424 - Audacity On Tap

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the 3X Killer and art thief Stéphane Breitwieser.

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Wow, and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
That's Georgia Hart start.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Thanks, that's Karen kil Gariff.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You're welcome. I feel like I was doing an irritating
harmony on purpose on that intro though.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh that's how ton deaf I am. I didn't even notice.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
You thought it sounded beautiful?

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, perfect, like a like a what a fairy tale?
No Limerick?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
No, you know i'd be kind of dirty. Yeah it's Limerick.
What's your favorite limericks? I should have asked you on St.
Patrick's Day, but I forgot.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm not Irish.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I don't have one. You know that.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I don't want to. I love them all.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
How do you choose?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's truly, They're all like the children to me?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
What's going on? What do you have to report?

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Not a whole lot? Still making friends with the Crows?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Good?

Speaker 1 (01:17):
The murder of Crows that everyone fucking pointed out after
we recorded last week, and it's like, yeah, we didn't
make that connection at all.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Right, we're going to drop a lot of balls. Hey,
if this is your first episode, prepared to be disappointment.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
We're not going to catch on for weeks. Probably.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Also, I feel like people, especially in the social media
age don't understand that pun based wordplay is the most
difficult to hear when you're in the middle of your
own thought. It's for the listener, right, You're not there
trying to churn something up, so you can sit there
and be like murder Carls. But it's like, but you're
mad that we didn't think of it. It's like, I'm

(01:56):
in here with all this other magic.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well you went straight to mad, and I don't think
that they were mad at us.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I think if you're.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
I feel like I used to do puns a lot
more and a lot better, and now I just like
maybe doing this off the cuff now because it's.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I feel like that's partly on me. I think I
shamed you.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, that's true. Shame works really well on me. It's surprising,
not surprising me too.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Look, it's I think that's shame. That's why it's one
of the big five. It's really effective whoever's doing it
to whoever. But also in stand up comedy, when I
started doing a pun was like farting on stage for
joke for life, and nowadays it's very common and celebrated.
So true. This is just how times change.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, get with the program us.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Or don't, it's totally a prerogative.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I think I'm turning the program off, and I'm just
going to go sit in a quiet corner as a
middle aged lady.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Your brain, the program of your brain.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yep, you got to turn that thing off while.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's so loud.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
God, shut up, lady.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
And I mean, what are they even talking about in there.
It's mostly static.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
It's all like shit from fourth grade. It's not relevant anymore.
Stop it, let it go, your twenties. We're so long
ago now, no one remembers, no one cares.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
So stop it, Thank God, Thank God, Count your blessings
and stop it.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh wait, are you getting religious?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah? I didn't mean God, God. I meant like, you know,
the idea of thinking.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh, count your blessing style. Oh yeah yeah, gratitude vibes, gratitudetude.
I'm talking hashtag blessings, not fucking like holy oh, the
most meaningless blessing rights, empty blessing.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
No, no, no, no, this is all hashtag based. My
religion is hashtag based.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I mean, I think all of life is truly just
a shell, a shell of what it used to be.
Hashtag keep JK living.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, totally. Hashtag to your best hashtag or not, or
take a fucking nap. It's fine hashtag. What does it
matter anyway? Yeah, that whole thing of like everyone wants
to give one hundred and ten percent. I want to
give eighty percent and then use the twenty eight extra
twenty percent or thirty whatever it is to fucking enjoy
my life. That's right, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I think my ratio would be I want to give
fifty percent, okay, and then I want to day drink
the other fifty percent until eight pm. What are the
numbers we're relating again? I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I'm not going to math, but that sounds like an
equation I can get fine.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
I was with my friend Zach Nody Towers, friend of
the show and listener of the show, and he and
I were at lunch at this place and it was
just it was a Sunday afternoon. It was like a
Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake. It was perfect vibes where
we're just like one of us was eating a breakfast burrito,
one of us was eating lunch whatever. Yeah, and it
was just oh, but then there were these people at

(05:01):
the bar just chatting, sitting at the bar, super casual,
natural light coming through the kind of high window.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
They walk there.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm sure, yes, they know each other, I think, and
they're just chit chatting and laughing, and then they all
decide to do a shot together, and I'm eavesdropping and
I'm like, hey, addict, like, stop listening to you. Y
yes me m yob, not to anybody else.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
N yob uh huh m yob to me, Pasha andyob
housh deg Yeah, how did you feel? How did that
make you feel? Well?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I just felt like I knew intellectually in my mind
that the thing I thought, like the longing my heart
that was pouring out of me, that I knew that
it was an idea that was attached to old things
and not like my current reality. So it's like, yes,
you think that would be a good idea, It would
absolutely end up being probably a bad idea whatever, but

(05:59):
just like thinking about it. The waiter comes over and
puts down two bright pink shots in front of me
and goes, these are for you guys, like we love
you guys, and we look at each other and start laughing.
Where I was like, it was like he was the
best waiter in the world because he's picking up on
my psychic yeah, alcoholism, and was like, guess what we

(06:20):
have for you free shots.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, and now we're gonna make it even harder. We
know how hard this is even to be in this restaurant. However,
now you have to like purposely say no. You don't
have to just not order it. Now you have to say.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
No, yes, Now you can't do the thing. We're like, well,
I have to be polite, like the rationalizations that of
course I would absolutely do. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, Luckily
my friend Zac is like, no, thanks.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
It's so hard. But the thing I think about is
that Sunday at brunch, you got to leave and then
go like do things with your life. You know, even
though it's just sitting on the couch and watching TV,
it's still like being present and aware, which doesn't happen
when you drink.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I mean, right, because you would I personally, and I'm
only speaking for myself here, although this is going to
sound familiar to you. I get up at that bar,
i'd finish what we were eating, do them shots, say
we probably need one more.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
I know where you're going to end up. Right, the
drawing room, Right, you end up this is what happens.
You're at this beautiful brunch place and you end up
down the street at the fucking dankist dive.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Bar singing the closest fucking karaoke where people are like, ma'am,
I'll tell you what's going on. Stop singing that song
so loud at me?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Ye oh ugly, oh ugly, I mean thankfully. I just
don't do shots anymore. I mean, that's just I can't.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
How could anybody over? I don't know what's the cutoff?
Age twenty eight?

Speaker 1 (07:49):
How old am I? Forty three? I'd say forty three?
Do forty three.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Here's what's beautiful about the concept of shots. It is
a communal unifying activity.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's like everyone putting on party hats.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, right, but then it's like that hat really affects
your brain.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, but hat's a little too tight. Little uh. The
rubber band around your chin is kind of cutting off
your bucke and air supply.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Light Like this hat's awesome.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Day nap, Hey, are you day drinking while you're listening
to this episode? Because we want to know here's what
we're gonna do. Last week, we just randomly like, what
what do you guys do while you're listening to this episode?
And you guys actually answered that question, So Genie, it's
just so cool. So we're going to start a new
thing trend that's not a trend where we hashtag read

(08:37):
those at the end of the episode. So comment on
our TikTok on our Instagram wherever, and let us know
what you're doing while you're listening to this episode, and
we'll start reading them.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I think the magic of this show is that if
Georgia and I just have a thought passed through our head,
you guys show up and go like, I will answer you.
I'm all about this, and it really is very fun.
It's a fun it's the very fun art of that
kind of engagement. So do you want to read your
people telling us what we're doing? That? Alejandra split up
some of the answers so that we could read them

(09:08):
to each other.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, let's call it hashtag what are you even doing
right now? And that voice perfect, Yep, what are you even?

Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's confrontational and it's sophomore year of hashtag.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
This one's I supervise a cemetery in Wyoming. I have
a lot of clean up leaves, sticks, trash, plastic flowers,
et cetera. To prep for Memorial Day this time of year,
I spent seven hours with a big ass backpack blower
on my back, blowing Debrias from one end to the
other of the sixty acre property.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Thank Jesus for your with the g Thank Jesus for
your energy, Thank Jesus for your podcast and many other
true crime podcasts to get me through this. Hey, you asked,
love you all, Lonnie? She her Lonnie, we did ask
and we loved hearing it.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
That's that. What a visual your leaf blowing a cemetery.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
That's beautiful. That sounds like a Wes Anderson movie immediately.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
It also sounds like the perfect intro to any true
crime series. Yeah, like, hey, guess what's going to happen
to this lady? Pretty soon she's going to discover something. Yeah,
that's going to unnerve the rest of the town. Not Lonnie.
Lonnie is all over.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
It, but it'll change her life.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
And then just a leaf blower goes off. Okay, here's
this one. It says, what am I doing? Hey, ladies,
you asked us to tell you what we're doing while
we listen to the latest podcast. So here it is.
I was driving to practice to sing in the backup
choir for the world renowned Italian singer Andrea Bocelli will
be in concert this Saturday night in Indianapolis. And then

(10:41):
it just says, there it is Dan he him.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Wow, Okay, I love this new thing. What are you
even doing right now? What are they.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Even doing right now? The range, the detail of people's
actual lives, it's so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Oh my god, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
I love it too.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
It's so good. Yeah, it's perfect. Oh. Hey, we also
have a true crime. Nope, we also have a podcast
network that's true Do you want to hear some highlights? Good?

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Here they are, here they are.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Hey, there's a podcast in our network called do You
Need a Ride? It's hosted by Yeah, It's hosted by
this guy Chris Fairbanks and this chick Karen Kilgareff. No
big deal. This week, their guest is the incredible Tig Nataro.
Tis new comedy special Hello Again, is super funny and
available now on Prime Just What a Treasure Tig is.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Tignataro has been putting out like insanely killer comedy specials
year after your year, I mean, for such a long time.
This one's no different. We all love tig She's a genius.
We do. Also over on this podcast, will Kill You.
Aaron and Aaron are back with their seventh season of
the podcast I Mean Just a Day one podcast for

(11:54):
the Exactly Right Network.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, love them, We love them.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
This week's episode covers chronic fatigue syndrome, so listen in
find out if you're suffering, what you can do, what
the details are, Do you need a nap? What's going on?

