be honest, But.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I have such terrible, like leftover catholic guilt, like I
am not good at stealing because I was just like
confessed to my crimes and the crimes of everybody I've
ever met.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You know. Also, I'm like not a good swimmer. So
I don't think it would have worked out well for
me trying to scale a barge.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I still can't figure treading water successfully. I can't do
it no way. During World War Two, when Zoe was twelve,
she was sent out of London.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Oh right, because of the bombings.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, exactly. So wealthy foster family would take her in
out in the countryside.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Okay, so she leveled up during the war.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
She's like, glow up, it's my mom man. London was really,
but it was for kind of a sad reason because
London was being bombed so often by the Germans that
the UK got together to try to keep kids alive
by sending them out of the city. Right, But the
kids are like, yeah, I'll see you later, guys. Yeah.
With her foster family, she was well fed, given plenty
of clothes, and was generally given everything that she felt
like that was missing from home.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
She developed taste for luxury.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I'll taste for luxury. So when she got back to
London a year later in nineteen forty one, Zoe was
determined to live more like the foster family that she
had than her real family.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, best, she was.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I mean, what trauma it must be to like have
to go back. Yeah, you know what, I'm saying you like,
you like go back to like your London basement plan.
You're like, well, when is the horse carriage coming for
me again? Like, you know, are we having a ball again?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Okay, cool, But now she knew where to get the
things that rich people had in their houses.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Right. And also she's a teen now, right, so she
has like a little more dexterity, a little more yeah, smarts.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So at thirteen, she broke into a house for the
first time. Okay, yeah, she was like, fucking, I'm starting early.
She came away with a pocket full of stolen coins
and paid for pictures to be taken of herself, like
I love. Her first act of self care was with stoleation.
And she's like buying me a headshot.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You know. Yeah, well, you know, she knew what she wanted.
She stole those coins to her.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You're like whatever, yeah, and now they are hers by
property law. Somewhere in the nineteen fifties. So in nineteen
forty six, when Zoe was only sixteen, she thought that
she saw a way out of her life in poverty. Right, Okay,
she marries a US sergeant named Joe Prago. Thank you.
Here is what America sounds like, and she went back
to the US with him. Okay, but Sooe was basically
(12:18):
still a fucking child. Man. You know, she wasn't really
happy being so far from home. She wasn't happy being
married to Joe, and she definitely wasn't happy spending her
days doing all of his cooking and cleaning, which is
apparently all that he expected.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Right, Yeah, I mean also, like, no fourteen year olds
in the whole world are happy. So like adding moving
across an ocean to live with an old man who
makes you do chores. No, yeah, it's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Like different times and all that, But seriously, do not
marry a fucking child to dig into a different country.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I agree you shouldn't marry children.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We are firmly on the side of not marrying children yet,
just so we're clear. Yeah. After a year of enduring
the marriage, Zoe told Joe that she wanted to take
a holiday back to England. Same everybody, So if you
if you hear around and listening, please send us all
to and too. So he sends her off, but once
she was back in the UK, she cut ties. She
was never going back to America. Bon boyas Joe peace out,
(13:11):
hie bony, Thank you Ben for that. So Zoe said
that she left basically because the life of a housewife
was too boring and which, to be honest, that was
That's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
For a kid, you know, also a kid that is
used to doing like crimes, being a housewife is not interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
She's lived the high life. She doesn't want to be
stuck in the middlebu fuck nowhere. So back in England,
Zoe kept their last name in Progel. She swapped Joe
for another soldier, a more adventurous chap, a Canadian gunman
nicknamed Johnny the Junkie.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Incredible name.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, so together they launched a life of serious burglary. Okay,
what is it what Canadians in these over the top
names like like like Johnny the Junkie or Dudley doul Right,
or like Ryan fucking Reynolds. You know, if you were
to day a Canadian in this time and age, how
good of a nickname would they have to have?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Better than Johnny the Junkie?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think one hundred percent. I always like to imagine
that he was the most polite burglar of his era.
