190 - Lick The Clock

Karen and Georgia cover the Radium Girls and the murder of Lisa Cihaski.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar.
It's Karen Kilgariff, and we're here to do a podcast
for you. Do you feel like listening to one?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Are you ready for one? Did you accidentally press play
and you well don't press pause?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Now? Yeah you might not. Well just keep going, keep going.
We're going to talk about stuff that has nothing to
do with true crime for a while.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
But harry you like in the sand, like how your
friend Jesus did.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yes, my best friend Jesus.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
If you see two sets of footsteps, it's because it's
me and Karen's and.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
We're walking next to Jesus who has you on his
back and he's flying and he can fly. Welcome, Welcome
to a podcast. It's this podcast. I might as well
just go right into correction corner from last week? Do
you mind? Or is there anything you'd like to talk about? First?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
And I get so comfortable in corrections corner right like
my cozy little spy.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh that's my life. I call it home first and foremost.
I would like to apologize because I referred to I
made a funny reference to a lock in last week,
which is a thing that used to happen when I
was in high school, where you'd go to and basically
sleep in the gym because it was like Super Spring Week.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Or whatever, you like, a dance and then you'd spend
the night. Yeah, and they'd lock you in and you
be like all the seniors boys and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, it'd be amazing. Well I called it a lockdown, yeah,
because it's twenty nineteen and I haven't been to school
in a while. And that just goes to show how
horrifying the gun situation is in this country, how recent
it is that it is not in my wheelhouse. It's
not It's an easy mistake to make, and I didn't

(01:57):
hear it. And the person who corrected me was so
nice about it, wrote a lovely email that was like,
I know this was a mistake, but you should also
realize that it's the it's this bad thing we all
live with these.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Days, that teenagers and young children are dealing with at
the parents. And I just can't even imagine either being
a kid right now and going to school, or being
a parent of a child right now. I mean, it's
you know, we have nieces and nephews and it's horrifying.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
It's horrifying. My apologies, I didn't even hear it. And hey,
let's get some gun control. When when the country stops
spinning out, when we get a hold of everything. Yeah,
let's fix stuff. Let's fix it. Let's make it so hey, children,
children of tomorrow. Yeah, please do it. The support you Okay?

(02:46):
Should I do the next one? So I did last week.
The story of the real life orphan is what I
called it, the Natalia Grace story. And the first thing
I heard was a tweet from someone who said, you
can't talk about a story that only sources the Daily Mail.

(03:07):
So we looked it up and on Reddit people are
talking about it, and there's other articles about it, and essentially,
a user named sky Blue Ocean Skye wrote this, It's
critical to understand that Christine Barnett, the ex adoptive mother
of the adopted child, sold her story to the Daily
Mail shortly after she and her ex husband got arrested

(03:30):
and charged by the police. Wow. This appears to be
deliberate behavior by Christine as an attempt to generate a
sympathy and to provoke the public to be on her
side prior to her trial. Not only is this indicative
of careful planning, but her sudden act of presence on
media regarding this case is highly suspicious. Is this an
attempt to lessen, avoid and or delay the date of

(03:52):
her trial and perhaps put some of the blame on
her ex husband. That's just a question that that user
was asking. Again, this has read it, so apparently, and
Natalia Grace has been found. She has been living with
new adoptive parents in Indiana, and the family she's now
with maintains that she's currently sixteen years old, which means

(04:15):
that she would have been a child in two thousand
and three. That's according to an article from Jezebel dot
com and from The Cut dot com. Police say this
is a quote. Police say that bone density tests carried
out on Natalia in twenty ten showed that Natalia was
eight years old then, and that at twenty twelve tests
showed that she was around eleven. So if this is true,

(04:37):
that would mean that the Barnetts lied when they said
the bone density test proved that Natalia was an adult.
So this story is even worse than I thought it
was when I first read it, and good lesson to
learn of if something has a single source, But that
should be interesting to see if we learn anything further

(04:58):
from that, and just kind of on that. On the
heels of that, this just broke today that Prince Harry
and Princess Megan Markle are suing the Daily Mail. Oh
oh it's one of those. Is it one of those?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
You like, sent a drone into our backyard and now
we have to move.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yes, they actually published a private letter that she sent
to her estranged father. So apparently the estranged father I
don't know, sold the letter to the Daily Mail. So
I just thought that was kind of funny timing. Yeah,
that I just saw that this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, speaking of England and the UK, yoh hello, you
guys can get tickets for a couple of the shows.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Have some tickets left? Just the most seamless transition, good
of it? No, yeah, you realize I'm getting better and
better and worse and worse. And that's that way too.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Manchester on November twenty second has tickets, Glasgow on the
twenty third has a little more, a couple more tickets,
I think, Dublin on the twenty fifth has a few more.
In London on the twenty eighth has a couple more too.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
So yeah, we're not entirely sold out for that very
brief UK and Ireland tour.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right, so also my favorite Weekend is like a month away.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yes, it's going to be so good.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
So good in Santa Barbara November first and second. We'll
see you guys there. There's still tickets available. Go to
my favorit Weekend dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Oh I have a like and.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
In addition to corner Okay, so, a couple people after
I did the Triangle shortwaist fire factory fire last week,
talked about the you know, dire conditions in factories in
the US until you know this happened and things got fetterish.
Someone a couple of people pointed out to me that you
can you should still be learning about ethical clothing production

(06:44):
around the world because it is really awful in certain
parts of the world. So to learn about fast fashion
and ethical clothing production, there's a hashtag called who made
My Clothes? Oh, and it's just and on Instagram. It
just has some details about what you're buying. You know
who's making your clothes, what's happened to the workers, and
it's just an important thing. And I want to make

(07:04):
sure sure everyone knows that I know that you know
this isn't fixed.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
No, so no, not at all. Yeah, and always get
to know, like further information, further reading all of that
stuff on these topics. We do love to hear about it. Yeah,
it's fun to learn. Yeah, everybody learning. Are we going
to talk at all about other podcasts that we've been
listening to or anything? Yeah? I do tell me what
happened on do you need to ride last week? Oh?

(07:28):
Are we going to do? Are we going to do
exactly right? First?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Oh? Wait?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
What did you mean? Oh? I actually just had a podcast.
I can't stop listening. I can't tell me I need one.
I'm writing it's You may have listened to it already
because I don't think it's brand new, Okay, but it's
It's a podcast called Culpable. It's the first season. Did
you listen to it? Which one is it? It's the US.
The first season is about the murder of Christian Andreacchio
and his basically his mother's one woman crusade to get

(07:58):
because it was one of those things where it was
ruled a suicide pretty much immediately, and then the city
of Meridian would not take the case back up and
it's been broken. This story keeps getting broken publicly. Crime
Watch Daily did a story about it, and now they

(08:19):
made this podcast, and on the podcast, you basically are
there as it's becoming more and more public and well known.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh is it so frustrating and angering and all this stuff?

Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's yes, and it's but it is also it's one
of those things like when you know this is something
that when you like true crime, you're kind of in
it a lot, and so I think we take I
definitely take it for granted a lot. This woman's son
was murdered and she has an entire town telling her

(08:51):
not only was he not murdered, he commit suicide, but
drop it, and no one listening to her. And she
just hasn't let up and has not dropped it and
has basically diligently worked to try to solve it. And
it's so inspiring and beautiful and just this example of
what people can get done if they like stick to

(09:13):
it and believe in. Every single person that comes in
to start looking at the case, to you know, help
an expert or these podcasters or whatever, every single person
is just like, oh my god, this story, this has
to be solved, This has to be we have to
figure out what really happened? And it's just amazing listening.
It's beautifully produced. I think it's Payne Lindsay's production company.

