443 - All The Brave Podcasters - My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia. Hard Start,
that's Karen Kilgara.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
This microphone was down too well.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I think gave a spot of eyeline run on top
of your lip. But I think it looks good. It's
like a little freckle.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Get rid of it.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
We have make ya, you gotta.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
We have makeup on today for exciting reason, for video reasons.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
We're making a video.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Go right down the barrel with it?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Are they?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Are we videoing this? Aren't we? Are we?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
That's the whole idea, because we just did a video.
I thought that was it. I no, I could sit fucking.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
No, no, not relax, God damn it.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Do not relax.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's happening right now.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Posture and these. I didn't my hair.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
We're about to join all of the other podcasts doing
video podcasts on you know, TikTok and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
You know what I did.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I didn't cut my bangs before this, because that's like,
don't do that. But I did do a dumb thing,
which is use bronzer for the first time. So I
was like, this is how I see it done on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Were you doing the thing where you're like on your
jaw line down your nose.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
The first time I tried to do that, it truly
looked like I was just wiping ash on my face.
I didn't match the color correctly.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Do I look different? Do I look yes?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Snatched to hell? Match snatched all to hell. That's what
I was trying to do, is just thin up my
upper lip.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
You gotta get that thin lip. That's what's in today
these days. How does it.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Happen where you're just like, I'm just trying to kind
of look nice and then it's like, sorry, your mascara
fell off onto your.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Lip because it's not fair, because youth is beauty, and
when you don't have that anymore, you just chase it
and chase it and chase it.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
That light just flickered, but bared like it is brave,
all the brave podcasters before us.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, we're standing on the shoulders of brave giants, older.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Ladies fucking making younger, generational fucking content.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
We're here.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
We're here to make content for people who do not care.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I don't want people to go like they're amazing. I
want things and to go they're brave.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, that's so brave of that. It's so brave that
you went on to video with that face.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
What a brave choice for that face.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
You're really changing lives and minds.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh, we welcome to our podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Here's the wave of self consciousness that we have to
power through. Okay, fine, should we just do the podcast
like normal.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Let's pretend it's not happening. But this isn't happening.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
First time caught on video Georgia using Kleenex because that's
something she does often.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Can I just tell you this is not a plug,
but the fact that we are now doing ads for
kleen X makes me like it's kind of a milestone
moment in my life, and on this podcast, I feel
like absolutely, because we've literally manifested it. Yes literally, I've
blown my nose on my dress at a live show
before because I didn't have Kleenex and I was like,
Kleenex needs to sponsor us, and fucking look at us now, and.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Look at only seven years later, after one major pandemic.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Globally, that's all it took.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Its Could you can manifest? Let's let's send this right
down the barrel. You can manifest anything you want in
this life. You just have to repeat it. You have
to use as much Cleenex as you possibly can.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Don't go to the doctor for your allergies. Keep your
allergies on Sunday. You can monetize them.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Allergies are good. Allergies are monetizable.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's all content, all content, it's all content.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
It's all content, it's all blessed, it's all hashtag fucking
uh what was that?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okayes who works in the production department at this company,
I said one day that I would love a cover
for the Kleenex brand, for the Kleenex brand that's underneath
there and fully sponsors this entire situation, and you manifested it.
But I said, there's some sort of a too can pattern.
Can we just for the busyness element, get something on

(04:03):
there exactly right, exactly well, just something plain, okay, anything,
And then Jess was like check this shit out and
had Vanessa, our graphic designer who's super talented, and this
is what Vanessa did of like, here's your choices. I
can do this, I can do that.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Tell them for people who don't watch YouTube or Instagram
what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Oh sorry, I keep on touching and pointing this, but
this is actually a podcast truly at its heart, at
its soul, and what we are are roots. I'm sorry, guys,
I'm pointing at a plastic Kleenex box cover that's white
plastic as I as I said, fully recyclable. It's made
from old cans, and our graphic designer, Vanessa cut out

(04:47):
a bunch of exactly right circles in beautiful kind of
mid century color patterns and put them on the clean xbox.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
It it takes to get a job at this fucking network.
You have to care. You have to care so much.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
We're also forced, saying all of our employees, especially the
people who work on this podcast, to be in sketches now,
to be in funny videos because everybody has to participate.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
It sounds actionable, it is. I don't think you're allowed to.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm bet it is.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
I have a book. Can I get a book real
quick that I'm so excited about?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Can I just ask a question? How are you fucking
reading all these books? No?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
No, no, I'm listening to them? Oh audiobook, got it,
I'm reading books. It takes me three weeks to read
a book, right, because I only do it like a
bed audiobooks. I'll finish them in a weekend by creating
my favorite thing to do around the house, which I
called it this and that, So like, what are you
gonna do? And I'm like, I'm gonna do this in that,
which means I'm going to listen to an audiobook and

(05:42):
clean something that doesn't need to be fucking organized, like
that closet I've been meaning that drawer I've been meaning
to do. This is a great time to do that.
This and that is that I'm gonna do this and
that the dishes, you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Tightening your shit up? Yes, I love it.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
So this one is a fucking banger.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I found this one from the Instagram called crime by
the book Get It by Abby and she told me
to read the book called The Nothing Man by Catherine
Ryan Howard.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Takes place in Cork, Ireland. It's essentially like if Michelle.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
McNamara's book I'll Be Gone in the Dark was being
read to you, and then the Killer, the Golden State Killer.
The next chapter was him reading it and reacting to it.
Oh wow, And he's like, she got this wrong and
she got that wrong. And the writer is a survivor
of one of his attacks, and you're like she's going
to catch him by the end. So he's like, then

(06:34):
I opened it and I kept reading, and then it
goes into the audiobook of her, like true crime book.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Is it a true story?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
No? No, no, no, The.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Whole thing's fiction.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
The whole thing is fiction of a woman who survived
as a child the serial killer.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
While the serial killer reads the book himself and reacts
to it, and you start to find out more and
more about him and his attacks and what a narcissistic
loser piece of shit, just as we always fucking said
they are. It's like, I cannot put it down. Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
And to say the author's name one more.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Time, it's Catherine Ryan Howard, the nothing Man.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
I'm amazing. I'm I'm listen to that.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
It's like creepy and so good and exactly what you
think it's supposed to be, like a lot of Golden
State killer reffort like kind of similarities.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, so good. That sounds really good.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
I'm like mad that I'm almost done with it.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
I visited that that is around this weekend because I
realized there's parts of my house that I just was like, oh,
I can't, I can't finish that or deal with it.
So like the entryway for a long time, which I
know what you're gonna say, it's the article table that
I got because we get we get to give us
stuff for free sometimes just so we can actually talk,

(07:43):
you know, from our experience.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, on the ads.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
So I got like an entryway table that was there
with a nice lamp, and so I placed to basically
put my keys and not lose stuff. So it was
just like I need a home base for my things
I can't lose. But then I was like I should
hang art over the Yeah, so I went to have
you gone to the Echo Park art fair or like
that weekend? And it's just like it's very much like

(08:06):
the Melrose.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
In the roof of the parking structure. Yes, that is
the new lows feelis flea market.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
The Lows feelis flea market. Okay, but they moved there. Yeah,
but it's not it's not feelings, it's not it's an
Echo Park, Okay, the loss feels free market. We went there,
Bridger and I from my I said, no gifts, plugs everywhere,
on the plugs everywhere, who cares? But we went there
and one of the first booths we passed, there was
this insanely gorgeous piece of embroidery art that was like

(08:34):
a wild flower field and I saw it and I
was like, oh my god, I need that. Yes, and
then I asked the guy and it was kind of expensive,
like for a flea market type of place. And then
we went to walk away and Bridger's like, you're not
going to get it, and I'm like, I'm going to
do the rest of this and see how I feel.
I'm going to reapproach it, and then if somebody else