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Fuck? I love that podcast. Okay, so good. And on
that's messed up. Kara and Lisa discuss penetration, an SPU
episode from twenty ten. Their guest this week is JC mackenzie,
who has played four different characters in the Law and
Order universe, So make sure to check that out. It's
so funny.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Sorry, do you mind if I really quick look up
jac mackenzie just so because I know I will know
who it is. Yeah, Oh yeah, you've seen this man
very familiar.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Oh, the departed in Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman. Hello,
Martin Scorsese loves you.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's a journeyman actor, a working actor.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yep, that's so cool.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Congratulations sir. Oh. And lastly, on episode three of tenfold
More Wicked's eleventh season, our main character is found burned
to death in her bedroom, but then she visits her
brother in his dreams binge this season right now, if
you are not cut up, you don't know what I'm
talking about. Season eleven of ten tenfold More Wicked, you
have to hear.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
It epic and over in the MFM store, you'll find
an SSTGM and a murdering note beach towel perfect for
the beach. You can also use it at the pool.
It's up to your discretion. They're twenty percent off and
you'll want to get them now before they're gone. That's
my favorite murder dot com. Yay, okay, Karen, listen, it's

(13:23):
a cold case. Okay, look, look and listen to this
cold case. But it's a classic nineteen thirties, very strange
tale that I think you and I can get to
the bottom of. Oh and I don't know why I've
never heard of this. It's so it's one of those
like you'd see it late at night on like a
you know, rankers Top ten weird murders that have never

(13:46):
been solved. Cases. Okay, you know. So it's a cold
case from the nineteen thirties and the murders happened at
Lover's Lanes in Queens New York, and the police receive
a series of letters written by the killer alleging he
and his victims are part of a mysterious international organization
and like it's a big.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Maybe spy thing, okay.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
And the letters say that there will be more victims
if the people who are targets don't give up their secrets.
So this is the story of the three X killer.
That's the Moniker three X Okay. So the main sources
I used in today's story include an article from Daily
News by Maara Boveson and a passage from the book

(14:31):
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes by Michael Newton, and all
of the sources are used in the listed in the
show notes. Ka, okay, get ready to put your detective
hat on.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
So it's nineteen thirty here we are. Thirty nine year
old deli owner Joseph Mozinski is living in the Queensborough
of New York City with his wife and two kids. Unfortunately,
he's also having an affair and has a mistress. She's
nineteen years old. Mediate red flag. We don't like that.

(15:04):
On the evening of June eleventh, nineteen thirty, Joseph asks
his wife to close their deli up while he runs
an errand. But really he's going to meet up with
this mistress. Her name is Catherine may So. Catherine and
Joseph have been having an affair for the last two years,
so when he picks her up on that evening, he
drives her out to the local lover's lane spot in

(15:24):
the white Stone neighborhood of Queen's. It's just kind of
another standard night for the two of them. They slip
into the back seat like they always do, but suddenly,
out of nowhere, a short, thin man in a black
fedora appears from the darkness wielding a handgun. It is
like every horror movie you've ever seen. The man orders

(15:46):
Joseph to get out of the back seat get into
the driver's seat. Nineteen year old Catherine is sitting there
watching as her lover of two years is then shot
in the head twice and dies. Oh, she's just sitting
there the back just murdered in front of her, right
in front of her. She's like trapped back there. Once
Joseph is dead, the stranger rifles through Joseph's pockets until

(16:09):
he finds some papers, and Catherine has no idea what
the papers are. She never gets the chance to find out,
as the killer pulls out a match and then lights
those papers from his pocket on fire. From Joseph's pocket.
There's a lot of reports that then she was sexually
assaulted as well, but some people don't bring it up,
but I think that happened. Then the killer forces Catherine

(16:29):
out of the car and marches her about a mile
southeast to the Bayside neighborhood, and from there he gets
on a bus to Flushing with her, and then in
Flushing he puts Catherine on a trolley alone and then
takes off. But before he leaves her, he hands her
a piece of paper with two circles stamped on it

(16:50):
in red ink and in one of the stamp circles
is Joseph, the victim's name, and then the other is
three X. Then he lets her go on the trolley
and he disappears into the night. Like what a terrifying
ordeal for her?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, and confusing right, like what is all this? Yes?

Speaker 1 (17:09):
And I think she's been sexually assaulted, so she's traumatized. Yeah, so,
like she doesn't know what's going on, she's too scared
to go to the cops. She decides not to report
what happened. But the next morning, June twelfth, nineteen thirty,
a passerby happens upon Joseph's body lying in a ditch
near his abandoned truck. He calls the police. They search
the truck and they find a woman's coat covered in blood,

(17:31):
and they're able to trace it to Catherine and bring
her in for questioning. Yeah, and it's just odd. She
makes up a story about an Italian gangster and that
you know, maybe Joseph had been involved in the mob.
But then she tells them what really happened, saying she
had been too scared to tell the truth. But the police,
because she's changing her story, you know, and because it's

(17:53):
the nineteen thirties, don't believe what she's saying, so they
hold her. But they eventually rule her out as a
suspect and they let her go, but without much evidence
and having no real regard for Catherine's story, like they
don't believe her anyway, The police, you know, get involved
in other cases.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
They don't care, right, So.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
This all changes just five days later, on June seventeenth,
nineteen thirty, when another body, that of twenty six year
old Brooklyn Bread radio mechanic Noel Souley, is found dead
in his car. The car is parked at another Queen's
Area lover's lane, parked in a turnout. He had spent
the previous night hooking up with his eighteen year old lover,

(18:33):
Betty Ring. Police bring Betty in for questioning and she
recounts a story that's very similar to Catherine's story. According
to Betty, Noel picked her up on that evening of
June sixteenth and drove them out to this secluded lover's
lane spot. They're kind of hooking up in the back seat,
and then a short, thin man in a quote dirty

(18:54):
black fedora shows up and points his gun at Noel,
demanding to see his ID. The man checked and then
uses a flashlight to flash some sort of like signal
into the darkness, like he's signaling someone else. He turns
back to Noel and said you're the one we want,
all right, You're going to get a Joe got And
then with that the man forces Noel into his driver's

(19:16):
seat and shoots him twice in the head again just
fucking kills him. After killing Noel, the man let out
what Betty said as a hideous laugh, and then through
a copy of the newspaper clipping about Joseph's death on
top of Noel's body. He sifts through Noel's pockets. He
finds some mysterious pages, which Betty describes as looking like

(19:39):
an electric company bill, so like nothing she could recognize
is important, and the killer then cries out, I have it,
like he's yelling to whoever he flashed his flashlight out.
So then he directs his attention to Betty. We're all
assuming to sexually assault her. She says, at the moment,
she could tell that his face was pale, wrinkled skin, piercing,

(19:59):
creepy eyes. Quote they were eyes that never blinked, like
the eyes of a fish swimming through water. M yeah,
And to her horror, the man leans in to try
to kiss Betty, but she holds up her cross on
her necklace. What's a Saint Joseph medallion because that's what
she had.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Oh yeah, that's just a little it's basically it kind
of looks like a little pends, like a little silver
pendant and it has a picture of Saint Joseph Onet
and I think he's the one. Whatever, there's all kinds
of saints and they all help you with different things.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well, he fucking helped her because this guy was like
he stopped he could tell that she was Catholic and
because of that he backs off. Wow, which is wild.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, so either he was a demon, yeah, a true demon,
right or right? He was also Catholic.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Kid, But just as he did with Catherine, the killer
leaves Betty sat like takes her out of the car
and walks her away after she just watched her fucking
lover get shot to death. How Like, he didn't just
run away from the scene. He like brought her into
the city. He puts her on a bus, but before
he departs, he leaves her with a piece of paper

(21:09):
rubber stamp with two circles in red ink. The first
circle has Noel's name and the second three X. This clue,
to me is really important because when I heard this
whole story, I was like, Oh, he just was a
weirdo who happened upon these people on the lover's lane.
But he had this piece of paper that already had
the victim's name on it, so it wasn't random, right, No, right,

(21:33):
unless he wrote it after he killed them.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I don't know, but it sounds like the way the
women are reporting it, this is all part of the plan, right,
He's looking for a certain person, finding him, throwing down
like this is his business card of.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
But with the yeah, but with the person's name on it,
which sounds like it's premeditated. Unless because on both of
those victims, he went through their pockets, saw their ID,
so he could have written their name down after the
fact and then hands it to her.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
But that don't you think that the women would mention that?

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, definitely right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
That'd be a different vibe. I don't know it would
have been mentioned. It feels like yeahah, because one feels
like a kind of a murderer going crazy, and one
feels like someone with a plan that's executing a plan.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah. Well, the police when they heard about it, actually
thought that it could possibly be an escapee from the
Creed Moore Asylum, which was close to the scene of
one of the murders, which is chilling. But yes, so
now they have these two strikingly similar stories from these
two witnesses. They have no connection to each other, so

(22:44):
they finally take Catherine's testimony seriously as well as Betty's,
and they begin a more earnest investigation, and to find
that the local newspaper are already a few steps ahead
of them. The killer has been sending letters to the
Daily News offices asking to print his messages. Wow, super
zodiac vibes.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
That's right, like the first Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
The first letter came on June thirteenth, nineteen thirty, after
the murder of Joseph. It reads, quote, kindly print this
letter in your paper for Mozinski's friends, and then it's
like a series of you know, letters and numbers, looks
like a code. By doing this, you may save their lives.
We do not want any more shooting unless we have to.