(09:35):
It's really well done. I'm going to check it out.
It's called Culpable. I'm just in season one night now.
I think they have a couple other seasons. Okay, I'll
check it out, but I'm thrilled for them there. It's
such good work. I love it. I need a new one. Yeah,
what's going on in your other podcast? There is again
it's a beautiful transition into the Exactly Right TV Guide

(09:57):
time Exactly Right Network.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
We have the per cast of course Stephen Ray Morris's
podcast and our friend Deanna Rooney is on it this
week talking about the Race for the Rescues that she's
doing on October twelfth. That I love that we're sponsoring
her in the race. It's really awesome.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Is it actually like a long race, Steven? It's like
a five k? Yeah, there's a I think there's a
five k, a ten k in like a one k,
and you can bring your dogs. I don't think there.
I don't think there's any cats running. I would hope not.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
It's actually a bull run like a bull runner with cats.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
That's gonna be great. It's really angry cats. Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah.
And then who's and then you guys do Q and
A and do you need to ride well? And do
you need to ride? We drove around and answered people's
questions that Stephen got from the internet, and we did
it for so long that I drove into and passed Alhambra.
I don't know what I did, but we were so
far away because usually we just kind of like drive

(10:49):
around Glendale and Burbank or whatever. We were deep into
into the what is that the San Gabriel Valley, what
do you call that area? I don't even know. Vampire. No,
we were like like further east than the east Side. Yes,
we went past the east Side and then we were
in and kind of past del hambrit was fascinating. We

(11:10):
took pity. Yeah, really it was. I don't know how
I did it, but I was truly lost. I had
no idea where I was. That's how you that's how
you know. It's a if you like listening to people
get lost in the car and answer questions about like
do you want to fight one horse sized duck or
one hundred duck sized horses. I mean, we really get
into that stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
That's a good one. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah
it's one horse sized duck.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yes it is. Okay, that's the crackdown. I knew it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
And then of course Murder Squad this week they and
they did the really super important Indigenous Women episode about
the you know, missing and murdered Indigenous women and that
one insane rate they go missing and murdered.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, and just bringing attention to that. And again we
seize this all the time. But they're more coming and
we can't wait, yeah to tell you what they are. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
And then the fall line and this podcast will kill you.
Check out there. They're on a hiatus for the season,
but you can catch up now and they're wihome new
season soon.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, am I first this week? Yep?

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Okay, this kind of this is similar to the one
I did last week, but different. And it's one of
my favorite stories to tell at parties to seem like
I'm really excited about something and then people realize what
I'm excited about is something morbid and horrible. Okay, and
they still want to be friends with me, right, It's
the ultimate test. Yeah, where they say, oh I got
to go out a cigarette and walk away.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
And you're like, you're not small. You don't know it's small.
I'll come with you. So this is the story of
the Radium Girls. Oh, it's so good. This is like
fucking next level. It's so similar.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
And while I was working on the Triangle Shortwaicte Factory,
I was like, I shoutrew the Radium Girls.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Didn't expect to do it so quickly, but sometimes you
just do it. Well. It's fun to do things that
you get excited about.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Good.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
It's a good way to follow. Right.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
This was like really easy for me to do it
because I know it and I love it. Yes, tried
to do it for Drunk History, but I think they
got someone else to do it.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
So fuck you, Derek Waters. No, I'm kidding. I love him. Okay.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
So I got a lot of information from a CNN
article by Jacko P.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Price Prisco.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
I'm sure I got that wrong, a BuzzFeed article called
the Forgotten Story The Radium Girls by Kate Moore, an
article today I found out dot Com by Davin Hiskey,
and the book The Radium Girls, The Dark Story of
America's Shining Women by Kate Moore.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
So oh. She also wrote that the article, the BuzzFeed article, Yeah,
I wonder if they if they went ahead and just
took parts of her book and then made a good
article about it, and they did.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
But so aside from The Radium Girls by Kate Moore,
there's two books that I fucking adore that have some
of this info and like, if you're into this shit
more so, The Poisoner's hand Book, it is a really
incredible book by Deborah Blum. And The Disappearing Spoon, which
I've listened to fucking so many times by Sam Keene
k e A. N. It's true tales of madness, love

(14:12):
and history in the world from the periodic table of elements,
so like every fucking element has some insane story behind
it and he tells them all.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Oh, that's such a good way to.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Learn, and it's a really great and I've listened to
both of them and they're great on audiobook too.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Very cool.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, So okay, let me tell you real quick about radium.
Great radium is a radioactive chemical element. Karen Georgia's eyes
just got so big. They've always been big, Like, did
you know Karen It was discovered in eighteen ninety eight
by Marie and Pierre Currie.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Oh yeah, you know are partial.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And Okay, So this is at a time when like
the X ray had just been discovered. This is all
like brand new, fucking crazy, like radiation had just been discovered,
So this is all really exciting and new.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Five years after they discovered.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
It, it won and they won a Nobel Prize in
Physics for their discovery, making Marie the first woman to
win a Nobel Prize. Hell, yes, Marie, yes, good job,
but not for this one, because this one sucks.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
It was quickly put to use as cancer treatment, and
that fact, the fact that it was used to treat
cancer made people believe it could be used as an
all healing health like tonic. They're just like, great, let's
use it in the same way that people are like heroin.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Let's put it in baby formula. It makes me be
so quiet? When did they do it?

Speaker 2 (15:33):
And then like turn of the century, like heroin and cocaine,
we're like drugs you could buy in little like medicine.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Things were like yes, I swear no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
I believe it was Okay, put a picture of a
little bottle with a Heroin, Like that's a heroine.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Put a pep in your step. I just swear, sleep,
sleep sound little baby with your heroin bottle. Sleep like
a baby when you put your baby on heroin.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Okay, So it was all the rage because they were like,
this is the fucking like literally the pep in your step.
It was used as an additive and a bunch of
everyday products like toothpaste, cosmetics, high end spas that we
always talk about. You used it in their waters. They
had like radium radium waters.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
It was added to beverages and even butter. And it
was like it was touted as this fucking like snake
oil tonic because it didn't know how it worked yet, so.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
So why not have everyone drink it? Just use it,
drink it up some.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Really richt We even got it injected into them.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
I'm serious, I hear you. I live in Los Angeles,
right injected right into their forehead. I have a face
of botox whom I speak. You know.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Radioactive tonics began to be used for any ailment, including fever, gout,
and constipation, as well as any issue that suffered needed
an extra pep from like fatigue and impotence.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Oh, it was kind of the like, you know, well,
here we go as a right up.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
They called it liquid sunshine, and actually, because it stimulates
the red blood cells, it actually does give an illusion
of health, like rosy cheeks.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
So it does.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Like people are like it's working, yeah, you know, yeah,
and then their cheeks explode.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah really, Then the cheeks fall off right red, and
then all.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Right, it becomes the new wonder drug. It's the most
expensive substance in the world at the time, costing the
equivalent of two point two million per gram in today's money.
Holy shit, I don't know how much cocaine is, but
I'm guessing it's not that much.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
No, it really isn't. Okay, not the kind I get
what you don't pay for cocaine. Stop it, I get
it free. All my dealers love true crime.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
But one of the most successful radium products was the
radio luminescent paint that was made from it. So look,
I'm not getting into the fucking beats of the science
and shit.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Allay, No, this isn't about that. We don't do it here. No.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
So, basically, they made this luminescent paint which worked by
converting the radiation into light through a fluorescent chemical and
it provided a pale, glowing paint. So think of that
this Halloween when you see glow in the dark? Shit radium?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know what it makes you think of as my
grandma's clock. That's exactly it, right, that's the that's the
you have an old timey clock. Yeah, I mean I
don't think it was true radium, but it was like
the kind of thing where you'd wake up them all
night and that would be the only light in the room.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
It was made before nineteen, like sixty eight. It could
have been radium.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
No shit, yeah, no, wonder we're also fucked up.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, man, the heroin, she'd always make us touch this clock.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
What why I don't want to like the clock, do it?
Karen Marie Curi Curi clock.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
The paint was used for clockhands and instrument dial, so
that's like that was the biggest, most exciting use of them.
It enabled like watches and pocket watches and clocks and
shits to be right in the dark, which there weren't
pocket lights or pocket watch lights at the time.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Know, like this is you had. This is the only
way they could be read at night. Sorry, have they
still not invented pocket lights, because what a time to live.
I mean, the cell phone and two dark ages.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Literally, the dark ages literally, but they had heroin at
least the.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Dark Park dark pocket Ages. Shit, get at it, you
had it, don't out so close. So okay, this is
one of my favorite facts.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Is like, the reason this became popular, the watches being illuminated,
is because during World War One, when military maneuvers required
precise synchronization, they needed those lights, those watches to light
up at night and in the dark trenches, and they
needed it to happen without the enemy spotting them and
like you know, shining a fucking torch on their like

