508 - Live at Paramount Theatre (Oakland Night 2) - My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dude, what's unbou good wyow?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, well, yes, that was the most.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
That was the most guys that yeah, holy show.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
You just has a sign that said I washed my
bangs in the sink for this.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, Oh my god, honored good art, good job,
Thank you this side of the audience for letting me
yell at you. What a way to start, What a
way to start. It's we definitely are going to have
serious ear canal damage after this. It's so funny. We

(01:25):
really appreciate it. We do, we do. We love clapping
and screaming at us. Did you just put your gum
out right right before we started? I had it still
in my mouth. That's my old trick. It's my old
show business trick.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
We were about to come out and Karen was like,
oh fuck, I should probably get this ill.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Chewing gum right right on the edge of the stage.
Very unprofessional. Georgia, what did you do today in the
Bay Area?

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Okay? Thank you? Yes, I went vinted shopping for us
Hate Upper Hate is that right is the place to be.
I went to a place called Relic that was.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Amazing and I walked in there and I don't dress
like this in my day to day. So I walk
in and they're like, oh, let's not let this girl
try anything on.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Someone followed right behind you the whole time you shop.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Yes, but then you know it went fine when I
was like if I was I don't know, normal, Yes,
I acted normal, good good. So that place was amazing.
We went to a couple other places. We went to
a pub.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Do you remember the name?

Speaker 3 (02:33):
It was Vince What was it? It was something funky
kill a dog, mad Dog, mad Dog was called mad Dog,
The mad Dog and the foll.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
The mad Dog and the Fog. I've fallen down there
many a time, Yes, And they were.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Doing the best thing because you know, like when you
your scroll all day and you hear, you know, snippets
of songs, like five seconds of songs by heart, and
then suddenly the real like song starts playing, You're like,
holy shit. And they were just.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Kept playing fucking like Instagram songs with the whole thing,
and I was singing it along and like mouthing them
to events and being really annoying.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yes at the mad Dog and the Fog.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
And then we on the ride home, we decided we're
gonna move to San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, but she does this a lot. She does this
a lot.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
It was sunny and we were day drunk.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
So I mean, the life in this town, truly, the
life in this town would you do today? Well? I
am shocked that the upper head. I just am trying
to still process the upper het coming all the way around.
Let's see, I left in ninety four, so it's back, baby.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
It's fucking cool now, you guys, it is.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
It only took thirty five years or whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
It was a little gnarly when I lived here, for sure,
but it's it's the place to be. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Is there a banana Republic? That shit's gone.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
I didn't see any of that shit somalism.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Are the rich kids from Marine still pretending they're punks
and sitting on the street asking you for money? Which
literally was like.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
So oo, Karen's inciting a ride.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I give this shit, man. I had two full time
jobs when I lived in the upper Hate. I had
to pay for that broom closet of the room I
lived in, and those kids would like be like taking
a dollar, and I'd be like no, and they'd get
up and get into a sob and drive away and
just be like shit.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
At you now?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Look at me having the last laugh. Thank you. There's
one person sitting in the audience crying. That was me.
This deeply hurts me and my rich feelings.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
And what did you do today?

Speaker 5 (04:56):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Well, we went into the ferry built right, and we
looked around. All I wanted was a turkey sandwich. You
cannot get one there. You can't. You can have a
muffalada muffalata if you want to. You can have your
own hole charcuterie board built custom.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
But they won't serve turkey.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
They just they You can't just get a fucking kind
of get a fucking turkey sandanda.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Bitch, it's turkey sandwich. But we did. There's a really
good store with some new things and some old things. Right.
That's for the people who don't want to go through
Star shopping. You do it for me.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
You got me some kit kats.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
From Oh I did. There was a candy store. Because
if there's a candy store that in any way has
set up some plexiglass containers with scoops, I'm in there
with my plastic bag. It says. If I think I
have to support this mom and pop business, I don't
care if it's full on a corporation. I don't care,

