476 - Sprinkles and Googly Eyes

This week, Georgia covers the Amistad trial and Karen tells the story of the dog crate prison break.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstart, that's Karen Kilgariff. We're simply trying to podcast.
That's all you let us live, it's all we want to.
Maybe this would out am I just a.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Little if you started doing a new thing where you
put a paper clip as a hair piece.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's a little hair clutch. Just to it's actually.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Cute, does it?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Wait?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh no, I'm just hide it.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Oh it's actually cute.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Okay, it looks like you could sell that for thirty
blacks at like a cute store.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
I think. So that's cute.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hey, designers, get on this. I'm the curator.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Paper Clips are the new hairclip.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
That makes me think of like when I used to
just put a random safety pin on my shirt punk
rock just but like Catholic school punk rock. Of like
this isn't allowed, but I'm where to god.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
I put one through my eye junior high.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
How'd it feel?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
It was so superficial? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:05):
It wasn't it It was like skin. It wasn't like
a deep piercing but.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I thought it was fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Did you have to ice it before and after and
then smoked a capri? What was the day, like walk
us through that day.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I got sent home in school immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh, oh you did it at school.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I did it before school got there, got sent home immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Ladies and gentlemen. This was the nineties. Oh it sure
was where eyebrow piercings were not common.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I see the girls these days with their septum piercings
like it's every other girl doing a TikTok where I'm like,
this would never have been the trend I would have
guessed would have caught on the way it does.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Do you think it's weird that I don't think it's weird,
But it's funny that tongue piercings haven't come back like
everything else, And like the kids these days are like,
uh no, dude, Like that's even Jinko's are okay, but
fucking tongue piercings.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Tung piercings are like it's so incredibly dangerous, it's so dumb,
it's just for you, And like, is it a kind
of like I'm having sex presentation?

Speaker 3 (02:00):
I think there's probably a connotation there of that, but
it's also just like I'm punk rock.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I definitely I had done at fifteen.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It was you pierced your tongue.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I got it pierced at fifteen.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, you like, I did not do it myself.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
No, And I still have the scarf, you know, the
whole bump from it. It's really I have to fucking
use my tongue scrape or real hard on it every morning.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
So we talk to it and just think about it.
Just think about fifteen.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
To get back at your mom. For unknown reasons, you
really showed her.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I know some of the reasons. I'll stand by as
you recount them, and I will witness.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I will there are reasons. There's real good reasons.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I pire's your ole goddamn head.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
All right, What do you got anything going on in
your neck of the woods?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Not really, I mean just this hair. I feel like
when I see my hair, there's pictures of us when
we were in Chicago, and my hair looked furious and
like it was dying at the same time.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I think it's all you and you and your in
and on your.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Head, in and around my head.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I had said about the hotel we stay that
that they gave me a hair dryer from like nineteen
eighty five. So my hair was a fucking rat's nest.
But you were like you had like a high end
hair dryer.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
They might had multiple settings for cool, you know when
it can go cool. Yeah, you're like, this is an
incredible product. But I think my hair doesn't like being
blown dry. I think I just am in that realm
of like it's like, can you just leave me alone
for five seconds?

Speaker 1 (03:25):
That's easy. That's easier than a blow drying for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, and just sitting and crossing room, like your hair
is the done version of what my hair is supposed
to be. But it can't get there. It just won't go.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
It takes a lot of product and straightening and yeah
things and prayers and.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
What's your favorite product these days that you've been using
it to get ready? Do you have any recommendations my
hair anything?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Oh my god, there's so fucking many.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Something you love?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Wait, let me think what do you love? Well?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I have a you know, Korean toner pad that I
am using that I can tell the difference is getting
rid of like spots on my face.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
And it's just the gew toner pad. It's orange and
green and with big writing. This is ji yu okay,
very expensive, but you can wait for them to go
on to flash sale. But like usually a thing at
Toner Pads is nineteen dollars and these ones are like
fifty two okay, but they actually were I know.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Then I have one that's also expensive, but it works
the color Science SPS SPF that it's white and then
it just does that. Oh that's like there's very few
times Vince goes your skin looks good because he just
doesn't think about it, right, But when he does do it,
I'm like, what's on it? Because whatever it is, it's
fucking working.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
He's your ultimate he would know.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, like if you know, because he's a dude, he
doesn't pay attention a lot.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
But when he compliments me, I'm like, what is it
right now that he's complimenting, And it's usually this color
Science SPF that turns tan when you put it on
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, it literally adjust too. I mean, this skin tone
is impossible to find base four And I got that
yeah and put it on and rubbed in and was like,
it's actually.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Doing the color it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, it's great, boom, And then you're wearing your SPF
but you have makeup on right one layer good spf
out the door. God. Okay, we have a podcast network.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hey, we have a podcast network.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
There's all kinds of things going on in it. We
like to tell you about them. Do you want to
hear some Now it's called exactly right media. Oh that's
true too, I never do this part.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Hey.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
First up, on Wicked Words, journalist Joseph Cox tells the
story of how the FBI tricked high level criminals into
using an encrypted messaging app that the FBI secretly created.
Turns out they didn't even need to make one up
because some people will just fucking they'll get right on there.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
They'll just text anything.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, one rearly, it doesn't need to be private.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Now it's all from Joseph's book Dark Wire, and you're
gonna want to hear every detail.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
On Wicked Words, Joseph Cox, Dark Wire, I want to
read that. Over On Bananas Curtain, Scottie cover the most
important news of the week, the weird news, including the
first ever snake found in iron.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Oh my god, they've.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Guts Nick's and Ireland. Now, no, that's how we know.
It's all over Jesus, this feels like a real problem
for my people.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
On Ghosted Roz talks to comedy icon and drag race
legend Bob the Drag Queen. They get into sleep paralysis,
ugi boards and the time Bob had a psychic encounter
with a ghost.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yes, Bob the Drag Queen one of the funniest performers
in stand up comics around right now, so so talented.
Also over and I said no gifts. Bridger keeps the
show rolling even after Edie Patterson, the Great Edie Patterson,
hilarious comedic actress. She's from the Righteous Gemstones, That's how
you probably know her. And she comes and forces Bridger

(06:38):
to accept a gift. He only asks for one thing
and no one will give it to him.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
And finally, a quick reminder for our people out there
who'd like to shop, but you hear our ads and
they're quick and you're driving and you don't have the
promo codes. We give you all the promo codes on
our website at my favorite Murder dot com slash promos,
So you'll have Murder thirty, you'll have the links to
the websites, you will tell you everything it is at
my favorite Murder dot com slash promos. So it just

(07:03):
helps the show out a little bit if you are
going to buy something from these ads, just to like
let them know we sent you.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
You're like, hey, I'm going to get an article couch,
but can't I get twenty percent off? Maybe my good
friends Karen and Georgia might enable. Oh this was the
thing I was going to show you. Somebody sent this
in Natasha. I believe this is on Instagram and it's
nuh dot dot sha dot eighty six. She wore the

(07:29):
Pearl Heart shirt I Shall Never Submit shirt to the
Day of Action protest and tagged us and I just
that's kind of what that shirt was invented for. I
feel like love it.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
A protest looks amazing. Maybe we'll post it, but thank you.
Make sure you tag us when you're wearing your merch
just like, what are you been doing right now while
you're wearing our march.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
We'd love to see it.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Also, I like that you said the people United cannot
be divided. Love it getting it done. Thank you Natasha
for showing up to that.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, I'm first, Okay, sit back, I'm gonna tell you
a story.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Please do. I'm gonna keep this paper clip in my
hair while I listen.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
I'm gonna cold open this, okay, and I'm going to
start in the fall of eighteen thirty nine.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Fuck you know you love it?