He's always like sorry, sorry, sorry, story, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
but my stepdad's Canadian. I can say that to be honest.
When I moved to New York at nineteen, I had
this weird Hispanic slash Canadian accent. It was totally true,
and it's sounded like, Eh, what's up man? Yeah, I
don't know what that's about, but like I'm fucking like,
(14:29):
you know, ready to go chill in the house and whatever,
and people were like, what are you? In her first
big heist, Zoe was the getaway driver. Is Johnny the
junkie and a friend broke into a luxury store. They
stole check this out seven thousand dollars seven thousand pounds
sorry of furs. Now by one estimate, that's over three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars of merchandise in space money.
(14:52):
Isn't that wild?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Incredible heightsts?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Also like how expensive or fucking furs? Man? Likely very
I've never bought one. I guess I don't.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh yeah, I have no idea, but I love this.
I love the idea of them running out of a
store carrying these giant furs and like shoving them into
the back of a car.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
If it were just like wearing them and trying to
act really chilling, like like Joey and like friends, wearing
all of Chandler's.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Clothes, just like walking by folks seem good.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So to Zoe this was like the thrill that she
had been missing. You see, her only regret was that
she was left out in the car while the boys
were having all that fun. Right, so she was actually
driving a stolen Jaguar. But so Sooe decided that she
couldn't miss out on the excitement anymore. Oh, a little
further in time, does it tell me we're in the fifties?
Is that it been getting there? Great? Okay, late forties.
(15:41):
Let's say. Next, Zoe and the boys broke into a
post office where they grabbed a safe. Oh.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I was like, what's in the post office? I know?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
They just really loved stationary love letters. They love leaving
letters for the police to carry. Okay, so safe. Yeah,
And they herited out and cracked it open. They found
that they had made a huge haul. It was full
of fucking cash, banknotes and the other government documents worth
about six hundred thousand in today's money. Wow. I mean,
(16:11):
imagine you were an eighteen year old and suddenly you
have about two hundred thousand from the split dropped into
your lap? What would you like? What did you like
at eighteen? What were you like? Oh my god, this
is the best.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Ooh, that's a great question. Like concert tickets. I would
have wanted my own apartment at eighteen, right, I would
be like, I'm going to get my own place.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wow, that's so industrious of you. I would have just
been like, I don't know. When I go see death
Cap for Cuties or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
God at please let me see Connor overs, I'll die.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Also, is it just me or does Zoe and the
Boys sound like a great British invasion band that never was?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You know, Yeah, it sounds like a punk band.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So it seemed like the world was Zowe's oyster, right,
But the heist actually got Zoe caught the post office heist, yeah,
cracking open the safe Okay. In nineteen forty seven, while
she was still eighteen, Zoe was arrested for the first time.
She was also three months pregnant with Johnny the Junkies baby.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Not good to go to prison if you're pregnant.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
O Johnny the Junkie Junior. I don't know JJ. So
she was using four checks and trying to trade with
stolen post office documents like great, like what like stamps?
Like what are you like? You got a stapler? Like
I don't know what you're fucking thinking, Zoe. So the
judge on her case decided that Zoe wasn't responsible for
her actions. So since she was a woman, he said
(17:31):
that she was easily influenced by the men and that
they were the ones who were responsible for her actions.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's She's like, oh yeah,
I didn't even weird, like misogyny in the justice system.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Misogyny that's actually like moonlighting is feminism, right, because it's like, well,
she couldn't have done a crime.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
She couldn't have done this, She stuppure, Yeah, I don't, officer.
I thought they were just buying me a bunch of furs.
It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
They love me so much.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Have you seen my koit quaff quaff, my koi quaff.
So the judge, the judge sentence man the Oxford dictionary
people are just going to be calling me your priory
very angrily. Not my fucking problem, you guys. So the
judge sentence Zoe to three years in a reform school
and juvenile detention center, which British called Borstals.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh this seems like a place you don't want to go.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, well you would think, but the school was supposed
to be a place where crooked girls were straightened out, okay,
where they learned new habits and took on domestic skills. Like,
holy shit, man, I apologize that this is what they're like.