(08:55):
gets it, that's.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Meant to be.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
That's fate. Yeah, And they didn't, and I got it,
and it is hanging now perfectly over my table and
it I keep intentionally walking by it.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Just so I can see it.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Okay, since this is now a visual podcast, you need
to send a photo so you could put it on
the Instagram.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Write that down a Lejandra text her I have a picture.
I do, yes, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
The second I put it together, I took a picture
and sent it to Bridger to be like, in your face, yeah,
why are you mad at him for it? No, just
you know, it's my personality. But it was essentially like, look,
how good this turned out. Yeah, it was better than
we all expected.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Let's see no that Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Right, the lamp is gorgeous, the table is flawless, article,
the fucking picture frame.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
The picture is epic, Like, isn't it good? It's so good.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Somebody's incredibly talented, like grandma or aunt sat there for hours.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And taking at your books.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Oh yeah, I actually it's all your our book.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
How come it's just eight copies of Stay Sexy and
Talk At murdered Karen.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Korea, Serbia. I actually had different books under there, and
then I went and we redid them for color. It's perfect,
so that the color would reflect the color. O. Wait
a second, this is the one. Sorry, that's before I
hung it.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Oh. I was gonna say you didn't need to hang it.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
But here's what I did. I hung at four inches
above that table, which is the spot.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, that's what they're all doing. It's fucking pinterest perfect.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I feel proud of my sir, so you know.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
A victory congratulations, thanks so much, you too. You are
a fucking house designer. Now, thank you.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Anything else should we get into? Exactly right?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
I think that's all I had books and art books
and art embroidery based art.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's all you can expect here.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, that's kind of what we got.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
And video.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Oh and of course video content for anybody who's interested.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Karen's wearing a black shirt. I'm wearing a busy, fucking
fun little thing shift.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know us.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
That's us. This is what we've been doing for ten years.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
It's fun to not have to do your hair because
your stupid headphones are going to cover it.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Anyways, I think about that.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
That is nice if only my headphones covered my upper
fucking lip.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, there's an injection for that. Right.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
We have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media.
Here are some highlights now Bananas Kurt and Scotty discuss
strange news with their guests Dana Marlowe, founder of the
nonprofit I Support the Girls. Also, you guys in Denver, Colorado,
on Saturday, September seventh, do Miss Bananas Fest, where the
Banana Boys will host a day of festivities and live shows.

(11:36):
Visit Bananas podcast dot com for more information like this
is a must go to.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yes, yeah, Kurt Rommeler and Scottie actually, because they've been
working together since they lived in New York City, so
like years and years, but they they put on a show. Yeah,
for festivals, for all kinds of things. They know how
to get people together and have some fun.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
And weird fun too. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Also, we're excited to announce our first throw back merch
item from episode eight of our rewind episodes that we've
George and I have been doing through September. Third, you
can pre order your limited edition Elvis Wannacookie t shirt
or tote bag, so don't forget to do that because
they will be gone very soon.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And those are by old school murderinal artist Michael Ramstad
who was like early on sending in the cool fucking
mfm art Like, thank you.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Huge part of the early days. Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yes and so.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Also, the Exactly Right Store is having an end of
summer sale that runs today August twenty ninth through September second.
Use the code Summer twenty four to get fifteen percent
off all regular priced items, and don't forget to check
out the last Chance section for even more discounts. Visit
Exactly rightstore dot com to shop.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Also a reminder for listeners who do like to shop,
I keep no turning to the.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
G do do that. We're supposed to be chill. I'm
so sorry. You kind of seem like you're in an infomercial.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, that's kind of what my personality is like anyway.
But my thing is is kind of like, we can't ignore.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
These You ignore them. They don't want to ignore They're
not even there.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
They're not there. So a reminder for those who like
to shop, promo codes for all of our advertisers are
now available online so that you will never miss them.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
And it's online on.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Our website specifically, So you go to my favorite murder
dot com slash promos and you can get the promo
codes for all the things we talk about. I bet
you there's an article.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
One on there. I've gone twice to look for it
to see if we have promo codes for things I've
been buying. I'm not fucking kidding.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah, because like I might as well use my promo code, right, Hell, yes,
we all should. I'm first, which is good because I've
already drunk half of this can of wine.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah. So I'll go and then i'll leave, and then
you can do your story, okay, and I'll play a camera.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
That's right, talk to them, Okay, do you know Karen
the shop outdoor shopping mall on a sunset boulevard that's
called the Cross.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Of the World.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
I know, yes, I do, of course I do tell
everyone about it.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Calling it a shopping mall is a little they might
be literal with that, but it isn't like people are
going there to shop, you know.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
It's like office buildings now. But I think, yeah, go on,
but maybe it was when it started.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, I'll tell you all about it, but yeah, oh okay.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
So it's like this weird kind of it looks maybe Dutch,
like there's it's the whole main part of the main
building is a windmill design. If I'm remembering it.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
It just really does stand out.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
It's like it's got a very specific style and it
used to be very close to the Cat and Fiddle,
so like we'd get drunk at the Cat and Fiddle,
I'll be like, what's that thing over there? And that
was like, you know, a part of our part of
my young Hollywood lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, it's in the like kind of sketch neighborhood on
a sunset all of oar. It's seven eleven across the street,
like we've all seen it, but none of us have
ever been in it.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, you can tell it used to be something. But
there's a lot of stuff like that in la where
you're like, I wish I will one day learn about this.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Well, guess fucking what today's today?

Speaker 3 (14:59):
Is that The Crossroads of the World open in October
of nineteen thirty six and was designed to have different
buildings in different architectural styles like you would find in
international cities, for example, probably dutch Land.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
The idea is that when you're there, you're taking a
trip around the world. The entrance is a building that
looks like an Art Deco ocean liner, so it is
when you drive by it, you are like, what is happening?
The central tower has a globe on top, and it's
so iconic that a replica of it is the first
thing visitors see when they enter the Hollywood Studios park
at Disney World in Florida.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Oh wow, did you know that?

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I did not. But also it's interesting that I interpreted
that as a windmill.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Right, But there might be a Dutch theme somewhere. Maybe
it's like blue and white.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Know.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
The site has gone through cycles of growth and decline,
and it's now mostly offices It's currently the topic of
a heated debate over redevelopment. But the Crossroads of the
World was originally built by a grieving widow on the
very site where her husband was murdered.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh my god. This is the.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Story of the death of a notorious La Underworld figure
named Charles Crawford and the history of the Crossroads of
the World shopping center.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Amazing shopping centers in this nomar for sure, I know,
I know.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
The main sources for this story are a PBS article
by Hadley Meres and an LA Times article by Cecilia Rasmussen,
and the rest.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Can be found in the show notes. So let me
tell you about this dude.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Charles Crawford is born in eighteen seventy nine. He rises
to prominence in Seattle in the early nineteen hundreds. Like
so fun, let's go. He operates bars, dance halls, and bordellos. Sure, like,
what more does one want?

Speaker 1 (16:39):
This is a period called the Klondike Gold Rush.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Gold had been discovered in the Klondike River in Canada's
Yukon Territory, which borders Alaska. As you and I both
have known, we talk about it all the time of
the time.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's our Roman Empire.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
It really is one of the roots that you have
to use. To get there. Often requires a stop in Seattle,
where Charles and his partners are ready to relieve the
men of their money. Yeah, you know, like, what do
you need?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
We have it, We have it all here for you.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Exactly. In nineteen ten, Seattle elects a reformer mayor who
promises to crack down on crime and all the criminals like,
god damn it.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
So yeah, So Charles leaves for Los Angeles, and at
the time, Los Angeles is considered pretty much lawless.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, nineteen tens in Los Angeles, just do what you want, Yes,
take me there do you want? And then go to
the beach.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
The dates are fuzzy, but at some point Charles Mary's
a woman named Ella who's most often described guess, I
mean plain, no, slight, pretty, and blonde. Oh oh, because
what more do you need to describe a woman?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
I mean sure? And but also it was like, oh
and he's a gangster. So yeah, there's a little bit
of a flex maybe even back then the beauty standard.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Charles shows up in Los Angeles right before prohibition, which
is fine for him because he opens up a saloon
called the Maple Bar at the intersection of Fifth and
Maple Downtown, and I looked it up and it's like
in the Toy District, kind of skid row area, and
it's right down the street from the last bookstore. Oh yeah, yeah,
which is an amazing place. Everyone should go. It gives

(18:18):
me Perry Mason vibes like the show we were watching,
yes with what's his face am able to?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
I guess you will.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I love him so much. Have you ever seen him?
We've talked about it, Yes, his real accent versus him
talking like Perry Mason, his.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Real accent and his beard like do things cray, Yeah,
didn't they do things to me? Yeah? Reece Reese, Matthew Res,
Matthew Rees.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
We were nowhere closed, so I was nowhere near now.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
But that show that we saw that was so good before.
But where they were like downtown in the twenties.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
So Perry Mason, Perry Mason.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah. So the Maple Bar is a really nice place.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
There's a bordello upstairs, and right away Charles and his
friends become influential in the underworld. Charles and his cronies
are connected with law enforcement. They have influence over local
politicians and become known as the City Hall Gang. Charles
is a charismatic host at the bar, and his charm
and ability to get pesky problems dealt with inspires a