(06:03):
but I was going in there like, you don't need that,
you don't need that. And then they have this little
bag that said assorted kit kats from Japan and I
was like, well, I have to get that for Georgia. Yeah,
so I did.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
I didn't get you anything.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
It's okay, I'm sorry, but you know what I did
get well, okay, so you know, I'm I have a
nervous nose and I'm just constantly blowing away like there's
tissue back here.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's really embarrassing.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
And today when I was at Relic, they had these
for sale and I'm like, that looks way classier than
a fucking nasty as tissue.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
That in a monocle and you're all sad. What what I
was gonna say is you can have it. No thank you,
no thank you.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh and okay.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
So when we got back to the hotel after drinking
during the day, we saw these people getting out of
like a cab clearly from the airport, and they were
like unloading their bags and this chick had a fucking
cooler for her room, and I was like, that's the
most insanely brilliant thing I've ever seen. Yeah, I love her,
and then she goes, Georgia for sure. You're like, yep, Kendra, where's.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Fucking right in.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Front of.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yes, Kendra, thank you for your service. Appreciate you. She's like,
I'm so ship faced. I don't know where I am
right now. I hope this is good, but it won't
matter because I'll be asleep in fifteen minutes. Me too.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh, speaking of this is my favorite murder of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
That's right, that's Georgia.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Hart Stark, that's Karen Gagara.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
And you Oakland are here for us once again. Thank
you so much for waiting six years for us. We
genuinely appreciate it. It's very exciting to be here with you.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
I was in my thirties last time Wait toured, and
now I'm having hot flashes on stage.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, so it's cool with the last time we played here,
my niece Nora did a little cartwheel on stage. You
may have been here and saw it. She was nine.
I thought it would be funny if she came and
did it again. She did it, She did it, She
didn't because she just started call it. So think about

(08:22):
how much closer to death you are now. That's what
I'm thinking about. How did that time pass that like that?

Speaker 3 (08:31):
No time, it's just flat time. No, No, it's a
circle circle, that's right. Yeah, letays forget which way that goes.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's a flat circle.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yes, like pizza?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
What else should we sit? Know? What are you wearing? Oh? Wait,
did you do your walk or you just talked about it?

Speaker 1 (08:50):
No?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I just talked about going into chopping.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Okay, so you go. I'll go because I don't have pockets.
And look, I'm really sorry. You can leave now if
you want to have to or someone to take that
person out because it means too much to you. I
got this dress in Spain. That's right. I've been to Europe, Kendra,

(09:13):
I've been to Europe. No brag, no brad. I forgot that.
There's ushers here that are like, what the fuck is this?
I always forget that. So why are they screaming about
it doesn't make sense and they're literally mad. There's no
pockets and do you want to give your dress a
little this time? Okay?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Last night I realized that this is my Karen just
did this beautiful walk, this like model watch, and I realized, yeah,
my pose of like look what I'm wearing.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Is this because I don't know what to do?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
But anyways, a TSA.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
But tonight I remembered my bra. Last night I did
not remember my bra. So it's a it's a win.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah for every you guys are getting their foundation garment show.
This is going to be incredible. Watch the difference. If
you were here last night, Spot the difference.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
It's gonna change full cup size. It's so crazy.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Your performance is going to be incredible.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
It's gonna be a real perky yeah. Uh oh can
we talk about this backstage? Slippers?

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yes, so we even we have.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
This like new tour manager who's not my husband and
for the past couple like uh like he's not from
the past couple of cities. I've been like, oh my god,
slippers in our in our dressing rooms.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
I've been so excited. I love slippers. I can't gope barefoot.
I hate shoes.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Slippers.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, but then last night Karen's like, oh, those slippers
are cute, and I'm like, well, you have a pair too, And.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I just thought someone was leaving their shoes in my
dressing room. So I was like, oh, that's creepy. Someone
whoever was here before I guess that's just what they're doing.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
I mean, is it weird that I automatically was like,
these are my name.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
But then you were saying we were we were just
take that time we were saying that they were they
filmed us. When we were in h Boston, we.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
Were doing a secret filming thing that we can't really
talk about, but it's very exciting.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's uh, you'll see or you won't or you won't.
You know how businesses It could not happen, but Georgia's
had her slippers on, not realizing it. So she's like
she had a pair of slippers and said let's go girls.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
On a crappy face with a cowgirl hadle on and
it said let's go girls. And I realized that the
filming people were filming my slippers and said I picked
them out.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
And that's my personality.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
It is never it is.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Her person kidding me.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Hold on a second, I just need and I hope
I'm right about this. I think I just spotted a
hot dog on a stick. Employee in the audience, what
could you stand up? Please?