(19:44):
on their watch. And at the time, wristwatches was for
like ladies mostly, but during the World War One they
became popular with men and soldiers. So once the war
was over, soldiers came back with these fucking new fangled
wrist watch slash illumination watchy times, and everyone lost their
shit and like, I fucking need that.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
I need that. That's right, um to lay in bed
at night, not sleeping and staring at my wae exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Light pollution, man, it's a real bitch. The dial so
basically the every little number and every little line and
second line and the hands and shit, we're all painted
with this illuminating paint. Guys, you get it, so it's
shown all the time, didn't require charging in sunlight.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Everyone was like, this is fucking magic.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, now we have heroin cocaine and fucking nice watching.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Time and just time, anytime we want to look at it.
That's right, we're living, truly, living truly madly. Also, smoking
was healthy back then, Yeah, what a time. And now
we're vaping.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
I'm baping, I should say I'm babing vaping and I
have botox my head.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Oh but speaking of sorry sidebar. Stephen sends me a
fucking we should post this. Stephen sends me a picture
of a vapor in the other day and goes, is
this yours? Did you leave it at the studio? And
I'm like, no, it's not my fucking vape. Stephen, do
you think I am I took a real gamble with
two I texted first.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yes, I am proud that I was not the first
person to be text so so mad.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
I was like, fuck, no, what did I write to you?
I was so mad? I think you were just like
hell no, and then you were like, do you think
it's Georgia's And I just didn't answer. It's just like
you picked me as a vapor first. I am on.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
I feel like Tory spelling right now, where I'm just
like Donna. I'm like donahmaron graduates. I don't get picked
for the dape. This is a fucking bess. I seem
like an innocent girl, but really I'm stealing.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
I don't even know who I am. Then, because Jesus Christ,
I was just like, have I ever vaped in front
of you? Steven? Dare you? I am not a fucking
DJ get away, I'm making fun of me. It was fine,
was it really?

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Oh yeah, Lena, get that it's CBD and just a
smooth of dhc oh.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
I thought you figured that out. Oh shit, am I
allowed to know the AI vape? And but you please
don't do that because it's gonna kill you.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's I know, I know, Okay, I'm trying not to.
You just rubbed the cream on your arm so you'll
be fine, thank you. It's mostly CBD.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
It was her son of a bitch, Stephen, and I
was so nice about your haircut, so I got the text.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
And I was like, goddamn it, Okay, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I literally thought it was gonna be like, who's someone
left their vape Billy Billy jezz vapor. He stays up
at night salven crime. That's vap in his desk. Guy,
he's like a detective. But it's not so cool. Modern.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
One of the factories to produce these watches that we
were talking about h opens in Orange, New Jersey in
nineteen sixteen, so it's like they they had gotten the
military contract to make these luminescent watches for soldiers, so
that's a big deal. They're called the US Radium Corporation,
and they hire about seventy women and girls, some of

(23:12):
the youngest fourteen. It's the same situation as a triangle
or shut waste factory where you know, young girls worked,
and they worked in these big, you know, factories all
set up together. But it was actually a well paid,
glamorous job. And like the girls who've gotten I would
say girls a lot, and I know I mean young women,
but just please bear with me. It was a glamorous job.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
It was.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
It paid three times as much as a regular factory job.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Okay it was.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
And then also they were listed as artists in their
town directories, so it was like kind of a prestigious job. Nice, yeah,
And they told their you know, friends and sisters and
they all got hired for it as well, So like
everyone was stoked on this fucking position. It was quote
the elite job for the poor working girls. It paid
more than three times the average factory job. And so
if you're making five bucks an hour and suddenly you're

(24:00):
making like it was like fifteen to eighteen, it's bananas.
And they got to work with radium, which in their
minds it was like the healthy fucking tonic.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
It was. It was like that vitamin C stuff that
you pour in water when you go on a plane.
That's right, that actually doesn't do anything except for make
you feel better. That's right.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
That's just harrowing, Karen, that I would okay, And they
soon became known as radium girls, and they ranked in
the top five percent of female workers nationally, and eventually
an estimated four thousand workers were hired by corporations in
the US and Canada. A lot of them were US
Radium Corporation workers to paint watchfaces with radium. Between nineteen

(24:42):
seventeen and nineteen twenty six. So this was a big
fucking career move for women. Can I give you a
prediction that I have for this story?

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Okay, by the end of the story, the US Radium
Corporation is going to change their name. Oh no, just
leave it, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
So this is at a time when women are slowly
gaining financial freedom.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
The boys are all away at war, so they.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Can have these fucking awesome jobs and this is like
the best one, and it's a time of growing female empowerment.
So this is like changing the way women live at work,
and it's an important press step in it.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Except it's radium. So well.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Another perk of the radium paint that it made everything
it touched shimmer and glow in the dark. So after work,
so like they'd turn the lights off and they'd sprinkle
it on their heads and dance in it. They'd wear
their fanciest dresses to work so that it could glow.
And after work they go to the speakeasies, they'd go
to the dance halls and they'd be the glowing girls

(25:42):
and they look you know, effervescent.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great word, thank you. A luminescent. Yeah, luminescent,
but I bet you they were like so thrilled. It
was like they got to be a part of the
new ways something.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
And it's like you go out and it's like, oh,
that must be one of those girls who has that
fucking tits job.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yes, I'm gonna go borrow seven dollars from her. That's right,
that's what I would be thinking. It's a fortune.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
And the radium dust was in the factory air itself.
It was like glowing, so they even rubbed it on
their teeth to like freak each other out, and they
painted their nails with it to make them glow as well.
They became known as ghost girls because they would be
walking home in the dark and just be fucking glowing.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
They're the first goths. Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
They'd blow their noses and their tissues would glow.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
That's like my sister. Sorry, but my sister texted me
one time and she's like, I just blew my nose
and glitter came out. Because I teach kindergarten, so I
love that. That's exactly what that is.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
So here's the thing though, obviously that's all bad because
now we know radium is fucking toxic. But they didn't
at the time. And the technique they'd been taught to
get these cheeny tiny numbers on wristwatches painted small enough
the tiny dials, which sometimes were only three point five
centimeters wide, was called lip pointing. After painting each number