(19:16):
little catchphrase people say about him, which is, quote, see
Charlie about it.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
And I like the idea of having somebody around that
takes away pesky problem.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Just see Charles.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, he's got this. I need you to talk to Charles. Absolutely.
He's known for his flamboyant clothing and his pension for jewelry,
which is like, who among us, Come on, do we
have a photo of him? Actually I should have flying
in No, no, a hot one, a hot one.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
This guy does something to you.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
No no, no, Perry does something for me.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Oh no, I'm not into zaddies.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
I loved it that back then. It's like this picture
is clearly taken in like the thirties. It's just like,
you don't need to bring all your teeth. Don't worry
about it, leave your teeth at Oh we just started.
Oh that's a gold tooth.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Oh damn, it's not empty, it's gold flex.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Hell yah.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I mean, just maybe he was cute when he was younger.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Let's just pretending you can tell you can see the bump.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Sure, good bump, good smile. Okay.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
So in nineteen twenty one, a man named George Cryer
is elected mayor of Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
He goes by the nickname Pinky.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
And this is great for Charles Crawford because George is
completely in bed with the City Hall gang. Like he
is basically a puppet politician.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Great, you know what I mean? Great for them?

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, Charles becomes more powerful and is known by two nicknames,
good Time Charlie and the gray Wolf of Spring Street.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Holy shit, those.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Are two very different nicknames.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, Like who do you want to meet? You know
when you've done something wrong?

Speaker 2 (20:49):
He was a Gemini, thank you.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
He's not directly tied to particular acts of violence. Basically
he's too high up and has enforcers to do things
like that for him. And it said that Charles is
the inspiration for some of the corrupt villains in Raymond
Chandler's hard boiled detective novels.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Wow. So like, same time, same place, same kind of person.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Is Perry Mason and Raymond Chandler series?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Wow? Based on that's a great question.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
I wonder we'll just float that into I'm going to go, no, okay, well, I'm.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Going to say, yeh, that's what you can expect from
my favorite.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Murder Earl Stanley Gardner did Perry Mason thought I throw
that out there. I only no two authors, and one
of them you talked about at the beginning of this show.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
So at this point, Charles's influence over all corners of
vice in LA really consolidates into a cohesive crime syndicate.
Your favorite kinds of syndicates.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I mean there's a lot of different kinds. Yeah, crime
is the best one.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's fun. The City Hall gang has their hands in
the illegal slot machines, illegal bookmaking, and illegal betting.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
At the end of the Roaring twenties, Charles's social standing
begins to decline, and it's for a few reasons. Prohibitions ended,
and organized crime's influence on the liquor industry becomes like
a lot more tenuous and at the same time, just
like what happened in Seattle, Los Angeles elects a reformer
mayor who promises to root out all the fun, hilarious,

(22:11):
rampant corruption. As part of this effort, Charles is indicted
on charges related to multiple scandals, and one of the
most well publicized is the Julian.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Peat scandal, which I'd never heard of throughout the twenty
but it was so well publicized. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Throughout the nineteen twenties, a man named Courtney Chauncey, Julian fucking.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
That's three first names, beat that insane.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Beat, that start selling shares in an oil field that
he has yet to build. The company is called Julian Petroleum,
and it's usually shortened to Julian Pete. While there really
is oil in southern California, the people who benefit from
it are those who are already wealthy and own large
tracts of land. Julian promises small time investors that they

(22:55):
too can get a piece of the action, and he
runs ads in the La Times that's say, quote, I'm
trying to offer you the squarest and surest opportunity for
big returns that is humanly possible to make end quote.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Guys when they come out the door telling you it's
an honest deal, right, there's a reason excuse it isn't.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
It's basically a Ponzi scheme. Julian buys two oil wells,
which turn over a modest profit, but not nearly enough
to cover the returns that he's been promising. He pays,
of course, the earlier investors with money coming. It's a
Ponzi scheme. We fucking I've covered Ponzi schemes, guys. We
should know this by now. You know, Julian comes under investigation.
But he had encouraged all of his investors to vote

(23:35):
for the sitting district attorney, which is so smart, and
had also probably bribed him.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
So the DA is like, I don't know what you're
talking about.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
We're seeing that a lot these days.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Hey, hey, still word starts getting around that Julian is
a con man, and public opinion starts to turn against him.
On one occasion, he gets into a bar fight with
Charlie Chaplin.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
What Yeah, remember when I thought Charlie Chaplin used to
own in my house?

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yes, I do, but I love it.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
It's better that he didn't. It's a better story than
that Charlie Chaplin had. That is someone named Charles Chaplin.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
At least it has a funny joke at the end
of it. And I'm just like a straight up brag,
right except for that I bragged to so many people,
And then yeah, that's so embarrassing. But anyway, sorry, I
love the idea that Charlie Chaplin was like just the
cuffs John L.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Sullivan style.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, no one goes to jail for this whole Julian
Pete scandal, but it does kick up a lot of
publicity around corruption in La Wait.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Do we know why he got in the fist fight
with Charlie Choplin.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
We don't, just a side known in her history. So
all of this you know, shit with the city government
also implicates Charles, our friend, Charles Crawford, who was widely
understood to be one of the back channels facilitating all
the bribery and favors and fucking all of this shit
like he's the dude.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
With several indictments pending in the courts, Charles flees to
Europe in nineteen thirty, but returns pretty quickly, probably because
he's like, this place is sketchy, All of Europe nazis
mostly oh gotcha, you know, and somehow manages to have
all of his charges dropped, probably because he was completely innocent, right.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, that's It's either that or he went and found
some money. It's creepy.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
At the time, Europe still he says he will not
be returning to organized crime scouts honor. He gets baptized
and joins a Presbyterian church, and on one of his
first sundays there, he drops a diamond ring into the
collection plate so on purpose, not like it slipped off
his beautiful.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Ladylike fingers. But maybe he really meant it. Is he
trying to is that publicity or is that like he's
really doing it?

Speaker 1 (25:46):
You know, who the fuck knows?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Okay, could be real men are so mysterious.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
So here we go.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
The diamond ring that he dropped in is appraised at
the time to be worth thirty five hundred dollars. And
that's in the nineteen thirties. In today's that would be.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Thirty five hundred. I think we're up into like one
hundred and.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Fifty thousand, sixty five thousand. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
He makes a separate donation of twenty five thousand dollars
for a new building for the church, which is a
lot of money.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Fucking now.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yes, in today's dollars, that twenty five thousand dollars for
a new building for the church would be more than
half a million, four hundred and thirty thousand.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
I was close you were very close.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
On that one, on that first guess. Did you see
how long it took me to do that math?

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Because you knew it and you didn't. You have to
go with what comes into your head first.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, you're right. It's a guessing game. It's not a
math game. It's not a math game or my favorite murder. Ever,
it'll never be in it never was. Can't play a
math game.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
It's not a bronzer game. It's not a math game.
It is a video game at this point, that video game.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
It's a video game.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
And he has the building named after his mother.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh nice, he's repenting.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah maybe. Charles owns an entire block on Sunset Boulevard. God,
can you imagine?

Speaker 3 (26:59):
And on it he opens a real estate and insurance business,
which operates out of a small bungalow. Oh my god,
Like can you imagine what it looked like back then?

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Just like?

Speaker 2 (27:09):
And also the hats, just the hat.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
And imagine the hats.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
But he also starts another venture, a magazine called The
Critic of Critics. It's meant to be a sort of
political gossip column, and he hires a veteran and newspaperman
named Herbert Spencer to run it. It does kind of
seem like maybe he's trying to go straight, you know,
it does on what money?

