430 - Here's Your Reward

This week, Georgia covers the murders of Curtis and Marjorie Chillingworth and Karen tells the story of Victorian era artist Richard Dadd.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hertstark.
That's Karen Kilgarriff, and.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
We're about to podcast for you.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's happening. You're in it. We're in it, We're in
it together.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Are you nervous at all? Georgia?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Me always a little sweat a little sweaty, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Just a standing anxiety.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Before we went on stage once you said to me,
anxiety and excitement feel the same, and it kind of
is the same. So whenever that happens now and I
get what I think is like a nervous it's like this,
pretend it's excitement instead, and it works.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
It works.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, someone that's an old trick, someone taught me. But
they'll also it was like if only it was that
easy all the time. Like the other day, I was
having a bad day quote unquote, and I got home
and I was like, man, and I was kind of like,
should I put everything down and cry, sit on the
couch and cry like a weirdo? Should I do this?
Should I do that? And then I was like, when's

(01:17):
the last time I ate protein? And that again, always.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's AGAs protein, it's their protein, or you're tired.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, but it's like if there's there was someone and
I'm sure it was like probably my therapist or someonehere.
It's like there's a couple of little emergency steps that
you should have if you're in one of those pockets
where you're like, there are steps you can take that
because you're just always assuming well, everything's normal, and yet
I'm being so weird and it's like, no, what if
everything's not normal? What what if you didn't eat breakfast

(01:50):
or lunch and now you think the world is undering?

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, it's called there's an acronym and everyone's yelling at
his listening right now. It's like, you know, Dad's like
did you eat? And what about sleep? I'm making this
one up, but like it's one of those things where
it's like food.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Rest, sad? Are you sad? Are you just sad?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Or are you sad? Did your dad abandon you? Is
your dad in an asshole?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
But it's Dad's Dad's yay. Speaking of therapy, since we're
already on the subject, I have I'm listening to a
book as I fall asleep at night lately because it's
really calming. My sister recommended it. It's called The Power
of Now by Eckhart Toll. It's like a famous classic
self help book. I'm really trying to use it my
everyday life. It's essentially like, be here now, right now

(02:33):
is the only thing that actually exists. So everything else
that you're manifesting or remembering or worrying about doesn't exist,
and you have to and you have an out. That's it,
you know what I mean? Like essentially right, Like, yes,
it's a long book, so it's more than that. But
what I'm trying to do it be here now.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
And are you listening to it? Can you hear him talking?
Because he has a great voice for relaxation.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Beautiful relaxing voice. I'm following asleep to it. So the
stuff that I do here resonates. The stuff that I
don't hear is hopefully still getting into those juicy It's
way in there, gray matter.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
The juicy is part of your brain.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I say juicy because because you love this wetpants.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yes that's me, my therapist.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
We have laughed from the beginning about how she uses
the word juicy to describe like good feelings, those good
juicy feelings, you know, And I just think it's the
most disgusting thing I've ever heard, and I've told her so. Anyways,
today I was talking to her in therapy and she
just said this one thing to me that I was like, oh,
I have to write that down. It was you don't
need to borrow worry from the future. Mmmmm, Like that

(03:39):
hit me so hard. I know. It's like saying that
the way she said it was so casual. Yeap, like
it's still going to be there and you can have
You have it right now.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
You don't need more.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
You don't need to take it from them, because it'll
be there when you need it.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Don't go looking for It's when my sister said, not
my monkey's not my circus, yes, which is I think
a holish saying or it's a cultural saying, but I
can't remember who said it. But that one's a great one.
That's where it's just like you can't always you just
have to put it down sometimes.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
That one.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
How about put out the fire instead of chasing the
arsonist or something like that.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh yeah, you know, that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
That's not right, But it's like something like that where
it's like, why are you chasing the arsonists while your
house is burning down? Yeah, I don't really get that
right now, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
It resonates with someone you know, absolutely, No, No, I
think it makes sense. I think all of anything that
somebody came up with in good faith, because you know,
the first step was they were trying to do something
for their own personal like insanity, and so it often
makes sense because you're like, oh, it's usually coming from
a person that's like, hey, I've been there, dark Knight

(04:47):
of the Soul. Yeah, but apparently Eckart Tole whatever's name is,
sat on a public bench for like three years, like
he just dipped from society and was like I am
now going to have this trip out thing of actually practicing.
I think it's like radical presence or something.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Makes sense.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, And it goes along too with a thing I
have trouble with, which is feeling my feelings the.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Worst, So like, yeah, it sucks.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
It's like can I intellectualize them away? I'd rather fucking
do that.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
But yes, feeling feelings is disgusting.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
It is it's hard, and it's stupid, and it feels
bad and it's like dangerous for some people in certain circumstances,
or it feels dangerous, you know, feels dangerous feels dangerous,
so yeah, but that's if I feel them now, then
I don't have to deal with their fucking aftermath.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Later, right, And usually it's like this is definitely a
TikTok I saw where it's like the average feeling it
lasts ninety seconds. So if you literally just sit there
and wait it out, you just don't give it any
more or less. But you just kind of go, yeah,
we'll let it be here and not do anything about it.
It won't go on for more than like two minutes.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Mine last fifteen years, like minimum.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh shit, I'm sorry. You have a different kind.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
No, I mean like I hold them, don't let it out.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
For fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
And then it's like, oh that's you going like I
don't cry.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
I don't don't cry.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I don't cry. All right, Well, I got new lipliners,
so that's my Ilia is now making a crayon large
sized lipliner, which is my favorite.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I love those, right, Yeah, extreme accuracy with those fucking things.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, Like, I need to be able to put on
lipstick in the car, so can you please not give
me an old fashioned tube of lipstick? It's something that
I'm gonna be able to put in the right spot.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
I don't own a lipstick that I can't put on bline,
you know what I mean, Like, yeah, because then I'll
look ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, I can't do two step stuff anymore.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
I just pictured my mom after, like we're at a
nice restaurant and she takes out her compact and takes
out her lips. You know, It's just it's such a
Janet Nordstrum beauty section in the eighties. Ease mom, move
of that at the table, which is fine. I don't care,
but it's like that her hooting on perfectly triggers me.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Can't do it. I mean for sure. This reminds me
of some of our earliest conversations where it's like moms
and lipstick. For if you had moms of a certain age,
lipstick was as important as like health insurance to a
lot of those people. It's just like, I can't put
on a You should put on some lipstick, sweetheart, you look.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Like you look dead. I have a show, and that's it.
What do you have?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Let's do it?