(23:28):
So it's too cryptic for police to decipher. But they
wouldn't have to wait long for more of an explanation,
because on June fourteenth, a second letter arrives at the
Daily News, calling Joseph their first victim, a quote dirty rat.
The killer explains that his mission was quote to get
certain documents from Joseph, but unfortunately they were not in
his possession at the time, because remember he was the

(23:49):
one that he had burned the documents. Yeah, and he
said that those weren't the right documents, there were other documents.
The killer warns that if the true holder of these
documents doesn't return them quote teen, more of Mozinski's friends
will join him, and then Noel gets murdered the same
day that Betty Ring is questioned. One day after Noel's murder,

(24:09):
the newspaper office receives another letter from the killer explaining
the alleged situation. The killer claims that he is a
former officer and this is like he's over explaining in
a way that I don't think they do in a
way that liars do that liars do or yeah, you're
making it up. There's something going on in your head

(24:31):
and it makes total sense in your head. But like
real Russian and German spies aren't, like, let me break
this down for you.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
No, no, I think that seems to I would guess
go against the spy training.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, yeah, like number one rule of spy training. Zip it. Yeah.
So the killer claims that he's a former officer of
the German army and now works for the Russians. As
a quote agent of a secret international order. Like as
soon as you're saying.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
That, yeah, either say the name of it or don't.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right, Well, he does eventually say what it is? Oh
sorry called no no, No, it still doesn't It's still dumb,
It's still not okay, Okay. He says that his victims
are members of his order called the Red Diamond of Russia,
and then the victims that he murdered have deserted and
taken top secret documents with them.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
He also sends along two bullet casings which match the
bullets that were used to kill Noel, so it's legitimately him.
So he goes on to tell them Noel's secret society
code name, and he warns that quote, thirteen more men
and one woman will go if they do not make
peace with us and stop bleeding us to death. So

(25:46):
it's like a message to the other X spies to like,
I don't know, bess up, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
What to turn over their documents.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Right, Yeah, Noel the killer rights had one of the
two missing documents on him, but there's one more document
left to recover, and if the person he suspects has it,
doesn't give it up a person and he gives their
code name. It's like WRBA, It's like, you know, random code.
They will be murdered that night, June eighteenth, nineteen thirty
at nine pm. And then he gives the location College Point,

(26:17):
neighborhood of Queens. So the night and the time and
the place. He's like, here it is, what do you
think happens? Everybody from Queen shows up.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
I would give anything to be able to travel back
in time and be there that night.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Five minutes. You get five minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
The accents alone, because it's the thirtiesties.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Are like, oh, next.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Level, the aprons, the hands on hips, the cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Oh like the gestures, the gesturing ugh, the limericks, the
limericks so endless.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
I love that idea that like people and Queens are like, well,
let's go down and see if the spies show.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Up and get murdered. Like what else is there to do?
I mean there's no true crime podcasts, so you have
to do it somehow.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, so they all show up, as do the police.
They stake it out. Obviously nobody. I'm sure he was there,
probably right, Like they love that.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
You mean a fish eye guy?

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's just there watching other people look
for him.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, a Peter Lorie type. I'm gonna say.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Around two thousand cars, over two thousand cars from around
the city make their way to College Point, causing bumper
to bumper traffic in the Little neighborhood epic. They were
always murderinos. This isn't new.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
It's not new. It's not just women. It's not even
that special. It's human instinct. Are you going to do
something fucked up? Well, I'm going to check it out.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
There. A guy has promised to kill someone that night
in a car with a gun. We're expecting, Hey, let's
get in the car and go to that spot.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Like, what the fuck I mean that? I feel like
that is very New Yorker energy, where they're like, well,
let's go down there. Then, well let's just see for ourselves. Yeah,
I'm going to take some cops word for it.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Right right. So, but of course all the hype is
for nothing. No killer shows up, no murder takes place,
and the following day, June nineteenth, the killer pens a
letter saying the intended target with their code name had
actually returned the documents, along with thirty seven thousand dollars
of blackmail money that they had allegedly secured in exchange

(28:32):
for the documents.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
So, first of all, are you going to tell me
how much thirty seven thousand dollars is worth in today's money?

Speaker 1 (28:39):
I am, and I have another I have it right here, hold.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
On, because I am on the edge of my couch
right now.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Okay, in nineteen thirty today would be.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Worth Karen, I always get this wrong.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
That's the point. That's the point. We've never gotten it right.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
I never want Yeah, somewhere around in the market of
three hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Almost seven hundred thousand dollars six six hundred thousand and nine,
six hundred and nine hundred six nine.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Four zero zeros six nine four Comma zero zero zero,
Flushing Queens, New York, New York's.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
So even more. Yeah, I think everything was a penny
back then.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
I mean, for real.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Another weird detail that like will help us solve this
is that Joseph, the first victim, had a month before
his murder deposited eight thousand dollars into his bank account.
And remember he owns a deli. And you know how
much eight thousand dollars was worth back well, was it.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Somewhere around two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
One hundred and fifty thousand, So that's odd, right, Like,
that's an odd little thing. It could maybe he got
a loan from his parents in law.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Who knows, but if there is no vert explanation they
would do anything that it away right away.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
It might have been lost a time, you know, same
thing with like, yeah, the writing down of the name
like that maybe was just lost time. Okay, Now that
means that both of these missing documents have been recovered, right,
it's over. No, apparently there's a third missing document now
because Joseph Mozinski's this brother of the one of the

(30:21):
victims who lives in Philadelphia. He gets a threatening letter
from the killer a few days later on June twenty first.
He accuses Joseph's brother of hiding whatever document Joseph was
supposed to have, and uh, obviously, this guy calls the
police immediately because he's like, I'm actually not a spy
and don't have these documents. What the hell's going on?

(30:42):
And the NYPD expand their search for the killer to Philadelphia,
but they don't find anything. So that evening on June
twenty first, nineteen thirty. Another New York publication, The New
York Evening Journal, your favorite, yeah, lifetime member.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Bringing you all the news. That's news to news, I
think was they're saying, yeah, that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
They get the killer's final letter. It says, quote, my
mission is ended. There's no further cause for worry.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
He also makes it a point to say and reference
to Betty's description of his appearance where she called them
fish eyes or whatever. Yeah, okay, can you imagine being
a fucking Russian spy. You're like diabolical, you're a murderer,
You're getting documents, and someone calls you fish eyes. And
so in the letter you write to the newspaper you say, quote,

(31:33):
I have no fish eyes. The police have fish eyes.
They have been wrong from beginning to end. Like, dude,
guess who has fish eyes?

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Such an amazing burn to be like, I don't have
fish eyes.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
The police have, right. They're like, what is happening?

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I bet you if they're you know, training spies somewhere
that they're just like, try not to do a lot
of chit chat in the letters to the newspaper when
you're threatening and blackmailing.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Here's a great idea. If someone's if a witness says
you look like something, tell the newspaper you don't actually
look like that. It's not true.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Work on your reactivity because it'll bring you down. If
you get real sensitive about your weirdo blinking eyes, they
have you.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
You know, that's it. Come on, but apparently not. The
end of the letter states quote, do not let anyone
fool you. If any more letters come, they're fakes. It
is settled, and it's true. Some fake letters come in later,
and they like rest Reforet. But he never doesn't seem
like the killer ever appears anywhere again. Huh. The murders

(32:38):
do stop, but the police's hunt for the killer continues.
Police wonder if perhaps the three X killer was actually
telling the truth about the secret organization. And of course
now on the internet there's people who are like, fuck,
maybe it's true. Like it was during you know, not
the Cold War, but the Red Scare, was it? We
weren't friends with Russia during this time?

Speaker 2 (32:58):
True, that's more of a recent thing. Yeah, in my lifetime,
they've always been the big gun wolf, but apparently twenty
sixteen that all changed for some reason.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, you know, listeners historians. Okay. They search extensively for
the killer for the next several months, they get no
solid leads. The case goes cold six years later in
nineteen thirty six, and New York State trooper arrests a
twenty nine year old guy named Frank Ingle of College Point,
noting his quote, queer actions in a parking garage. What

(33:35):
does that mean?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I know more details, just like kind of walking three
steps forward and then being all jerky and then going
two back and kind of like, what could you be doing?

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Oh? Like he's like dancing to Divo. He's a time traveler.
Like what's umanthy?

Speaker 2 (33:50):
What he's like, I'm about equality? People are like, arrest
him immediately.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, he confesses to the Three X murders, but his
story is discredited and he's committed to an asylum for
psychiatrical treatment because that's what they did back then, straight
to jail.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, at least they had services for people who needed
mental support, right.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
So the Three X killings are thought by some to
be an inspiration for both The Son of Sam because
it was killing people on lover's land like couples, right,
and the Zodiac murders, Like maybe both those dudes knew
about these murders. Maybe, And there's a theory that the
killer could be related to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby,
which happened in nineteen thirty two, two years later. Oh yeah,

(34:32):
because of the whole German tie and you know, some
of the handwriting analysis, that kind of thing. But there's
very little evidence there. And by little I mean none.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
By little, I mean the habit that people who pay
attention to true crime have. Yeah, of going, what if
there is a super larger plan where this one killer
is a bunch of killers.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, it's called speculation, and we fucking love it and.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Like sorry, yeah, And also it would be really satisfying
if there are not repeated versions of this same horrifying
type of man out in the world, but just one
bad guy exactly. That's a really nice idea. It's like
very calming.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
But no, it's like thinkings. I think Zodiac's probably multiple people,
don't you.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
I think they're not all attributed to him. I think
there's multiple people.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, once they started, Yeah, because it was like basically
people's first experience with the repeat like a serial true
serial killer.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, yeah, who knows. We're not going to figure that
out today.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Not today. Now, I have a whole, my own, whole
story to tell.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Right and you have to listen to future episodes to
know do we solve this case?