(27:06):
of the girls were instructed to slip the tip of
this teeny tiny paintbrush between their lips to make it
a fine point. So you'd paint the one lip point,
you'd paint the two.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, let me go through the dial, count me up
to twenty five. Have you been fucking with my babe?
You know? Conceptually yes? Um.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
So it was known as the lip dip paint routine.
So with every digit, the girls swallowed a little bit
of radium. And the women were not stupid. They were like, yo,
is this fucking safe? And the managers were like, no,
it's totally safe. It'll put a rosy glow in your cheeks.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
It's fine.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Even though the like big wig men were wearing like
fucking lead, you know, jackets to work with it and
were very careful with it, and probably I'm sure already
knew that it was right.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yea act, When did they when did they truly know?
Pretty is a good question. Pretty early on, I would.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Say, yeah, so, and it's only a twenty year twenty
year old element, so, like, you know, even if they knew,
they didn't know the long term effects of it at all.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Yeah, but just like they just it's almost exactly the
same shit.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
In fact, Marie Kerey herself had suffered radiation burns from
handling her own fucking finding, and Pierre Currie had once
said that he would not want to be in a
room with pure radium because he believed it would burn
all the skin off his body, destroy his eyesight, and quote,
probably kill him. But they're like, no, but put those
fucking pain brush chips in your mouth. Yeah, as you

(28:42):
can imagine, since it's fucking radioactive, the women's started to
experience side effects of fucking unknowingly feeding themselves radium pretty quickly.
In the early twenties nineteen twenties, some of the Radium
girls started developing symptoms like chronic exhaustion, tooth and jaw pains.
Even i Olborren birth twenty two year old Molly Magia Maggia, Magia.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh, Magia or Magia. Yeah, she had had.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
To quit her job at the Radium factory because of
the aching pain in her limbs that were so agonizing
that they eventually left her unable to walk. And that's
in a in the early nineteen twenties, and this job
wasn't that old. So she had been erroneously diagnosed with
rheumatism and had been prescribed only aspirin at first, but

(29:32):
quickly she had lost most of her teeth. It was
the thing that the teeth would come out, and in
their place, these agonizing ulcers would grow, and the teeth
would just come out, and then her entire lower jaw
and the roof of her mouth and even some of
the bones of her ears were said to be one
large abscess.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Oh god. Yeah. And this is after a couple years
of this.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
So her entire lower jawbone had become so brittle that
her doctor moved it, oh, simply by lifting it out.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Oh my god. Yeah, this is like bad news, uh
and intense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Her jaw on was found to be riddled with teeny
these teeny tiny holes. And this is because the body
actually treats radium as a calcium substitute, so it, you know,
absorbs like it would absorb calcium. It absorbs radium but
it is the bone, right, but instead of strengthening the
bones like calcium, radium kills off the bone tissue.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
But the women weren't yet aware of the culprit.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Of course, that's because the specialist who'd begun to help
the women who were suffering, doctor Frederick Flynn of Columbia University,
after declaring there was absolutely nothing wrong with them, he
turned out not to be a licensed physician but a
toxicologist working for the very radium factory that the women
worked for, the US Radium Corporation Boom, and the man

(30:51):
who was introduced as his colleague was actually a vice
president there as well. So they were like, yeo, we're doctors,
You're fine, don't worry it.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
It's horrible.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
So the US rating Corporation also paid off local doctors
and dentists to tell the women that they were suffering
from syphilis, and partly like they told them they were
suffering from syphilis, and it was also like shaming them
to not talk about shit, yeah, to shut up, and
that was being written on their charts and written as
eventually their cause of death, which was shameful to the family,

(31:24):
and they could use it against them in court if
they had.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
To later down the road. What a fucking dastardly moved.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
This was only one hundred years ago. That's not that
long ago, guys. So when the girls started dying from
their radium poisoning, first with Maggie on September twelfth, nineteen
twenty two. She's just twenty four years old. The list
of cause of death is syphilis. Eighteen year old Grace Fryer.
She had started to work as a dial painter on

(31:50):
April tenth, nineteen seventeen, just four days after the US
had joined World War One.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
She wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
All she could to help with the war effort, which
think a lot of women getting these jobs.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Both they were doing all they could.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
But by the time Maggie had died, Grace Fryer too
was having trouble with her jaw and suffering pains in
her feet, and so were her colleagues, and their legs
broke underneath them. Their spines collapsed like these were. They
were bedridden and soon more we're dying.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh my god. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
The US Radium Corporation denied any responsibility for the deaths
for almost two years, but when their bottom line was
threatened by the shrinking sales due to the rumors that
were spreading about the dangers of radium.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
So finally people aren't like buying it anymore, and they're like,
all right, we got to do something.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
In nineteen twenty four, they commissioned an expert to look
into the rumored link between the dial painting profession and
the women's deaths. The independent study confirmed the link between
the radium and the women's illnesses, but instead of accepting
the findings and making the changes that had been suggested
thank you, the company paid for new studies that published

(32:59):
the opposite conclusion.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
And they also lied to the Department.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Of Labor, which had begun investigating about the verdict of
the original report.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Bastards, totally so.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
In nineteen twenty five, a doctor named Harrison Martland devised
tests that proved once and for all that radium had
poisoned the women. Fucking Finally, Martland discovered that when radium
was used internally, even a tiny amount, the radium had
essentially honeycombed the women's bones.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Oh my god, what a so dark, so dark, it's
so dark.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
In nineteen twenty five, Grace Fryer, her spine was essentially
crushed and she had to wear a steel back brace.
She decided to sue finally in the US Radium Corporation,
but she would spend two years searching for just a
lawyer who was willing to help her. That's like two
years of that. But she said, quote, it is not
for myself, I care. I am thinking more of the