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Who knows, but it's.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Straight for reasons that will never be totally clear. On
May twentieth, nineteen thirty one, Charles and this newspaperman Herbert
take a meeting with a corrupt district attorney, so maybe
they're still there.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
This guy's named Dave Clark.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
He goes by the totally normal name Handsome Dave for
a day. That afternoon, Dave arrives at the bungalow on
sunset for the meeting, and apparently Handsome Dave and the
political gossip columnist Herbert Spencer who's there, had some kind
of agreement. And at the time Dave is running to
be a city judge.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Maybe he was.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Trying to get paid off. Maybe they didn't want to
maybe something along those lines. It seems that Dave didn't
want Herbert badmouthing him. Also in the critic of critics
like which is their new magazine? And on the way
to the meeting, Handsome Dave buys a gun, and the
way a prosecutor would later describe it, there were three
racketeers in the bungalow and only one came out. Oh shit,

(28:25):
So witnesses say they hear gunshots. Then they see Handsome
Dave leave the bungalow and get into a card driven
by a blonde woman wearing lots of jewelry.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Sign me up.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Herbert Spencer dies at the scene, but Charles is alive.
When he gets to the hospital. In the operating room,
police try to ask Charles who shot him, but Charles
only smiles and says, quote, I don't know, ask Spencer
end quote, referring to the guy who had been killed there.
So like he's no rat even at the end, rat
guy who just killed his buddy.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
He's like coworker buddy, Like.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I don't know, ask him, I don't know, bye, ask.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Him by Wow. Yeah. Charles died shortly thereafter, at the
age of fifty two.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
So when Handsome Dave is arrested, he claims that Charles
also had a gun and that he shot Charles in
self defense. Investigators never recover a gun from the scene
that would have been Charles's, though Charles had been wearing
a shoulder holster that was empty.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
That's weird.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Investigators say that Charles had been holding a cigar in
his dormant hand when he was shot, which seems to
point to the fact that he had not also been
holding a gun in his cigar hand.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Is it is dominant hand, not as dormant hand.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
No, I meant Dolt his dominant dormant hand.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
It's a sleep dormant the other one, it's the non
dominant one. In the lead up to the trial, Handsome
Dave and his wife and Nancy go into spin mode.
They grant tons of interviews. Dave invites reporters to a
poker game and his jail cell.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
You know back then, I mean it's a little wild.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Handsome Babe has of reporters randmon down while Nancy talks
to them on her front like she's just spinning it too.
The election Dave was running and happens while he's being
held in jail ahead of his trial, and he loses, unfortunately,
but he still gets sixty thousand votes.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Sure, even though he killed two people. Well, he's handsome,
Handsome Dave can't get past that. It matters, it does.
Dave winds up being tried separately for each of the
two murders he's acquitted for. Herbert Spencer's murder. First, the journalist.
After the acquittal, Charles's widow, Ella, the slight blonde and
pretty Ella, gives a statement criticizing the prosecutor. She says

(30:38):
that there's no point in having another trial for her
husband's murder because quote, so, as far as I'm concerned,
District Attorney Fits need not put on any more burlesque
shows in the trial of my husband's slayer. In these
times of depression, it would be far better if the
taxpayers be saved the cost of another feudal gesture such
as that just completed and the trial the memory of

(31:01):
my husband was besmirched and a halo placed.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Her with the head of his slayer. So she's pissed.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
She's slight blonde, pretty and a badass.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, and her husband's like, I'm a Presbyterian now and
I'm taking care of business and doing normal shit. He
gets fucking killed by this guy and this guy comes
out scott free. Yeah, So like, don't even bother prosecuting
him for my husband's murder because I know it's going
to happen and I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Well, it's like they all worked within a rigged system. Right,
and really supported that rigged system. Inside the rig system
gets them.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
That's right. Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
But you can't just call up a trial the civilian.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
True.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
So the trial proceeds.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Ella testifies against Dave's self defense argument. She says that
she hugged her husband goodbye the morning he was killed,
and that if he had been wearing a revolver, she
would have felt it. Sure, maybe there's a hung jury.
One jer wanted to find Dave guilty, Handsome Dave guilty.
That cher then finds a bomb on his lawn.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
So the new jury, the next jury comes back with
a not guilty verdict.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, like message fucking cent.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Also, as that woman pointed out to the press, it's
the depression. Yeah, O when is that shit in their life?
If it's like the hardest of times.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, and I like that.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
She's like, the taxpayers money would be better spent somewhere else, right,
don't fucking bother.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's right impression and that's what those people are. Just like,
I'm not dying for this fake you know, right?

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Oh yeah, horrible.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
About twenty years later, in nineteen fifty three, Handsome Dave
Clark will be arrested for another murder, and he'll die
in jail at the age of fifty five shortly after
his arrest. Meanwhile, Ella Crawford, the wife of Charles Crawford.
She's in her thirties when this whole thing goes down.
She's now widowed with two young daughters, and in nineteen

(32:50):
thirty four, the irs starts closing in on her. Charles
died owing forty two thousand dollars in back taxes, which
in today's dollars, Jesus.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
That's a lot of fucking money.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
How much is it?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Almost a million, nine hundred and eighty four thousand dollars,
Just overwhelming, just like bankruptcy. But he owned a bungalow
where he was killed. He owned that land and that
entire block of Sunset Boulevard that goes on right. So
Ella has an idea. Her vision is a block full
of shops that will take you on a trip around
the world. She hires an architect named Robert Dara to

(33:24):
design the shopping center that's her dream.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Now.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
He's the same person who designed LA's Coca Cola building,
and he specializes in a style called streamline modern.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
You mean, just like this studio.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yes, it's basically an offshoot of Art Deco that draws
inspiration from trains and ocean liners.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
There's that building on like a little on hyperion. Yeah,
you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Portal, Yes, yes, God, that must have been like the style.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, yeah, a style.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
It's curved edges, windows that look like portholes.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
It looks like a little like a little scanner. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
He designs the shopping center's iconic central building that looks
like a ship. And The Crossroads of the World opens
in nineteen thirty six to great fanfare and hosts an
eclectic selection of shops that specialize in things like hand
dipped chocolates and imported fabrics. How many of the years
of your life would you give up for five minutes
in there?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh seven?

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Because truly, I mean, yeah, it's no one's coming for you,
No one's coming for me.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
But also that idea that especially back then, where like
things were quality, so somebody is actually like choosing each
shop to reflect things in the world. Like you couldn't
get a lot of stuff like that back then. No,
you just had like Macy's and whatever they had at
Macy's or the May Company. But like this is intentionally
international and global.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
That's cool in an area where there probably aren't a
lot of I mean Los Angeles at the time, I
don't think it was that cosmopolitan.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I think it was not at all.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
So you have this sudden.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
Cute little fabrics, yeah, chocolates. A few modern artists and
designers also runt space in the shopping center, like the stories.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
So let's go take a Ouiji board there and find out.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Later on it becomes more popular as an office space
for people in the entertainment industry, and Alfred Hitchcock has
his production offices there, that's right, which is down the
street from where Charlie Chaplin had his fucking production offices.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Around the which is where Kermit the Frog now has
his production office.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I can right the Jim Henson fucking production offices. LA's
Not So Bad Ella dies in nineteen fifty six, and
in later decades the shopping center becomes more vacant, changes
hands between owners several times. Today, part of the site
is planned to be redeveloped into fucking high rises, just
what LA needs. More.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Well, that whole area, along like Sunset and Yell Boulevard,
they're trying to turn it into like, yeah, high rise area.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Guys, if you've ever been to the original Amiba that
was there, that's the area that it's in. Oh yeah,
right and cat and Fiddle as you said, right right,
the fucking Hollywood YMCA.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Love that place. It's right there too. No, I'm serious.
I love that place. No, no, no, I do too. But
we used to go there.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
I think I was a member, or I went with
my friend. But one time I was going there and
waiting for her to be done, and I was just
sitting against a wall and this old guy was like, Hey,
can I get a ride home? And I was like
what No. It was the weirdest thing. When I got home.
My leggings that I was wearing were split from like
the top, from just stem to stern, just like open,

(36:34):
open crotch like leggings at the YMCAs, Like I get
a ride. It was like, what is happening? Is I?
He thought I was trying to attract and that's the
way I was going to do it.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
And that man was Jake Jillenhall.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
If I'm not mistaken, I actually think it worked out
there when I worked out there in like the early
two thousands, tens.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Or James the Gross used to play basketball there, who
one of the best actors of all times. You've seen
him a bunch. You know who he is? I do.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
You have to see it and he's amazing. Yes.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Anyways, thankfully the project for the high rises has been
plagued with lawsuits and allegations of corruption.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
So it's like the fucking same as it ever was.
It just brought it all back. It.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Why aren't exactly right offices there? Let's second brand fun.
We are so corrupt, that's all we do. Just pay
off handsome da.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
I didn't mean it like that, but let's get our
second set of offices at that spot.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Sounds great, that'll be our future investment.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
And that is the story of LA Underworld boss Charles
Crawford and the LA landmark that was built as a
result of his murder, The Crossroads of the World on
Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Incredible and truly what a joy to listen to that,
Thank you, because there is LA is so like in
not known for anything architectural or anything like that, but
there are a million stories here. Yeah, and across the street,
and I'm not sure I think it's also on Sunset