Speaker 2 (35:42):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
As I said, some believe he may have been an
escapee from the Creedmore Asylum. But as the years roll
on and no new suspects emerge, the mystery of the
three X killer is still alive today. And that is
the story of the Queens New York three X Killer.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Oh. I am absolutely going to look on Reddit threads
for all the people who have done deep ass dives
on this, because that is just enough mystery to be
like this could just as easily this was a person
getting revenge for very reasons, like.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
The two guys weren't connected. The two victims. The podcast
The Trail Went Cold does a deep dive and he
is so good at research. Congratulations. Hey, yeah, so that's
a good one.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, some people do it for a living, as do
our own researchers. Our research is now amazing because we
hired people who know how to do it for a
living makes all the difference.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I really enjoyed the research. I don't know how you feel.
I think I was good at it and I had
a lot of fun with it.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
We worked our asses off so much much of my
life every week going down rabbit holes finding little bits
of information. That's part of what I'm proud of of
this podcast.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
So yeah, I loved But that's a cold case I
can get behind.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, nineteen thirties. Man, it's like a time and a place.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, fascinating and also like it just could have easily
been a person who got a bunch of really weird
ideas and took a red rubber ring stamp and put
some stamps around people's names and made some weird plans
because he didn't like his neighbor or you know whatever
he knows.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, Like he took the first guy out because he
actually did now that was his neighbor and he hated him,
And then he had to do another one to make
to cover the fact that it was just a neighbor
he hated, right, because they would have found that out.
So then he made up this whole fake thing about,
you know, being a spy.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, he tried to take maybe a personal vendetta and
make it into like this is an international.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Espionage thing, so the cops wouldn't beyond him.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah. Maybe, Well thanks, that was great.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
You did great research on it. Ali did great research
on it.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Ali's amazing. Jay did this research. But love them both.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Oh well, well, props to j Elias because he also
did my research. So he's holding down this entire episode.
Yes he is, but then pointed you in the direction
where you could go. Then yes, know about it and
read up about.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
It, appreciate it. I still do research, guys.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
We really like these topics.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
That's why that's why we have a podcast about it.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
It's pretty interesting and it's fun to talk about something
that you just learned about, like you're a lifelong expert.
That's really one of my favorite things to do.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I think that that's what the name of the podcast
comes from, is like, oh my god, this is my
favorite murder. Like that's we don't mean that we love
the thing. It's the way it's said that is translated
that way, right, you knew that I'm not explaining it
to you. Okay, wait what?

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Okay? So this is also a little bit of a
left turn, not that we really have to take one
after that story, but I find this so compelling and
I would love to watch a movie about this. So
I'm going to tell you today about the most prolific
art thief in modern history. Woo right, well, I'll tell you.
In early nineteen ninety four, a twenty two year old

(39:09):
Frenchman named Stefan Bright Weezer. Now his name is pronounced
differently in different forms of media, and some people pronounce
it ste Finn, but that I've also heard more native
English speaking people pronounce it like the classic Stefan. I'm
just going to do it that way because i want
to end up doing it like.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, I'm gonna request Stefan Stefan.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I think that's truly the pronunciation. Instead of me pretending
I have an accent that's like French Swedish, it would
be weird.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
So a twenty two year old Frenchman named Stefan Bright
Weezer and his girlfriend, twenty two year old nurse's aide
on Katerine Klein Klaus. The two of them are visiting
a museum called the Museum of the Friends of Tan
in northeastern France. The two of them are both art lovers,
but Steffan grew up rich and he had priceless works

(40:03):
of art in his house because of that, so he
has a particularly strong attachment to the visual arts and
the finer things in life. He loves like this kind
of art.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Congratulations all right.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
So as he's walking through this museum his girlfriend, he
sees something that stops him in his tracks. It's a
hand carved flintlock pistol from the eighteenth century. It reminds
him of an antique weapon that his father used to own.
Obviously there's some nostalgia there, but it's also very beautifully made.
Steffan loves this one in this museum. He loves it

(40:38):
more than anything he ever saw his father have. He
looks around and then he notices there's no security guard
and there's no alarm system in this museum, and then
he notices the display case this gun is in is
partially open.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Oh shit.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
So he points it out to his girlfriend and he
says that he tells her he doesn't think that this
pistol belongs cooped up in this stuffy museum. He thinks
it should be with someone who would truly appreciate it.
Every day.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Three range guns. Great idea.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, basically, all museums should really be about who deserves
it most, and then they get to take it home,
right like a library for rich assholes. So basically he
says that to her kind of joking, saying this shouldn't
be here, it's you know, it deserves to go home
with me, thinking that she'd be like the voice of reason,

(41:36):
and instead she looks at him and says, go ahead,
take it, and so he.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Does, honey enabling mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
And so thus begins the story of art thief Stefan Brightweezer.
The main sources that Jay used in today's story are
an article from GQ entitled The Secrets of the World's
Greatest Art Thief by Michael Finkel, and just so you
guys know, Michael Finkel has been on Wicked Words with

(42:03):
Kate Winkler Dawson. Go listen to the Wicked Words episode
it is entitled Michael Finkel The Art Thief. That's the
name of the book Michael Finkel wrote he is not
an art Thief. And also an article from The New
Yorker written by a writer named Katherine Schultz on this topic,
and the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
So we'll talk about Stefan first. He's born on October first,

(42:25):
nineteen seventy one, so he's a year younger than me.
He's an only child, raised in the Alsace region of France.
I don't know if Alsace is the way you pronounce it.
And we'll see what happens. Let the French come after me,
I don't care. In the Alsace region of northeastern France,
near the French Swiss border. So, as I said, he

(42:46):
grew up wealthy. His father was a sales executive at
a company in Switzerland. His mother was a nurse. He
spends summers voting on Lake Geneva, winters skiing in the
Swiss Alps. You know, the life, the life, and of
course his house is filled with the finest antique furniture,
priceless works of art that his father collects.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
I'm getting saltburn because I just started watching that.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
How did you watch that?

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (43:12):
And I'm like thinking about because I just yeah, I
just saw the pool of the house and it's like,
what in the fuck.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Isn't that so beautifully directed? That movie, Like it's so great.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, I haven't finished it, but I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, And that really must be quite something to grow
up in a house where you are surrounded by the
most beautiful things people ever made, yeah, in all time.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
And likely like when they walk through that one room
and there's like old you know, classic expensive portraits, and
he's like ancestor, ancestor. It's like those portraits that are
worth millions. That's your fucking great uncle. I mean, I
can't even.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
It's your relative, right aunt, Carol, uncle Martin. Look at him?
Can you imagine? I've my friend Adam has a portrait
like that and it's his like great great maybe great grandmother,
and it is such an amazing I'm like, this is
the greatest painting I've ever seen because it's a gold
frame all black. She's wearing black. Ye. She looks furious.

(44:13):
She looks like a Puritan, and it is like hilarious
but also incredibly scary.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
She's a Goth. She's an original goth.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
She's like, she's what the goths are gothing about.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
She's a physicoth.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
So she invaded the Goths. Okay, So for Stefan, art
is one of the highlights of his childhood. He's infatuated
with beautiful objects, unlike everybody else who hates beautiful objects.
It's like a set point for him at an early
age where he really it was his passion and it

(44:46):
really did love art. And also because of that, you know,
rich people have it bad too, everybody.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Do, like because it sounds like he's got some what's
the word privilege? Yeah, but also like that things belong
to me no matter what title. Entitlement.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Oh hell, yes, you know this is a story of entitlement,
I think for sure. But he also his parents expect
they want him to go to college and be a lawyer.
He's really really smart, but he doesn't like school. He
is seriously introverted. He has virtually no social life, even
though when he was voting and skiing all through his childhood,
he usually was alone.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Oh he's like crying while he was voting and skiing.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah, just the saddest little skier making pizza with his
skis and like trying to you know, he doesn't like
he is one of those kind of maybe deep down
he was like a frustrated artist himself. But he had
a hard time like understanding or getting along with other kids.
It was like a mismatch for him. He didn't like sports,

(45:46):
he didn't like video games, he didn't go to parties,
he had a little bit of a temper, so it
was kind of I think maybe like you're saying, there's
a chance, It was like, why isn't He was an
only child of rich people, so that can't be not easy,
not great for the personality and for the flexibility. So
he basically all he wants to spend all of his

(46:07):
time in museums and exploring archaeological sites, which apparently there
are a bunch of in the area that he grew
up in near the French Swiss border. So ultimately Stefan
winds up dropping out of college after just a few years.
And then I wrote in all caps, no shame in
that hey, hey been there are that some of us
I've done it and more no shame. Moves back in

(46:31):
with his parents. Sure, he gets a job working as
a security guard at the historical Museum of Mullhouse, where
he studies exactly how museum security works, and he learns
a couple of key things. One of them is guards
tend to focus more on the patrons visiting in the
museum and less on the art, so they don't necessarily
know exactly what pieces are on display, they're just watching people. Also,