(33:53):
hundreds of girls to whom this may serve as an example. Yes,
because remember there was like four thousand of these workers
out there.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
And it's, as you said, just the beginning of this
kind of empowerment where when we're like I can have
a job, I can get paid decently, like all these
ideas where it's almost like this is the you know. Yeah,
they could interpret it as like, oh, this is what
I get for trying to leave the kitchen r So
it's like thank.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
God and yeah, and it is this thing of like
these women stood up to shipping unfair, Like it's straight
up like that's not fair. It's like basic fucking fairness.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
It's not Yeah, it's not only not fair. You must
be psychopaths to do this and then try to justify
it totally and lie about it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
So other women's legs were shortened and they spontaneously fractured.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Sometimes, the moment a woman realized she even had radium
poisoning was when she caught sight of herself in a
mirror in the middle of the night, as the radium
had embedded itself in her bones and had caused them
the glow from the inside out. Oh so she walked
by a maor see herself glowing and be like fuck
and like all of her fucking friends and coworkers were dying.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
They literally were in the dart. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
So by then, doctor Martlin had also found that the
poisoning was fatal because there was no way to remove
the radium from your body. So Grace was finally able
to find a lawyer named Raymond Barry, who, along with
Grace and four fellow workers Catherine Schob, Edna Hussman, Quinta MacDonald,
and Albina l Rice, accepted their case in nineteen twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, they were seeking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in damages, which is about three point four million today.
But they wanted to just fucking pay their increasing medical bills.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
They wanted.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
They couldn't work, so they wanted money for that. And
eventually they needed the money for their own funerals, and
they went, oh, it's not fucking horrific, Yes that you
need your assuming this company because you need money for
your own funeral.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Which is probably right around the corner.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, So keep in mind that some of the women
are still employed at the fucking factory. But even with
a they had a huge fight ahead of them due
to the two year There was a two year statute
limitations on occupational poisoning, which is like, huh.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Fucking I wonder who passed out, laeh.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
And so most of the girls didn't start to get
sick from radium poisoning until at least five years after
they started work, so that was already.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Gone by the time they fucking realized they were even sick.
The rich and powerful radium corporations.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Of course, I had to fight them, and the fact
that they had to fight a legal battle that necessitated
the overturning of an existing legislation, which is huge, Like
it's not just like I'm suing based on this, it's
I need to turn this over so I have the
right to sue.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Crazy, But Grace was the daughter of a union delegate,
and she had hutzba badass totally. By now, the fight
had become internationally famous, and there were all these people
who were on the women's side and couldn't believe this
was happening. And there were a lot that were like,
this is starting to be during the downturn of the
Great Depression, and so they were like, you know, some

(37:02):
people were against them because they were like, don't fight
the people who are giving you jobs, which is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, well, and it's very much like keep people in
power who will kill you for money.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Right exactly. Yeah, we just need jobs, no matter what
they are.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
No.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
No, So the US Radium Corporation, of course, wanted to
delay the trial as much as possible, with the hope
that all the women in the case.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Would die before the outcome would be reached. Oh wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
So they just kept you know, being like, our executives
are on vacation for months, and they kept calling these
long recesses for like months and months, and I think
that was pissing a lot of the public off because
they could tell what was happening. Oh so they kind
of rallied around the women. In fact, by the time
that women finally appeared in court, to testify in January
of nineteen twenty eight. None of them were able to

(37:50):
raise their arms to take the oath. Oh my god,
too were bedridden. And these are young women. These are
young fucking women, as some of the women had just
been given four months to live, and the company seemed
intent on dragging out the legal proceedings. The case was
finally settled in the women's favor in nineteen twenty eight,

(38:10):
and it became a milestone of occupational hazard law and
raised the profile of radium poisoning, just as Grace had wanted.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
That was her whole fucking point.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
I think she knew she wasn't going to survive and all,
by nineteen twenty seven, more than fifty women had died
as a direct result of radium paint poisoning, and despite
denials of any fault by the US Radium Corporation. After
the lawsuit, they and other factories that dealt with radium
laced paint, they changed the working conditions quickly. I think
they were like realizing this was going to be fucking bad.

(38:42):
They banned the lip pointing, so you couldn't put the
brush in.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Okay, good, thank you. You were telling us to do
it now you don't want us to do it?

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Great, and they gave them protection, protective clothing to minimize exposure.
And after these simple changes were instituted, which actually had
been so justin and ignored years before by that independent study,
the health issues of mon dial painters quickly went away.
And it's it's likely that at least some of them

(39:10):
still got cancer later in life as a result of
working with the radium paint, but significantly lower amounts. By
the time Grace's of Grace's settlement, the dangers of radium
were publicly known, and people stopped fucking bathing and drinking
in it, buttering their toast with it or whatever the
fuck health dost. Yeah, more women sued and health toast.

(39:32):
More women sued, and the radium companies appealed several times,
but in nineteen thirty nine the Supreme Court rejected the
last appeal, so finally that happened. The survivors received compensation
and the death certificates of the women who had been
put as syphilis as all these other conditions that weren't
real and true, they were changed to radium poisoning, which

(39:54):
I think is a big you know, a big deal.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yes, that is such an invasive, shitty move. Yeah, like
what sinister mind was behind that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:03):
And they actually they resurrected Maggie's body. Sorry, I'm I'm
listening to an eighteen hundred's New York resurrectionist book right now.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Oh, they disinterred it. Yeah, like dug it up and
she was glowing like it lasts, it lasts lifetimes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
The Radium Girl's case was one of the first in
which an employer was made responsible for the health of
the company's employees, and it led to regulations that saved
lives and ultimately to the establishment of OSHA, the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, which now operates nationally in the
United States to protect workers. Before OSHA was set up,

(40:43):
fourteen thousand people died on the job every year. Wow,
today it's just over forty five hundred, which is a
fucking lot.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yeah, I mean it's a lot. That's a lot.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
The women also left a legacy of to science that's
been termed invaluable, as it revealed the dangers of radium,
so thankfully people stopped using it. In fact, Marie Curry's
notes from the eighteen nineties are still considered too dangerous
to handle without protection due to the high levels of
radioactivity and are stored in lead line boxes.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Her notes about this about radium.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Yeah, and she died from a plastic anemia in nineteen
thirty four resulting from long term ionizing radiation exposure. So
she died fucking from radiation exposure as well. Yeah, but
I think clearly Grace Fryer is a fucking hero.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Hell yeah, and cheers to her. Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Story with the radium girls.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
You know, first of all amazing And also don't you
think could it be that because the Triangle shirtwaist fire
and the results of that, that when they finally did
get caught, they actually that's the difference, says, Yes, there's
a tiny bit of an improvement where those the Triangle

(42:02):
shirtwaist fire guys were just like, now we're going to
open another factory. All everything's the same, you can't touch us,
how yeah huh. And in this one at least they
were just like, Okay, shut all that down, make these fixes,
let's do a couple of changes.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
And this is also in New Jersey around the same time,
so it's like, I'm sure they were following.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Tri State area tri State It got around. That was great. Wow,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
So yeah, next time were at a party, give it
a shot and say have you here to the radium?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Girl, I just want to talk to you. Well, this
week I'm gonna do at my friend Bradford's hometown. Actually
he is from Bradford Peleski. He's from Steven's Point, Wisconsin.
And he then told me told me about this a
while ago, but he kept saying, did I ever tell

(42:48):
you about the dairy queen murder? And then I was
like no, and he's like, I'll send you the article,
and then he didn't do it for like years, and
he finally sent it to me. What it's really called
is the murder of Lisa Sahaski. So classic, Yeah, so
it is. It's just a it's a classic one. I

(43:11):
got the information from an article from the Chicago Tribune,
CBS fifty eight, w dj T Milwaukee, which is the
local news, and the Wisconsin State Farmer. There's a book
called Killer Women that you know, every once in a while,
you'll look up a story and it'll just show you
pages from a book and it'll but it'll only show

(43:31):
you a certain amount.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
We'll use copy and paste and saves a fucking retime.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
No, you have to read the whole thing. Whatever. There's
a book called Killer Women, Devastating True Stories of female
murderers by Wensley Clarkson, And so I read a couple
pages of that book until they wouldn't let me read anymore.
But there's a lot of good information in that and okay.
So on the morning of September twenty first, nineteen eighty nine,

(43:56):
Shirley Sahski realizes that her daughter, Lisa, who works as
the assistant sales and catering manager at the Howard Johnson Hotel,
has not come home from her night shift. So Shirley
drives over there to see if Lisa is still at
work or what's going on. And when she gets there,
she sees that her daughter's car is still in the