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I do.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
We're in the New York Harbor.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Which means it's bustling. There's hundreds of ships from all
around the world unloading cargo and travelers.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I mean, what a time and place.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Imagine this sales, the sails and all the languages is
being spoke, and all the different people, and the.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Pustle and a bustle, and the actual bustles people.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Little kid bustles. That must be what hustle and bustle
is from.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Oh yeah, right, must be.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Also there's like six year old boys smoking pipes working
those ships. Long shortman children.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Long shortman children. Yes, that's all true.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Among these thousands of people is a teenage sailor in
the British Navy named James Covey. James is black and
was originally born in the West African country of Sierra Leone,
but as a child he had been kidnaped by Spanish
traffickers intended to be sold and enslaved. So James then
endured the horrific experience of being loaded onto a ship

(09:14):
with hundreds of other captives but because by this point
the transatlantic slave trade was already illegal, British forces captured
that ship and freed the captives. So James spent the
rest of his childhood being raised by a British missionary
in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and in his
teens he joined the British Royal Navy. Wow, so he
is there at that time and place.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Okay, got it. That's a huge adventure unto itself. Yeah,
what a story.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, that morning in New York Harbor, James and another
sailor with a similar backstory, Charles Pratt, they hear something
they haven't heard in years. Remember all those languages being spoken.
They hear someone counting from one to ten in Mendy,
which is the language of their childhoods in Sierra Leone,
something they very rarely have. We're here nowadays in the

(10:02):
British Army and here in the US.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Can I tell you about a TikTok that makes me
cry every time? Have you seen it? It's the guy
and I'll look it up. He can speak so many languages.
So he stands in like popular tourist areas and as
people walk by, he says, excuse me, where are you from?
And sometimes people like don't want to talk to him,
and essentially they'll say and then he immediately starts speaking

(10:25):
their language, and the way their faces change, he was
the one I saw this morning is two women from
the Republic of Congo, I believe, and he immediately starts
speaking their language, and they're like, what, how do you
And it's like this thing where he's so good at it.
It's like he can speak more than just a couple
phrases and switch. So someone will be like, well, but

(10:46):
I was raised in Turkey, and then he starts speaking
and it's like they.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Just feel like connected all of a sudden.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yes, and they're like travelers and their tourists up to
that point that are kind of isolated. It's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Wow, that's amazing. So they hear this one to ten
being counted in their childhood language. They make their way
through the crowd to try to find the source of
the counting. The person who's counting in this language is
a white American man, and they like excitedly and curiously
approach him to find out who he is and how
he knows their language and what TikTok is, right, it

(11:20):
turns out that the man is a linguistics professor, so
that checks out from Yale named Josiah Gibbs and James
and Charles. It turns out because of this moment are
going to be key players in saving about forty lives
and will help set America on the course to eventually
abolish slavery. This is the story of the Amistad Trial.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
You know it.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Oh well, I've seen the movie.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yes, okay, you see they've seen the movie.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
You were there that one day they talked about it
in elementary school, and that's like, you just don't care
about It's no, not at all, right, So yeah, there's
a nineteen ninety seven Steven Spielberg movie called Amistad.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
That portrays the story.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Historians say that what it gets right is the horror
of the Transatlantic slave trade. They show that with haunting accuracy. However,
the movie does kind of travel into some white savior territory. Course,
so we're going to try not to do that. So
it's not a perfect movie, just so you know. I
also watched in nineteen ninety five documentary called the Amistad Revolt.
It seems like it was made for like high school children.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Or something like that.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
And the other source is the Supreme Court decision from
this case, and the rest of the sources can be
found in the show notes. All right, so let's back
up from the harbor a month or two. We're at
the end of August in eighteen thirty nine. There are
reports off the coast of New York of a sighting
of a strange looking schooner or ship. It appears to
have been at sea for months. The sales are in tatters,

(12:42):
there's sea grass growing out of the hull. It's just
a weird site. And Marin Orto have gotten close enough
to the ship report that the crew appears to be
comprised of about thirty black men who speak no English, French,
or Spanish. It only what's presumed to be a language
from somewhere on the continent of Africa. White Americans mid
eighteen hundreds can't identify, so that's.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Just out of place for sure. Already.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Eventually, the ship winds up off the coast of Montalk
on the tip of Long Island, and that's where it's
intercepted by the US Brig Washington, a ship that's tasked
with surveying the coast. So they like basically pull over
the ship. When that ship's lieutenant boards the schooner, which
is called the Amistad, he finds that in addition to

(13:26):
the group that other people have already seen, there are
also two Spanish men on board. Two Spanish white men
on board there named Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes. So
Ruiz and Montes claimed that they own everyone on board
and that they were overthrown in an uprising by these people.
A modern audience, of course, will instantly recognize that these
two men are human traffickers. Yeah, the lieutenant brings the

(13:49):
Amistad and its captives across the Long Islands down to
New Haven, Connecticut. And at this point, the use of
enslaved laborers has been outlawed in almost all of the
northern state, but is still legal in Connecticut. So what
a coincidence that they ended up there. A federal district
judge named Andrew Judson charges the men with mutiny and murder,

(14:10):
and there's four children there as well, and they're held
as witnesses, which just basically means they're prisoners as well.
They're all put in jail in Hartford, Connecticut. So Rui's
and Montese give their version of what happened the two Spaniards.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
They say that.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
They bought all of the people, thirty nine adults and
four children in Cuba. They were transporting them on the
Amistad to a sugar plantation on another part of the island,
and one night during this trip, the men broke free
and used tools for cutting sugarcane to kill the captain
and the cook. They let Ruis and Montes live under
the condition that they sail them back to Africa, which

(14:45):
was towards the direction of the rising sun. So they
agreed and did that, but at night the Spaniards would
reposition the ship so that it actually made its way
north to United States, where it was eventually pulled over.
This journey takes two months, and ten of the enslaved
people die from dwindling supplies of food and water.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
So it was like in the daytime they would make
them this way, and then at night they would redirect
that way so that.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
They were sneaking.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yeah, okay, yeah, And like you know, if you don't
have a map in front of you or like know
how to read the sky for signs, you rn't know
where you are. Yeah, right, So Rui's and montez A story.
It seems fishy for a big reason. They're being very
vague about where this group of people originally came from.
At this point in time, the use of enslaved people

(15:30):
for labor is still legal in parts of the US
and in Spanish colonies like Cuba, but the kidnapping and
trafficking of new people from Africa has been illegal in
both the United Kingdom and America for thirty years. It's
been illegal in Spain for the past ten years, though
the Queen of Spain kind of turns a blind eye
to it. But as you know from watching the movie,

(15:53):
the Queen of Spain is eleven years old as played
by Anna Paquin.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Really, I don't remember that part.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
And in fact, Spain has a well known and extensive
illegal human trafficking market, and at the very center of
it is a man named Pedro Blanco. In eighteen twenty two,
Pedro had set up what becomes known as the Lomboco
Slave Fortress on the coast of Sierra Leone, and there
he works out deals with some local leaders to hire
kidnappers to bring people to him from the interior of

(16:22):
the region. So this isn't people who lost a war.
This isn't people who were born into slavery. These are
people being kidnapped from their normal, everyday lives. Ye their
regular lives being kidnapped because they are worth money to
these people. He also has Spanish employees who do this
as well, and once kidnapped, his victims are held in

(16:43):
chains at this sprawling facility, which is at the mouth
of a river, before being put on ships to be
brought to the Spanish colonies where they are to be sold.
So they're still doing the slave trade even though this
is illegal. Everyone knows this is happening, especially Spanish authorities,
but Sierra Leone is a British colony, and British authorities
actually do try to enforce abolition. But the problem is

(17:06):
that no one's been able to figure out the precise
location of this fortress. So while Britain is trying to
attempt to root out this illegal trafficking or this kidnapping,
the American government and many white Americans don't really pay
attention or care.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Seen that before.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, so there's this contingent of American abolitionists, many of
whom are motivated by their Christianity, who want to make
people confront the evils of slavery. One of these abolitionists
attend one of the first court proceedings for the Amistad
party and find out that none of the group appears
to understand English or Spanish. So this leads them to
suspect that they have been illegally trafficked from Africa. That's