(46:55):
the museum's security cameras at that time were sometimes fake.
So if there were visible wires, he put it together
that that probably meant they were real. But if there
were just like a camera sitting up there, there was
a chance it was fake.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Sam with when I X worked for Bed Bath and Beyond,
those were fake cameras.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Due you know what's not fake, camera's target. Everyone says,
that's like that was like a TikTok going around where
it was like, do not steal from target ever.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
So on the last day of his security job at
the Historical Museum of Mullholls, Sefan steals a fifteen hundred
year old Merivingian belt buckle fuck and is like, talk
to you later, and no one notices that it's gone
in any kind of timely way. So like something small

(47:45):
that's smart. Yeah, nothing comes of it, essentially.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
But then in his personal life everything changes when he
turns twenty two and his parents get a divorce. It's
a very contentious and traumatic divorce, and when his dad leaves,
the worst part for Stafan was his dad took his
entire art collection with him. Okay, so now he lives

(48:10):
with his mother on her nurse's salary and his mother,
Mariah is her name. They're forced to downsize from a big,
beautiful house full of fine art to a small apartment
with akia furniture, and so that of course, clearly for
him a truest seat and someone who that really matters
to makes it all the harder hard enough, just as

(48:32):
it is parents getting divorced, things splitting up like that.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
I'm sorry, Ikea has art, though.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
They sure do. Do you want three white horses running
through a puddle? You got it?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
The skyline of New York at sunset, Hell.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yes, they got it. A zoom in on a leaf,
so actually you're looking at the pattern of a leaf,
but you're also looking at the pattern of the world. Aikia, Okay,
back to this, sorry, yeah, go in his life is
falling apart, and that's when he meets a young woman
named Ann Katherine Klein Klaus, and suddenly Stefan has a

(49:09):
reason to be happy again. The two of them share
a lot of the same interests. They both love archaeology,
they both love avoiding other people, they both love art museums,
and later Steffan will say that he quote loved her
right away. Yeah, so Soon after they get together, she
moves in with him at his mother's house in the

(49:30):
town of Mulhouse, France, where they live, which to me
does not sound like a French town in the least
mause No, it's probably pronounced differently. Yeah, but that sounds
like a reject character from The Simpsons, where it's like, no,
he can't be in it anymore. Nobody likes that kid.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
You know Mulhouse Canada. You never heard of it.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Millhouse's cousin Mulhouse is in another episode, and I don't
like it. It's just a couple of months after she
moves in that they decide to visit the museum in
Tan Then they decide together to steal that slintlock pistol. Okay,
but this last minute couple's art heist will not be
their last. So about a year later, in February of

(50:11):
nineteen ninety five, the two of them attempt another art
theft during a visit to a small museum in the
Alsatian Mountains, and this time the object of Stefan's desire
is get this one of the easier things to steal.
What a medieval crossbow? And it's not just a medieval crossbow,

(50:32):
like behind some glass whatever, it's hanging from the ceiling
of the exhibition room by a wire.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Buddy, youb a relief or something like. Come on.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
He's like, no, that's not because he's and he will
say this later. He really doesn't. He like follows his heart.
He goes around and waits until something really strikes him.
He doesn't just try to steal whatever.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
I love the idea of him carrying it out, being like, oh, no,
I brought this in. This is my cross road that
I brought in with me.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Yeah, yeah, I brought I thought it was crossbow day
at the museum. My mistake. I'll come back in April.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Okay, how's he going to do it? I kind of
love her supporting him, though, to be honest, I do too.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Here's the thing. It's hard to find people that you
actually really get along with in this world. And when
you do find things that kind of light both of
you up at the same time.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
That you thought were you like weird quirks of yours
and no one like you had to keep to yourself yep,
for sure.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
And instead you're like, I want this because I'm a greedy,
little bad boy, rich kid that has had his heart
broken by art, and she's like, I see you, I
understand you, and I support you. Yeah, take what you want,
yeah kind of. He makes her go be the lookout, okay,
and then he goes there's a chair on the other
end of this medieval room, right, and the only way

(51:49):
he can figure out how to get up to get
his crossbow is by going over and dragging the chair
medieval chair, Yes, dragging it across the room under the
the crossbow, right the length of the entire hallway, it says,
He stands on it, unhooks the crossbow from the wire,
stuffs the crossbow under his jacket, and then the couple

(52:10):
walk out. Okay. The high they must have felt a
dinner that night, like your heart would still be racing
hours later.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
The makeout sash that they had.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Oh on real, how much hotter does that guy look
once he's stolen a crossbow off the ceiling.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Medieval crossbow.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
That's a high quality man. He can steal all the weaponry.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
That it's an apocalypse like husband, you know, yes, like
he could take care of shit in apocalypse.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
There's a golden retriever husband. Then there's your apocalypse medieval
warrior husband that you're looking for these days. Okay, So
they get away with that. The sex is incredible. A
month later, in March of nineteen ninety five, they take
a trip to the Castle of gri Are in parentheses
in red Jayputt pronounced like the cheese.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Thank you, thanks Jay. Also, I want to go there
immediately and start eating the castle made out of gray air.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
In my mind, you go look out the window and
just take a bite out of the window. So so
it's a heritage center and it's a museum in Switzerland,
and as they are walking through it, Stefan season eighteenth
century painting of a woman by an artist named Christian
Wilheim Ernst Diedrich of Germany, and he loves this painting.

(53:28):
So once again on Katherine goes to be the lookout.
Stefan pulls out his Swiss army knife and he begins
to pull the nails from the picture frame one by
one until he can slip the painting out of the
frame and down the back of his pants. Eh, well,
it's just in his waistband. It doesn't go all the
way under the butt. It's just it's held in his

(53:49):
waistband kind of like you know, a little fanny pack. Yeah,
no one sees them do it, No one stops them.
They walk out, real calm and collecting the perfect cover.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
When you're white and look rich, you can just fucking
get away with anything and are a couple. Oh, a
couple's a good cover for.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Sure, right, it's just like not those two in a
second lovers.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Thus begins the art heist date night practice that they
get super into, venturing out to museums or art shows
nearly every single week to steal a new prize. Possession.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
My god, I'm like excited for some reason. I know, right,
it's terrible, don't do that, but it's like it's.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Bad and they're being bad and wrong, but there's something
about the like we're doing it as a team that's
very appealing and.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Cute, and we're like in our early twenties and we're
making dumb big like make the biggest mistake you can.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Then completely Also, this is exactly in the pocket of
time where it's like, you know, he made her a mixtape.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Oh you know Dinahsaur Junior is on that shit fucking
the Cure. Oh my god, every Cure song is like
their song for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Oh of a fu oh oh okay. So, so the
stolen art starts piling up so high in their little
attic apartment that they can barely keep track of all
their new treasure. And the more he steals, the better
he gets at stealing. So how does he get away

(55:21):
with it for so long? Because he does, he basically
follows a couple of rules for him that he makes
up for himself, and basically the overall rule is keep
it simple, don't make elaborate plans like you're in the movies,
because the more obvious you are, the more risk you
draw to yourself. So, in Stefan's opinion, the best thefts
are the ones that happen right under everyone's noses and

(55:44):
kind of like improvisationally. So basically, he and a Katterine
always go to the museums around lunchtime. They just go
up and buy their tickets, all normal and natural, because
he realized it's less crowded at lunchtime, like people come
in the more and leave for lunch or come after lunch,
so it's less crowded, and the security guards are switching shifts,

(56:08):
so it thins out the security staff and gets rid
of witnesses. And the only tool Stefan ever brings with
him are his Swiss army knife, and then, if it's
cold enough to justify it, a big coat to hide
the art. Also, he never goes in with a plan
to steal anything in particular. Like I said, he waits
until he sees something that catches his eye. Then he

(56:30):
sees if he can formulate a plan based on how
many security guards are around, where the item is being displayed,
where any cameras might be, how many patrons flowing in
and out of the exhibit. And he basically tells himself
if he truly loves this piece like enough so that
he's the one that should have it, that should give

(56:50):
him the courage necessary to pull off the theft in
plain sight without getting caught. In addition to loving the piece,
Steffan aims for items that are on this side so
he can smuggle it out of the museum easily. So
sculptures and another three D objects can be no more
than the size of a brick, and then the painting
should only ever be about a foot by a foot

(57:11):
in size. He believes it's important for him to remain
patient and never like try to cut the painting out
of the frame, because damaging the art itself in order
to steal it is an insult to the artwork. He
has to either be able to remove the painting from
its frame in full and not fold it or roll it,

(57:32):
or he's not going to take it. So he has
a lot of interior kind of respect based rules because
he loves the art so much. So I think that's
at least one little check in his pro side for
that part. It's kind of like beautiful in that way
of like it really is for the art for him.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yeah, he's not trying to resell it for the highest value.
It's like he wants these beautiful things.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Yeah, he just wants He just wants to Yeah, wants
to have he wants to have his childhood back. Just
go to therapy. Men will steal art from every museum
in Switzerland and before they'll go to therapy. On Catherine, basically,

(58:16):
when she's the lookout she starts, she does a tiny
little cough if somebody's coming while he's in the actual
act of stealing. So that's how he knows. So when
he starts to go for it, he just goes for it.
He unhooks it from the frame or puts it off
the ceiling or whatever. He gets it, he hides it,
and then the couple walks calmly out of the museum.