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Okay, I bet you've watched it or you're gonna say
I'm about to watch it. It's called Bodkim on Netflix.
I started it. Yeah, it's really good. I just we
finished it last night.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
M you liked the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
It ended in a.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Way that was clear they were making room for season two,
so it didn't answer some things, which kind of annoyed me.
But it stars Will Forte and then Chavn Cullen, Robin Kara,
and then David Wilmot, who's like the redheaded Irish guy
you've seen in anything everything ever, who like looks so
fucking great with a beard musa. But it's a he's

(08:06):
a true Will Forte is a true crime podcaster.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, who goes to Ireland a small tennant Ireland is
to like try to solve this disappearance.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's essentially what it's about. But it it's fucking cool.
Oh good.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Will Forte is truly one of my favorite performers just
in general again acting a very compelling actor, but of
course truly one of the funniest people and in real life,
happy to tell you, one of the kindest. I don't
know him well, but every time I've ever been somewhere,
he's like completely been like, Hi, how are you, what's
going on? Like the real deal type of guy.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, then's made a joke about that he should have
done the whole show as mcgroober, and that would have
just like sent into a different fucking level. It's just
mcgroober meets It does remind me of bad Sisters, like
the Dark Humor solving a murder fast forward or you
know past issues who done it kind of a thing

(09:00):
which was such a cool shot.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
So yeah, I love it. It's good. It's really good.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, I'm definitely gonna watch it. My aunt Mary the
Nun actually recommended Bodkinta. Here is Irish nuns in it, right.
She loves anything that reflects her world.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
She liked it. Yo.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, they were bad guys. The nuns are bad guys
in it though.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah. I think she's aware of that. She's aware of
that reality. Okay, cool, Yeah, Lipliner, that's my only wreck.
That's your recommendation, Iliah Lipliner. But don't buy too many
so that I can't have.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Them because they're all going to go to stock now,
Oh my good.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Now you're such an influencer't okay.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Let's influence people to listen to all the other shows
on our network. What do you think?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, we have some fun stuff coming up you guys,
that we're going to tease and tell you about and
then not totally tell you about.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's right. I mean, for example, on this podcast will
Kill You, this week, Aaron and Aaron are doing an
episode all about maggots and their role in medicine. So
you might want to listen to that. If that's the
kind of thing you can stomach. I absolutely to listen
to it.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
I get so much joy hearing what they're talking about
every week because it's like, yes, I didn't know if
fucking wanted to hear about that, right, amazing. And this week,
comedian Johnny Pemberton, Oh my god, he's so funny, joins
Bridger on I said no gifts. Curly Velaskez is Ross's
guest on Ghosted, and there's a lady's only episode of
Lady to Lady.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Met then the ladies you can't sing Karen okay? Are
you following my favorite murder on Instagram and TikTok please
do so? Because we started making videos we think you're
going to like them. If you like our show, you
might like them. For example, every Saturday, you'll either get
an episode of Sinkle Saturdays with Me or get Ready

(10:46):
with Cookie and Georgia, where Georgia's dog picks out outfits
with her.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
I feel like we picked like they were like, you
guys have to do more, and we're like, okay, fine,
we'll do more, but it has to be things we're into.
And it's like, okay, fine, how about sinkhole vintage clothing.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
You're like okay, fine, fine, And then.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
It's really, I'm really happy with boy. Our things turned out.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
So I'm really happy. Although my niece Nora retweeted one
of my own sinkhole Saturdays into my feed, and so
I was in my little fantasy world of TikTok and
all of a sudden, I was looking at myself making
a sinkhole Saturday.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
I was like, no, no, no, it's like putting on
a It's like accidentally turning the camera on and it's
on selfie mode.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Oh yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
And in episode four twenty two, back in April, we
had a conversation about tote bags, which inspired our newest
line of March. Remember we were like, we're tote bag people.
Mardarina's were boat bag people. So now there's a t shirt,
tank talk and tote bag that reads my favorite murder
in the style of the traditional thank you bags you
get with takeout. So go to exactly wrightstore dot com

(11:52):
because I think this is my favorite new march we
have up.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
It's really cool. It was such a good idea. Was
it Aaron Brown's idea? Because she probably Man, she's good.
But yeah, that's it's a real you'll see it. You'll
recognize the design one.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, you know it's a good one. Oh.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Last thing for the loyal listeners, would you please go
over to Apple podcast and give us a review. I
know we've asked you before. Yeah, but if you've never
thought to do it, it's right there in your podcast app.
It's near you right now. You just look down and
hit as many stars as you think. This incredibly compelling
first fifteen minutes was for you. Oh you go first

(12:33):
this week?

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Okay, I'm first, as you just said, with a fucking
pretty wild story, especially one of those that you're like,
how have I never heard that?

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Can I really quick ask you a question before you start?

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Are you wearing a scarf?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
I'm wearing a scarf and glasses that don't work. I
got a lot of injections today.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
I'm so sorry. I was just like, I'm so hot
right now, and I'm like, she is she wearing a scarf?

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah? I got some injections in my face today and
I'm trying to be so I'm dressing like Carmen san
Diego to try to hide my my all the things.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Look at this.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Sorry, I I somehow have this sense of what exactly
not to ask about. I just was like, is that
a scarf? What's going on?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't mind that question.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
I was so scared when you were like slowing down,
like you know, I don't have any secrets, and then
you're like.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Can I ask you a question like, oh no, no,
how about this one that you don't realize you have
that I know about.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
I just got injections in my face and you can
leave that all in because transparency.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
And we'll call this the confrontation episode.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
The no gatekeeping episode. Hashtag influencer, hashtag scarf and glasses.
I look stupid. I look worse with the glasses and
scarf on than I would with just the.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
No you don't. It's cute, but when we join each
other to do this week after week for eight years,
scarf and glasses has never come into it.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Taking the glasses off. Now, crazy ass fucking story. It's
super wild. It involves the underworld, a crooked lawyer, and
a deathbed confession. It's one of the most notorious crimes
in Florida's history, often referred to as Florida's Crime of
the Century but last century. This is the story of
the nineteen fifty five murders of Judge Curtis Chillingworth and

(14:20):
his wife Marjorie.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh, this sounds familiar. I think I know this.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, I mean it's super twisty tourney and the main
source I used for this story is a very in
depth podcast series called Chillingworth about the entire case. It
was made by two filmmakers who grew up in the
community this murder happened in Their parents knew the victims.
They interview a ton of people involved in the case,
which is crazy since it happened in nineteen fifty five.
They use old like newsreel footage. It's a great podcast,

(14:47):
Chillingworth and the rest of the sources can be found
in the show notes. So it's eight in the morning
on Wednesday, June fifteenth, nineteen fifty five. A contractor named
Frank Eversoul is walking up to the beach house of
some of his regular clients, Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife,
Marjorie Chillingworth. Judge Chillingworth is the senior judge of Florida's

(15:07):
fifteenth Judicial District, which is Palm Beach County. And at
the time, this is like small town southern you know,
old timey era. So he's one of like, I think
it's three or four judges. It's not like a huge district,
kind of small. It's small towny for sure. And so
the contractor, Frank, built the judge's beach house in Manalapan, Florida,

(15:31):
which is like a little beach town, and he is
back to fix a broken window. Totally normal day. But
when Frank gets to the house, he can tell something's wrong.
No one answers the front door. At eight am. The
judge should be almost like up and at work at
this point as usual, the floodlight on the porch is broken.
The door is unlocked, so Frank lets himself in and

(15:52):
neither the judge nor Marjorie are in the house. They're beds,
it's two twin beds because it's the nineteen fifties, are
empty and have been slept in but not made, which
again is rare. So Frank calls the judges chambers, but
a secretary he says he's not there, and ordinarily the
judge would already be working. He has a nine am

(16:12):
hearing schedule for that day, so it is immediately weird
that he's not at home or at the office. Judge
Chillingworth is known for being a stickler for the rules
and ruthlessly punctual, but fair and sympathetic. He's known for
his integrity and for often ruling in favor of women
in divorces. He's just a very fair, honest, straightforward, not

(16:33):
corrupt judge.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
One of the good guys, one of the good guys.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
He's also known for treating black defendants fairly, which is
no small thing in nineteen fifty five Florida. And both
of these factors mean that there are people in Palm
Beach County who don't like him, but the general public
opinion is very respectful towards him. And he's an older man,
he's in his fifties, he's getting towards retirement. So let

(16:58):
me tell you about him. Curtis Gugen Illingworth is born
in eighteen ninety six. In the newly incorporated city of
West pom Beach, Florida. The Chillingworth family has deep roots
in the Palm Beach area. His grandfather is the first
mayor of West Palm Beach and his father is a
successful lawyer.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Judge Chillingworth goes to.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
The University of Florida studies law, graduates early. By the
time he's twenty four, he's elected circuit court judge, the
youngest judge in Florida history.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Wow, twenty four four. Remember what we were doing when
we were twenty four?