(17:44):
you know, if they had been born into slavery, they
would speak.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Some English or Spanish.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
That means that Ruiz and Montez actually have no legal
claim over them because they're asking to get their ship
back and their property back. Which are these people who
are aboard the ship who rebelled. So this guy sees
it as an opportunity to make more Americans confront the
barbarism and horrors of enslaved labor. This abolitionist coordinates with

(18:09):
others from other northern cities and they put together a
fund for the Amistad parties legal representation. They hire a
lawyer named Roger Sherman Baldwin. He'll later go on to
be the governor of Connecticut. The initial charges of murder
and mutiny are actually dismissed because of a jurisdiction issue,
but Ruiz and Montes argue that the Amistad group are
their property and should be returned to them, and they

(18:32):
have their own lawyers arguing this case. And at the same time,
Spain argues that both the ship and the people are
stolen property belonging to the Queen.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, because it's so late in the timeline, right, eighteen.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Forty Yeah, well so the little before the Civil War.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yes, truly, but just like it's not the sixteen hundred, right.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
The US attorney appointed by President Martin van Buren is
arguing this case on behalf of the US and Spain.
Of course, the Amisad party's lawyers argue that they are
free people who were kidnapped and escaped from their captors,
so they should be released. The Federal District judge orders
that the Amistad Party remain in custody until this issue
is settled, and five members of the group ultimately die

(19:15):
while being held in jail. In Rui's and Montes's story,
they claim that the mutiny on the Amistad was led
by a man named sengbe Pa, and he's often referred
to as Joseph since but that's the name of Spanish
captors gave him. So we're going to continue to call
him by his real name, which is Singbe. So it's
true that Sinbe does seem to be in more of

(19:36):
a leadership role within the group. But of course his
lawyer can't communicate with him because he doesn't speak any English.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Nobody does.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
He's not even sure what language they speak. So Baldwin
hires Josiah Gibbs, the Yale linguistics professor we started our
story with. Yeah, he goes into the jail and basically
is able to communicate through signs to have the captives
teach him to count from one to ten in their
language and they figure out what's going on and they

(20:05):
do that. So with the knowledge of one to ten,
this guy is like great, goes to a very busy place,
a busy port where lots of the languages are spoken,
and starts loudly counting one to ten in that language
until someone actually does it, approaches them brilliant James Covey
and Charles Pratt and are able to come back with
him to the jail.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
To become the to be the translators.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
God, that's good, I know.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
So as soon as the group meet these new translators,
they are overjoyed because they can finally tell their side
of the story. Very quickly to captive stories emerge, and
three of their testimonies are used in the court proceedings,
including that of Sengbe, the leader, and their story gives
us a crystal clear historical record of the four hundred

(20:52):
year staying on humanity that was the Transatlantic slave trade.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
So sing Bee had been a rice farmer.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
He was living in a community a bit inland in
Sierra Leone. He had a wife, he had three children,
and one day he was walking on the road near
his village and he was attacked by four men who
had been hired through that network overseen by Spanish traffickers.
They just stopped this family man and kidnapped him. He's
eventually brought to a vast facility on the coast that

(21:21):
one we talked about early, the Lamboco slave Fortress, and
he and hundreds of other prisoners are held chained in
pairs so that they can't run away. Singee and all
of the others from the Amistad were then forced with
a group of five hundred other people onto a Portuguese ship.
Sengbe says that the ceilings below the deck were only
four feet high, and all the people were chained together.

(21:43):
There was no room to move at all, he says,
the majority. And you see these old drawings from back then,
and it's legit like sardines.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
You just take as.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Many spots as can be filled with people laying down
as possible, chained together in horde conditions.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
The scene from Amistad is the thing that I thought
when you first started talking about people being on those ships,
because it is so it's just like when we use
words like horrible, it's not the right word. It's like
it doesn't it doesn't feel expansive enough or like deep enough,
but it's like it's just a human nightmare.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Sengbe says that the majority of the people on board
had been women and children, and he says they were
given small amounts of rice to eat, and they were beaten,
of course, and that many of the prisoners died while
on board this ship. This horrific journey known as the
Middle Passage would have taken weeks or months, and the
movie Amistad does portray this part with chilling accuracy, so

(22:42):
it is a good one to watch for that. Sengbey's
story then aligns with what Rui's and Montes have been saying.
Those who survived the journey disembark in Cuba, or about
fifty of them, are trafficked to Ruiz and Montes basically
sold to them. They bring them aboard the Amistad to
sail to a sugar plant on another part of the island,
as I said, and again they're chained below deck, and

(23:05):
again they're given very small amounts of food and water.
Another man tells the translator James, that in desperation, he
had attempted to steal an extra sip of water and
was severely beaten. They had alcohol and salt applied to
his wounds to make them hurt even more. He also
says that the cook on board the ship told the
group that they were eventually going to be murdered and.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Eaten, so they are terrified.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Obviously, many of them believe that they were going to
be eaten, and it seems like maybe the cook.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Was just fucking with them, or it was true.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
I don't know, but given everything that already happened, why
wouldn't they believe that?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, you know what I mean exactly.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
It aligns, so there's even even more pressing sense of
desperation within the group to escape.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
So one night, sing.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Bay Prize a loose nail out of the ship, out
of the boards and uses it to pick the lock
on his shackles. He frees the rest of the men
in the group, and they find these sharp tools that
are used for heading sugarcane, and they just use these
tools they take over the ship. They kill the captain
and the cook in the struggle, but they keep Ruiz
and Montes alive because they know how to sail the

(24:11):
ship and tell them to take them back home, which,
of course, as I said, they followed instructions during the day,
but not at night.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
So at this point, now.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's eighteen forty, a little over twenty years before the
start of the Civil War, and there are about two
point five million enslaved laborers living in the United States,
almost entirely in the South. They are almost all ancestors
of people who were kidnapped from Africa and brought to
America between the mid fourteen hundreds and eighteen oh eight,
when the Atlantic slave trade is supposed to have been abolished.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
But of course there's also.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Been a trickle of newly trafficked people brought illegally from
Africa as I said. So when these heroic accounts from
the Amistad Party are made public, more and more people
speak out on behalf of the group, arguing that they
should be allowed to go home. This causes President Martin
Van Buren to freak out, essentially because it had been
his call to keep the Amistad Party jailed, and it

(25:05):
was his US attorney who was arguing against the Amistad
Party in court saying the group should be returned to
Cuba as property of Spain. So it was against what
the president was pushing for. Van Buren is from upstate
New York and doesn't even have strong feelings about slavery,
but he needs Southern votes to be re elected, and
so he can't be seen as the president who recognized

(25:28):
the humanity of enslaved people because it will turn the
public opinion more in favor of abolition. So he has
to have a hard stance on it.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, you know, yeah, because it's big business, because I need.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
To be elected or I'm not a real man.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's like, but it's money. It's money and power all
the time, and then pretending that these aren't people.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Right at this point in time, there's also a gag
order in Congress, preventing petitions against slavery and thus preventing
a lot of debates about it on the national stage.
So this is a somewhat rare moment when the actual
pure evil is shown in government proceedings. It's almost like
they're able to use this the avalanches as their speech

(26:11):
of why this is wrong, something they couldn't just do
of their own accord.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
So, even though the situation for the Amistad Party is
different than for enslaved people born in America, the case
is seen as a referendum on the use of human
captives as unpaid laborers. So a verdict in favor of
the captives would force people to reckon with the humanity
of black people, which would potentially push the country closer.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
To civil war.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
But the case with the testimony from the Amistad Party
translated by James and Charles, is basically a slam dunk.
Baldwin demonstrates to the court that the Amistad Party was
born in Sierra Leone and that Ruiz and Montes actually
showed false paperwork saying they had been born in Cuba.
The judge rules that they are free people who have
been illegally kidnapped under the laws of the US and Spain,

(26:58):
and orders that they be returned home. But let's not
celebrate yet. President Van Buren appeals the decision, first to
the Circuit Court, which upholds the district court's decision, and
then to the Supreme Court. And it's almost like good
that he does this, because it gets a bigger platform
than it would have if that had been the end
of the trial and they have been sent home. Seven

(27:19):
out of the nine Supreme Court justices are from the South,
and in their own households, they themselves enslaved the descendants
of people who were trafficked from Africa.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
So what the fuck do they care?