(44:18):
parking lot, so she's really relieved, and then she goes
walks up and looks inside her daughter's car, and after
that nothing would be the same for her again. So
Lisa's Haski is the daughter of Ginsingh Farmers and burnham Wood, Wisconsin.
Lisa's an ambitious, smart, popular girl. She was the nineteen

(44:42):
eighty six Homecoming Queen at Wittenberg Burnham One High School
and when in nineteen eighty four, she started dating a
local dairy farmer named Bill Buss, who was five years
older than her. So this is this is like upstate
Wisconsin based very rural. It's rural, and it's very and agricultural,

(45:06):
and so that's you know, that's what a lot of
people do up there, like a normal life exactly. And
so a lot of farming, a lot of a lot
of cows and dairy smelly. The smells are amazing, you know,
and of course what Wisconsin's famous for. Geez. So Bill,

(45:31):
the guy who was dating, he had also gone to
the same high school, but he was about five years older,
as I said, So after graduation, he took over running
his parents' fifty acre farm and he ran it by himself.
Oh my god. So he had to do all the
work on the farm, did everything. So he was real,
you know, assualt of the earth kind of person. So

(45:51):
Lisa dates Bill for around three years, but they break
things off in nineteen eighty seven because Lisa wants to
become a agents, so she that's what she's planning to do,
and Bill wants her to basically settle down and start
a family with him and live on the farm. And he's,
you know, like doesn't like that. She doesn't just want

(46:13):
to do that. So they decide to end it, and
soon after Bill starts dating other people, and he eventually
starts to seriously date another local beauty queen, eighteen year
old Laurie Easker. So, Laurie grows up in Hatlee, Wisconsin,

(46:34):
on her family's four hundred and fifty eight. He was fifty,
his was fifty. So it's a big old a big
old ranch. I grew up in a condo.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
I can't even imagine a fucking farm.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
I grew up in a plain old house next week,
very small farm that had no output. It was just
kind of for fun, essentially. I love it for four
h essentially. But yeah, there these are people that like
farm milk. They sell milk. It's like they don't complain
dairy production. No, I never complain. Well who would they

(47:08):
complain to? Right, No one gives a shit. They don't
have a boss. It's they're the boss. They're doing it
all nightmare. The cows are like, you think you have
a bad look at the machine hooked up to my utters.
I live to complain that just kills me. Okay, that's
what people are sewing at night at the kitchen table. Yeah,
I live to complain. So Lori Easker goes to the

(47:31):
same high school that Lisa and Bill went to. She's
a year younger than Lisa. She was a member of
the National Honor Society. She was a president of her
local chapter of the f FA, the Future Farmers of America.
Got it. She's also pretty. She's also an ambitious like Lisa,

(47:51):
and after her graduation in nineteen eighty seven, she goes
away and studies at the University of Wisconsin River Falls
to to study agriculture journalism. So during her first semester
of her freshman year there in nineteen eighty eight, she
starts dating the newly single and now twenty four year

(48:11):
old Bill bus So. The next summer, she's actually crowned
the Marathon County Dairy Princess. It's a very high honor.
It's a very big deal. Marathon County is the most
dairy intensive county in the state of Wisconsin. So that's
really saying calm down, and if you're I guess if

(48:32):
your name the dairy princess, you're like your family has
to be involved in dairy production. You're like, you know,
you're in it. So it's not just any old your
pretty faith. You're to teeth and darry. You got to
know your shit, yeah, your cowshit. So essentially it seems
to things seem to be all coming together for Lorie

(48:56):
until June of nineteen eighty nine, and that's when Bill
breaks up with her. So she's devastated. And she basically
thought she was going to settle down with Bill and
like raise kids and be on his farm. Her family
kept several head of cattle on his farm. That's like

(49:19):
how she knew him. That's how you know you're serious, Right,
He's like the hot older farmer that was like around.
She would come over to feed her her cows. Oh
my god, how are your cows? Mine are good? Okay?
So he breaks up with her and she loses her
shit because then relatively soon after this breakup, she hears

(49:44):
that Bill and Lisa Sahski have gotten back together and
that he is planning on proposing to her to Lisa
on Lisa's twentieth birthday, which is October twenty fifth. Oh shit. So,
according to Laurie's college classmates, she was obsessed with Bill.
She talked about getting back together with him constantly. She

(50:05):
also told her friends that she hated Lisa as a huskie.
She actually one time they were in the same bar
together and she's like called her a bitch and a slut,
like made a scene at this bar. So it's very
well known around the area like this that Laurie hated
Lisa and a lot you know, a lot of people

(50:26):
knew that Laurie was kind of on the edge, but
nobody understood how far she would go. So one night,
it's just pad past midnight, Bill has had to stay
up till The way it's explained is that he had
to stay up till midnight because that was like the
most productive time that he could milk his cows, so

(50:47):
he had to stay up and do it all himself.
And then he finally gets back into his house to
go to bed at twelve forty five because he has
to get up again at five thirty in the morning
to start working again. No complaints, I mean, you just can't.
And right as he's trying to go to sleep twelve
forty five, he hears a knock at his front door
and he tries to ignore it. But it's not going away,

(51:09):
and he knows it's not going away because the person
on the other side of the door isn't going to leave,
and because she's done it before, and it's Lori Easker.
He'd broken up with her three weeks before, but she
would not leave him alone, and she kept driving down
from college to his house to talk to beg him
to get back together with her, trying to have sex

(51:31):
with him, saying, you know, like, you know, we need
to get back together. You've ever been there before? Oh
my god, you mean patheta. Yeah, yes, it's the horse feeling.
It's terrible, and it is that thing of when you're
in it, it is like this is the only person
that I will ever have these feelings.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, you have this adrenaline and you have this like fucking.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Well, you have a like a dopamine. Yeah, they gave
you this dopamine hit and they're not given it to
you anymore. So you're like a drug addict that can't
get that's jones.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And if you can't get that person back, it proves
something about you, and you can't that be proved about you.
So you have to fucking make this work. And it's
like the only thing you think about.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, and you could I think you could put together
with those facts about her life that clearly she was
an achiever. She was used to winning, used to winning
pretty you know, smart, you know, used to being the president. Yeah,
used to getting her ways.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Get through your twenties, and calm your dopamine just kind
of levels out, Yeah, pretty.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Low, you know it is when you're in your twenties.
Try not to make any big moves because although you
know you're right and that you can believe you're right, yeah,
one hundred percent, you're not moving slow motion. Yeah, you're
through your twenties. And if anybody is like waving their
arms over their head, going, please listen to me. Yeah,
just do it.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Just try to listen to them, especially if it's your sister.
I know she was an asshole when you're young. She
does care about Yeah, she doesn't want you to look
like a fucking idiot.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
She really is trying to do She's trying to run
interference for you, and just save a little bit of face.
And look, we've all been there. If you've made a
fool of yourself, you are not alone. You've just become
one brotherhood of man. That's right. And the sisterhood of women,
that's right. And also because here's the thing that you know,
it does suck when people are basically like, well, it

(53:23):
was going out with the girl I loved, but it's
not working out, and now I'm going to shop around
and see how I feel. Forget it. I'm going back, yeah,
because and that's just what happens sometimes. So it can't
be this point of pride, because everybody loses in love
until the one time they win. Exactly. It's how it is. Oh,
it's lovely. Everyone's a loser until they're not one time.