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Uh yeah, jack, shit, not good.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
No. Judge Chillingworth and Marjorie, who is two years younger,
get married. They have three daughters. From what it seems,
they have a beautiful, happy, normal life. In the nineteen fifties,
Florida experiences a population boom, and this is because of
a few factors. It's after the war and there's a
general population boom everywhere. Veterans who had been stationed in

(17:53):
Florida move their families back there for the nice weather
and beautiful nature, and crucially, the air conditioning becomes more mainstream.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Makes all the difference.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
It's just it's so fascinating. Like before air conditioning. Everyone
was like, I'm not moving there, and then it happened
and you're like, great.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
That's I wonder the impact, Like if they've studied the
impact of air conditioning on like the population of.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Florida, Florida and Arizona. Yeah, that's wild.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
So this population boom comes with a boom in organized crime,
your favorite kind of oh, which, as you'd expect, Judge
Chillingworth has zero tolerance for. So in June of nineteen
fifty five, Judge Chillingworth is planning to retire in a
few months, and he and his wife Marjorie have tickets
around the world cruise.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
In nineteen fifty five. Can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, good stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
In the meantime, the couple is about to host their
three daughters and their son in law and their grandchildren
at the beach house in Manalpan. Manalpan is a small town.
It's just this little Barrier island just south of Palm Beach.
It's a little reclusive.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
What's the w is that right?

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Kind of sits on its own. It's got like, you know, isolated, isolated,
thank you so much. It's ummed to a lot of
lavish mansions that the Chilling's Worth place is more but
like a simple.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Beach cottage where they like to go.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
So after Frank the contractor calls Judge Chillingworth's chambers, things
move quickly. About one hundred police officers and sheriff deputies
descend on the beach house, which you think about it
is an enormous amount insane. Yeah, and he's a judge.
It's like obvious that that's what's going on. But that's
too many people. They cordon off the place and they're

(19:34):
really good with forensics and make sure no one touches anything.
Just kidding, They fucking trample over everything.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
What year is it now, fifty five?

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, but I think even for that period, it's like egregious.
There's like news real footage of them panning through the
living room at the time, and there's a cop sitting
in their dining room drinking a soda, like a bottle
of soda, like on the day it happens. So it's
just like you know, smoking their cigarettes, Like it's just crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
So Marjorie's purse is found containing forty dollars, it rules
out robbery. There are small drops of blood on the
steps that lead down to the beach and on some
wooden beams in the ground which serve as a path
through the sea. Oats growing on the dunes between the
beach and the house, so it looks like someone was
bleeding while they were walking towards.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
The beach from the beach house.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
There's blood in the sand too, too partially use rolls
of duct tape are recovered from the porch, but there's
pretty much no system put in place to preserve evidence. People,
as I said, stump all over the house, all over
the deck, all over the stairs down to the beach,
all over the sand, so no footprints can be recognized,
no additional evidence is found, and a fifteen two hundred

(20:49):
and fifty dollars reward is offered for information that leads
to an arrest.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's a very specific number.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
That's a lot of money. I think. Let's just say
it's fifteen grand today's money that would be.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Would it be fifteen thousand dollars in the fifties, three
hundred thousand.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Dollars seventeen eighty seven, one hundred and seventy eighty thousand dollars?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (21:14):
One hundred and seventy eight, one hundred and seventy eight thousand.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Oh guess thank god. Well that's still for information or
for Yeah, that's a ton of money for that.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
And I think it shows like the panic and how
terrifying this was, because if this well respected professional judge
goes missing and his wife like there's something bigger going on,
it's probably not, you know, just a robbery or that
they were randomly selected, like some shit is going on,

(21:46):
you know. And I think it made the whole community
and the whole you know, law enforcement and judicial community
really fucking scared that they were next. Yeah, and it
did become like international news pretty quickly, which happen.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
A lot in the fifties.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
So despite the lack of evidence, people who keep a
close eye on the Palm Beach County justice system are
pretty quickly suspicious of a man named Judge Joe Peel.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Joe Peel this is our guy. Is a lawyer.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
He's in private practice as well as the Palm Beach
County Magistrate, which is an elected judge in charge of
hearing certain types of municipal cases. So he's kind of
this good looking like man about town. He and his
wife are often seen out and about together, you know,
he's kind of a big.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Shot, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
And in nineteen fifty five, when the chilling Worth's go missing,
he's thirty one years old, and he makes it no
secret that he has political ambitions. His ultimate goal is
to become governor of Florida. So in Joe's work as
an attorney, he winds up specializing in areas that affect
the bar and hospitality industry, like liquor licenses, which he's
not like Judge chilling Worth. It gives him an opportunity

(22:59):
to make a little extra money on the side, you know,
and work with some unscrupulous people. This leads to him
having a lot of underwroll contacts since obviously restaurants and
bars are so closely linked with organized crime, racketeering, bookmaking,
and illegal gambling, which was huge in this area at
the time.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
The other thing about Joe is that he seems to
have a lot.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Of money for an independent lawyer and part time city
employee like he does divorce cases, but he seems very wealthy.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
He lives in a big house.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
He has two cars, one of which has air conditioning,
which is big shot time. It's rumored that he has
a deal with the illegal gambling rings, and people are
pretty sure that racketeers pay him to tip them off
because he, as the magistrate, is in charge of signing
search warrants before police raids. Oh wow, yeah, so he

(23:54):
signs them, calls them, says, guess what I just signed?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Guess what I just did.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah. Yeah, So he's making a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
And Joe's life intersects with our very moral Judge chilling
worths a lot. There are both judges in the same community,
of course, But two years earlier, in nineteen fifty three,
Joe had to appear before Judge chilling Worth for an
ethical violation. Our corrupt lawyer. Joe had represented both the
husband and wife in a divorce case.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was arguing, which like, I'm not a lawyer. You're
not a lawyer. We know you shouldn't. That's just you
can't do that.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
It seems inappropriate to me.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah, So like right off the bat, it's just like
he makes really dumb decisions.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, and then retaliates.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Sorry, is he a lawyer he's also a judge or
he's just a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
He's a lawyer lawyer as his career.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
He's an elected official, which means he has some judge
like duties.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, got it.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Okay, but he's not like he wouldn't like sit in
and be a judge on your trial or anything like that,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Okay, got it? Yeah, job is, he's still a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, so Judge Chillingworth.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
He goes before Judge Chillingworth, and Judge Chillingworth reprimands him,
but citing Joe's relative youth and inexperience, he issues a
two month suspension from practicing laws. So he kind of
gives him just a little slap on the wrist. It's
a very lenient sentence for this. Joe could have been
disbarred for this. But Judge Chillingworth does say, don't let
me see you and here again, like next time, I'm

(25:24):
not going to be so leaning out with you. But
in nineteen fifty five, before the chilling Worth's go missing,
Joe gets caught up in another professional misconduct issue. He
had forgotten to finalize a client's divorce, so she had
remarried unwittingly committing bigamy. Oh no, yeah, so it's unlikely