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Right, the abolitionists asked former President and current Massachusetts Congressman
John Quincy Adams. You know him to represent Jim Mooney
right to represent the group in court. By this point,
the Amistad group have been in Connecticut for about a
year and many of them have learned some English, and
eleven year old boy in the group named Kahali writes

(27:50):
to the former president personally asking how he would feel
if someone carried his children and friends away to another country.
He writes, all we want is make us free, it's
just like this really heart wrenching letter.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
John Quincy Adams takes the case, which appears before the
Supreme Court in February of eighteen forty one. Adams, who
has always been known for his oratory.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Is that right, yeah, like speech making?

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, well he speaks for fucking hours. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah. It is demonstrating the absolute lawlessness of the Amistad's
Party's captivity. Like, just in general, how fucking illegal the
whole thing is to begin with. The Supreme Court finds
in favor of the captives, saying and their decision that
as free people, they were entitled to do whatever it
took to defend themselves.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
And escape their captors.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Hell.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yes, it's almost like you know, if you are being
held captive in a basement by some serial killer and
you have to kill him to get out, then they're
like blaming you for killing someone.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Right. No, it's like the stand your ground law, right,
but it's reversed because then it's not a big white
guy standing in his doorway. You have to you have
to reckon with the fact that it's like, can't anybody
defend their own.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Life, right?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
And it is their life?

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, they stole they kidnapped them from their families. I mean, yeah,
it's shocking that they actually that they were found in
favor of them.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
It's really amazing. Yeah, especially in eighteen forty one.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, So the Amistad Party they go to live in Farmington, Connecticut,
a town that's been referred to as the Grand Central
Station of the Underground Railroad. So they build housing for
them there and so they can raise money to secure
their passage back to Sierra Leone. There's not a ship
that they can just put them on and return them.
As part of their fundraising efforts, members from the group

(29:33):
from Sierra Leone go to speak at abolitionist fundraisers, telling
their stories and reading from the Bible and singing hymns.
So in eighteen forty two, the group, which is now
thirty five people, they are able to secure enough money
to get their passage back to Sierra Leone, along with
several American missionaries. Because they have to convert them to
Christianity there, that's always got to be in the mix. Yeah,

(29:55):
it's like that's got it very important. Unfortunately, So once
they get there, some stay in Freetown and Sierra Leone,
the big city, establishing the missionary and a new school.
One of the children from the group, Sarah margrew Kinson,
actually returns to America and winds up attending Oberlin College
as one of the first black female students, and she
had been on the Amistad incredible. Others from the group

(30:18):
returned to their families and villages, which has to be amazing.
And the British Navy finds and destroys the Lomboco slave
fortress finally in eighteen forty nine.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Good.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Then the Civil War begins in eighteen sixty one. As
you know, so twenty years after the Amistad group returns home.
But the abolitionist groups that consolidated around the Amistad case
will continue to pressure Americans to confront the evils of
enslavement and will go on to form organizations that still
exist today. This includes some of the first black colleges
and institutions that trained some of the leaders of the

(30:51):
civil rights movements. So it's all connected. And that is
the story of the Amistad Trial, when a group of
brave survivors helped America gain a toe hold on its
still faltering path to justice.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Wow yeah, nice.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Final line is all Ali Ali Elkin my researcher.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Amazing job. Ali, thanks you so good. And Georgia, thank you.
I love that story. It's such a good It is
actually kind of like a true adventure story. Yeah, it's
just that the stakes are so horribly high.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
It's this true crime like what's the word swath of history? Ye,
I'm not into true crime.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
You're like, but so many things are true crime that
you don't think are and that have to do with
history and that have to do with humanity and you know,
people finding a way, And I think that's just this
is a perfect story for that.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yeah, nice one.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
That fit real good. When you started this story, I
was just like, what's this story going to be that
I'm going to be taking a left turn from? So
there's never been a further left turn than the topically
we both know this story, okay. It starts around ten
thirty am on February twelfth of two thousand and six

(32:04):
outside of the Lancing Correctional Facility, a state prison in Lancing, Kansas.
It's a snowy blestery day and forty eight year old
Toby Young is pulling up to the prison in a van.
She's a married mother of two sons, she's got a
sweet and familiar disposition. Writer Michael J. Mooney, who will

(32:24):
write up a big old article for The Atlantic that
we use as one of the primary sources in telling
the story. Michael J. Mooney will report that she has
quote a wry smile and auburn curls. She could be
your neighbor, your librarian, your aunt.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
What if she saw three of those things?

Speaker 2 (32:43):
So Toby's at the prison today because she runs a
dog adoption program that partners right, I don't know, for Shoa.
She partners rescue dogs with inmates at the facility, who
then foster and train the dogs until they're ready to
be placed in their forever homes. But before she passes
through the final gate into the prison yard, Toby stops.

(33:05):
She cuts her van's engine and waits. The inmates, lined
up with their dogs, are out in the wind in
the snow, so they're impatiently stomping their feet and waving
for her to hurry. Actually, the weather is bad enough
that if it was any other day, Toby would have
rescheduled this just due to bad weather. But she has
to be here today, and the reason why she has

(33:26):
to be here has her heart racing Toby takes a
moment to search the prison yard. She sees the things
she's looking for as a guard rolls out a covered
metal farm wagon into the prison yard. Toby arranged to
have this wagon brought out on her visit today. She
told them that it was loaded with odds and ends
that she'd left behind on previous visits, like leashes and bowls,

(33:47):
and maybe a dog crater too. But panic washes over
her as she sees the wagon's tires buckling under the
weight of its cargo. It's obviously carrying more than just
a few pet supplies. Takes deep breath. She starts the
van again, and she proceeds through the final gate and
into the prison yard. She greets the small crowd of

(34:08):
inmates waiting for her, and as she loads the dogs
into her van, she hopes that the sound of them
barking being placed in their crates and the inmates goodbyes
will draw attention away from this approaching wagon. With her
stomach still in knots, Toby watches as the clueless guard
loads that heavy wagon onto her van, knowing full well

(34:30):
that in this moment, if one tiny thing goes wrong,
her entire life, a life where she's always done everything
according to plan will be destroyed. This is the story
of Toby Young and the infamous dog Crate prison break.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
I don't think I know the details of this at all.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
The main sources of the story is Toby's memoir Living
with Conviction, an article that ran in The Atlantic in
twenty twenty by writer Michael J. Mooney, and a twenty
nineteen episode of Criminal that Toby actually gets interviewed by
Phoebe jud JH. That's really great and powerful.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Wow, Living with Conviction. That's a good fucking name for
your book.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, right, Living with Conviction. Okay, so we'll start at
the beginning. Toby Door is born in the late fifties
in Kansas City, Kansas. She grows up at a big
Catholic family. This is so sad. When she's just five
years old, her father is involved in a terrible accident
doing yard work outside their home. He's clearing and burning
a bunch of branches and his clothes catch on fire,

(35:32):
and of course he's badly burned. He spends eight months
recovering in the hospital, and it's of course a terrible
stressful time for the family. Five year old Toby who's
the eldest daughter of seven children rises to the occasion,
as we know that eldest daughters always are forced to
do even if they're.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Five rights right, five Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
With her father spending so much time fighting for his
life in the hospital, and of course her mother often
needing to be there with him, Toby becomes a rock
for her family. Michael J. Mooney reports, quote, Toby felt
it was her responsibility to take care of her younger siblings.
She wanted to solve whatever problem was in front of her.
She changed diapers, packed lunches five five. I can't thinking

(36:15):
about Nora when she was five years old and all
the things. She couldn't close a goddamn cabinet and still
can't this day. Nora, it's just little kids adapting to
the situation that life puts them in.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Right, You're so grown up, that's me. That's like, well,
things I had trauma as a child.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
I was forced to be there.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
I was forced I wanted to live in the dipshit
world that all those other kids were living in. Didn't
get to No, Sorry, who am I yieling at? She
changed diapers, packed lunch were still mid quote packed lunches
and tried to provide stability in a stressful time. She
was less like a sister than like a third parent,
one of her siblings would later tell the Wall Street Journal.