As for all men, they all called me. They actually
signed a release for me to be able to speak
for all men. Thank you. Is so fucked up that
it's like reform means teaching women domestic skills, you know
(18:39):
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yes, it's one of those things where it's like it's
fucked up to have to learn domestic skills to reform
from your criminal life. And also if someone offered me
to go to a reform school for three years and
learn to sew, I would be like, is it free?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, it's what's the food? Like? Yeah? Yeah yeah No
bores to the Borstals that summer. Zoe's son Tony was
born in the born Tony. She's like Zoe, Johnny des.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Like, I'm a criminal? What am I supposed to name
my son? His name's Tony went.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
To Tony you really lost your way, man. So the
pressures on her grew, right, but not in a way
that made Zoe decided to live you know, lawfully.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, no right.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And then, with flawless comedic timing, Joe Progele arrived in
England looking for his runaway wife.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
She's like, this is your son.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
He's like, I don't know of the math a, but yeah,
take him. I apologize to every person in the South
that ever existed. But when when he found that she
was locked up, he abandoned her and that was the
end of Joe. He's like, you know, I will marry
a minor in an instant, but a criminal, nay, sir, nay,
I've got morals. So Zoe got to know the other
(19:49):
girls in the prison and they became something of a
new family for her. Right, many of them were young
mothers like she was.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, because they all needed to be reformed, and.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Many of them came into the borso pregnant. Yeah, like
those are such a fucking wild trend, right, Like, so
we're going to president okay, cool, we got about thirty days, you.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Know, No, it's probably like, oh, you got pregnant and
you weren't married. Reform school for you, reform school for you,
our little husky, get.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Out of here. You need some Jesus. So we learned
a lot of things from there, things like shoplifting tips,
how to better pose. Really, he's like a training grapher.
Her she was how to better pose. This is an
important one. How to better pose as an upper class
woman to con shopkeepers.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, this is the problem. You put all these really
smart women together and you're like, learn to sew.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
They're going to learn immediately.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
They're going to be sewing up a storm. Like have
you ever stolen forty five thousand dollars in gyms?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah? I love that. You're like that you wove in
sewing up a storm. I'm going to keep that. We're
gonna re record it as as as an album after this.
So I also love the idea of this, like karate
kid like montage of training somebody. How to be more
British upper class? You know, like, all right, now you
have to fund your cousin more attractive, more attractive, whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Your cousin more attractive.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
But you know how British row with you, old Mary
within cousins.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know, I'm like, how to give your dynasty a
habsburg jaw hurry.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
So the Vorstol became sort of finishing school for shoe right,
just not the one that.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
The finishing for criminals.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, exactly, It wasn't the one that the judge expected. Instead,
she came out at the end of her sentence like
as a well trained burglar and connorist, and she was
finally ready to strike out on her own. Let's go.
(21:40):
So we had a lot of classroom learning, but she
wanted to put her knowledge to good use. After all,
she was a mother now. So with her second son, Paul,
Zoey now had multiple mouths to feed, it was time
to make some real cash.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Okay, Yeah, multiple mouths to feed, and also a whole
slew of new skills you got to try out.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, she's got to put them to the test. And
with that motive, alongside the skills that Soe learned in
the Borstal, Zoe became extremely successful for real like she stole.
She stole from luxury stores by posing as a wealthy
woman and writing bad checks for jewelry and for clothing
that's beautiful, check this out. Eventually, Zoe was running a
mail order shoplifting business.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, mail order shoplifting. Uh huh uh huh, okay, explain
it to me.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So when an order would come in, Zoe would figure
out where the item was Plan A Heights, then scam
con burgle and otherwise absconmed the item, and then mail
it onto her satisfied customers.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And then did these customers pay her for this service?
Just a reduced price?