(58:37):
They go to their car. They always park in the
museum parking lot or nearby parking lot where anybody else
would park, and they drive away at or below the
speed limit. Always, Stefan knows that, no matter how smooth
his approach at stealing the item was, the security response
will always be fast, so he knows they have to
get out of their fast and also calmly so as

(58:57):
not to attract unwanted attention. So yeah, they have kind
of really kind of mastered this obviously, because they just
he's not getting caught as they're doing it. Yeah. And last,
but not least, Stefan never ever sells the artwork he steals. Ever,
that's not just how most thieves get caught, but to Sefan,

(59:18):
it goes completely against the whole point of stealing art.
He wants to have it so he can look at
it so.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
As someone as collects dumb old stuff, because it makes
me happy to look at my collection of Ray Radbury
books from the fucking seventies or whatever, Like I sure
I get that.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Hell yeah, yeah, any little thing I see, whether it's
like at a vintage store or in a thrift store,
or like at a yard sale. Yeah, if it actually
reminds you of something from your childhood, that matters to you, Right,
that's an antique, that's a treasure.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Or brings you a little bit of joy every time
you look at it.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Yeah, that's the point.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Yeah, my shit just cost ten dollars. It's not in
a fucking museum.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Yeah, but it should be, and shouldn't it be? Okay,
So sticking to these strategies pays off so well that
Stefan starts stealing more and more, and by February of
nineteen ninety seven, he steals a ten inch tall, four
hundred year old ivory statuette of Adam and Eve, ironically

(01:00:25):
the perfect symbol for his inability to resist temptation, and
he steals it from the Reuben's House museum in Antwerp, Belgium.
So the next weekend they head over to Zurich for
an art fair and Stefan steals a silver and gold
sixteenth century goblet. Wow, he has pretty fancy taste. So
soon after that he's never like, ooh, this matchbook, I

(01:00:48):
swear to God. The way Steffan feels about like sixteenth
century goblets is honestly how I feel about a nicely
designed match book at the front of a restaurant when
you're leaving.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Karen, how am I just figuring this out or finding
this out?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
I feel like I'm just finding this out through the
self discovery podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Allow you love a matchbook, it doesn't have to be old.
It's just like when you're leaving a restaurant. Do you
like it better when they're in the little box that
you can take out a single match rather than a matchbook? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Well, it feels like I don't see match books as
much as the boxes anymore, and it feels like people,
I have this a match box from the restaurant kismet.
Oh yeah, it's a beautiful little design, so it's like
you have a tiny piece of art. Okay, But then
if you want to light a candle, look no further.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Every time I see a bowl of those, I go Georgia,
you don't need more matches, because I always end up
just throwing away matches at the bottom of my purse
because I needed them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
But then doesn't your little baby hand go grab too anyway?
Because it's free.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I'm like, you don't need them, stop it, you don't
need them, But now I'm gonna do you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
You do need them, Okay. So after he steals the goblet,
he goes to the art fair and Holland he swipes
two more items from two different booths. One he steals
a sixteen to twenty painting of some swans in a lake.
I would love to look at that. That would be
kind of great, I mean, god, he steals that while
the booth vendor eats his lunch. Then he goes over

(01:02:13):
and finds a seventeenth century painting of the sea, and
he steals that right out from under that vendor's nose.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
I don't love stealing from individual people who probably aren't
and hopefully are insured, but maybe not, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Right, Yeah, because it's not a museum. It's not like
this was donated by this billionaire.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Yeah, and it's fucking insured up the butt, you know, right?

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
So yeah? And also yeah, because now we're just getting
into straight up shoplifting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Stuff, you like, right exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
But I think it this like these habits that's like
an art fair, such up close and personal places. It's
just his daring is increasing with his success because he's
just not getting caught, so he thinks he can do it.
The couple take a break for a few weeks before
they had to beld, which is Stefan's favorite place to
steal art. He says that the city attracts him like

(01:03:05):
a lover, and so they're in Belgium, he steals a
still life painting by Yon van Kessel the Elder, one
of your favorite painters Georgia.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Then they head off to Paris to steal Renaissance paintings.
They commit a small heist in Holland and two more
in Belgium. It's a spree at this point, and each
time they steal, Stefan and on Catarine make a clean getaway,
but the missing artwork doesn't go unnoticed. Of course, every
theft is reported to police attempt to piece together the

(01:03:41):
puzzle of who is stealing from museums and how. The
sheer volume of these thefts suggest to police that either
one of two things is going on. The cases are
unrelated and just basically art theft crimes are trending upward
right now, or there's a large organized network of thieves
who are working together to hoist it up from museums.

(01:04:03):
That's all they can imagine, which is kind of reasonable
because it doesn't make sense why these two people can
just walk into museums and steal over and over.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Also, they must have some money if they're traveling like that, right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
She's like a nurse's aid, So he gets money from
his mother. She brings the paycheck into the relationship. He
does not work. He literally sits in their apartment and
looks at his art. Okay, well, uh huh okay. So
as police gather witness testimonies, they ask witnesses to describe
anyone suspicious that they saw on the day of the

(01:04:37):
theft in either the museum or art fair wherever they are,
and as they do this, they start to realize no
one is sure about who or what they saw. The
descriptions of potential witnesses provide basically rough sketches at best,
and at one point police find video footage from a
French museum that captures Steffan in the act of stealing,

(01:04:58):
but the video is so grainy that it does not
help them make an actual identification. At one point, police
do suspect that it's a male and female couple working together,
but for some reason they guess that the couple's age
is much older than the two, so nothing comes of it.
They get no leads out of that. And this whole time,

(01:05:19):
the police in all these jurisdictions are relying on London's
Art Loss Register, which is the biggest, most reliable database
for stolen art from all across the world. And according
to the register, over ninety nine percent of art thieves
steal with the intent to sell and make money, right,
which it's like slightly less than one hundred percent, So
it's like, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
That rather one percent like gives it away as gifts.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Probably, yeah, that's the people with the robin Hood complexes
who are just trying to impress Jesus. So the police
keep their eyes on the art market, waiting to see
if any of these many stolen pieces come up, and
they never do, so it's like they just they have
nowhere to go. So meanwhile, upstairs at his mother's house,

(01:06:05):
Stefan and an Catherine share the small attic apartment and
it's of course a very small and modest space for
them to live in, but the decor is not. I'm
sure they're lining every inch of the walls are stolen
masterpieces heisted from museums all over Europe. So on this,

(01:06:25):
while over here there's Dutch master Adrian von Oustad, and
France's Francois Bouchet and Germany's Albrechduur. All of these names
would super impress art students and people who work at museums.
The shelves are stacked with goblets, platters, vases, and more,
all of them made usually out of precious metals. Closets

(01:06:48):
are filled with antique weapons and instruments and books. Items
like gilded tea sets and Napoleon's old gold snuff box
are piling up on the furniture. He's fucking he took
a tea set out of a museum.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
This is like bigger than like, this is bigger than that.
This is some like kleptomania.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, it's bigger than art appreciation. Yeah yeah, yes, agreed. No,
I bet it's now a bit of an addiction. It's
like an adrenaline addiction. It's like it's kind of sexy.
It's do you dare me? Can I do this? I'm
not who you think I am. It's I mean, it
is it is sexy. You can't deny it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Who's he played by? Though? Well, Daniel, what's his name?
Who is double O seven ones?

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
My picturing is Wesley from a Princess Bride?

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Oh? Carry always yeah, but yes, that's a really good
one because he's like kind of dreamy, romantic, but he
also is like are you evil?

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Right? I also know a limerick or two. I don't
know why I keep going back to it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
Okay, there was a young lady from something that rhymes
with cunt. That's basically every every limerick. But you were saying,
your suggestion is Daniel Craig for this for Stephan's part?

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
No, but it was Princess Bride?

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Oh, Carrie Elwis, is you want that one? Yeah, Carrie Elwis,
is your suggestion for this casting? Here's mine? And I
don't know. This is a British actor. His name is
Ben Wishaw. He's the voice of Paddington and he's been
in a million things. Oh wait, I'll show you a pictures,
show me a pick I'm a brunette. Yes, and he's
very very tall and skinny.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
Yeah, I could. He could sneak out of the museum,
very sensitive.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Yeah, he would totally wear like a long trench coat,
and you wouldn't go, why is that guy wearing a
long trench coat? You'd be like, was he born in
that trench coat?

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
He just has the look on his face.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
He's one of those people where it's mysterious.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
I love Vermere so much, I'm gonna risk it all.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Like if he apologized to you, you'd be like, Okay,
that's fine, I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
So let's steal some more. What's his name, that's Ben Wishaw. Okay,
I'm gonna really quickly re recommend his TV show from
twenty twenty two. It's called This Is Going to Hurt,
and he plays an emergency room doctor that's training residents,
and it's so good. It's really incredible, kind of realistic,

(01:09:24):
like a very smart, funny, sad kind of emergency room
drama from England. I'm in Okay, let's get back to
true crime. So he's got all this shit in his
attic apartment at his mom's house, and concluding Napoleon's old

(01:09:44):
gold snuff box, he starts to call it or he
describes it as his Alibaba's cave. So it's just filled
with treasure the total value of these stolen goods is
well into the millions, and in a short amount of
time it climbs into the billions.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
That's a big leap, yeah, right there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
The most valuable item in his collection is a painting
by one Lucas Cranaw the Elder, called Sybelle Princess of Cleaves,
and that painting is worth an estimated five million pounds
over six million US dollars in nineteen ninety seven, which
would be how many US dollars in today's money?