(36:52):
So fortunately, Toby's dad is eventually able to leave the hospital.
He's still struggling with serious he has limited movement in
his arms, but he does have to go back to
work to support his family, so he winds up finding
a job with the railroad as a machinist, and he
often tells his kids to quote, deal with what life

(37:12):
gives you. So that's kind of the family model. I
don't think you need to be telling that to your
five year old daughter who ran the.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Fucking house while already doing that.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
She has six children right now. Michael J. Mooney writes, quote,
Toby internalized the lesson. She was a perfectionist, the type
who spoiled the curve for her younger siblings. She never
got drunk, never tried drugs. In high school, she was
the president of the pep club and dated the star
of the baseball team. So she was going to make

(37:42):
it work.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, she was everything for everybody.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, Okay, So then when she's twenty years old, she
marries her high school sweetheart, who is also from a
religious family, and the way she describes it, this marriage
is more about meeting expectations and less about romance. She'll
later say, quote, I never really dated anyone else out along.
We didn't fight, so we might as well get married.
So many that's how it was, how so many families began. Yeah,

(38:07):
and then they're like, why did everyone get divorced in
the eighties, And it's like, because that's how people are.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Is that was supposed to be their next boyfriend. Yes,
but they may read I keep spinning at you, but.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
They get me in your early twenties. That's what happens.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yes, and also this idea of like you have to
or your aunt will be upset.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
He's nice and we never fight. We never fight. He
nothing wrong, no passion.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Nothing wrong with fight because there's no passion.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Get it out.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Toby and her husband mostly follow the path that's expected
of them. They buy a house close to Toby's parents,
They start a family, They have two sons, and meanwhile,
the cracks are starting to emerge in Toby's marriage. Her
husband seems to be a decent man who provides for
the family, but the two are emotionally disconnected and are
more coexisting than operating as a healthy, loving couple. Toby

(38:58):
will later say, quote, there were someeveral times in our
marriage that I realized this has not been a good choice,
But I didn't know how to get out. I didn't
know how to make a change. Instead, Toby relies on
the old mantra from her father, deal with what life
gives you shit. So she does this by keeping herself
incredibly busy. She's very attentive and an involved mother who's
always there for her sons. But she also works a

(39:21):
day job at a utility company, and she takes college
classes at night. Can you imagine doing any of those things?
Even one?

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Not one is too many.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
There's a reason that we podcast professed.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yeah truly.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
So before long Toby has graduated with top honors from
college with a double major in business administration and accounting.
Damn so not the fun classes. She didn't go as
a theater major. No, she went and really got it done.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
While she had two children in a fucking day job. Yeah,
good for her.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
She and her husband, meanwhile, seemed to spend less and
less time together, especially as their boys grow up. Then
in the late eighties, when Toby's just thirty years old.
It's a job as a project manager with Sprint. Remember
good old Sprints. They used to really be a big
part of our lives. She ends up working there for
nearly fifteen years before being laid off during the dot
com bust of the early two thousands, so Toby is

(40:16):
forced to pivot. She's always loved animals, especially dogs, so
she takes a job as a technician in a veterinary clinic.
Then one day in two thousand and four, she's forty
seven years old and she notices a lump on her neck. Now,
she asks one of the vets to take a look
because she's at work. Yeah, and he says, you have
to have that looked at immediately. When she does, a

(40:37):
doctor informs her that she has thyroid cancer. Whoa Looking
back on the diagnosis, Toby will eventually tell Phoebe Judge
of the Great Podcast Criminal, that quote. You know, even
though thyroid cancer is very treatable, hearing your name after
the word cancer is devastating.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
I can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
It causes you to stop and take stock of your life.
And I realized that I could go at any minute,
and I didn't want to leave this earth and not
have done anything to have made it a better place.
First of all, mother of two young boys. Yeah, why
are you acting like, yeah you did you have?

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I just like it's a huge fear of mine, the
cancer thing, where it's just this suddenly you have to
be this brave fucking person when really it's the most
terrifying thing yep that can happen to a person. Yeah,
one could say that they have to confront their mortality
yep at forty seven.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Like and feel like it's almost over right.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
If it's over, are you happy with what you brought? Y?
You know, answer that answer that christ people would say no.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Right now, twenty three year old that's listening to this,
it's a good I mean, I have to say there
was a lot of death in our family when I
was twelve years old. Three different people died when I
was twelve, and it was really crazy, mind blowing and
they were people that were close to us, and literally
that Dave word, I was like, I'm not doing fucking
anything I don't want to do. And it was that

(41:58):
kind of like, that's the point if this whole thing
is just to find out one day or drop dead
one day? Or get cancer one day, or lose your
mind one day. Then what's this part for?

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Yeah, Like that's a big lesson to learn at twelve,
let alone at our age.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
I was looking for an excuse though, because I was like,
I'm really tired of doing what other people tell me when.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Here's why, here's why now, Not that I have defiance
disorder or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Nothing, no, no, it's just real.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Except for that, I was right, Okay, look where I
got to. So in this life changing moment for Toby,
she actually successfully treats her thyroid cancer, thank god, but
her energy is gone. The treatments leave her confined to
a recliner, and in that downtime, she ends up finding
a TV show that inspires her in a way that

(42:49):
she doesn't expect. And it's a TV show called Cell Dogs.
So this is a quote from her later She says,
Cell Dogs was a program that ran on Animal Plan
for a few years. It was set inside of a prison.
They had dogs in there. The inmates were training them
and they were taken out for adoptions. I love dogs,
that's kind of an understatement. I thought that would be

(43:11):
my dream. I could make a difference if I could
do something like that, if I could start a prison
dog program, I know I could change the world.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
So she's so excited by this idea that she tells
her husband and this part broke my heart, Like I
was crying in my office a little bit. He suggests
sell dogs is made up for television. That's his fucking
answer to his wife who's beating cancer and is saying
hey with that. In the rear view, here's what I'm

(43:39):
inspired by.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Like a thing we learned in couples therapy vincenight is
that like it takes nothing for you just to sound supportive.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
It takes nothing.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Not one fucking thing.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
They're not saying I'm doing this tomorrow and putting her
life savings into it. They're dreaming, and to support that
dream because I'm a dreamer and Vince's a real Yep,
I'm not going to move to fucking Spain or whatever. Like,
let's just talk about how fun it would be. I'm
not going to go do it, yep. Can we just
have an imagination session of how fun something can be?

(44:13):
It takes nothing out of you to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Because a sworn this is going to be about Vince's
hardcore band, but I guess it's about.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Support all of it. I'm a dreamer. I'm like, yes,
do this well.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
And also I think that's a really good lesson to
learn kind of for the relationship overall. Yeah, but I
think there is this thing when you're in a relationship
with a person who isn't interested in the connection right
in that way where it's like, I'm telling you about
a thing that lights me up totally. Why doesn't it
light you up that I'm lit up totally? Fucking asshole.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yes, it takes nothing from you to do that.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
To even just appreciate your partner's happiness or excitement right exactly.
But Toby isn't discouraged, you know why, She's been married
to this band for quite some times. She's not surprised. Also,
this is just her side. I don't want to get
to I love to be like shitty or whatever. This man,
at the end of the day is also a victim
of the story. So whatever their relationship was after the fact,

(45:12):
one person talking about what it used to be like
sucks as well. Okay, so Toby's plan basically from all
of this is to convert their barn into dog kennel
so they can take in and foster stray dogs, and
she's so into it she starts redoing it, and her
husband joins her eventually. Okay, so full credit to that,