Speaker 1 (22:38):
A reduced price. But imagine like you're just going around,
be like I want this, You tell her where it is,
and then she would like.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You're like, I want a back laptop. I have one
hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
She's like on it. Yeah, So business was booming, right, ben,
can we get a little recks of riches, fifties bread?
Dance to halltoon right here?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know, imagine her shopping down the street. You know
she's like saying waving hello to people. You know, Joe
Progo is still writing her let us I come back
to me. She's like, fuck no. So a lot of
Sooey's jobs who were jump ups, right. She would steal
loaded trucks around London then sell their cargo. Fucking Zoey,
Holy smokes.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have a whole truck, then it's easy to run away,
she's going to the wholesale she she believes in recycling
costco but for stealing.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, that's right. So she at least had one regular accomplice,
almost like an employee, and she even had a regular
spot where she would meet with the buyers at Tuffnell
Park in North London. So, for one of her most
dramatic heightsts, Sooey and a couple of lock pickers travel
out to Oxfordshire, where they spotted a likely mansion. They
broke in and drove out in a stolen Jaguar loaded
(23:48):
with their loot.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Genius. I love the idea of being like, let me
just get my two buddies who are locksmiths, let me
just get just all my friends who are lock pickers.
We'll just go on a little adventure.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, we have a little book club that we also
like just like share our skills with it.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, my friends don't know how to lock pick. Maybe
I need to get some new ones.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I know. So Zoe was not always able to escape
the police, right, But because she was often caught for
only small time, small time thefts like shoplifting or whatever,
she was hit with a variety of small sentences, sometimes
like just a few months once when Zoe and some
other of her friends stole massive safe. This is so
fucking stupid. The police were able to easily follow them
(24:26):
back to their hideout because the safe was so big
that it had scraped a trail and the fucking payment
as they dragged along. This actually happened. That is the
sound of it actually happening. It took a while.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, okay, it has like the vibes of going to CrossFit,
right of like having to drag this safe, like to
toe it together as a team.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, so let's push this tractor wheel. Yeah, oh my god,
As the story goes, once they were arrested, they made
a phone call to a lawyer asking for help. Help,
but he told them that he was the one that
they had robbed. They had stole stolen safe with his
I'm fucking dead. Oh my god. That sounds like not
that true to be honest, but it's fucking hilarious. Like
I love it when you hear these stories, Like how
(25:12):
believable do you think these accounts are back then?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I think they probably are. You know, it's really hard
to steal things now in the world because there's so
much CCTV.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Everywhere we used to be so much easier, like trains
for a whole thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But also just like if there aren't cameras everywhere, you
can just break a window and go in.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, and they'd be like it was you, and you're like, no,
it wasn't. Like what's your proof, and they're like, god,
damn it, we have no figure drawing him exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And all of our money now is on like those
plastic cards, fake money where it's like if you if
there's cash to steal.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Right, yeah, exactly. So I believe that she was just
is this how we form a crime syndicate of our
own benchuck, let's play music over that when we when
we edit this over. You got it? So without a
good lawyer, Zoe was convicted for stealing the safe and
she got fifty But I'm sorry, just one last about.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Having a good lawyer and for attacking a lawyer. None
of them judges are going to go easy on you
if you've stole from a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
The last thing I'll say about this fucking safe. But
I love like one of the robbers and be like, no,
they'll never know, buddy, No, they're not saying it. It's okay.
What is this like scraping thing? They're like, nah, dude,
they won't catch it. Right.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It's like if your dog steals food and then leaves
like a trail of like, you know, food, You're like, oh,
was it you? Was it you? There's chips all the
way to you.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, like the dogs that giving you that look of
like what like who it was it? I don't even know.
So Zoe got fifteen months in London's Halloway Prison for women.
It wasn't her first day there and it wouldn't be
her lost. Those fifteen months in Holloway didn't stop Zoe
right once she was out again, she went right back
to work. After all, she had an operation to run man.