Speaker 3 (11:51):
God stand your ass?

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Would you please? Yeah? Yes, hold on please.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
Karen never says nice things about people.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
In the audience.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
So this is like, but you know what huge? Now
I will because is that a real uniform from Hot
Dog on a Stick? Did you did you work there?
She worked at Ceremony, Hillsdale and fucking Stonestown. Do you understand?

Speaker 1 (12:21):
She?

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'm sorry, Are you a regional manager of Hot Dog
on a Stick?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Like?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
You must be good if they're sending you around to
different malls? Say again, spread they were desperate? Do you
know that? I'm sorry to waylay this, but my first
seven minutes of stand up comedy was about the girls
that work at Hot Dog on a Stick? Did you
know that? And how you guys used to have to

(12:47):
squeeze the lemonade in your hot pants with your erectile hats?

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Does it?

Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's still good?

Speaker 5 (12:56):
Right?

Speaker 3 (12:58):
I mean she had to have stolen that outfit, right Bell?

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Not.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
You don't get to go home with that so you don't.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Have to pay them seventy five bucks for that, did you?

Speaker 5 (13:07):
No?

Speaker 3 (13:07):
You just straight up stole it?

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Worth it? What's your name? Gina? Welcome to this show.
Thank you so much. You've done it. Gina's done it.
I love that.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
I love that your eyes were just like you can't
see anything. But then you were like, but I was.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Excuse me, someone from my old bit is here. I
need to interview her.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
I think I saw you do that bit in like
two thousand and one at Largo.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yes, I swear to God. Is that crazy little.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Baby Georgias in the audience look at us?

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
I was up there like I'm on speed nine points
to make yeah, let's stop, jenis stop?

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Okay? Last night my feet were weird and I like
kept and it was just really aware where my feet
were the whole time, instead of like whould.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
You put them?

Speaker 3 (14:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
That's like the this was in the way and so
I couldn't do like that.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
So I just realized I forgot to put lotion on
my legs. So I'm really chalky and gross. So that's fine.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
If anyone has lotion, you please pass it up. That'd
be great. If it was self tannered, that'd be even better.
For a nice kind of a nylon look, still need
the gotta have them. I actually am doing kind of
a in my seat. I was doing kind of a
side saddle Lady Chatterley kind of thing over here. I
was just like, because it's so.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
You know, I last but I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's a literary reference about a dirty old book.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Ill I don't even read. Oh really, Oh I want
to tell them why they're here, what they're doing, but
no fucking happening.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
This is my favorite murder. It's a true crime comedy podcast.
Thank you. Some people don't like that combination, we understand.
So to explain, we like to say that George and
I cope with our lifelong trauma through the use of humor.
That's how a lot of us like to do it.

(15:11):
We do not think murder is funny. We just think
we're funny, and so we also became obsessed with true
crime at a much too young of an age, and
so when we met each other, all of those things
collide and we're like, we got to talk about this,
and uh, I've never done this part before.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I keep going and do it.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Go go man, I love it. Here's our two women show.
I'm writing it as we speak. Anyhow, Uh, let's see,
we're funny. We think we're funny. And there's a lot
of people that get dragged to this show against their
will by their partner as a.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Drag along measure.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
He actually has merch to say, is it drag along.
People don't know what the inside jokes are and they
don't care, and they don't like it, but they love
their partner and beautiful thing. So anyway, if you find
that you don't like anything that's going on tonight, we
invite you to get the fuck out fun except for