(25:45):
that Joe did this on purpose. It was just another
dumb decision he made. It sounds like he wasn't taking
his job too seriously. It's more likely that it was
too distracted by all his racketeering to remember to file
the paperwork. You know. Sure, So Joe's case once again
is a sign to Judge Chillingworth, and he knows.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
This time he won't get any more chances.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
So in the wake of Judge Chillingworth's disappearance, Joe's case
is reassigned and Joe gets what he wanted, another short
suspension instead of dispartment.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
It worked. Whatever happened worked, but.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
The damage to his reputation is done, and even though
he could continue with this warrant scheme he was doing,
he actually resigns as a county magistrate not long after
because of popular opinion was turned against him. He continues
to represent clients, but not at a pace that explains
his lifestyle, and he's no longer a magistrate. He's unable
to collect bribes in return for warnings about raids, and

(26:41):
so he starts a side gig as a booker with
the help of a former client name Floyd Holtzepfell, who
has a lot of connections in organized crime. So he
teams up with a criminal he had represented before and
that's his sidekick.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Now that's his new his life as a retiree.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, so that's Joe and Floyd.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
But there's no direct evidence linking Joe Peel directly to
the disappearance or anyone else to the disappearance of the
judge and his wife until more than a year later,
and all this crazy shit happens, and they talk about
on the podcast chilling Worth.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
It's some really fascinating stuff.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
So a year later, he's charged as an accessory in
an attempted murder. So what happened was in December nineteen
fifty six, Joe is arrested along with Floyd, his sidekick,
following an altercation at a club called the Chee Chee
Club in Florida in the fifties. Can you fucking picture it?
The club's claim to fame as a dancer who would
do her entire act as a mermaid submerged in a tank.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Great.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, So what happens is Joe brought a legal associate
named Harold Gray to the club with him when it
was closed. Harold Gray is just a normal guy. He's
a lawyer, Like, he's not involved in all the underworld stuff.
But Floyd is waiting inside the club, and Floyd attempts
to bludgeon Harold to death with a leather mace, but shockingly,

(28:06):
Harold survives and as a bloodied mass runs out into
the street. And at this point, Joe, who was standing
ily by well Harold was being hit, you know, an
attempted murder was happening. Joe runs after him and tries
to get him in a cab. He's like, oh, I'm
so sorry, I don't know what happened, and he takes
him to the hospital. So what really happened was that

(28:29):
Joe had taken out a hundred thousand dollars life insurance
policy on this guy, Harold Gray, on his like coworker, wow,
one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy by forging his name.
And it also had like a double indemnity clause that
if he was murdered, he got like more money, which, like,
how is that?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Who thought it that?

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I don't know, But it's a great movie. Have you
ever seen Double Indemnity? It's really good, and it like
all takes place on Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, it's like one
of my favorite, Like, oh, I know where that hey
looks on Frank, I love. That's great.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
So in today's money, one hundred thousand dollars life insurance
policy is.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Equal to well, if it was fifteen before that got
us up to one seventy eight, then one hundred thousand dollars.
Oh do you think I could do this? Five hundred thousand.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Dollars now close to a million? Oh shit, So imagine taking.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
On a million dollar life insurance policy on an associate.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:30):
But they did it? He makes really dumb moves.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, I wonder if it was, like, did the guy
not have a family? Was he like they thought he
would be easy to knock off?

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I mean, I don't know, but they tried.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Joe tried to get him killed twice, and this guy
survived both of them.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
So, oh my god, he's got a lot of luck
on his side, jeez.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Floyd and Joe are both charged, but they are acquitted
of the attack after a mob connected witness lies in
the stand about having been present at the time of
the attempted murder. So Floyd says the reason he beat
up Harold, Yes, I beat up Harold, but it was
because he insulted my wife. So that was like the
story they got away with it. Then, in nineteen fifty eight,

(30:09):
the body of another man involved in organized crime is
found in a canal near an area called twenty Mile Bend,
and this man is known to be connected to Floyd,
and authorities quickly latched onto him to Floyd as a suspect. So,
with Joe and Floyd continually turning up like bad pennies
in cases involving the West Palm Beach Underworld, state attorney

(30:29):
Philip O'Connell, who had been suspicious from the beginning, decides
to look into the possibility of them having been involved
in the disappearance of Judge Curtis and Marjorie Chillingworth. But
the problem here is that the bodies of the Chillingsworth
have never been recovered, and in Florida, at least at
the time, without a body, you can't prove that a
murder has taken place unless two eye witnesses attest to it.

(30:53):
So they don't need a body, but they need at
least two people who say that a murder took place. Okay,
So this state attorney, Philip O'Connell, leads an investigation with
the intention of turning Floyd and Joe against each other.
So he makes a deal with the guy who was
the crooked insurance agent from this plot of the life
insurance policy against Harold Gray. The agent's name is James Yenzer,

(31:15):
and James agrees to go undercover to get Floyd to
admit his role in the murders of the Chillingsworth. They
also recruit a bail bondsman named Jim Wilbur who was
another associate of Floyd and Joe's. So it turns out
to be very easy to turn Floyd against Joe because
Joe is already plotting to have Floyd killed. Oh, and

(31:37):
the authorities are able to prove that to him. They're
feuding about money from a different racket, the sky. James
Yenzer learns about it, relays it to the investigators, or like,
you can use this to get information. But Floyd had
already skipped bail on a different charge and fled to Brazil.
He calls Floyd in Brazil and tells him that he's

(31:59):
seen Joe out with Floyd's wife, which immediately gets Floyd
to fly.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Back to Florida. That was like the trick, oh, I know.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
In September nineteen sixty Jim and James meet up with
Floyd in a motel in Melbourne, Florida.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Melbourne, Florida. Probably the room is bugged.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Law enforcement officers are next door recording their conversation on
real to real tapes, and there's some of this real
to real footage in the podcast as well.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's bananas.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
The three men proceed to get totally shitfaced, and Floyd
begins to talk and tell the story, not knowing the
room is bugged about old times, and Floyd proceeds to
talk about the plot. He helped Joe Peel to hatch
to kill Judge Curtis and Marjorie Chillingsworth. So he just
adbits of a whole thing. He laughs about it as

(32:50):
he describes what happened. It's so chilling, oh man, So
here's what happened. As outsiders suspected, Joe Peel was worried
that Judge Chillingworth was going to have him disbarred. He
decided that the only way to remain the county magistrate
and realize his political objectives was to have him killed. Like,
so he fucked up, and then he is going to
have someone killed to make his problems go away.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
I fucking hate these stories so much.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
It's that classic sociopath move of like, well, this is
my world, I just need to remove barriers and boundaries
and get what I need. And yeah, it's like.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
How do I get other people to solve the problems
that I've made?

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (33:26):
You know what I mean? I fucking hate that?

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Or how do I remove people to solve those problems away?
Like damage people?