(53:43):
It's true. True, And I'll say this, I only learned
understood that like when I was like forty seven, Like
it took me way too long to get it. But
I think you can win more than once. It definitely
if the winning eventually becomes losing, yeah, eventually, look we
are We're all going to lose aka die.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
So I'm I don't want this to seem like I'm
announcing my doors.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
If you were to get divorced, I would not let
you announce it on this podcast. That's not how you
do it. You have to I love you, Vince too.
Please don't leave us so okay, but everyone's had this
kind of freak out and made an asshole of themselves.
You have to know when to drop it, especially when

(54:29):
like this evening in particular, Laurie knocks on the door,
goes inside, says, we I know you want to get
back together with me. It was so good between us,
begins taking her clothes off. She's wearing lingerie underneath her clothes.
She's doing a big sexy presentation. He's kind of like,
what in the hell, And he's like, I'm not doing
this with you. I'm too tired. No, go home, and

(54:50):
goes into his room. He goes to bed. She stands
there because she can't believe it's not working. Then she
goes into his room, gets on top of him and
is like, I know you want it essentially, and it
basically forces him to yell I don't love you, I
love Lisa, get out of my house, give up, and

(55:13):
basically make he has to like scream it in her face.
She makes him scream it in her face. Don't make
people scream it in your face.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Don't make people scream anything in your face, don't make
people suggest it in your face. Just get away, don't
let people in your face. If people you what's it.
There's an amazing when when people you can pick your
friends screaming faces, you can't pick your Nina.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
It's a Nina Simone quote, singer Nina Simona, and she said,
you have to learn to get up from the table
when love is no longer being served. A Nina may
of all okay, So she finally stops and without a word,
she gets up and walks out the door and slams
the door, and Bill thinks, thank god, I finally got
rid of that crazy ex girlfriend. But sadly that was

(56:01):
not the case, and two months later, on the morning
of September twenty first, Shirley Sahaski would find the body
of her daughter lying dead in her car in the
parking lot at her work. So the police are called
to the scene. They determined Lisa's cause of death to
be strangulation. Holy and they announce that they're on the

(56:22):
lookout for either a male or a female. So everybody
keep your eyes feeled for everyone around you. Wow. When
Bill Buss is questioned by the police, he brings up
the fact that on June twenty third, Lisa had a
loud argument with a woman on his farm after Bill
had said that he wanted to end his old relationship

(56:43):
and that that woman was Lori Easker. So late eight
days later, police arrests Lori Easger. She's brought in for questioning.
On September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty nine, she gives her
account of the evening of September two, twentieth, saying that
she had rented a car. She was only twenty, so

(57:04):
she actually had to convince the rent a car person
and she told this big lie about a thing she
needed to go grandma to help. Yes, she had to
go help her mom or grandma I can't remember move,
and that she really needed it and please, and she
just charmed her way into renting a car that's bananas,
super bananas. She drives one hundred and fifty miles northeast

(57:27):
to the Howard Johnson Motel where Lisa works. When she
gets there, she waits for Lisa in the parking lot.
She sits and waits for Lisa to get off work,
and then when Lisa walks outside, she's standing there and
she's like, we need to talk, and she says, we
need to talk. Get it, We need to get into
your car. Yeah. So once she's inside, Laurie tells Lisa

(57:53):
that Bill is hers and she needs to leave him alone,
and Lisa tries to reason with her. She says, look,
you have to give up. It's not like this anymore,
Like it's crazy now. And this is when Laurie drops
her bombshell. She tells Lisa that she's pregnant with Bill's baby,
and she's expecting Lisa to start crying and break down

(58:15):
and get really mad at her three weeks earlier. Yeah,
and she's basically this is her thing of like I'm
going to make her like get mad at Bill and
freak her out and then break them up essentially. But
instead of that, Lisa tells she knows she's lying. She
says that Bill would never betray her, and that if
for some reason he had been seduced and gotten Laurie pregnant,

(58:40):
that he would have told her by now, because that's
the relationship they had, because he really loved her, and
that she's known Bill for a really long time. And
Laurie has it and she basically says she trusts him
and she knows that he loves her and not Laurie,
and that Laurie needs to accept it. And this is
one Laurie snaps. She tells police. Now, she tells police

(59:05):
that she and Laurie started fighting. They got into an
argument in the car that then basically got out of control,
and fearing for her life, Laurie acted in self defense
by grabbing a belt that she found in the back
seat of the car and wrapping it around Lisa's knap.
That's not self defense, No, it is not. Holy shit.

(59:26):
So the officer that was questioning Laurie, his name was
sheriff's deputy Randy Hoe, and Hoe niche you got it. Sorry, Randy,
it probably is not, but that's as close as I
can get. He asked Laurie to demonstrate the strangulation so
could be on record, and he says that Laurie quote

(59:48):
was not shy or hesitant as to how she did this.
As a matter of fact, she had me off my
chair and up against the wall in the interview room.
Holy shit. And he said Laurie was quote a strong,
powerful woman.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
It takes a long time to strangle someone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
It takes over two minutes, So the idea that it
was an accidental death is impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
That's a sustained fucking experience, like you're too you're not
trying to calm someone down.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Well, no, and even if you were, you could use
the excuse of like we got into the site and
I was so angry, I was in a rage. But
then you then count out two minutes on your watch.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Yeah, and at some point the person's unconscious and you
still don't let go. No, and they're fighting you and
Laurie horrific. Lisa had scratches on her own neck trying
to get the belt off of her neck, So Laurie
claims she never intended to kill Lisa, that at the
time of the strangulation, she didn't even know if Lisa
was dead or just passed out. So she says that

(01:00:52):
she went into Lisa's purse, took out her makeup bag,
pulled out like a compact mirror, and held it to
Lisa's mouth to see if her breast would create like
steam on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
I want to make sure she was dead, yes, And
then she when she saw that she was not breathing.
She said that she told the police that she thought,
oh my god, I've killed her. I don't know what
I'm going to do. I didn't mean to hurt her.
Her parents are going to think I did it on purpose, honey.
Then she took the belt, and she took a ring

(01:01:26):
off of Lisa's finger. She leaves the car, she throws
the ring away in a convenience stored garbage can, and
she throws the belt down the incinerator choot in her dorm.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Fuck man, Yeah, how much evidence has been fucking burnt
to shreds and dorm in incinerator?

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
For real? How about we just close off any kind
of access to an incinerator to fire? Yeah, fire of
any kind. So in court, Marathon County District Attorney Greg
Grow argues that a death by strangulation of this fashion
could not be accidental, that Laurie would have had had
the belt in place around Lisa's neck for at least

(01:02:06):
two minutes. The jury agrees, and after a seven and
a half hour deliberation, Laurie Eastker is convicted for the
first degree murder of Lisa Sahaski. She sentenced to life
in prison with eligibility for parole after thirteen years and
nine months on July sixteenth of this year. Two years
that's nothing. July sixteenth of this year, Lauri Easker was

(01:02:29):
released from the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Union Grove.
She is fifty years old and she is now free
on parole. Shit. In nineteen ninety five, the story of
Lisa's Haski's murder was turned into a movie entitled Beauty's Revenge,
starring Tracy Gold and Courtney thorn Smith as playing the

(01:02:50):
part of Lori Easker. Which one was Laura Easker is
the murderer? Is Courtney Thornston Thornsmith?