(16:12):
the security guards. Except please don't go. Please don't, please don't.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
It's real weird.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
We'll try to, we'll work on it. Yeah, you're first
time first.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's really scary. Last night, last night I told a
story about a ghost blimp and that was like the
easiest story I've ever told in my life. It was like,
this has no stakes and except for that, they disappeared.
But tonight is not that.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right, You're gonna get serious. They like it.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Okay. Well, Marcus ur, our tour manager who took Vince's place,
wrote g dog on my script, so I know it's mine.
Thank you, Marcus. Okay, all right, well listen.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Today's story is about the eerie disappearance and suspicious death
of a wealthy but troubled heiress who went out for
a morning walk in nineteen twenty nine and never made
it home. This is a story of the disappearance of
Edith Irene Wolfskille.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
She your great auntie, thank you, were you just for
the thing? Thank you so much. No one's clapping.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
The main sources I use for this story are are
local news reports by Bay area publications such as the
San Francisco Chronicle, hooray, you love it, the Oakland Tribune,
he and the sacramento'll be. I think Sacramento is like represented, Yeah, hey.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
After all I've done to you, what a beautiful thing.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
I'm getting hot. Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
The rest of the sources can be found someday in our.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Show notes in the future, show now, and if.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
They ever exist, this might be one of their shows
that like just never sees a light of day, like
what would happen, like what could happen that it would
never be.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
It all becomes word of mouth.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
So to understand this woman, Edith Irene Wolfskille, you have
to know that she comes from one California, one of
California's wealthiest families. Her grandfather and his brother had been
from the Midwest, and they were among the earliest white
settlers in California, first near La and then in the
Sacramento Valley and her Edith's grandfather mathis not Matteis, mathis Mathis.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Let me see.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
They did the thing where like, you know, they're all
these like people who are like, I'm gonna hit gold
in California goal miners yep, yeah, and like those people
like it didn't like go great. But then other people
are like, I'm going to sell shit to the people
trying to find gold. And they got fucking wealthy. Like
that's what happened to them.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
So they basically became ranchers, cattles, but crops, all this stuff,
and ultimately they wind up richer than most of the miners.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, just one thing.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, it's cattle. What I say cattles cattles.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
So I did.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Last night was chiopino, just a little crab chiopino for everybody.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
It sounds right. I really don't want to do it,
but I know it's sometimes fun and you do enjoy it.
I love it, Okay, Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
If I cared, I wouldn't be on stage I do this,
but I do.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
I do love that. The plural of cattle, cattles, cattles. Yeah, wow,
you just threw a little less on there. For spice.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
So so Matthis' brother, Edith's great uncle William, becomes even wealthier.
He gets into grapes and then wine, and his massive
ranch will become the ritzy neighborhood of Holmby Hills, Westwood
and bel Air over in our neck of the woods.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Between you can feel that they're withholding booths.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, we're we're moving here.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
So it's fine, you're fine, I'm from here.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
So basically they end up getting enough land to stretch
over thousands of acres of vineyards, vineyards.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Or or or orchids or sorry you know richards. Yeah,
you got it, you nailed it. Just don't overthink it.
I know too much, but.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
I'm really like it's like, I can you like get
a hot flash by getting like bring on your own
hot flash?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Sure, okay, yeah, that's Munchausen's wife hot flash so stupid.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
So basically that makes them two of the wealthiest men
in the state.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
So congratulations to them, to those guys.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
So by the time Edith was born in San Francisco
in eighteen seventy two, she already has two older brothers,
following in Grandpa Mathis's footsteps. Edith's father, John Wolfskill is
a prominent rancher and he's training his sons, Matthew and Nay.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
To follow suit.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Nay, Like what the horse says, an e y Nay,
that's rude.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
Nay.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, here's a picture of the grandfather, oh.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Or the father. That's the father. Edith's father, got it,
John Wolfskill, pioneer of.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
If anyone here can do anything about bringing those sideburns back,
it would be great. I'd really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
You know what I love about this, Like he's younger
than us in this photo. Like, that's absolutely younger than us.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
He has no idea that Korean skincare is coming down
the pilot for all of us.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
He's out in the sun, bacon his face. Okay, so
that's him. But then they have a girl. Her name
is Edith, and she's highly privileged. She's sent away from
the home immediately as soon as she's old enough to
attend finishing skuol oh in Europe, as you.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Com paris France, Europe.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
The sole daughter of John and his wife Susan Wolfskill.
Edith is described as beautiful with brown hair, and Okay,
I don't think this fucking exists in real life. I
only ever see this in fiction. Cool gray eyes gray?
Have you ever seen a person with gray eyes before?
That's not a fucking thing, like, go to the doctor,