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Okay, six million US dollars in nineteen seven ninety seven
today one point two billion.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Oh no, it's only eleven million. Oh ew, sorry sorry,
how low that number is.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
I don't really know how numbers works, like beyond you
know what, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Neither does Stefan. You, both of you, you don't care.
You're not about that. You're not about monetary value. That's
for the great unwashed. You and him are more interested
in the artist biographies, their mentors, their inspirations, they're techniques,
their styles. So after Steffan steals a piece, he spends
hours researching it's background. He's also big into research himself.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
With no Internet, probably so that's kind of like, right,
it's late nineties.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
He reads books. Imagine, he goes into the background, he
familiarizes himself with the work in its historical context. He's
clearly unemployed, so he has the time to do all
of this. Whether it's his motivation for stealing, or the
way he justifies his stealing, or both. Stefan is genuinely

(01:11:35):
passionate about art. His mother, Maray, meanwhile, has no idea
what is going on just above her head in her
own house. The couple leaves their at a apartment locked,
they do not have visitors, and Maray does not go
upstairs every night when the three of them eat dinner together.
MraY is totally oblivious to the fact that just in

(01:11:58):
this second level of her own house there are what
will end up being billions of dollars worth of stolen
art piling up. Jesus so as successful a thief as
as Stefan as Ben, he has had some close calls.
The first one had nothing to do with actual theft.
It happens afterwards when they're walking back to their car
and they find a cop writing them a ticket, and

(01:12:21):
instead of his old rule of laying low and being
low key. He actually argues with the police officer and
he ends up talking his way out of this ticket,
all while carrying pieces of a sixteenth century would an
altarpiece in his waistband under his jacket.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
So brazen? Is he getting brazen? Is he getting confident?
Is he turning into a different person like Jim Carrey's
the mask. That's what it seems like. And he's also
a dude in his early twenties. That's just fucking getting
away with crimes, so he obviously feels immortal.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
It's like audacity on tap? Is what's happening now?

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
Yeah, it's that entitlement issue that you mentioned earlier. It's
become big now he's arguing with cops with stolen shit
in his pants. The second close call is far more threatening.
They're on a visit to an art gallery in Lucerne,
Switzerland in nineteen ninety seven, and the two are disappointed
to find they are the only people in this art gallery. So,

(01:13:21):
of course, on Katherine begs to Fawn not to steal
anything that day. They're far too exposed. Plus there is
a police station directly across the street. But what am
I about to tell you? Right? Now he did it anyway, yep,
because he knows best and he can't help it. So
he swipes a painting by Dutch painter Willem van alst Ailst,

(01:13:44):
but it's too warm outside for him to be wearing
a jacket, so he simply tucks the painting under his
arm and starts to walk out of the museum.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Bro Let one go.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Well, it's like, are we at the tipping point where
you can't handle this anymore? You can't handle your own success,
can't actually handle this much power. It is intoxicating and
now you're just high on your own supply.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Yeah, and she doesn't trust you anymore, and like.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
That's yeah, you're not being a team player. If she
doesn't get to have any input about when you should
or shouldn't do something, then fuck you. You're like on
your own. You will get no small cough from me, sir.
But for the first time in his art heist career,
an art gallery actually stops him because he has a
painting under his arm walking out, and that gallery worker

(01:14:30):
drags the couple across the street to the police station.
They're held questioned, fingerprinted. They both spend the night in jail,
but the next day, they actually somehow convince the cops
that this was their first time stealing anything and that
they will never do it again. They walk away with
a slap on the wrist.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
What for stealing from an art gallery?

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
Yeah, and also stealing like an old you know, if
it's a Dutch painter that's in a museum, that's an
important painting.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
You didn't still fucking maybolene lip tint, you know, like
Georgia did, like I did when I was a juvenile delinquent. Yeah,
it's it's different. It's a different class.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Yeah, it's different. And the reason here's how you know
it's different. You're high as a kite doing it. That's
the diffen me or him? Oh I meant him, but
whoever it applies to. Yeah, I want to include everybody. However,
you get your stealing high. So they get out of
you know, they know they lucked out. So on their

(01:15:31):
ride home, they promise each other they will never steal
in Switzerland ever again. Come right. They can't quit cold
Turkey at this point. So it's around this time that
the relationship begins to deteriorate as she approaches her thirties.
On Cattaruen's priorities start to shift. She wants, obviously, to

(01:15:52):
socialize more. She wants to start a family. She would
like to pursue something greater in life than stealing, and
any of those things would be difficult to do with
the way that they have to live, because they're actually
on the run and hiding from the law basically. But
whereas she feels stifled, he feels invincible. He's gotten away
with so much theft that it's hard for him not

(01:16:14):
to see himself as superhuman. Of course, so the two
fight more and more, and Stefan st just decides to
strike out on his own, so he starts doing larger
heists alone, including literally lifting one hundred and fifty pound
wooden carving of the Madonna and Child from a local
church in broad daylight esus.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Literally, he doesn't give a fuck at this point, and
men who think they're invincible are dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
Yeah, especially around art. But the only thing keeping him
safe is the lack of witnesses in this situation, which
was just pure chance on Catarine wants the thieving to stop,
but the best she can get out of him is
a promise that he will wear surgical gloves while he's
so he doesn't leave fingerprints, but she has to steal

(01:17:03):
them from her work so that to give them to
him so that he'll wear them. So it's great. It's
a great situation. They had never worried before about leaving
fingerprints because they'd never been arrested before, so now that
they were actually in the system, they would be able
to be found if they were to be arrested again.
Of course, Stefan can't keep this promise. On November nineteenth,

(01:17:26):
two thousand and one, he comes back from a thieving
trip at the Richard Wagner Museum near Lucerne, Switzerland, where
they promised not to steal anymore, and he comes back
with the sixteenth century bugle horn, but they already but
they already have one.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
What the fuck?

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
So on Catherine's pist because she's like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
You didn't even need this one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
You're now doubling up on sixteenth century bugles.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
You're not starting a ska band. You need to like
show stop it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Also, yeah, you're got you've gone far past loving art. Also,
he didn't wear the gloves, so there's no way his
fingerprints weren't left on the display case where he stole
this from So the next day, which is November twentieth,
two thousand and one, the two of them drive back
out to the Richard Wagner I bet it's Richard Wagner Museum.

(01:18:20):
But I'm saying Wagner to go erase those fingerprints, which
I bet you was like a final straw argument that
she made him do, right, because the plan was that
she's going to go in alone and wipe away the
fingerprints with a rag and some rubbing alcohol because he
would be recognized since he was there alone the day

(01:18:40):
that the thing went missing.

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
Oh honey.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
She begs him to wait in the car. Of course
he refuses, insisting that he's going to walk around the grounds.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Oh dude.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
But what he does, like a weird addict, is she
goes in to clean up, and he stands outside and
watches her cleanup through a window. But a man walking
his dog sees this dude staring into the museum window
and goes, that's weird, and so he goes inside to
tell an employee he thinks there's some strange behavior going

(01:19:11):
on outside. Yes, thank you, sir, oh, because guess what
this sir is a journalist who has recently himself read
about the stolen sixteenth century bugle. He's like, and this
is where it was stolen from, and here's this guy
acting weird. I'm going in omniintell amazing, So finally a hero.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
Never mind your own business, just fucking.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Yeah, exactly, get in there. Well, especially if you're a journalist,
it's your job to not mind your own business, so
you can handle it. He can handle the power unbroknownst
to Stefan. Now the man is inside the museum telling
the workers and security or whatever about this suspicious behavior.
An employee looks out the window recognizes Steffan from the
day before. Not only did he fail to use gloves

(01:19:55):
when he stole the bugle, but he stole it when
he was one of three people in the museum that day.
All the old rules are out the window with this
guy at this point. So on Caterine overhears these two
men talking about Stefan looking through the window and acting weird,
and hey, wasn't yesterday the day that the bugle was stolen.
She panics. She walks out of the museum at much

(01:20:17):
faster paced than she normally would. She's trying to get
out there and warn him. But as she walks outside.
A police car pulls up behind Stefan and they place
him under arrest. She though was smart enough and please
keep this in mind for your all of your future
heists and endeavors. She had the car keys. So he

(01:20:39):
gets arrested and she basically melts into the background, turns around,
gets into the car and drives home, and she's like,
and that's that for me. Stefan's arrested. He is now
in custody and he tells police this is just a
one time theft. He doesn't have a lot of money
and he just wanted to get his mother a nice
gift for Christmas, so he stole her a sixteenth century

(01:21:01):
bugle horn, of course. But the problem is the police
run his prints, they find he's been arrested for stealing
art once before, and of course they start to wonder
how many times he's actually stolen from museums in Switzerland
or anywhere for that matter. So Stefan remains in a
Swiss jail cell for the next few weeks while the

(01:21:21):
Swiss police obtain an international search warrant so that they
can go search his mother's house dear By mid December,
the Swiss and French police knock on Arii's door. They
hand her the international search warrant. She lets them inside.
They climb the stairs up to the attic apartment, but
when they unlock the door, there's nothing inside.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
Oo girl fucking headship.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
The paintings, books, statues, weapons, goblets, bugle horns, double bugle
horns all gone. The police are absolutely stumped. Now maybe
they think Stefan's telling the truth. He really is just
a small time thief. But then a few days later,
a passer by is going on a walk along a
remote section of the Roan Rhine Canal, which is near Mulhouse, France,

(01:22:08):
and that passerby spots something shimmering in the water. How
excited I would be so excited?

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
What's that shimmering?

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
So he grabs a rake, he digs the object out
and it is a gold chalice.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Come on, mud larker, like the best moment of your
own life.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
This is a dream moment. This man or woman I
think it's a man got to have is like is
this the holy Grail here in the Rhone Rhine. So
he keeps digging, and the more he keeps digging in
this canal, the more treasure turns up. He finds a
jeweled dagger, he finds silver platters, he finds all kinds

(01:22:45):
of stuff. He reports to the police. They get out there,
They dredge the canal and a slew of stolen museum
pieces are found from all across Europe.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
She's just fucking you that into the water.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
Yes, and the police photograph everything that they find in
the canal. They returned to Stefan's jail cell in early
January two thousand and two, and they show him a
picture of a medal he once stole, telling him they
know he stole it and that if he confesses, they
will let him go. Stefan at this point, of course,
he's been interrogated for hours, he's been in jail for weeks.