(38:02):
there is that motel that has the crazy creepy haunted
house looking thing.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
That has the old soda vending machine. Yes, I have
a photo in front of that in a vintage dress.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Is it still there.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think it's there, but I think they don't like
how many people try to come in and.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Go, oh whatever, it's just for filming.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Now, maybe it is. I don't know. I think I
talked about it once long ago on like Facebook, and
I had a bunch of people who were like, la,
people telling me.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
About it, but so crazy.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Oh yeah, this would be a good series if you
keep on doing these stories like these. It's like, yeah,
you never thought That's seven to eleven had anything to
do with it.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
But that's actually where I like that.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
It's like the Zangou Chicken Place and the the list
Fuless Murder Mansion.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Right, yeah, but I could do it all over the world.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Oh well, then that's actually just the podcast. I'm no offense,
no offense all taken. Well, should we roll right into
story number two?

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
When I was reading this and going over it, I
was like, I did this already, But then I remembered,
as is common with me, I like to read do
stories I did in correctly. Oh so I didn't really
tell the full story last time, and so that's why
I'm going to tell you this story today. Today's story

(39:30):
is about sharks, the apex predators we all fear, especially
when we're swimming in the ocean, sometimes just when we're
sitting around the living room. Yeah, totally, especially when we're
actually where they live. This past February, ABC ran an
article with the headline quote ten people killed in unprovoked
shark attacks last year. Report finds unprovoked being the operative

(39:55):
word there. Then in July, CNN publishes an article titled
quote at least four people were bitten in shark attacks
in Texas and Florida since the fourth of July. Texas
has sharks, I mean their coastline does. Sure, they don't
come inland very much. You also may have seen last
year's headlines about the great white shark that was quote
stalking the Hamptons. So this has been common lately. But

(40:20):
to be very clear, encounters between sharks and humans are
very rare globally. There were sixty nine unprovoked.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Sure don't laugh at that, don't. We're grown women.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
The shark swims by and you're like, hey, islet and
then it's like, well, then you asked for it.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
What were you wearing a bikini?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah? What were you just out there in the water
opening your legs over and over. So in twenty twenty three,
sixty nine unprovoked shark attacks, two of them being fatal.
So of those only two were fatal. One was in Hawaii,
the others in California. And my guess is the other
one was Stinton Beach because that's where up north, that's
where they all happened. Yeah, but that's just a gas

(40:59):
Hearing about those occasional attacks is what feeds into our
persistent and very reasonable fear of sharks. But it doesn't
warrant it based on data in the stature.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
That's all we care about here. I'm my favorite murder.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, we're data more stats. We're not like you. We
don't base our fears on rows of teeth. That's immature.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
We're data slots kind of.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
So one hundred years ago, Americans felt very differently.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Back then, sharks were thought of.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
As big, mysterious fish that lived deep in the ocean.
At that time. Reports of shark attacks are, of course,
much more few and far between. Especially on the East Coast.
American scientists at the turn of the twentieth century openly
and repeatedly reinforced the idea that sharks are not a
threat to human beings ever at all, just not at all.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Give McKays.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Actually, yeah, if you rub their nose, they'll follow you around.
So even though there are reports of shark attacks abroad,
they're sometimes dismissed by US based experts as being exaggerated
or sensationalized, or written off as just sea tales. Until
nineteen sixteen. In nineteen sixteen, all of that changed, because

(42:11):
that was the year that transformed sharks from big mysterious
fish into cold blooded apex predators in the minds of Americans.
This is the story of the nineteen sixteen New Jersey
shark attacks.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
I remember this live show.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yes, so New York Jersey. No, did we ever do
a that show in Dirty Jersey?

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Why not? Because you just called it that.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
I learned Dirty Jersey from my old friend Hailey Shaeffer,
who was from Jersey, and that's what she called it.
Then you're allowed to call it that, I think locals only, Okay,
So yes, I'm pretty sure that's what it was. But
I basically only told one snippet of the story. So
today's sources are the book Twelve Days of Terror by
doctor Richard Fernicola, the book Close to Shore, the Terrifying

(43:04):
Shark Attacks of nineteen sixteen by Michael Capuzzo in a
History Channel documentary called Shark Attacks of nineteen sixteen. The
rest of those sources are in our show notes.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
There's just a year that so much fucking should happen,
that sharks just like gotta wrap and like never shook it.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
It's like twenty twenty four with Orcas. We're like, what's
going on that? You guys are like.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
You know what, they're not. Fuck it all fucking done.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
We're coming for you, all right. So this story starts
on July first, nineteen sixteen, in beech Haven, New Jersey.
Beach Haven is a popular vacation spot where wealthy Northeasterners
like to summer, including a well to do family from
Philadelphia named the van zantce So on this night, the
van Zants have a six thirty dinner reservation, but they

(43:50):
just got to town, so they decide to make a
quick trip down to the beach before going to the restaurant,
basically like, oh, we're here.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Doctor Eugene van Zant, his wife Louisa, and their three
daughters stay on the beach, but their twenty five year
old son, Charles, decides he's going to take his first
dip in the ocean, the first dip of the summer.
Right now, don't do it. So Charles makes a beeline
for the water, and adorably, someone's dog runs along with

(44:19):
him and swims along with him, goes out with him
until Charles is about chest deep in the ocean. We
don't know if it was the van Zantz dog or
if it was just somebody else's dog, but we know
there was a dog either way. The rest of Charles's
family and a small group of other vacationers cheer them
on as they go swimming in the ocean.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Simple time.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
So everybody's kind of watching, you know, him swim. And
then suddenly the dog's demeanor changes. He seems skittish, and
he abruptly turns and paddles back towards shore.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
If the dog goes, you go too, believe. Immediately, Charles
calls after.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
The dog to come back. The dog isn't having it.
Charles is all alone, or so he thinks. What he
doesn't know is that there's a triangular fin slicing through
the water, heading straight for him, and what happens next
plays out in seconds. Charles lets out a high pitched
scream as blood pours into the ocean around him, turning

(45:18):
it all into a dark crimson. Confused onlookers watch as
he kicks and flails. One of Charles's sisters later says
that he appeared to be quote struggling with a monster
under the surface. The lifeguard on duty is a man
named Alexander Ott, and he responds quickly. He swims out
to Charles. He helps him make his way back to

(45:39):
the beach, But as he does that, and as they
are getting into shallower and shallower water, the shark attacks again.
This time, the shark clamps onto Charles's thigh, and Alexander
can actually feel the shark pulling Charles's body away from
him like a tug of water, and according to witnesses,

(45:59):
this shark actually hangs on to Charles's leg until the
men are so close to shore that the shark is
actually scraping its belly against the sandy beach. In the
shallows fuck and then it finally gives up and swims away.
So at that point, people have started gathering together. I mean,
they're all.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Watching this horror show. Chill right.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
They all help pull Charles from the water, including Charles's father, Eugene,
who thank god, is a doctor. So now Eugene has
to treat his son's horrific wounds. Eugene has never seen
anything like this before, even though he's an experienced doctor.
Charles's leg is tattered, the flesh is just gone. There's

(46:41):
blood spurting everywhere, and the bone on Charles's hip and
leg is exposed.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Horrible.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
You got that artery right there, the big one, the
one you can't don't do anything to it. So the
beach goers help to carefully move Charles to the manager's
office of the near hotel and they try to control
the bleeding, but before he can be transported to a hospital,
he loses consciousness. Charles van Zandt is pronounced dead at

(47:10):
six forty five pm. He's only twenty five years old.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Oh my god, and they oh fucking his family watched.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
They watched it. It's just it's so terrible. So the
van Zants are a prominent Philadelphia family and Philadelphia newspapers
run stories on this shark attack, but it doesn't draw
much attention beyond his hometown, and when it is discussed,
it's mostly treated like a freak accident. As one example,