(45:32):
thanks sir, that was already there, and it's the least
anyone could ask of you. Anyway, Toby begins to take
in strays and get them adopted. So by the summer
of two thousand and four, this business and enterprise is
going so well. She puts up a website to advertise it,
and a few days later, someone from the Lansing Correctional
Facility reaches out to her. They asked Toby if she'd

(45:54):
like to collaborate on a program within the prison, and
Toby is elated. Her dream to create her own version
of Cell Dogs is actually coming true. Wow, so she
got the idea, she pitched it. No one was going
to help her. She's like, I don't care, I'm going
to do it myself. She does it herself. The people
join after the fact, when it's real and material and
there's something there, and then she gets herself there. So

(46:17):
at this point in her life, her sons are in
their twenties, they're out of their house, so she throws
everything she has into this program. She's gotten her college degrees,
she's done it all, so she's now doing this fully
and it turns out to be a huge success. It's
called Safe Harbor. It becomes the largest prison dog program
in the United States at the time.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
So she doesn't just do it. She takes her accounting
and her business and all her things and she makes
it happen. They ultimately place more than a thousand foster
dogs in permanenth.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
My god, that is so amazing.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
It's big. Toby ends up leaving her job at the
vet clinic because she's spending upwards of fifteen hours a
day on this wow new project, visiting animal shelters looking
for dogs to foster, or taking them to vet appointments,
placing them, working with their new foster inmates who live
with and train the dogs from their cells. So she's
doing every part of it. She loves the work, she

(47:11):
finds it deeply fulfilling, but it makes the disconnect that
she has with her husband of twenty eight years even
more obvious. She tells Phoebe Judge quote, I probably spent
as much time inside the prison as an officer that
was on duty. It became my entire life. My husband
resented it, but we didn't have a good marriage. It
was just one more way that I did my own
thing and he did his own thing. I never did

(47:34):
come home and talk to him about anything that was
going on because he just wasn't interested in it.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
That's the worst part of the relationship, which I've definitely
been in past relationships, of like you go have this
great time with friends or whatever, and then you're like, oh,
I guess I gotta go home now you're like not
looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah, that's how you fucking know.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, like you got to have somebody, even if they're
waiting under a blanket watching a show, they don't want
to turn off. Yeah, when you come in and like
how was it, they're actually asking you. Yeah, if you
can't even have that bear man.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Right, No, I'm excited every time I get to go
home and tell Vince talk shit to Vince.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's the idea. Yeah, Okay. As we're leading to,
Toby starts to feel very lonely and she yearns for
a more loving and passionate relationship, but she's also experiencing
what she describes as a self made prison of perfectionism. Basically,
she's become resentful of her careful, cautious approach to her life,

(48:30):
and his fate would have it. This is when she
meets a twenty seven year old inmate named John Minard,
who is enrolled in the foster dog program.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
It's just like ripe to meet a hot fucking convict, right.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Hell, yes, who is? Like, maybe I will manipulate you
into doing a bunch of things.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
John's six foot four, redhead, oh yep, tattoos, who Toby
describes as quote swaggering everywhere he went in the prison,
like he owned the place or he was in charge. Yeah,
you'd just be like, yes, who's that? You know my song?
Who's that?

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah, that's what you'd be singing.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Who's that. Toby soon learns that John is incarcerated for
his involvement in a car jacking when he was a
teenager where a man was shot to death. So even
though he didn't fire the shot that killed the victim,
he was convicted nonetheless.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
So she's able to like empathize a little bit, yeah
enough to like well to.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Like talk herself out of it being a problem.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
He's not really, he's not technic technically a murderer and
also a six foot four redhead with tattoos swaggering around.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
Having to quit it and fucking teaching of piple how
to behave.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Who's like out of here into your dream project that
you are now the kind of boss of Yeah, and
also that is having an effect. I don't know if
you've ever watched any of those shows or documentaries, but
the effect those animals have on inmates in the actual
that starts taking place is amazing.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
That's like half the point.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, So she is a part of that too, which
is probably really a beautiful thing to get to see.
So Toby's not afraid of John obviously, probably even maybe
just a little bit adds to it. She is immediately
captivated by his confidence, and their bond deepens. After a
scary encounter at the prison where one of the men

(50:26):
in Toby's program gets angry and actually like comes at
her like he might hit her, and John Menard steps
in and basically stops it. From here on out, Toby
trusts John, their bond deepens. He starts watching out for Toby,
so like when she arrives at Lancing Correctional, he meets
her at the prison gate, he sticks with her when

(50:47):
she's on the prison grounds. He works alongside her during
the various training sessions with the other inmates. Fucking bodyguard, yes,
hot prison bodyguard. Yes, bodyguard. I'm like eyes on, who
doesn't want that?

Speaker 1 (51:00):
No, for sure.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
So now they're spending a lot of time together, and
while they aren't allowed to have any physical contact, they
come to understand each other on a deeper level. And then,
in all caps, I just wrote uugh because it's like sure, no,
it's yeah, extenuating circumstance, circumstances, so many skirtrumstances, so many skircumcises.

(51:23):
And then Toby's father is diagnosed with stage four cancer
and John offers her emotional support. He tells her things like, quote,
you deserve someone who wants to make you the center
of their world, which Toby describes as quote like pouring
water on a dying plant. Yeah, which is kind of
how it is. I think that's like, that's why I

(51:44):
love bombing, such an effective tool that people use. It's
like the quickest, fastest manipulation of Oh, you seem to
be in need of this thing, Well.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
You're kind of getting something away. So he wasn't falling
in love with her too, he was manipulating her. Well,
that's my judgment. Yeah, I'm being judgments. Okay, so there
is no like this whole time. Well, don't tell me then,
but let's find out together, okay, because I'm like, maybe
they did fall in love. I'm being optimistic about it.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
I'm so negative. But to me, it's like we're at
a prison, I know where people usually get locked up
for being dishonest somehow.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Well, yeah, but he since he's a teenager, he's in
his late twenties, he hasn't had any contact or connection
with a woman.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
You want there to be a bad boy, good guy
in this. Oh, he's like, oh, his gentleman is coming
out because he's.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Like, finally able. I'm thinking it's real for now, but
let's keep going.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
That's fun for the movie. So he says that she
says it's like pouring water. He then tells her that
he loves her. Toby, who again is a self professed
rule follower, knows that she shouldn't even be entertaining a
future with John. She shouldn't even be having this conversation
with him. But as they talk more and more, it
starts to feel real and beyond them. It feels very nice,

(53:01):
like she's finally getting something she really needs. Basally, so
what happens now is the obvious next step in the
story arc of falling in love with a convicted criminal
almost half your age. Yeah, you start planning his escape.
You just have to. Now, here's I think the test
if all of that happened. And then he's like, I'll
see you in seventeen years when I'm out of here.

(53:23):
Baby girl.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
They get married in prison and she comes to every
visitors thing and raised dogs.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
But that ain't it. So we downshift into third gear,
and I say, that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Is that up shift either way down? Well, we're in
fourth and going to third.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
No, I'm saying we're in second, and now we're going
up into third so that we can go down into Okay.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Well, and then also like, I bet it was his
suggestion that maybe you should help me get out, not hers.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
I think so too, Okay, because she's a real follower, yeah,
and kind of a normal lady that's just like a
very tall redhead is giving her very nice attention.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Prison break isn't the first thing that she thinks of
when she now which she's.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Bringing to the table. She's like, but did you see
this wonderful pitbull that I let you pet? Okay, So
all of this brings us back to February twelve, two
thousand and six, which is where we started. That blustery,
wintery day. Toby's nervously watching the oversized wagon being loaded
onto her van. Her heart is racing because you guessed it,
John's hiding in it. They've sorted it all out. Toby

(54:26):
has withdrawn forty thousand dollars out of her four oh
one cave, which is worth around how much two thousand.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
And four for one sixty three thousand sit inflation. I
don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
I know these days. John lost twenty five pounds so
that he could somehow contort his six foot four frame
into a cardboard box that could then fit inside a
dog create.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I feel like in prison people need to pay attention.
If a prisoner loses a huge amount of weight, they're
trying to fit through a pipe.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
They're trying to fit through somewhere. Yeah, maybe stand in
that crack next to the refrigerator in the wall for
a little while so people stop noticing them. Amid all
the chaos of that morning, the barking and the dogs
being loaded onto the van. No one asks any questions
about the wagon or why it's so heavy, So Toby
starts her engine and simply drives away like she always does,

(55:17):
And as she does, she immediately regrets it. Yeah, but
she's so far into this plan and everything about it
that she has no idea how to get out of
this situation. So she does what she'd normally do, which
is drive home and unload the dogs into that barn
that's been retrofitted into kennels. And as she starts to

(55:39):
do this, she obviously gets John out of his kennel
and he start rummaging around the property and he ends
up finding two pistols. This worries Toby. John convinces her
they're just for protection because they have so much money online.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Where are these pistols coming from a.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Farm into farm?