(01:23:24):
He's completely broken from his time behind bars. This is
not a kind of life that he can live in
any way. So it doesn't take long for him to confess.
With each photo that they put down of each stolen item,
he confesses to his crimes. But then he notices in
one of the pictures that there's rust on one of
the items, and he asks the officers what happened. They

(01:23:47):
tell him the items were recovered from the canal, and
then he pieces together basically what must have happened. So
the exact details can't be confirmed, but Stefan believes that
things must have gone like after his arrest on Cataron
drove straight to his mother's house. She spilled all the
secrets about stealing the art to his mother, So Maria

(01:24:10):
understandably angry and disappointed. Still, she doesn't want to see
her son go to prison for theft, so in an
effort to save him, she gathers up everything up in
that apartment, artwork, chalices, crossbows, everything, and she destroys as
much of it as she can. No, no priceless paintings,

(01:24:32):
centuries old artworks, one of the kind items that can
never be duplicated, are shredded and set on fire. Honey,
that's the problem with boy moms go They just go crazy.
They love those boys so much extreme.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
They make extreme decisions because they have extreme people.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Hashtag what are you even doing right now? Burning that
vermire in the name of your lazy son?

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:25:03):
Yeah, it's tough. It was this part of the story
that made me realize how much I care about art,
because I was.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
Like, wait, what, it's so sad it's the best part
of the story that makes me just sure that I
don't want kids. Oh god, can you imagine.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
You're standing around at bonfire of the most important historical
items where you're like, shitty, did it again?

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
What's the solution here? You know what?

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
You know what? Yeah, that's right, you're on restriction. Okay,
So but she can't destroy everything, so she takes everything
that she can't burn or shred or whatever and throws
it into the canal. So that's why it's all the
things that are made of metal and you know, insanely priceless,
beautiful things. It's clear that Stefan is going down for

(01:25:55):
his crimes. He is so preoccupied with the loss of
his art collect that he doesn't care about his impending punishment.
Police divers are actually able to save most of the
art that's dumped in the canal, although most of it
does have water damage. Although you know art that's survived
for like fifteen hundred years, it's like, that's okay, yeah,

(01:26:17):
it's made so well, it's doing good. Gives a character,
I mean, it's been through something. Aside from the work
stumped in the canal, there are at least sixty other pieces,
mostly paintings that are never recovered. Oh my god, they're
all presumed destroyed. Stefan is so devastated by the loss
of the art that he actually attempts to kill himself

(01:26:40):
and is put on suicide watch. So it's not like
put on personality thing. This is a truth about him
as a person. This is he truly did it all
for the love of the art and to have the art.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
But it's also his fault that they are all now destroyed.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Yeah that's tough. That's irony, baby, Yeah it is. So
he is first tried in Switzerland, where he's found guilty,
then he's extradited to France where he's found guilty again.
He spends two years in prison in each country, for
a total of four years. He's released in two thousand
and five at the age of thirty three.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
I know it's all he got.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Yeah, well yeah, So Mariah admits to destroying the stolen art,
although she claims she had no idea what it was worth. Okay,
but here's the thing. I know what she's saying, right,
and she couldn't have truly known the exact number. But
when you're standing in front of a Dutch Master's painting. Yeah,
you can see the value. That's what art is is like,

(01:27:39):
you can see it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
If you lit it on the fire to hide the
fact that he stole it. It means you know that
it was you know it was you A big deal. Yeah, totally.
It's not just like, oh shit, this stuff from Ikea,
I better light it on fire, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
Yeah. No, although I'd never light that three horse painting
on fire from Mikia. So for her part in the
destruction of the art, Mariah gets a three year sentence,
but she serves eighteen months. Wow, but she gets almost
as long as the person was. Yeah, which is hey,
let's take a look at that. Franz On Catarinne gets lucky.

(01:28:20):
She spends one night in jail, but as Steffan's accomplice,
he never and this is also very beautiful. I think
for this story, he never implicates her in any of
these crimes during the trials. He takes all the blame
on himself, and it's only after the trials are over
that he reveals or that he claims that she was

(01:28:41):
his lookout, so she never busts her.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
I mean, the bar is so low for men these days.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
He didn't testify against me. You guys, I'm going to
text him. I think I'm just going to text him
and see if he testified against him, and then I'm
gonna call it from there when all is said and done.
Stefan Brightweezer has stolen roughly three hundred works of art
from two hundred different museums between nineteen ninety four and

(01:29:09):
two thousand and one. The total value of everything he's
stolen during this time is estimated to be between one
point five and one point nine billion USDs.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
One of the conditions of his release in two thousand
and five is that he is not allowed to enter
a museum or an art gallery ever again. How do
you enforce it? It's impossible. That's the good faith.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
Is picture up in the back.

Speaker 2 (01:29:35):
Like you bounced to check?

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
Yeah? Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
So he goes by this guideline. He listens for a
little while, but not only does he go back to
visiting museums, he gets right back to stealing art the
first time he lays eyes on something that he loves.
It starts with a theft from an art gallery in Belgium.
It ends with a twenty eleven pl lease raid on
his home once again, resulting in the recovery of thirty

(01:30:04):
stolen pieces of art. He has put on trial again,
and in twenty thirteen he's given a three year sentence.
He's released in twenty sixteen. He's promptly put up back
on police radar when they find him trying to sell
a stolen antique paperweight on eBay. So now he's actually
selling it, So the police keep tabs on him until

(01:30:25):
they have enough evidence to issue another raid on his home.
This time they find Roman coins stolen from an archaeology
museum and one hundred and sixty three thousand euros stashed
in buckets. Wow, the perfect place to put euros. He's
arrested again in February twenty nineteen. He's tried in March
of twenty twenty three. Hey last month.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
Hi, Nope, this is twenty twenty four right now where
we're in.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
I'm so sorry he's trying. That's horrible news. God damn it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
He's a year ago.

Speaker 2 (01:30:59):
No, No, got this, keep going the conviction in my
voice the way said, I want to believe that, I know,
I want to know that I believe you better in
all hundredth fuck, He's tried in March twenty three, and
he's currently on house arrest. So while Stefan's in prison,
he writes a memoir detailing these steps from nineteen ninety

(01:31:21):
four to two thousand and one, and also journalist Michael
Finkel writes a more comprehensive biography of Steffan's life entitled
The Art Thief. Finkel's book takes a more objective viewpoint
on Stefan's life. Both books make his motivations clear to
hold beauty in the palm of his hand and to
be what Steffan remembers fondly as feeling like, quote the

(01:31:43):
master of the world. Yeah, it's so weird to think
that you deserve to feel that way by stealing other
people's shit. And that is the story of art Thief
Stefan Brightwezer.

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
Wow at it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:59):
Yeah, epic tale, an epic tale that when it was
pitched to me and I feel like, Alejandra, did you
find this one?

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
I found this one, good one. Just a congratulations because
it was like art heist and I was like, well,
we kind of know how art heists go, right, It's
like three big paintings and all hundred's like yes, you
wait it's.

Speaker 1 (01:32:21):
Almost like he was a shoplifter, not a heister. Yes,
you know. And it's also like he took it so
he could see it all the time. But it's like, friend,
you could go to the museum and see it every
day if you wanted to. But for some reason, owning it,
you know, was like the wast part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:40):
Its status, it's excitement, and it is kind of like
it's like saying, this is supposed to be mine, so
I make it so it is mine.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
I will appreciate this more than anyone else, so I
refuse to let anyone else see it, I mean, or
just mine. It's like that, Yeah, nine, mine mine nine,
it's me on TikTok shop mine. Wow, great fucking job.

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
Thank you amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
What were you doing? Were you art heisting while you
were listening to this.

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
Let us know if you are shoplifting while you're listening
to this podcast. George and I would both like you
to know. We joke a lot, but like, be careful,
don't get in trouble for something dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
Not worth it, not worth it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
It's way worse for you than it is for like
whatever little plan you think you're Yeah, you're better off
without it. This is not convincing. I'm not convincing myself
as I'm trying to give this talk. That's what's said.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
Should we do one each to one last? Where was I?
And then oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll start this trend.
We can do Yes, where was I? When I was listening?
What are you even doing right now?

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
What are you even doing right now?

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
At the end of every episode on the first yeah,
I guess when we were talking about, like, what do
you do when you listen to this podcast? I said,
maybe you're painting your nails? And someone wrote in I
just listened to episode four twenty three and dropped my
nail polish when Georgia said we were painting our nails
while listening, and the title is I spilled my nail polish.

(01:34:10):
Georgia love you ladies? No name?

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
Oh sorry, we'll call them nail polish Jones. Here's the
one I have high team forever listener and not first
time writer. You just asked, what the hell are we
doing while listening? You promise not to snitch, but I'm
okay if you share. I was assembling an Ikea bed
with my infant napping in the next room. I like
playing with fire kind regards Christa christa boy mom.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
This is and Iikeia. I don't know she's a woywoman.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
But here's what I love. This is such a reverse
lens backwards, Like when you guys listen to this podcast,
you're picturing us talking to each other. Yeah, but now
we get to picture you listening.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:34:57):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
I do too. Please let us know what you're even
I'm doing right now.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
I was going to try to fold this right into
a please stay sexy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
Oh well we should, because this has been two fucking hours, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
Two two twenty two, and stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
Boybeye, Elvis, do you want to cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scualace.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
Our researchers are Maren mcclashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
Email your hometowns to my Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder. Byebye,