(47:37):
doctor Richard Farncola writes, quote, The New York Times buried
the account of the van Zant attack on page eighteen,
referring to the culprit simply as a fish on three
occasions in the short piece, and reluctantly mentioned that it
was quote presumably a shark.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Probably because of tourism, right, they don't want to like
that's right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yep, just like everyone's face movie Jaws. Gott to open
the beaches, Gotta open those beaches. It's fourth of July weekend.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
This was July first, yeah, oh right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
And just you know, Peter Benchley, who wrote the book Jaws,
said that this was not an inspiration. He did not
get his idea from this. That's a thing that people
have said for years, and he is corrected for years.
But just like the movie Jaws, this is the only attack.
The terror is just beginning. So five days later, on

(48:27):
July sixth, nineteen sixteen, in the Ritzy Coastal community, of
Spring Lake, New Jersey, a twenty eight year old hotel
employee also named Charles. His name is Charles Bruder. He's
about to take a swim in the ocean. It's hot out.
He's spent all morning lugging guest suitcases around. He's looking
forward to cooling off in the ocean, something he does

(48:48):
all the time. Charles is a strong swimmer. He feels
very comfortable in the ocean. He's heard murmurings about that
there was a shark attack in Beach Haven, but that's
fifty miles from Spring Lake, and he just isn't that concerned. Again,
Doctor Farren Cola writes, Charles quote scoffed at the talk
of sharks after the van Zant death by citing his

(49:11):
experience with timid, large sharks off the California coast only
months before.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
You'd played some playful sharks, is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
I'm sorry, we have great whites out here. We're the
ones that actually do it like we mean it.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
So timid timid.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, but I wonder if that's because because this guy
swims in the ocean, like gets in and swims out
in a way that I absolutely never would No fucking way,
and I wonder is it that he's in their territory.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
It's blissful ignorance that he didn't know, right, because he's like, oh,
it's just a shark. So if there was a shark
that he thought was timid, he would be much braver
than a person who understood how many rows of teeth or.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
In a sharks now something stupid. Yeah, that's my personal theory.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
So on July sixth, Charles swims about a quarter mile
from shore, which is what he likes to do, which
is relatively far out into the ocean, past the lifelines
that they set up for the guests at the nearby hotels.
No wh He's like, no, no, I can do it.
I fought a shark in California, take a bath that
was a seal dummy. So on the beach that day,

(50:20):
there's also a large crowd swimming sunbathing. Some are just
hanging out nearby hotels and restaurants that have a view
of the water, and a lot of these people are
treating Charles as swim kind of like entertainment. They're watching
the day I go out, the further he goes, the
more in awe they are that he would do that,
and suddenly there's a piercing screen. One witness will later

(50:42):
describe it as a blood curdling scream coming from the ocean,
as doctor Farrenkola writes, quote, a woman standing near the
lifeguard stand suddenly pointed in the direction of Charles Bruder
and shouted to the lifeguards that she believed a canoe
had capsized just outside the swimming She emphasized that the
canoe's hull was just at the surface of the water

(51:05):
and painted deep red. Oh shit, this, she asserted, could
be the only explanation for the water's blue hue to
change radically to crimson red end quote. So this woman
has just witnessed one of the most horrifying things in
her life, and her brain turned off and went that
was a canoe.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
With a red body.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
That's all I can handle, I mean, because yeah, God.
So the lifeguards that day are named George White and
Christopher Anderson. They immediately know something's wrong. They've been staring
at the ocean all day. There was no beach goer
that went into the water with a red canoe. They're like,
uh uh. And what they will soon learn is that
this woman witnessed the gush of blood leaving Charles Bruder's

(51:47):
body after he was bitten by the shark. Everyone on
shore is confused. Lifeguards George and Christopher aren't sure what's
happening to Charles, but they rush a rescue boat out
to him, and when they get close they can see
how pale he is. But when the lifeguards reach down
to grab Charles's arm to hoist him into the boat,

(52:08):
they're surprised at how easy it is to lift him in. Yes,
and that's when they see that Charles is missing most
of both of his legs, as well as an enormous
amount of blood.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Twenty eight year old Charles Brewder dies before the lifeguards
can get the boat back to shore. So while a
recent attack involving Charles van Zandt was reported as a
weird fluke if it was covered at all, Charles Bruder's
death is talked about in US newspapers extensively. One shark
attack felt like an anomaly, but two back to back

(52:43):
shark attacks off the Jersey shore, something that before that
day had seemed inconceivable, is enough to tip the country
into a full blown panic. Yeah, so the new York
Times that the first time had the shark attack on
page eighteen is now one of the many national newspapers
that runs it as front page news. And all along

(53:04):
the East Coast, tourists start swimming in pools and fountains
instead of the ocean, if they even carry through with
their beach vacations at all. The swimming in a fountain
made me laugh so hard, and it makes me really
sad because that fountain that's over in Los Felis is
closed now, and when it was super hot, people used

(53:24):
to take their kids there to swim in it, and
it was great, one of my favorite things to look at.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Super deco, our deco, so gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
I think I had a postcard of it.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, it lights at night. It's just closed.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Yeah, Okay, we'll talk about that later. So in the small,
friendly town of Mattawan, New Jersey, there is not much fear.
Summer in this town is still in full swing because
a lot of people haven't heard about what's going on.
Mattawan is about ten miles inland, but it feels like
a world away from those glamorous Jersey shore retreats. It's

(53:58):
that long ago that the Jersey's sure was glamorous.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
We've seen Boardwalk Empire. That's Atlantic City. Oh that's right, Nope,
that's Atlantic City.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
It's Atlantic City. But it is an ocean sure, on
the East coast.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
I think glamorous.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
It's the same. There's no ocean front in Mattawan, but
there is a brackish salty title creek, the Mattawan Creek
that's popular with local kids.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Oh, you wouldn't think there's going to be a shark there, correct?

Speaker 2 (54:23):
So does any of this part sound familiar?

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Yes, I'm thinking of the one that you covered where
the shark barfed up in arm or something.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
That's the Australian one.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
The fact that it's in a creek, and how weird
a shark in a creek would be. I remember this
you did a little bit, okay, because we're trying to
figure out it's not like an episode.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I feel like you did it at the theater in
Brooklyn that we did.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Oh King's King's Theater.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah, in Brooklyn, and we just never reposted it. I
think so.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Probably, Well, if you were there that night at the
king Theater and got super drunk with everybody else because
they had some sort of crazy Karen and Georgia cocktail
that every single person in their drink.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Got like drunk to a point where you're like on
hallucinogenic drug.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
It was wild, So you don't remember this anyway. It
was the best the wild night. And we may have
that may have been a night where we either couldn't
use the recording or something happened.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
I think we did two nights there, and so we
don't want to like put two episodes from the same
theater apps. We usually like we use one night from
a recording or from a s.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Until one year later when we want to go on
vacation that we used that second.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Night Steven was put up the other night.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Stephen Pletephen, where are you please call into the hotline
right now.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
I'm having a fucking, you know, meltdown, Steven. I can't
record tonight. Yes, those yes, for sure's the live episode.
What live episodes do we have left?

Speaker 2 (55:43):
That's what I say, and then we watch them dwindle
down to zero.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
I guess put that one up.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Okay, fine, it's not that good.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
It was hard and twenty No twenty eighteen, seventeen nineteen, Yeah,
twenty the whole thing twenty one very difficult.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
So I think I did this and we just weren't
able to capture it.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
I'm still here, great. I probably had one of those
cocktails myself.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Okay, there are people out there right now that are
like I was there.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
You did this one.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Okay, someone can help us. So now it's July twelfth.
It's eleven days have passed since Charles van Zant was
attacked in Beech Haveven, seventy miles away, and only six
days have passed since Charles Bruder was killed thirty miles away.
So that afternoon, a retired sea captain named Thomas Katrell

(56:33):
is taking one of his walks around town that.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
He always does, and someone will ask him about his
stories because he has the best stories.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
I mean, it's all I can picture is the character
from The Simpsons, so it's like everything starts.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
With an or totally. They truly had.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
A retired sea captain in Mattawan beautiful, so lovely. So
Katrell makes his way across a bridge that passes over
the Mattawan Creek, and as he does, he looks down
at the water and he sees something that he immediately
recognizes because he is an old sea captain. It's a
dorsal fin connected to a ten foot long creature that's

(57:12):
swimming up this creek.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
So Katrell knows what a shark looks like. He's an expert.
It's not a fish, and it's yeah, it's not a log.
He's also well aware of the two recent attacks in
New Jersey. He knows that kids in Mattawan like to
swim in this creek, so he goes running back to
main Street to warn everybody. Amazing, Luckily it is not

(57:35):
far away so he can keep his pipe in his
mouth the whole time. So he does just that. He
just starts running around warning everyone. He bumps into there's
a shark in the creek. There's a shark in the creek.
And I think the first time I did this story,
I probably leaned on this pretty heavy. I don't know
if it's true, but I imagine that guy gets drunk
as much as he possibly can, as I would myself.