(26:53):
I mean, yes, I mean when she gave birth to
her daughter Tracy in nineteen fifty seven, she only rested
for a few weeks before her next heist.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Listen, if you have a passion, you have to pursue it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And who are we, the lawful system of society, to
keep you from it? You know what I mean? Come on,
We're not gonna hold this one down.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So this was about the time that Zoe moved to Clapham,
where she went to the garage to pack full of
her stolen goods, so she would get frequent visitors from
across the London underworld and supply thieves and black market
dealers with tools and items to sell to someone else. Great,
So that's September. Okay, we're in nineteen fifty eight now,
okay with me? And so he was recruited to be
(27:31):
the getaway driver for a jail break and what must
be London's most ridiculously named prison, Wormwood Scrubs. Do you
feel like the British like have the most random names
in fucking places.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah. I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Like, I feel like their marketing team is like, right, right,
we'll call this town Soaky Bottoms. Well there's no like,
you know, there's no there's no workshopping it. They're just
like fucking first pitch always goes. So God bless you guys.
So the escape from Warwood Scrubs wasn't, at you all
that complicated. The gangster inside Jumbo Parsons had been assigned
(28:04):
to the prison construction crew, which seems like a stupid
idea to me, but yeah, okay, okay, prison, Okay Bottom's
worth whatever you are. So one day when he was
working on one of the building roofs. He hid from
the guards behind one of the smokestacks, then climbed down
the drain pipe and made for the prison wall. So
was that a drain pipe, buddy, that was a drain pipe.
Oh my god, man, I love you dude. He's like
(28:26):
just like the smallest clank.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Zoe and the other accomplices were waiting outside, right, so
they tossed the rope over and Jumbo fucking nickname was
able to climb up the rope over the thirty foot wall.
Okay athlete, Yeah, okay, buddy. The big reveals they're all
CrossFit athletes and also really into part core. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Imagining a version of this where I am escaping from
prison and then I'm just like looking at.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It, like, well.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
We tried.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
The good thing is we put in effort, guys, and
it means a lot to me that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You came for me exactly. So Jumbo does half this
problem despite his nickname.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
He just wore no, no, no, no no. He left
the letter. He had the audacity to leave a letter
for the prison officials. I oh my god, it's so British,
isn't it that said that he enjoyed his time inside
and he was only sorry that he had to leave
in such a hurry. Yeah, like ooh you got you
gotta love the dry English humor. Yeah, just being getaway
driver had never been Zoe's style, right, boring? Yeah, she
(29:23):
didn't say it's boring for her. So when she received
her next conviction for housebreaking larceny in nineteen sixty and
sent to Holloway Prison again, she was finally able to
show off. Oh now we're in the sixties, you feel that,
I love it? I feel that changed. Inside Halloway, Zoe
(29:52):
spent her first few weeks cooperating with the guards and
making friends. They liked her attitude, you know, she was sas,
she was cool, and they were convinced that she was
going to be a model prisoner. They made her, uh
this is what they were called a trustee, which basically
was an inmate trusted by the prison officials, which again, this.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Girl came in there. She flirted for two weeks and
they were like, here's your badge, honey, have fun.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Can you imagine the lifers there being like, what the
fuck does she look? I feel like her?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
She's blowing kisses.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's right. That's the fucking quaff, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I love prison.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So she was giving a special armband to Markish status. Ooh, like,
how petty is that that. They were just like, here's
a special arm by that you can show off to
everybody else. And so it basically meant that she had
lighter work duties.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
She was like, I'm too pretty to do hard labor.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, but you have fun though. In fact, for her
first work assignment, they made her a janitor and she
was tasked with keeping the prison offices spick and span. Okay,
any idea of how this is going to go to
allow her to escape? Ooh, well, I'm.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Going to guess she's not really cleaning. That would be
my first guess. My second guess is that offices you
just go through their shit, right, like, oh I'm cleaning.