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
But I mean he's looking, yeah, so that's the other thing.
They then ditched the van. Toby recently purchased a pickup
truck for a few thousand dollars, so they get into
that and they drive all night on the back roads
to a remote lakehouse in Alpine, Tennessee that they've reserved
using a fake name, so they basically get out of

(56:19):
town immediately.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
On the way, John kisses Toby for the first time,
and he's the only other person that's ever kissed her.
Oh my god, besides her husband who was her high
school boyfriend.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
All the excitement too, and the adrenaline and then this kiss.
That'd be like the best fucking kiss, the best.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
On the way to the lake house, Oh.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Kiss me now, I can't even wait.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I did all caps ug. It's a similar ug, but
it's that same kind of thing where it's like you're
scared it's happening, it's worth it. I don't know, I
mean all of it.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Kiss.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
So she's still not feeling great, and with good reason.
John has taken all the cash, he won't give the
keys to the truck, and then he throws her cell
phone into the lake so she can't call anyone. So
the worm turns relatively quickly. He's also now having angry
outbursts when anything goes wrong, like when they get turned
around and have to stop at a restaurant to ask

(57:15):
for directions.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
No, uh, you're all in and you've never even drippen
with him, Like that's a mistake.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Yeah, you don't know how he talks to weight staff.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Oh, totally.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
And you're all fucking in to the point where you've
withdrawn money at the four to one.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Okay, you've just blown up your entire life.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
But he was so nice in the mess hall.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, but I'd never seen him get angry before, oh.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Before when he was planning on trying to get me
to get him out. Okay, Okay. So Toby's trying to
focus on the good things, deal with what life has
given her in the moment, even as John becomes more reckless.
She says, quote John was really interested in eating fried
chicken and a lot of foods that he wasn't able
to get inside prison. Totally understandable. He played the guitar

(57:56):
and I brought my mandolin with me and he'd play
music and we just lot. That lasted for a day
or two, and then John said, I don't want to
just stay in this cabin. I want to go out
and see things. Let's do some stuff. End quote. So
this was like the big romance didn't even last two days.
So they go out. They take a day trip to Nashville,
where John shops for guitars. They go watch Walk the Line,

(58:21):
the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line at a movie theater.
Another time, they go on a trip to Chattanooga, they
see a movie about lions at an Imax theater, wearing
disguises because by this point the headlines have been out,
like everyone knows there's been a prison escape. The authorities
are trying to track them down. Toby and John know

(58:41):
this because they've seen the papers while they've gone out
on these adventures.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
And they know she's in on it.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
She's not a captive, I think, so okay, yeah, even still,
they keep going out in public. Twelve days after the
prison break, the pair visit a mall in Tennessee, now
about one hundred miles south of Chattanooga, where John buys
a copy of Where the Red Fern Grows from a
bookstore with Toby's money. Of course, that movie, I mean

(59:06):
that book. It's a sad one yeah dog book. As
they're leaving, two police officers just so happen to spot
them in the mall parking lot. They are not expecting
to see them, but they are actively looking for them
in Tennessee because Toby had used the cabin's address when
filling out paperwork for their getaway truck. I would recommend

(59:27):
to not do that next time. No. Toby will later
comment that she quote wasn't a great criminal.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, lot, this woman's misguided woman.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
She got took.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
So, now the police have located Toby and John, they
call for backup. They quietly tail the couple for around
sixty miles as they head back to the cabin in Alpine.
As John and Toby approach their rental, they're met with
a huge traffic stop, and obviously the jig is up.
John asks Toby what he should do. Being the real

(01:00:03):
follower that she is, she tells him to pull over
so they can surrender to police. But instead of that,
John hits the gas swerves off, weaving through traffic at
one hundred miles an hour before eventually taking the truck
off road and slamming it into a tree. Toby is
still overcome with regret. She wishes for death. Understandable, she

(01:00:26):
survives the crash with just a few minor injuries. So
does John.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
What was this fucking plan kill them both?

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
I don't know, or just like try to get away
and do your best and what I mean, it's yeah,
all of this planning is three quarters planning my least
favorite kind. I like it when we run through scenarios
ABCD E n F. But whatever miscape from jail, however
you want, do your thing, do your saying. Oh my
favorite clips get well reset.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Is good telling you I like that well punk all riot,
gurly so little.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
But it's like we're like library putt. Yeah. As Toby
comes to she can hear John calling out to her quote,
are you okay, baby? Are you okay? I mean that
says something. There's a realness to it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
He did just crash the car himself, but then he
wants to know if she's okay. So it's not a
great relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
It's not Look, we can have these kinds of relationships
and they're there for a reason. Pickable. Yeah, don't stay
in them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, truly learn from them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Promise that the second he darts away, when he says
what should I do? And you say pull over and
he fucking goes one hundred miles an hour in the
opposite direction, Yeah, thank you, next, thank you next, And
even if he calls your baby.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Yeah, keep on going.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
We're gonna learn. We're gonna learn this time. Someday they're
both removed from the vehicle, handcuffed and placed under arrest. Toby, who,
among other charges, is found guilty of supplying firearms to
a convicted felon, gets twenty seven months in prison for
her involvement. That's in this jail break.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Yes, I'm sorry. I thought it'd be way more than that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
It's two years and three months.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Yeah, but supplying I mean, yeah, okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
For a regular mom. Yeah, two years in jail.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
That doesn't sound like a lot. If you want to
do it right now, I wouldn't know, I'm saying, yeah, no,
it would be like three months to do it. Yeah,
for sure, for sure. But based on her no no charges,
you're right, it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Doesn't seem like an even amount of time for what's
it called.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
You know, they don't balance. Yeah, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
The thing doesn't fit the thing exactly. But when love comes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Into right and I'm not trying to say I want
her to be in fucking prison more, I'm just not
on the jury and I'm not the judge, but like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Well, it almost is like how do we keep things
from happening? Our longer person sentence is the way to
do that. But I think when love.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Is in the mix. That's the punishment fit the crime.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Yeah, she's already been punished by fucking ruining her entire life, okay,
truly ruining it, and she's out sixty three.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Grand Yeah oh wow, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
This out of character stunt stunts her colleagues, her friends,
and her family members. It's also the straw that breaks
the camel's back and her marriage, of which actually good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Like, yeah, good, you could have done it a lot quieter.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Yes, how about just a nice mid size fight at
the TJA Fridays.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Then I'm just done.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
I'm done. Yeah, I'm sorry. I broke that beer mug.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
You don't have to blow up your entire life to
change your life.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
And if you feel that you're following that little opium trail.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Of the roasted chicken smell like you're floating through the
air on a cartoon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Tall guy pretending to love you, stop it. Just I
don't know, Grab a relative, get someone to look you
in the eyes and slap you a face.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Therapy. Go to our promo page because there's there's therapy
promos in that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
That's right. Sure, you can start by texting and then
just go from there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Her now ex husband tells reporters that her crime has
quote affected me physically, mentally, and monetarily. Don't like the
third one. And then it was very difficult for her sons,
who quote had to say, yeah, that's my mom end
quote We'll guess what though, She's not just a mom.
She is a human fucking being. And what your sons
say about you as a mother is not the whole

(01:04:12):
story about who you are as a person. Who am
I talking to? Toby's father dies of cancer just months
into her incarceration, which of course is devastating for her.
She's also said to this day she has strained relationships
with multiple members of her family. Of course, sure most tragically,
she never gets to mentor relationship with one of her sons,

(01:04:35):
who passes away in his twenties because he gets Hodgkin's lymphon.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Oh horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Jol Monard meanwhile, gets another ten years tacked onto his
sentence in response to accusations that he manipulated Toby by
feigning a romantic interest in her. Let's let him speak, okay,
He said, quote I love Toby and was one hundred
percent committed to her. Why did I stay with her
once I was out, if I was just manipulating, I
love Toby with all that I was.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I believe I'm going to believe it, but I don't
want to. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
I could just answer the second question, which is you
stayed with her because she's the one that had the
sixty three thousand dollars a week and the KISA truck
and then you got rid of her phone. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Anyway, Well he got out of the phone so they
couldn't track them. It's not so she couldn't call anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Where's his fucking phone.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Didn't have one?