Speaker 3 (33:33):
It's yeah, yeah, damage control using other people, you get it.
So he hires Floyd and then this other man named
Bobby Lincoln to do the killing for him. Bobby is
a racketeer, but up un to this point, he's entirely
non violent. Bobby's family is fairly prominent in the black
community in nearby Riviera Beach, and a lot of the

(33:55):
racketeering that they were getting money from was in the
black community, and so Bobby l And was kind of
there go to in between these two worlds, so he
had worked with them before. He's generally thought of as
a criminal but also a nice guy. He is not
happy about the idea of killing the chillings Worth, but
he kind of feels like he has no choice because

(34:16):
now he knows they're trying to kill this judge, he's
the only other one who knows about it. Also, if
Joe Peel is disbarred, his entire operation is fucked too.
But so he's convinced he has no other choice but
to go through with it or be killed himself because
he's now a witness. So Joe will pay them in
twenty five hundred dollars, which in today's money would be

(34:36):
more than twenty nine thousand dollars. Oh my god, yeah,
it's crazy. On the night it happened June fourteenth, nineteen
fifty five, Floyd and Bobby take a small boat south
from nearby Riviera Beach to Mental Pan and at about
midnight they beach the boat behind the Chillingsworth's beachfront house.
They get out of the boat and Bobby waits below

(34:57):
the chillings Worth stares from the beach. Floyd goes up
to the house. So Floyd rings the doorbell. The judge
answers the door in his pajamas. He had gotten out
of bed, he was asleep, and Floyd's wearing a sea
captain's hat, and he says that his boat has broken
down offshore and that there are still passengers board. You know,
can I use the phone to call the Coastguard, and
as soon as Judge Shillingworth lets him into the house

(35:19):
to use the phone, Floyd pulls out a gun and
tells him.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
It's a robbery.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Judge Chillingworth says his wife is in the house, you know,
and Floyd tells him to call her in there, and
thinking it's just a robbery, she comes out of the
bedroom as well, and when Marjorie comes out, Floyd whistles
down to Bobby. He comes up to the house. The
two men gag the Chillingworths with tape and then tie
rope around each o their necks and run that rope
down their backs and tie their wrists together, and then

(35:46):
they start to walk them down to the beach in
their pajamas. So it's so sad and must have been
so terrifying because I think them saying this is a
robbery is meant to disarm them a little. It's almost like,
let them do what they need to do and they'll leave.
But I think pretty quickly they realize it's this, it's
not what it's about.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
So once outside, Marjorie's gag.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Comes loose, and so she screams and Floyd pistol whips
her with the thirty eight he's holding, and she bleeds
on the steps and the path over the sea oats,
so that's the blood drops they had found. They make
their way out in the boat into the water. When
they're about three miles offshore, Floyd cuts the engine and

(36:30):
Floyd and Bobby put weighted bilts around the Chillingworth's waist.
Judge Chillingworth turns to his wife of like thirty years
and says, quote, Honey, remember I love you.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Oh, it's horrible, and.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
She says, quote I love you too. Like they kind
of knew they were going to die at this point.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Then Floyd says quote ladies first, and throws her overboard
and she sinks immediately.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
The judge doesn't wait to be thrown in. He jumps
in after her.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
But even with his weighted bell and with his hands tied,
he's able to tread water. So Floyd hits him over
the head with a shotgun and then wraps a spare
anchor around his neck and he sinks. Jesus, I know.
So back to current day, the investigators now have their
tape confession from that drunken conversation in the hotel room.

(37:23):
And by this point, Bobby, who is one of the murderers,
has already been convicted of moonshining. He's serving a three
year sentence, and so he makes a deal and testifies
that he participated in the killings after being hired by Joe,
and so he's granted immunity from the killings. The tapes
from the motel are actually inadmissible, but Floyd makes an

(37:44):
official full confession and he pleads guilty to murder. Now
the state has the two eyewitnesses, it needs to charge
Joe in the absence of a body, which is just
kind of crazy if you think of it. The two
murderers are the witnesses against Joe, you know, I mean
it makes sense, it makes sense, but it just sounds

(38:04):
so like a deal with the double you know.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah, that's what it all is. It is right, there's
no I mean, this is a This is as dirty
business as it possibly could be, so dirty, and that
idea of like, if there's a double murder, you know,
chances are the only people that would have witnessed it
that are still alive are the murderers or the murderer.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Absolutely at least they can get them on that right.
So Florida's Trial of the Century begins in March of
nineteen sixty one, almost six years after the murders. So
Bobby is the star witness, and he's brought twice from
prison in Tallahassee to testify. Joe takes the stand on
his own defense and admits to planning to have Floyd killed,

(38:45):
but in Sissy had nothing to do with the Chillingsworth murder,
and his alibi was that he was at home that
night watching the brand new TV show The sixty four
thousand Dollars Question.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Hmmm, that was the first time it was on.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
So he was like, here's what happened in that, and
it couldn't been me because I wouldn't have known these
details about the TV show. But he's found guilty of
being an accessory to murder and has given two life sentences.
Floyd is sentenced to death row, but his sentence is
ultimately commuted and he dies in prison. Joe maintains his
innocence the entire time he's in prison and is paroled

(39:20):
in nineteen eighty two due to illness. Then he makes
a deathbed confession, not to a loved one, but to
the Miami Herald. He says, quote, I'm guilty of not
using my influence to stop what was going to happen
and I could end quote. And it's crazy because the
reason they killed this couple, this innocent couple, is so

(39:42):
that Joe Peel could stay a magistrate and continue their
racket with the warrants. And immediately he had to quit
that position because of like he had to quit it. Anyways,
he would have either way he was fucked, but this
way he fucking took two innocent people.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah, and killed them. And also that deathbed confession sucks.
It's just not it's like, oh, I should have told
them not to. It's like you hired them to do it,
and you it was your plan.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah. So he's essentially saying like I should have done something,
but I didn't, And in reality, it's like it's all
it was all you.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah. These two guys just murder a very specific, prominent
couple that totally benefits you, and you're just saying, Oh,
I wish I had done something more to keep them
from doing it.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
He dies nine days later, at the age of fifty eight,
the same age Judge Chillingworth was when he and his
wife were murdered. And that is the story of the
murder of Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his beloved wife Marjorie Chillingworth.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
What a of all the terrible, terrible stories we've told
each other. Yeah, what a sad yeah moment for that
couple basically knowing they're being killed and knowing their loved
one is being killed, and yeah, just that's just the worst.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
And they're three daughters who had to live with that
knowledge for the rest Like I just can't even imagine. Yeah,
and this fucking creep who orchestrated.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
The whole thing. I mean, he's slime. He's terrible.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
It's yeah, tragic, it's tragic. Wow, good job, thank you.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
I yeah, I've already said listened to Chillingworth's podcast, But
there's so many little details in it, and it's such
a time and a place.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
It's just so fascinating.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
You right, pre air conditioning, Florida, post air conditioning, Florida. Right,
get there. This is also a terrible story, but different, okay,
And it includes a little list of things that I
definitely like. I think you like some of these things.

(41:48):
It starts back in nineteen eighty six, when Bob and
Pauline Walker, who are a couple that live in England
here that the Antiques road Shows come into town. Do
you like the Antiques Road Show? I love it personally.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
I love the Antiques Road Show. You know, my mom
and John went to one of their tapings once.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Did they bring anything? They brought something, but I didn't
get you know.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, it's such a good idea. It's such I mean
British television. That is to me one of the great
examples of like British television feels like it's always trying
to get something done. Yeah, you're not just gonna be entertained.
You're also gonna learn how to bake or you're gonna right.
And that one is like there's so many things that
are that are so satisfying. You learn about art and

(42:34):
artistic stuff and history and antiques, but then you're also
like money, money.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah, it's a good one. It's a slow burn, but
it's a great payoff.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Yeah. So if you don't know what we're talking about, basically,
just to let you know, the show, Antiques Road Show
travels to different towns all around England. This is when
it started. Now they do it in America, perhaps other countries.
So basically, people kind of show up at a local
like convention center or town meeting hall or whatever with

(43:05):
all different kinds of art that they have in their family,
whether it's been handed down or they bought it for
two dollars at the goodwill or whatever. So at the
antiques roadshow they have some of the foremost experts on
all of these different so it'll be like on woodwork,
on Chinese etchings from the you know this or that period.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Tiffany lamps and jewelry.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yes, and so it's people that when the items are
brought to these people, they know what it is like
when they see it, so they're excited. There's a lot
of great tension and excitement where people are explaining, either
I've never seen anything like this before, and they're pointing
at things with a little what looks like a little chopstick.