I'm just looking through this pile of papers. Oh, here's
the key to the prison. I'll simply let myself out there,
you go.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
So she had access to all the offices, including the
warden's office, including the warden's telephone. Yep, okay, So as
soon as she had the chance, so he gave the
phone to try and found that it had a direct line.
She gave a try. She was like, hoping, pick this up.
It's a decorative, but I love that. We're so impressed.
(31:35):
Like she figured out how to pick it up and
dial the number. It was a direct line to outside
the prison.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So if you're in prison and you have the chance
to make it, so you get phone call to plan
and escape, who would you call? Is there somebody in
your friend group that you're like, they'd fucking do it? Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, I mean definitely there are people in my friend
group that I could call and they would come get me.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I think I would just be afraid that they'd be
like too stoked about it. They'd be like, oh, like
like I'd be afraid to call some of my friends
because they were great, but they would like never let
me live it down like that they had to help me.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
You know, you need a friend who is responsible but
not responsible enough to blab right. So it's like a
very specific type of friend, right, It's like, are you
going to be here to pick me up from prison
after I've escaped on time? But then also not tell anyone.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
They're like, I'm just gonna like wing it. I'm just
going to organically feel when to show up if that's
school with you, no, So Zoe was able to reach
her boyfriend and the two of them cooked up a plan.
In fact, the basics of the plan had been laid
before Zoe's conviction the last days of her trough, so
when Zoe was still free, she had taken a walk
around the prison walls with her boyfriend and they had
taken measurements and even tried skeleton keys on some of
(32:40):
the most remote outer doors of the prison. I tell you,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know, like when you go to a party and
you think you might want to leave early because you're
not sure you're going to have a good time, and
so you're like, Okay, what's our strategy, what's our strategy
for leaving this party?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
In their life, they're just like, let's go ahead and
have a strategy for you getting out of this prison,
just in case.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
What's your strategy for leaving a part? What do you
use often?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Irish goodbye?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Goodbye? You just get the fuck out of there. Yeah?
Oh man, I err on the side of like over
explaining my lie. Like I'll be like, oh yeah, yeah,
I have to go. I have to go to the
doctor because on my knee. My knee is bad, Like
you want to see my knee, like I have a
cut in it. They're like, just fucking go dude. So
the keys that they tried they didn't work. So they
agreed that Zoe would get out over the wall. Again.
(33:23):
These fucking parkcore people making us all look bad. They
were just like practicing jumping all the up. Kill. Yeah,
so they were following the pattern of wormwood scrubs escape
right right right. So on the morning of Sunday, July
twenty fourth, nineteen sixty, Zoe took advantage of a five
minute gap between the end of her work duties and
the time that she was supposed to a ride back
at the cub block for breakfast.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Okay, and so she scaled the wall.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
So well in that gap, Zoe walked calmly across a
prison yard. I think this is the trick where you
got at calm. She climbed up a mount of coal,
that's a mounta cole, thank you Ben, that was piled
up against the inner wall, and slipped over the top.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So see she didn't have to climb the wall. She
had a strategy.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
No, no, no, here we go She was faced then
with the outer wall prison twenty five feet high. When
she reached it, she heard a ladder hitting from the
other side. Oh. The boyfriend peeked over from the top
and tossed her down a rope ladder. Zoe climbed up
with him, but as she reached the top, the two
of them heard a commotion down in the street. Yeah,
that they did. Yeah, two of the So two of
(34:23):
Sony's friends had arrived to watch her escape, and they
had pulled up an incredible style. Okay, they were driving
a fucking pink forward Sapphire complete with leopard print seat covers,
and it parked right in front of the main gate.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Like those are the friends?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Like, Hey guys, a lot of asking me how I'm
going to bring my friend out.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
They're going live to Instagram, they're like are girls back?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Like lol list Obviously, after they had been sitting there
for a fucking while waiting for the show, the prison
guards had gotten suspicious. Right, So, just as Zoe was
actually escaping, a few guards had come out to ask
the why they were sitting outside the prison in that
fucking car. Right, The spectators in the car were able
to keep the guards occupied but they didn't spoil the escape.