(57:58):
So everybody that he tries to tell this to thinks
that he's either drunk or crazy.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeah, okay, we got so frustrating.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
There's it. But also it's like saying there's a giraffe
in the tree. Where it's like, yeah, yeah, we would
all think you're crazy.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
What are you talking about, sir.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
He's in his pints, as they say, does someone say that?
Is that how they say it?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
In his cups?

Speaker 1 (58:22):
He's in his cups. He's in his cups.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
So the idea of a shark being in the creek
seems impossible, except for this summer. This summer says no,
it isn't. Everything is possible in this beautiful summer. So
around two PM, a group of boys are headed down
to the creek to go swimming, and they're going toward
what's known as Wyckoff Doc swimming Hole. These boys come

(58:46):
to that swimming hole almost every day this summer, including
a little boy who's eleven years old named Lester Stillwell.
Lester's small for his age. Lester has epilepsy. Other than that,
he's killing it because he has a factory job at
the same factory as dad works at where they nail
peach baskets together cute, and so he basically clocked out

(59:09):
of his factory job. He made one hundred and fifty
baskets that day.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
And then his dad is like, you're done for the day.
You've helped our family, and so he got to go
swimming in the creek. So he met up with all
the rest of the boys and he went down to
y Coough Dock swimming hole. So he gets to leave
the factory around one forty five, meets up with his friends.
They get to the swimming hole, they jump into the
creek and they jump in like they're just wearing their

(59:36):
factory clothes, and then they jump in naked. Okay, they
have no idea that half an hour earlier, Captain Katrell
saw a shark in those very waters. So soon after
they get into the water, one of the boys feel
something brush up against his leg and he thinks it's
just a big fish, Like it's this thing that drives

(59:56):
me crazy about it is just like they couldn't know
because they didn't know this exists totally in the world totally.
So the first boy that feels it feels like it's
a fish, and then another boy sees it in the
water and thinks it's a log because that's the only
thing that could be that rig in the water. Nobody's
concerned about it until Lester starts screaming.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
The same dark.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Object has just surged toward him, latched onto his body
and is now violently pulling him under the water. No
the boys panic. They all scramble out of the creek,
and without even stopping to put their clothes on, they
just run back to main Street to get help. And
the first place they get to is the dry cleaners,
where a twenty four year old tailor named Stanley Fisher

(01:00:40):
is working. And like many other people in this tight
knit community, Stanley knows these boys. He knows Lester, he
knows Lester has epilepsy. When the boys tell him that
Lester's been attacked by a shark in the creek.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Stanley is skeptical.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
He thinks what's happening is that Lester's having an epileptic
seizure and the boys just kind of don't understand it.
So he runs back to the creek with the boys
and they don't see anything, so Stanley starts to search
the swimming hole. Less than an hour later, he finally
surfaces with Lester's remains in his arms, and at that point,

(01:01:17):
there was a growing crowd of townspeople that were standing
along the creek bed, including Lester's devastated parents. Oh my god,
so just every part of it is worst case scenario,
including this part. As Stanley swims back toward the dock
with all the people looking on, the shark strikes again. No,

(01:01:38):
at first, it pulls Lester's remains back underwater, and then
seconds later Stanley screams, he's got me. The shark has
got me, and witnesses describe Stanley ferociously battling this shark
before being pulled underwater, resurfacing and then spun around. Stanley's

(01:01:58):
actually able to fight this shark off, and he gets
pulled out of the creek by the townspeople, but his
injuries are of course horrifying. Again, his thigh is stripped
of flesh, he is gushing blood, and the only thing
he can say is the same phrase over and over,
oh my god, Oh my god, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
What a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Well, the nightmare doesn't end there, because half a mile
down the Mattawan Creek, another group of boys is swimming.
So this is where all the people that wrote in
were like, I think I only told Lester's story. I
think I only told one of the attack stories. And
people were writing in like, are you insane? This was

(01:02:42):
a whole thing. You have to look it up and
back then my answer was I don't have time. Please please,
I don't have Mayor and McGlashan or any researcher in
my life to help me with this. So these boys,
they're fun. They're swimming around the creek. Everything's great. They
hear someone in the distance yelling shark, so they all

(01:03:05):
start swimming to get out of the water. They race
toward the nearby ladder to climb up onto the dock
that's there. The last boy, the slowest in the bunch,
is a twelve year old named Joseph Dunn.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Oh no, you're not just telling me that for no reason.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
No, I'm not. The other boys climb up onto dry land,
including Joseph's brother Michael. They hear Joseph's scream he's about
ten feet from the dock, which to me is not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Close like oh like swimming wise.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
No, no, And as they turn around, they watch Joseph
get pulled underwater by a large shark. Joseph will later
describe the feeling of being bitten as quote, a big
pair of scissors pulling at my leg and bringing me under,
which means he survived. They're boys in the group, including

(01:04:01):
Joseph's brother Michael, waste no time to get him out
of the water. Michael jumps into the creek himself and
the boys create a human chain from the dock to Joseph,
and then some adults hear the boys screaming and they
come and they help, and together they pull Joseph to safety.
He is, of course seriously injured, but he's alive. Moments later,

(01:04:26):
Captain Thomas Kattrell, who's been going up and down the
creek in his boat, he arrives at the scene. Thomas
tells them that they're going to transport Joseph back to
Wykoff Doc because there's already people there working on getting
Stanley to the hospital. So he's like, we'll meet up
with them. When a maimed Joseph shows up in Thomas's boat,

(01:04:47):
the members of the Mattawan community are stunned to hear
that a third shark attack has taken place. Miraculously, Joseph
Dunn survives this attack, almost certainly because his arteries were
not severed, but so it wasn't the fatal attack but
the Taylor Stanley Fisher who jumped in to rescue Lester.

(01:05:07):
He dies of his injuries at the hospital, and then
a couple of days later they find Lester Stillwell's partial
remains in Mattawan Creek.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
So now the public reaction across New Jersey morphs from
terror into a full blown need for vengeance, not just
for the four lives that have been lost and for
the child survivor who now has a life altering injury,
but also, as you pointed out, and the movie Jaws
points out, millions of dollars of tourism revenue is at

(01:05:41):
stake because of this growing shark panic. So now people
set out to kill sharks in New Jersey by whatever
means necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
That's the solution. Just start fucking killing. Just start killing.
Don't go in the water.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
This apex predator like, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
But can't get you if you're not in the water.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I mean. The easy thing though about that creek is
how small.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
That creek is. That's fucked up. You're right, it's not
a river. It's like if they got into a pool. Yeah,
you're like, wait a second, what the hell?

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Yeah, So you know, residents see this as an effort
to clamp down on what they believe is an infestation
of sharks, life threatening life. You know, some people bring
guns onto their boats. Other people use dynamite.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
You're not gonna get all the sharks, you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
They don't know, they don't know how many are in there,
and they don't know, they don't know anything. This is
just kind of a weird mystery thing. People use dynamite
and jaws too. That was funny. As Richard Ellis, who
wrote a book called Great White Shark, tells the History
Channel quote, there were a lot of attempts made to
hunt for them, to shoot them, to blow them up,

(01:06:49):
to somehow rid the water of sharks. You can't, you can't.
This panic actually goes and reaches all the way to
the White House. On the same day that Lester Stillwell's
body is recovered, President Woodrow Wilson, who is a Native
New Jersey and Native Dirty Jurors, and his summer's there.

(01:07:12):
He calls a cabinet meeting to address shark attacks, and
the people in Nebraska are like, hey, don't worry about
don't worry about that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Anyone is not white. It's like, can we actually talk
about something else?