(43:47):
That's my favorite when they're like if you look at
this over here, you look at this over here, and
or they say this is a reproduction and you feel
the all of the energy just run out of the scene.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
So how much did you pay for this? Because it's
fucking worthless.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
It's worthless. Two dollars was too much. So when the
Walkers here the antiques road shows coming to town, they
remember they have this old painting that's been sitting basically
in one of those cardboard tubes up in the attic.
It had been passed down for two generations in the family,
and it shows a group of men sitting around a
desert campfire at night. The moon is visible through a

(44:23):
break in the clouds. There's horses nearby. It's clearly the
work of a talented artist, but the Walkers have never
known what to do with it. It's not really their style.
They appreciate its artistry, they don't know anything about its backstory.
No one in the family's ever really talked about it,
so it just currently sits out of sight upstairs trasure
until this day where they're like antiques roadshows here. So

(44:47):
the shooting locations actually set up along the path where
they walk their dogs. So they go, well, if we're
going to walk the dog anyway, let's grab that tube,
walk it down there and see what they say. So,
to the couple's shock, they not only get onto the show,
but an expert tells them that this painting is from
eighteen forty five and it's called the Halt in the Desert,

(45:08):
and it is, in fact, quote an international treasure, a
lost picture. So it's the best case scenario for Antiques
road show is that you actually have a true treasure
that the experts think is a treasure. But the background
of this artwork and the artist who made it involves illness, murder,

(45:28):
indisputable artistic genius, mental illness, an all set against the
backdrop of Victorian English.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Wow, great start. That was a chef's kiss.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Right, I'm in. I was like when I think this
was Maren's pitch. I don't know whoever pitched this was
like Karen likes this, this and this, and now we
just found this story very, very compelling. So there's a
book called The Symbolism of Richard Dad by Peter Ogwin Jones.
There's also a book called The Late Richard Dad eighteen
seventeen to eighteen eighty six by Patricia Aldridge. And there's

(46:02):
also a twenty fifteen Guardian article by Jonathan Jones called
artist Richard Dad was set free by Fairies And the
rest of the sources are in our show notes. So
Richard Dad is born in eighteen seventeen in Chatham, England,
around thirty miles from London. He is the fourth of
seven children in what is obviously a bustling household. Of course,

(46:25):
this is an era like early eighteen hundreds, where people
are destitute, but the dads are actually doing well. Robert, dad,
who is Richard's father, is a well known and well
liked pharmacist in the community. So the Dad children are
well fed, they are cultured, they're well educated, and it's

(46:45):
while Richard is off at school that he learns his
love for painting. So in eighteen thirty seven, the father, Robert,
decides to sell his pharmacy and move the family to London,
and historian Patricia Alderre thinks this might have been motivated
by Richard's obvious artistic talents, but either way, it's a

(47:06):
great move for Richard. He's now in his late teens
and he gets to go to the prestigious Royal Academy
in London. Pretty cool. So Richard's advanced artistic skill set
and great personality quickly make him a popular student. One
of his peers describes him this way quote, Dad was
my superior in all respects. He drew infinitely better than

(47:28):
I did. I can truly say from a thorough knowledge
of Dad's character, that a nobler being and one more
free from the common failings of humanity. Never breathed. Wow,
So he's a person who's adored. Before long, he's winning
all sorts of awards. He starts getting commissions to create
paintings and illustrations for various clients. And then in eighteen

(47:50):
forty two, Richard, who's now twenty five, gets the opportunity
of a lifetime. A very rich lawyer and politician named
Sir Thomas Phillips is looking to i're an artist to
accompany him as he travels through Europe to Egypt to
sketch the various cities and towns they stop in along
the way, because obviously, portable cameras aren't a thing yet.

(48:12):
So basically, he wants to hire an artist who will
create vacation pictures for him.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Shit right, Richie rich So Richard.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Wants this job. He loves the idea of seeing the
world and making art at the same time. It is
like a dream come true. And in this era, a
trip to Egypt is a hot ticket, as you probably remember,
because of Napoleon's military expeditions to Egypt in the late
seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, and the subsequent cracking

(48:42):
of the mystery of the Rosetta Stone, which helped historians
decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. A surge of interest in Egypt
or egypt Domania sweeps Western Europe. So Georgia talked about
this in episode three point fifty one High five Halloween
if you want to go back.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I was just thinking about that.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
I did mummies right, Yes, the mummy trade.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
The mummy trade. Oh my, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
This Egypt Domania got so bad ladies and gentlemen and
listeners of all types that they started eating the mummies bodies.
It's total insanity, but it pops up everywhere, especially in England,
particularly in literature, design, and of course in art. The
British Museum had lots of stolen artifacts. Do they still

(49:31):
have them today? I believe they still do have them today.
Egypt also becomes a popular destination for rich travelers like
Sir Thomas Phillips, as well as artists and writers in
search of adventure and inspiration. Richard has offered this gig.
He eagerly accepts it. He gets the job of his
lifetime and my sister's friend, Adrian's son actually went and

(49:54):
husband went to Egypt like a year or two ago,
and I was like, please send me pictures. I really
would love together and I'd really love to see it.
And I was thinking about this because of the way
this story ends up going. It is such an unbelievable thing,
like those temples and the yeah and the pyramids and everything.

(50:15):
The places that they go to that are like the
King's row. I don't know, that's not what it's called.
It's like a pharaoh's pharaoh's alley. I don't know. I
just made that up. But they're huge. It's like you're
walking in a thing that's like fifty feet high, but
it has etchings on the ceiling and on the It's
so ancient, so ancient, such an exposure to like a
whole new, different world and it's right there. So the

(50:39):
influence I would imagine that it would have an incredible
influence at that time on people who like the furthest
they ever.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Went was London or you know, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
And Richard is writing letters back home as he and
Sir Thomas Phillips travel across Western Europe into Greece, through Turkey,
then Syria, finally into Egypt, and he's talking about his
experiences in these letters all along the way. He describes
the music he hears that the street musicians play, describes
the animals and trees that he's seeing that are so

(51:09):
different than the ones back home, and he talks about
the dazzling dresses that local women.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Wear and the lack of air conditioning that's not been
invented yet.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
And he's like, bitch, it's hot.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Wow, that sounds incredible.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
But as writer Peter Ogwen Jones points out in the
book the symbolism of Richard Dad, these letters that he
writes home also suggest that Richard is struggling with his
mental health. He starts writing about his quote nervous depression
and quote miserable days. In one letter, Richard says, quote
the excitement of these scenes has been enough to turn
the brain. And often I have lain down at night

(51:46):
with my imagination so full of wild vagaries that I
have really and truly doubted my own sanity. I'm very
tired of the world, and I've seen so much disgusting
selfishness since leaving England that I have become half a misanthrope. Ooh,
so he.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Sees some reality of what's going on and how much
bigger it all is, and he's overwhelmed and disappointed and humanity.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Yeah, and also he's mentally ill. So the lens through
which he is looking at humanity is off. It's like
it's one thing if you are the artist that's going
along with the rich guy and you know you're getting
depressed or whatever. I'm sure it's like that's expected. But
then his behavior begins to change drastically as the pair

(52:33):
travel up the Nile River. The normally mild mannered artist
is erratic and illusional. Richard develops an obsession with the
Egyptian gods, especially Osiris, the king of the dead and
the ruler of the afterlife, and he begins to believe
that he is under Osiris's control. Dear so, it's now

(52:54):
current day thought Richard was probably experiencing psychosis brought on
by schizophrenia, but at the time, of course, no one
understands what's happening to him. At first, they actually think
he has Sun's stroke, but then his behavior gets stranger
and more hostile on the return trip back to England,
and by the time they get to Paris, Sir Thomas
Phillips is like done with Richard. Richard also stopped doing

(53:18):
his job, you know, is not drawing pictures for him anymore.
He seems completely unmotivated. Instead of turning in travel sketches,
Richard's either making just half hearted drawings that aren't even
as good as how good he is. It's just like whatever,
or he's handing in very intricate, detailed work of Sir
Thomas Phillips as an evil person.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Oh god, what did he see? What did he see?