(35:08):
They didn't actually spoil escape.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, decoy.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, they're like, do you like my red low seats?
You like this music? Yea, I don't know why. There's
so many Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
You want to see the trunk, let's look in it
really carefully.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So fun fact, this was the first this was the
first time that a woman had escaped hall away over
the wall. Woww Yeah. A few guards actually did see
Zoe leaving, but they later told newspapers that it was
so funny watching Zoe climb over the wall that they
couldn't even talk because they were laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Are you a relatable that's you know, just they don't
pay you enough to be a prison guard, Like, you
don't need to tackle that woman.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. They're like, well, we'll get to it. We'll get
to the catching you arb, but for now.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Also, you already mentioned that she had like befriended all
of the guards, so they're like, oh, yeah, we thought
it was so funny.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
They're like, look at her, she's just being our Zoe.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Zoe. Yeah, they're like, look at our Zoe.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So eventually they did go back to the prison to
send up the alarm. But by then, by the time
they led the other guards of the spot, all they
found was in the banded ladder. So again they don't
you know they recycled. They're like, if you guys need
this ladder, it just fucking had katehd use it. H
Zoe and her accomplices had disappeared, and the police swept
London for Zoe. They really did. This was when she
(36:19):
wrote her letter to the Home Secretary and called the police.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
She's like, I can't go to any bars. There are
cops everywhere.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Please fucking leave me alone. I'll negotiate, right.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I can't steal anything.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Plus I do really well in prisons. People really love me.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
She's like putting in She's putting in a request, like
for a dorm. She's like, can I go to Halloway
all my friends are there.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Halloway House, you guys, So for a while she was
able to stay ahead of them. Right. Zoe had called
her hair, she picked up a new wardrobe.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
They do seem stupid to be honest. Yeah, they were like,
it's sound a good look on the London police of
the time. She picks up her daughter Tracy and they
hid in the countryside for a couple of weeks. Then,
together with her current boyfriend, they spend some time relaxing
along the beaches of England's South Coast.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Okay, I wish I knew were little Paul and TONI
were at this point, but there's not a lot of
news on those guys. She was just like, trace me
my favorite. Fuck you guys, like you know, you're figuring
out crimes. That's right. They send him back to They
send him to reform school.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
To learning like I was treading water in the tens
at eight years old.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You guys got to get it. Yeah, figure it out, guys. Eventually, though,
after the beach get away, Zoe was captured when police
caught her using get this nineteen to fifty eight license
plates on a stolen nineteen to fifty nine car. So
they tracked the car to always hide out, and at
the beginning of September they launched a night raid on
the apartment she and her boyfriend were caught sleeping. So
(37:42):
Zoe sat out her final sentence in Halloway, where she
was very popular.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
So, yeah, she's having a great time in Holloway. She
loves it there.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
We're not worried about her. So eighteen months on top
of her earlier sentence. There's no record of any more
escape atents, and nothing else that would risk her future
of freedom with her children. Zoe did have one more
victory over the police. Though they had seized her belongings,
including an incredibly valuable ring, and even though she was
locked in Halloway, Zoe sued the police demanded that they
returned the bucking ring, and representing the police was the
(38:12):
sergeant who had taken all the belongings when she was
arrested in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Uh huh, so Soe and the sergeant started yelling, I
stole that ring fair and yeah, yeah, you get me
back that show and ring the ustall for me.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
So Sey and the sergeant started yelling accusations at each other,
bakering so furiously that the judge immediately ended the session.
He ordered the police to return the ring to Zoe.