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
They did not. This is where Sprint comes back into
the no just kidding. Toby meanwhile says this, Oh, this
will solve it, okay, because it's not me projecting quote.
I think it's probably a bit of both. I do
think he cared for me, but I've since come to
appreciate that if you love someone, you don't ask them
to do something that puts their life in danger. For sure,

(01:05:43):
Toby the cooler head prevailing in this situation. Yeah, but
I actually do like that. I didn't realize that he
said that about her, where it's like, hey, I actually
was committed to her and I did love her because
at least then she has.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
That Yeah, it's full scam. You're not a complete fool.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
It's not like that sucks. What was that love scammer documentary?
And the guy kept opening fish restaurants with women's money,
remember that one?

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Vaguely?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
It's so confusing and you're just like, what are you doing?

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

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
How? And what?

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
Yeah, having had a divorce mom in the eighties, I
can tell you exactly how I watched it happen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Right, It's just kind of like, no, I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Mustaches and fucking mulbos.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
And shabblee.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
In hotel motel room.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Oh my god, you gotta get it somehow. Okay. Over time,
Toby moves on from John, though they maintain a friendship.
Oh good, because he's in jail. Meanwhile, she completes her sentence.
She moves back in with her mother, so she starts over.
She gets a job in web design and tries to
deal with people's stairs and whispers when she's out in
public horrible. Around the same time, she meets a man

(01:06:59):
named Chris, who she says makes her feel safe and supported,
and the two get married in two thousand and nine.
Oh good, so she comes back from all of it,
love that happy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
You did it to yourself, but I'm still happy you're
get a happy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Ending and like you're fixing it for yourself. Yeah, that's
what life is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Just know for a fact that other people have also
broken a six foot four redhead out of jail in
their own way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
We've all done that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Different nouns, same, diff different. Now everyone does it, you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
I'm writing that down.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
The two marry in two thousand and nine, when Toby's
in her early fifties, and they continue to visit John
in prison every so often.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
I kind of love that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Okay. Then I am wrong and I will change my
stance because that's kind of beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
I'm really now.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
Really it's like, thank you for everything you gave me,
even if it was fucking tu Lulu and I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
They still talk. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
It's lovely, Okay. They do that every so often until
twenty twenty four, when John Menard passes away at the
age of forty five from an undisclosed disease prison. He
died inside. Horrible When that happens, Toby writes on her
Facebook quote, John is finally free, but I am crushed.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Over the years, Toby has tried to atone for her
role in this jail break. She's developed programs geared at
helping people break the cycle of incarceration that's great, and
has positioned herself as an advocate for women. She sees
her story as a way to burst open taboo conversations
about feeling stuck in life. She said, quote, I'm proof
that a single choice can change everything. They were not

(01:08:35):
defined by our worst moments, but by how we rise
from them. My story is one of transformation, of breaking free, rebuilding,
and stepping into a fierce, unshakable purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
And that's the story of Toby Door, which is her
current name, Toby Door and the infamous dog Crate prison break. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Yeah, I did not know that story.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
And if you haven't, oh there she is let me
six look at her.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Yeah, yes, with.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Her dogs, if you haven't truly. One of my very
favorite episodes of Criminal Podcast is Toby's episode when she
tells the story to Phoebe Judge firsthand. It's really good.
You go through it with her, You go, what are
you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
All completely honest and this press.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Lays it all out.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Good for her.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Yeah, it's great. Wow, Okay, great job, thank you. What's
just some fucking horays to end this?

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Okay? Shall we?

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
What's exciting about fucking horays right now is that you
can send us your fucking horay in almost any way
modern day possible. Email, you can do a comment on
a YouTube, you can do it on Instagram stories, you
do it anywhere you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Want, and we'll read it. Email, all the things, all
the things.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Do you want to go first?

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
This is a YouTube comment from episode four seventy four,
and this says, fucking hooray. I started my dream job
teaching English language night classes to adult refugees. Them are
working parents who want to give their kids better lives.
Their bravery and determination are so admirable, and their desire
to learn English is so inspiring. I feel incredibly lucky

(01:10:09):
that I get the honor of being their instructor. So
fucking her way for me and fucking her way for immigrants.
And that's from MJ Woods seven twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
It's so fitting for this episode. I know, right, I
have a fitting one for this episode too.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Okay, good this is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
From YouTube as well. I'm so excited you guys have
brought this back fucking ray. We need more positivity given
the current administration. Emoji anyway, I wanted to shout out
my younger sister, who just celebrated fifteen years of being
in remission. We had a cancerversary party in her honor,
and it was a great way to remind everyone to
celebrate their wins and throw a party, even if it's

(01:10:44):
not a bachelorette or baby shower. I'm so proud to
be her big sister, Mollie she her.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Did you say a ramotiversary?

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
What was it? Cancerversary? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Oh, that's so brilliant. I have any party anytime. Calibrate
things literally, be like, this is the last block of
cheese and my cheese drawer. It's cheese party.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Nice, She's party.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Put a candle in it. Put sprinkles on. People need
to be sprinkles on way more things than they do.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Yeah, sprinkles, sprinkles and googly eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Yeah, candles.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Okay, Okay, here's my second one. This is hilarious. It
says Karen and Georgia. Oh, this is from email Karen
and Georgia. Today I spied a bumper sticker that said
honk if you'd rather be watching the nineteen ninety nine
cinematic masterpiece The Mummy, starring Academy Award winners Brendan Fraser
and Rachel Wise. It made my day. I have been

(01:11:34):
mentally honking all week. Fucking hooray. It's from Michelle and
then it says, ps multiple email here snacks from beyond
the grave. Sister befriended a murderer, mom baby sad a
murder victim.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
No, we gotta look those up.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
I mean for sure, but I almost feel like, could
she have been driving behind Brandy Posey?

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Oh my god? Did you see the tote? Someone made?
It went viral. That's you know those tots you get
from like LLBean and you can put your.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
Yeah, that's a nig trend. Yeah, someone right popper now
instead of a monogram.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Yes, that's so good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Okay, this one's from an email. Hi MFM team.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
It took fifteen years of blood, burns, sweat and tears
to pay off my culinary school loans, but this week
I did it. No help, just pure hustle. After years
of navigating depression, anxiety, and therapy, I feel an immense
sense of pride in this accomplishment. Fuck government loans and
the stranglehold they have on so many hard working people. Yep,
thank you for everything you do. XO, Chef k.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Ooh, Chef Caber, do you work? Hey, Invite us to
the place you make food.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
We'll come to get the tasting course, we'll get whatever
you want to put it in front of us and
we'll eat it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
And if it's a Denny's, we'll fucking eat those Monzrellis
tell yeah, we don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
No, we're not discerning people. Thank you guys so much
for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yes, thanks for being here with us again, and stay
sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want to colok h.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Our editor is Aristotle Ocevedo.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
And now you can watch us on Exactly Wright's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Good byebye,