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Oh yeah, I say that, yeah from Melroe's.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Place, Yeah right, yeah, yeah, which is very funny because
it's such an old I mean now, to me it
feels antiquated, that idea of like, can you believe two
beautiful girls, like a beautiful girl would do this where
it's like yes, yes, sociopas, they are good at being beautiful.
It's part of the masking, cloaking, and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Then you don't need a melrose Place actress to fucking
seem evil and beautiful. It's like you can be Tracy
Gold and be fucking.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Yeah yeah, that's right. The thing that when Bradford was
telling me about the story, the reason he knows it
is because it was of course on the news because
it was like huge news where he lived when it happened.
And then like very very soon after like the trial

(01:03:45):
took place, the TV show Twin Peaks premiered, and when
it came out, his whole family assumed it was a
docuseries about this murder, so they watched it as a family.
They watched the first episode of Twin Peaks as a
family when he was in high school a carbon roxide leaguer. Yeah,

(01:04:07):
but is it because they just assumed it was like, oh,
it's it's this story the way like the promos came out.
They just assumed, oh, it's a murder story of this
thing that happened. So the whole family sits down to
watch it. And then I go, so did your parents
like freak out? And he goes, no, we all loved it.
Then we all watched it every week, like even though
me and my brother were teenagers. It became like the

(01:04:28):
thing my family did. And that's how he got into
like Twin Peaks, and we found out about like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
You guys, send us your hometowns a weird shit you
watched with your family, inappropriate stuff that you watch with
your family.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
And mistakes you made like this, because that one is
like because they were basically they were inundated with the
story of this local the dairy queen murder. They called
it the beauty Queen murder at the time, and so
they thought, and I think that's the way Twin Peaks
was promoted because she was you know, Laura Palmer. Yeah,
she was the homecoming queen or whatever. So yeah, so

(01:05:02):
that's the that's the story of the murder of Lisa Sahaski.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Great job, thank you, cool, good job.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Thanks. Do you have a fucking hoorray? Yes? I do. Well, uh,
this is my secret fucking hoorrah. But so I uh,
I didn't get a mammogram until this year, which is bad.

(01:05:33):
When are you supposed to get them? You Actually, I
looked it up and the male Clinic website says that
they recommend women start getting them when they're forty. Okay,
you should definitely get them by the time you're forty five.
You should start getting them regularly. But it's good if
you start getting them when you're forty because then you
have a baseline. Don't be like me, who when you

(01:05:57):
have your first one you're forty nine. There's no baseline,
so if they find something irregular, they immediately panic and
you have to go back and get more mammograms and
ultrasounds and then ultimately a biopsy, which was what I
had to do last week. And for you know, I
was pretty sure I didn't have breast cancer. It does

(01:06:19):
not run in my family. It just isn't a thing.
And I just kind of was pretty sure I didn't,
but scared the shit out of myself for like a
good fourteen days waiting to find out if I did
or not. And I will tell you this, for the
people who are like, oh, I'll just do it later,
get them early so that you can create this baseline,

(01:06:41):
because biopsies are the most awful things. It is really nasty.
They put a big long needle into your boob. Don't
do it to yourself. If you can be preventive, preventative
and like take care of yourself, just do it. I
highlight just as a person who just went through a
little nini quiet drama that I told you about, and

(01:07:04):
about three other people honored Georgia. I was to hold
that with you. You really did hold it with me nicely,
and you kept saying, do you want to what did
you say. You sent me a text that was like,
do you want to be emotional about this or something?
You kept asking me these hilarious I'm fine, Everything's going
to be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
And I was like, well, if you want to be am,
if you don't want to be fine, I'm here for
that too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
You're allowing me to not be fine. And my answer was,
let's save it for when there's actually for sure reason
to not be fine. And so luckily, luckily, luckily not
gonna what there was no reason, but I will just
take that. And there's a little piece of wisdom to
pass on to the younger listeners. Please please get just

(01:07:49):
get your baseline mammogram. Just do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
You know you should get your baseline everything, and like,
just make sure that you're healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Yes, pay attention. You don't understand how important your health
is because you take it for granted when you're young.
So you know, do it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
Okay, okay, in eight months, I'll do it when I
turned forty.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
It'll be my present to you is I'll drive you over.
Will you hold my hand? Yes? And while some strange
lady with gloves on just smashes your boot and look,
you get you get your boob smashed. It's a write
of passage. It's not so painful that you cry, but
it does hurt your feelings a lot. It hurts you

(01:08:29):
feelings that you're like, who made this machine? Why do
they hate women so much? Why can't we update these machines?
Good one? Well, I can't follow that up. Come on, mine?

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Is that you're you got the every Okay? Everything's fine?

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
Right? Yeah, no it is. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
I had Russiashana dinner at my house with my whole family,
and it was lovely and the only political talk was
when I wasn't in the room. So nice, that's a bonus.
The brisket came out beautiful thanks to Vince. Yeah, it
was like a really nice time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Oh that's good. Yeah. I was going to send you
a Russia Shana gift because there's a ton of money. Yeah,
there's one. Was a show far and some apples and
honey going down a river, and I was like, what's
this about. I had to look it up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
If you ever need a gift to send me on
a Jewish holiday, there's an Siamese cat dressed in like
our Jewish garb.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Just send me that photo if you look it up online.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
That's the one for you. Look up Hanukkah Siamese cat.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
What about the one that I sent to you and
or on that day? That's the It's the guy that's
in like a Hasidic Jewish clothing, that's on a motorbike
that skids up to the camera and then it just
says Jewish in all cats.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
That was my favorite one. Good gifts, Man gifts, that's
my fucking ray. They're great. You can use them for anything.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
People who have lived only in the time where gifts existed,
you have no idea how sad it used to be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
You know that you could only say to other people
when you were shrugging your shoulders, saying, oh, you had
to say that there was no gift to send them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
But I was like, uh, conveyed no, you had to
be like, you had to say it out loud. Yeah,
you had to say it as yourself. There was no
witty child right that got captured.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
On camera that I do it for eating a fucking
corn dog.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yeah. The one I love is that little boy that's
holding the cup and looking around like, what the fuck?
You know that one? You can use it for anything.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
What about the little girl that's holding the cotton candy
at a baseball game and just goes fucking crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Yes, she is, like, we've sugar high. There's actually one
and I can't find it anymore. It's that same little girl.
She goes crazy and then takes off like a rocket
and goes up out of the gift. It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Guys, tweet us your favorite gift at my favorite murder
on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
And we don't want to hear if you pronounce it. Oh,
it's not it's not jig gift, it's gift. They came
in too late with the correct connect the connect pronunciation.
Oh man, I've not touched that, babe. Babe, it is
getting to you. I knew it. There's just vapes all

(01:11:05):
around our feet, on the ground around here. Even just
keep trying to get us vapes. Does it seither of
your babes. You guys need the children. Don't I feel
like you want a vape? No, no vaping.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
You guys are the best. We're happy to be here.
Thanks for listening to you, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Yeah, we're very grateful. We have a very good time
on this podcast, and we are happy that you do too.
Yep uh and that's just what we're going to assume
is happening.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
I mean, why would you get to this fucking insane
point in the podcast if you were in Stoke you
better be.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Yeah, are you vaping or what I mean? You gotta be?
Do not vape? The O vape?

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
I want?

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
We won't. We won't. We promise no more vapors, promising Okay,
stay sexy and don't get murdered. Good Bye, Elvis. Do
you want to cookie