And I love that the judge just being like totally
not giving a fuck about the case and just giving up, like, please,
I got other shit to do.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Can you just I have a headache, I.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Have a five pm meeting at Soggy Bottomsworth. Please let's
get this going. Okay. So, after her release, The Tabloi
writer worked with Zoe to ghost write a memoir that
was published in nineteen sixty four called Woman of the Underworld. Ooh, okay,
great title, it's great. That's a good title. It brought
Zoe plenty of press attention and a few TV appearances
in the sixties. And why wouldn't it, you know? The
(39:02):
memoir included some really wild stories of orgies and various
night clubs across London, of the drug culture, of the
club scene, and much much more. Right, Yeah, So recently,
Zoe's family has said that none of that was actually true,
and that was actually made up by a coast writer
who worked with Zody to make sure that the story
would sell. But I would like to believe that there
were a bunch of orgies that she attended.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Well, okay, one her family would say that that's right, Yeah, okay,
sure we know Zoe. And two okay, so she embellished
a little, so what she stole some ideas whatever, But like,
this woman is a seasoned criminal, right, Like, why would
you tell the truth in your memoir? What's the point?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Who's going to check? There's no receipts back then? You
know what I'm saying, So it's just like, have at it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
What You're going to pay someone to fact check your memoir?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, I go, well, yeah, you guys couldn't even catch
me while starting drinking martinis and bars and shit.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Prove I didn't have an orgy.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Prove it, prove it. Ask everybody in London if I
haven't had sex with them. Of course, her memoir ends
up with how deeply Soy regretted her crimes, but her
family actually says in this I believe that that was wrong.
One writer interviewed Zoe's daughter and granddaughters in twenty nineteen.
Oh yeah, and they said that she was proud of
her exploits to the end of her day. Yeah, but
(40:16):
she was. And as for Holloway Prison, it closed in
twenty sixteen to be rebuilt and transformed into a rehabilitation
center and housing center for women as a part of
a transformative justice campaign, which is kind of cool. Oh. Also,
you'll be happy to know that the rope ladder has
since been removed. That's our story, Kelsey. What do you think?
(40:43):
What do you think of Shoe?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I loved it. I think she's an icon. I think
that it's too hard to do.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Chris a mother, She's a sister. She is an Ica.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Bitch lover her child mother beef.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
To be honest, I'm not promoting Burglary, but.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I want to be clear that I am promoting Burglary.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Cosey and in different sizes of the coin on this one.
We've been debating for decades over this.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, but but she did what she thought she could
under the circumstances that she was adult and for and
I see this a lot with these stories that we tell.
If there is a level of genius to all these
heists that they pull off, and so you know, for
a woman of that time, fighting against misogyny and fighting
against like having to escape her husband, I think there's
(41:28):
a real resilience in her that I very very vaguely admire.
I'm sorry, Lenda Police.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, she made it work, you know, she figured it out.
And I also think like she was clearly good at it, right,
Like that is a skill and she.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Was actually the originator of parkour. Yeah, legend has it.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And you know, it is a great lesson to take
away from this to leave the police a note, like
I think if you're going to do a crime, you
should leave the police a note that's funny, like do
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I would leave it in German, just confuse the funk
out of them. They're like, god, damn it. There it
is translated. They're like, oh my god, his hipsn't lie.
What does this mean?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
What does this mean?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Kelsea? Thank you so much for being on this show
with us. It is such a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I'm such a fan of your podcast. And also I
can't wait to check out your new book, which is
out right now and it's called you Didn't hear this
from me? Mostly two notes on gossip. It's available anywhere
you get books, Kelsey. Where else can listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, I'm on all the social media's unfortunately met at
McKinny Kelsey and I am the host of Normal Gossip
as you can find wherever you listen a podcast, wherever
you got this one.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
There we go. Thank you so much, Kelsey. We'll see
you next time. Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio
and Film Nation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our
executive producers for me or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and
Milan Papelka from Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew chug and Donaldson
(43:00):
from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show
is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb,
who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music Overlord.
Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who's our other overlord.
Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson.
Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner,
(43:21):
Nicki Stein, Oliby Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you
so much for listening, and if you're enjoying the show,
(43:42):
please drop a rating or review. My mom will call
you each personally and thank you, and we'll see you
all next week
Host
Arturo Castro