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Right? And it's not like, you know, I just have
seen enough, like whether it's Agatha Christie or it's like,
you know, I just think that whole the Pyramids and
all that stuff is so compelling and fascinating, but it
also makes sense where it's just like, this is a
world where everybody believed in all these gods and they
were a part of every day, and you had to

(54:05):
do this, and you had to do that. I'm literally
describing modern life culture.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Shock. It sounds like you kind of had right.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
One sketch that he draws actually shows Phillips quote playing
cards with the captain of a steamer for the captain's soul.
So he's literally it's like Phillips is the devil. So
when Sir Thomas Phillips urges Richard to see a doctor,
Richard decides he will part ways with Phillips and just
go back to London by himself. And when he gets there,

(54:37):
all the people who know him are shocked because Richard
would never abandon a job. It's not like him at all,
especially one that he was so excited to get. And
Richard's social circle is even more confused when they interact
with him. Here's a quote from Patricia Aldridge. She says
quote his actions became unpredictable and occasionally violent, and he

(54:58):
seemed to believe that he was being one. Once he
rushed away alone while a friend prepared to accompany him home.
Another time he shut himself in his room and waved
a knife under the door at visitors. He is said
to have cut a birthmark from his forehead, saying it
was planted there by the devil. He obviously saw and
heard things which did not exist, and though he did
not speak much of this, he let slip to a

(55:21):
close friend that he was haunted by evil spirits, and
he himself was searching for the Devil. He began to
believe in his own mission to rid the whole world
of the devil, and intertwined, amongst many vague and confused ideas,
there was a strong element of Egyptian mythology. So people

(55:42):
begin to withdraw from Richard's life, but his father, Robert,
actually notices what's going on. He understands his son needs help,
probably because Richard is not the only member of the
Dad family who struggles with his mental health. Three of
Richard's siblings will be treated from mental illness in their lives,
and one of his brothers was actually admitted to an

(56:04):
asylum the year that Richard left on the trip with
Sir Thomas Phillips, which is so tragic, and that poor
father who is like, what is going on trying to
help his children and it's so sad. So Robert obviously
wants to help his son, so he meets with doctors
at London area hospitals and asylums to figure out what

(56:25):
Richard needs and try to get him that help. But
these efforts don't really seem to go anywhere, and meanwhile,
Richard settles into a rented room in London and basically
just becomes a recluse, and while he is there. According
to Ogwin Jones, Richard lives on a quote diet of
beer and raw eggs, and his wardrobe was filled with

(56:48):
bowls of eggs. So Richard, of course, increasingly he's just
completely isolated, and Robert is there trying to watch over
his son. For a while, they seem to me hain
a good relationship, but then Richard learns that his dad
is trying to get him hospitalized. So Richard invites his
dad on a trip to the small village of Cobham,

(57:12):
and the father, Robert, thinking nothing of it, agrees to
go and once they're there, they book a room at
the Crown Inn. They have a nice dinner at a
nearby restaurant, and then they head out for an evening walk.
No one knows exactly what happened on that walk, but
the next morning, a passerby finds Robert's dead body lying
in a field. He's been stabbed to death, and there's

(57:34):
a bloody knife in the grass close by, and Richard
is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
So by the time, his father's body is being examined
by a coroner, and suspicions are swirling that Richard is
this murder suspect. Richard has fled the country and has
gone to France. Then they find out that Richard planned
all of that travel before heading to Cobbham. He secured
his passports, he planned his routes, he bought his train

(58:01):
tickets all in advance. So that idea of like that
he is in full psychosis or completely schizophrenic, is like, well,
he's actually aware enough to make that plan pre meditation. Yeah.
So Richard hops on a train to Marseille, and from
there he decides he's going to head back down to

(58:22):
toward the Middle East so that he can basically fall
off the grid entirely, but because he's going through an
intense mental health crisis. While he's on the train, he
attacks the man sleeping in the seat next to him
with a razor. The other passengers jump in pull Richard
back as he slashes the stranger, and they restrain Richard.

(58:45):
The conductor stops the train. Richard is placed under arrest. Sorry,
the conductor doesn't stop the train, He's not the engineer
would stop the train.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Sorry, someone stops the fucking drain.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
When the word of this attack travels to the conductor,
the train stops, Richard's placed under arrest. He reportedly offers
all the money he has like he basically, they say,
he kind of comes to realizes what he's done and
then just says, here, you can have all the money
that I have. He's taken off the train and escorted
to the nearest magistrate's office. When he's in the courtroom,

(59:19):
he doesn't hold back. The judge is reportedly taken aback
by Richard's quote perfectly calm and collected manner as he
admits to murdering his father and attacking the train passenger.
But Richards's motive causes the most surprise because he claims
that it wasn't his father he killed. He had actually
murdered a demon that was disguised as his father because

(59:40):
God told him to. He also admits to thinking about
killing many times before, saying that while traveling through Italy
with Sir Thomas Phillips, he had thought about murdering the Pope,
but he abandoned that plan after seeing how tight security
was at the Vatican Wow. He also claims that while
on a train in France, he had come up with
the plan to murder the Emperor of Austria when he

(01:00:02):
was asked about the razor attack on the train, Richard
says that from the moment he sat down in his seat,
he started hearing voices that he needed to kill that person.
He says that he felt tormented by these instructions, that
he didn't want to kill the stranger, but that quote
weary with the struggle, he resolved to leave the question
to kill or not to kill to the stars, one

(01:00:24):
of which, seen from the window, he knew to be Osiris.
So basically he told himself that if Osiris's star moved
across the sky farther away from its neighboring star, then
that would mean Osiris was telling him to leave the
man alone. But if the star moved in the other direction,
then Osiris was telling him to murder. And obviously the

(01:00:49):
stars moved closer together. So as English authorities put together
in an extradition order, Richard's confined to the Claremont Asylum
in France, where his doctor, who just as a sidebar,
would go on to invent the iron lung. His doctor
treats him with some questionable of the day methods like
ice cold showers. You know, there's the early mental health

(01:01:13):
treatments were basically torture, I mean like horrible, horrible things.
It takes about a year until July of eighteen forty four,
and then Richard is finally extradited back to England. He
again winds up in front of the magistrate. His mental
health has continued to deteriorate. His court appearance is a disaster.

(01:01:36):
He reportedly enters the room laughing. Then when witnesses address
the court, he repeatedly interrupts them as they testify, screaming
that they're liars and screaming that he did not kill
his father. But then when a doctor takes the stand
and notes that Robert was stabbed twice, Richard yells, quote,
what does he say? That the body was stabbed in
two places? I only stabbed him once. We so yeah.