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Yes, real quick, We've got a couple other pressing issues.
So eventually a young eight foot great white shark is
captured in New Jersey. It's reported to have human remains
in its stomach. For many, this feels like justice served people,
except that this might be the so called New Jersey
man eater that's been terrorizing the state. But many people

(01:07:44):
are skeptical that these attacks could be the work of
just one shark, or any of the sharks killed during
the summer of nineteen sixteen for that matter. Researchers over
the years have questioned whether the New Jersey man eater's
stomach's contents had any connect to the five victims, claiming
that those so called human remains could have been misidentified, and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Like, considering what we know now of how many fucking
sharks are out there, to find the one of five
is not probably going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Right like, And if they're sixty seventy five thirty miles apart, yeah,
then not to say they can't cross that in the ocean,
you know, swim that or whatever. But it's like these
could have been just sharks being driven up into yeah,
like toward land. So they basically say that it seems
possible the Mattawan Creek attacks were the work of one

(01:08:35):
desperate shark that might have just had to keep moving
upstream in the tidal creek, far away from its usual
food sources.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
You know, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
It's desperate, and whether this shark has any connection to
the other attacks is unclear, So it's not one shark
doing it all. And it probably isn't an infestation like
people were imagining, like suddenly that they.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Got sharks because we have a flea infestation. But it's sharks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
But it's just so many sharks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Oh God.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
To this day, scientists and experts can only theorize why
there were so many shark attacks in such a short
span of time in New Jersey. What's happening? Is happening?

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
We get talked by a shark, I think so a
brain shark.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Okay, let me just redo that just for clarity, even
though we should definitely keep that in. To this day,
scientists and experts can only theorize why they why there
were so many sharks. Fuck it forgetting you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
What's the reason?

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, it seems like a mix of factors. For starters,
a polio epidemic inspired many people to leave the city,
it was an especially hot summer. Both of those things
resulted in more vacationers head into the beach that year.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Extra people, extra sharks, got it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Perhaps the sharks were particularly hungry. One theory is that
German U boats were known to be patrolling off the US.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Coastal Wars period. Fucking yes, that's it, because it's World
War One right now? Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Do so they like pushed the Germans fucking e ran
the sharks to shore.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Yeah, either the sonar made them go closer or less.
Actual ships were not passing through those lanes. They normally
passed through and throw food in garbage off of which
the sharks would have eaten, right, so they had to
go in closer to the coast for more food.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
There it is again, the fucking Nazis. They fucking love sharks.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
It could be.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
It also could be weather related.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
There were unusual Gulf stream patterns in nineteen sixteen which
made the water closer to the beach, warmer and perhaps
a bit more enticing for cold blooded sharks.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
I buy those Yeah, those are the two.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Yeah. With all that in mind, all of that means
greater potential for encounters between humans and sharks. Whatever the
reasons might be, these attacks would forever alter our cultural
perception of sharks. But this reputation is what scientists now
desperately want to shift.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
No, now we're fine with it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Well only because of this, because the second human beings
start to get together and say we should kill a thing.
Oh no, they really want to keep killing that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
I didn't mean kill it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
I meant just like beware, yes, yes, don't don't fuck around,
don't funk around, and remember that an apex predator means
there at the top. Yeah, and they don't care about
your feelings because sharks are invaluable to the marine ecosystem.
Sure not mean kill them. Everyone, get your fucking computers away.
We're going to be super clear to kill sharks. No

(01:11:36):
one's calling for the death of sharks. No, we love them,
No we do. We love their teeth. The World Wildlife
Fund reports. The WWF reports, for example, that quote, and
this is from mankind, Sir, the wrestler, as apex predators.
As apex predators, sharks fundamentally shape and maintain their ecosystems.

(01:12:00):
They've been around for four hundred million years. Guy, leave
them alone.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
We're not going to beat them.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
No, before trees first laid down roots, shut up sharks. First,
sharks are older than trees, making them one of Earth's
greatest survivors. Sharks and cockroach. Yeah, God, more than five
hundred and thirty species of shark helped protect the delicate
balance of marine ecosystems, benefiting oceans and the climate.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
And they taste so good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
I'm fucking kidding. I'm kidding even do it. To be clear,
no scientists are arguing that sharks are simply quote big fish,
or that they're incapable of causing harm to humans. They
just want to contextualize stories like these as the exception,
not the rule. I mean, I was blown away. Sixty
four shark attacks and only two deaths was the data

(01:12:50):
I gave at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
That's crazy. They're just nibbling, just trying to get you
a little nibble warning.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
You know what it is because we're not fat enough
for them. We don't have enough.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Fl Mimi bites me harder than a shark would not lie.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
I okay, what if Mimi had three rows of tea?

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
We're so cute.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
The worry is that our fear of sharks, who are
among the most endangered marine animals according to the World
Wildlife Fund, will turn to complacency as certain types are
nearing extinction. Fishing operations are responsible for upwards of twenty
five million shark deaths a year a year. That's too many,

(01:13:31):
including many that belong to threatened species. Ultimately, two things
can be true at once, which is a big lesson
we've learned on this podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
The deaths of those.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Four victims in nineteen sixteen were tragic, terrifying, and traumatic.
And at the same time, humans pose a much greater
threat to sharks than they do to us, and we
desperately need sharks for the health of this planet. Sharks,
We're sorry, We love you, and that this is the
story of the nineteen sixteen New Jersey shark attacks.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Fuck that was so good?

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Was not a good one? Yeah, it's even better if
you do it a second time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Great job, Thank you. I'm gonna double up. Can I
double up on something? Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Well, especially if you do it all fucked like I
seem to love.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
To do on this show. Wow, okay, all right, yeah,
ten thousand dollars for sures no to w W E
Now we good? Should we get ten grands the Worldwide
Life Fund? Have you seen?

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
Only if they send us those shirts that have two
panda bears and one of them is hitting the other
one with a fucking folding chair.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Like.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
They don't make no, but I fucking love it so much.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
In college, there was a boy that worked at the
grocery store and he drove a white Vespa and he
had a World Wildlife Fund sticker on that Vespa and
I was like, borderline, I I want to follow you
around because I was in Sacramento, So I was like,
where did you fucking come from?

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
Where did you come from?

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Dude?

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
I hit on one on Melrose once and fucking ruined
my little nineteen year old heart.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
But it was so hot.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Did he like the World Wildlife on?

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
I don't think so. He guy didn't like anything. He
was a narcissist. So now, but what's the connections?

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's what there are the sharks of Melrose.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
He was like a shark more than he was the
best guy. Should we do? What are you even doing
right now? Let's do it before I finish this camera.
I had my first ones from a shark. No.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Uh, this is from the Gmail inbox and this one says,
what am I even doing right now? I own an
early learning center and then parentheses it says shameless plug.
If you want to follow on Instagram at the growing
patch dot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
E l C. That's how you do it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
That's how you do it. And right now I'm listening
while making breakfast for forty five tiny friends before they
come in to start their day. That's right. Educate the
youth by day and listen to the worst of the
worst stories of humanity through the off hours. And then
it says dot dot dot balance And that's from Sarah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
Very mindful, very cute. See well, then I'm just going
to say this one. Then this is from the fan
cull is from Katid. It's similar but so different. It says,
I am preparing a very extensive breakfast routine for my
three crazy cats yay ye along a long, beautiful one.

(01:16:37):
But then it was just like, that's this is it?
So it's the same but different. What are you even
doing right now? Let us know hashtag what are you
even doing right now? Anywhere or email or fan culture.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
And if you can hear this and you're thinking about it,
it doesn't have to be anything big, no, no crazy.
You don't have to have a big business, don't.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
Have to be changing the world or children's minds and anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
It can be fet and cats fucked up, it could
be weird.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
We've got some good ones. The thing about this, I
think we need to start reading more at a time
because there's so many good ones.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
Oh my god, there's so many good ones. You could
have a whole.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
Wait that fourth fo fourth episode of just what are
you been doing?

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Right now?

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
We just love working and it literally is like at
this point we're just reading lists of things. It's like,
is that good content? We don't know anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
We won't know until we post it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
That's right, and you tell us.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Yeah, what have you been doing?

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
The listener, that's right, Thanks for being here with us,
for being here, and stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
Bye bye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
This episode was mixed by Leana Scualachi.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Searchers are Maren mcclashen and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Follow the show on Instagram.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
And Facebook at my Favorite Murder and Twitter at my
favor Murder.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Bye Bye,

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443 - All The Brave Podcasters

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Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

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