(01:02:00):
An employee from the crown in then testifies that a
towel had been taken from the room and was never found,
and then the prosecution suggests that Richard might have used
it to clean himself up after the murder, and again
Richard yells out to the court that he stole the
towel and disposed of it because it was soaked with
his father's blood. So in August of eighteen forty four,

(01:02:22):
the trial comes to an end. Richard is found not
guilty by reason of insanity, and he is sent to
what's called the Criminal Lunatic Department at Bethlem Hospital, which
is known by its nickname Bedlam. At the time of
richard sentencing. The Criminal Wing at Bedlam is all dark.
It has almost no windows, it's very overcrowded, tons of

(01:02:46):
patients with nothing to do. It's not like they have
activities or anything. They're just standing around screaming and moaning.
So it is basically the epitome of chaos and confusion.
And we don't really know the ins and out of
richard stay at this hospital, and we don't know if
his treatment was humane there. We do know that Richard's doctor,

(01:03:07):
Thomas Munro, recognizes Richard's artistic talent and encourages him to
keep painting. So Richard pulls from his own imagination and
begins to create complex, ethereal scenes which are the complete
opposite of the dark, small, sterile world that he has
been confined to. So during his stay at Bedlam, Richard

(01:03:28):
produces some of his most famous work, including the Fairy
Feller's Masterstroke, which is considered to be his masterpiece, even
though it is unfinished. It is a painting full of details.
There's no space wasted on the canvas. It shows a
group of fairies and muted yellows, browns, and reds watching

(01:03:48):
as the fairy feller wields an axe to split a
huge chestnut, and Richard spends between six and nine years
working on this painting. Oh and that's also when he
creates the Halt in the Desert, which is the painting
that the walkers bring to the Antiques road show and
have identified. And that painting actually features Sir Thomas and

(01:04:12):
Dad himself among others. They're the ones that are sitting
around that campfire. So that's one of the reasons why
it's so priceless and considered lost painting, because Richard Dad
has actually painted himself into it. After twenty long years
of confinement at Bedlam, Richard is transferred to another psychiatric facility,

(01:04:33):
which is Broadmore. We've talked about that place too, sure,
and it's at Broadmore that he completes his now famous
sketches to illustrate the Passion series, in which he uses
characters from Shakespeare plays to illustrate the different human emotions.
He also creates a beautiful portrait of one of his doctors,
doctor Alexander Morrison, and that is now on display at

(01:04:56):
the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. And then in January eighteen
eighty six, at the age of sixty eight, Richard Dad
dies of tuberculosis at Broadmoor. He is buried on facility
grounds because he killed his father. Obviously, Richard's reputation in
the art world was ruined while he was still alive.

(01:05:17):
Of Victorian magazine called Art Union actually referred to him
as quote the late Richard Dad, and that article said, quote,
although the grave has not actually closed over him, he
must be classed among the dead. Damn. Yeah. So basically,
once he was convicted for his father's murder and for

(01:05:38):
that attack, he himself and his artwork completely fade into obscurity.
But then in the nineteen sixties and seventies a series
of exhibitions reintroduced Richard Dad's work to a new generation
of admirers, which is like, how many things like that
are there in history where it's just something that has
been wildly misunderstood. So now in the sixties and seventies

(01:06:01):
people are told the full story of this is a
person that had schizophrenia, that was in a full psychotic
break and so they basically can contextualize and sympathize with
his mental health issues and you know the background. So
Richard Dad is now recognized as one of Britain's great
Victorian artists and his sketches and paintings are currently on

(01:06:23):
display in renowned institutions like the Tate Gallery and the
British Museum. Just as a kind of a full circle moment,
the Walker family who were on Antique's roadshow with the
Halt of the Desert, they were told that Halt in
the Desert was worth around one hundred to one hundred
and twenty five thousand pounds. Wow, And that's exactly what

(01:06:47):
the British Museum paid them for it. There are more
missing Richard Dad pieces that are out there because he
drew and painted so much at the asylums, so there
could be more that people will come forward with in
the future. Richard Dad's life has inspired countless essays, radio dramas,

(01:07:08):
album covers, fictional characters, and popular novels. There was actually
a Queen song called the Fairy Feller's master Stroke named
after that painting. Jonathan Jones writes for The Guardian, quote,
Richard Dad's art is beauty born from anguish. The artist's
illness is unquestionable, and so I think is his particular genius.

(01:07:30):
Yet it is no proof that creativity and mental illness
are connected. This is just one extraordinary case. One thing
doesn't always lead to another. Dad's life was desolate. The
art he made from it in flight from it is
a joy and that ooh that got me right at
the end. And that's the story of Victorian artist Richard Dad.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Fuck, if your life is desolate, make art that enables
you to flee from it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
Yeah, to feel the rest of what there is, to
feel those feelings of life.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
Yeah, that's right, full circle. Feel your feelings.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Fail your feelings is the point.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Feel your feelings. They're only ninety seconds long. Eat breakfast,
definitely breakfast, and don't mess around with the mafia. It
isn't worth it that you think you're going to get
a bunch of money easy. The interest is overwhelmingly unpayable.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
It is should we do what are you even doing
right now? Where you tell us what you're even doing?
While you listen to my favorite murder?

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Yeah, everybody's been writing in and telling us what they
do while they listen to this podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Which we love so much. This is from Instagram, and
the person who wrote it in their handle is I'm
a disco spider.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Cute.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
I can see that, because you know how spiders just
sometimes stand with one lega.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
I totally see it, and a mirror ball above their heads.
Ye do that? Okay, I'm a disco spider says to us,
What are you even doing right now? I am at
work as an engineer for a space exploration company in Colorado.
We build space equipment contracts and are affiliated with NASA
and raytheon Intelligence and Space. Oh my god, I listened

(01:09:18):
to your lovely voices while I watch testing and also
on my one hour commute. I've loved the podcast since
the beginning, well around episode four. Love you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Oh my god, Wow, smarty smart pants listens to us.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
A smarty smartpants listens to this bullshit successful smarty smart pants.
Yeah yeah, and there, disco spider. That's how successfully ask.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Thank you for introducing that image in to my brain.
I fucking love it there. Okay, mine just shows what
a small world the Murderingo community is because the last
episode when I covered the Oakville Blobs, we posted a
photo on our Instagram of a sign and that said
welcome to Oakville, a picture of like the sign of it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
Sure, So this person Alex on the gram from Instagram writes,
oh shit, this is a great time to tell you
what I'm even doing right now. I work for fred
O Lay and listen to MFM and other exactly right
pods shout out dinar hey well keeping convenience stores in
my area stock cheetos, doritos, et cetera. Nice And it says,

(01:10:26):
as a former stoner, I see it truly as God's work.
Then it says the seventy six picture in that picture
of Oakville. So in the background of the Oakville sign
is the seventy six is one of the stores I work.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Love you guys, hey wild that's fun. That would freak
me out because I never really think about that for
other people. But like anytime, I like, Pedulama is in
a lot of movies and TV shows because it's very
kind of old looking or whatever, and it is the fun.
I'm like, that's at the street from my piano teacher,
like it's always the most except.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
It is I love so crazy, I love it, I
love it. We love you you guys, listen. We appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Thank you. Please.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
If you've gotten to this part, then please go write
a quick review on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
Rate review, subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Yeah, if you've gotten to this part, here's your reward.
Go do us a favor, us a favor.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
And also stay sexy and don't get murdered. Cook Elvis,
do you want to cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scualach.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Our researchers are Maren mcclashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Email your hometowns to my Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Heyebye a