(22:43):
something's wrong.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's when your eyes are about to fail. That's the
last it's the last color before your eyes go out.
I don't buy it completely. They shut off. I don't
buy that scam.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
Okay, they're gray, you're gray eyes. Sure, congratulations being one
of society, Being a society girl. She's written about in
the papers as quote one of California's prize beauties. Her
delicate pink white skin and wide eyes, her long, rich
brown hair and fascinating form aka she's stacked, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Baby and fascinating.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Made her the darling of the state's aristocracy.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
God damn it. That's a good way aristocracy. Thank you.
I had this backstage. I swear you practiced so many times.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
I was trying to hit that stacked line joke, and
so I did.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
You got it, you know? And I did.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Then everything else went to shit.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
I think we have a picture of her. Let's take
a look. Well, there's a fascinating there's a vague thing
of her.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
No wonder. They're just like, okay, can you turn around.
We just need to get that ass now.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Now you're not gonna look over here. You're a big
exit on that side of her face. That's I've been there.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
She's like, it's a new thing. I'm going to look
at the back wall, concentrate on my Yeah, it's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
But as lovely and wealthy as she may be, eventh
is different when she returns to California from Europe in
the late eighteen hundred, So what the.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Fuck be Ray smoking fake accent?

Speaker 4 (24:32):
Let's pretend she's starting back peculiar and it's worrying her family. Unfortunately,
religious is one of those things.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah, you know what I mean, don't be mad at me.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I don't think they're here. But you guys should have.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Seen when were in Salt Lake City, Like they woohooed
out Mormonism, Like really fucking a lot of people who
are like, really okay, the cool Romanism.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, they get botox, that's right.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
They have their own Real Housewives series. They're solid, so
all anyone wants.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
It seems that Edith becomes so obsessed with religion that
she kneels in the streets of San Francisco and praise loudly.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Dirty Yeah. Oh, she means the street, not you know,
yet so dirty, shouting scripture at her neighbors out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Rich people love that, I love it.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
She frequently announces herself to be the Empress of the world,
which fucking amen, I mean.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
In a world by her late twenties, Edith doesn't seem
to have any suitors but or marriage prospects, but it
seems like her family's like great because she's very wealthy
and they don't want to just like Mara here off to,
someone will take advantage of her.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Right because she's the Empress of the world, right.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Like that's hard to match. Yeah, excuse me, God, damn it.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
You can't. You can't.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
You know, you can't be perfect. You have to have
one thing wrong with you. Sometimes you can't have great.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Feet like these, and you fucking not.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
You know, this is why we podcast.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
He had to leave.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah, okay, He's like I can't. He's like, I can't
do this anymore. I don't want to do this anymore.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
So her family is so rich and involved that everyone
knows it's the wolf Skill heiress who's freaking out in
public essentially, so like you know, they're just they're they're
very protective of her, it seems like, and they commit
her to California General Hospital and hopes that she can
be quote fixed.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Those are my quotes.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
They didn't say that, okay by doctor William Chapman Ralston Junior.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Who I bet your mom has talked about.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh yeah every night at dinner, story after story of
doctor William ralv watch a junior.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
So on two occasion occasion she wanders from in patient
facilities in Belmont and San Francisco and just kind of
like wanders away. But luckily both times she's found unharmed
at the hospital. She's medicated and supervised until she's allowed
to return home to the family ranch in Fairfield.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Nobody, no one.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Likes the nut Tree Okay, you're fools.

Speaker 4 (27:25):
Which is about fifty miles away m hm in case
she needed directions, and out in the country. She likes
to take daily hikes through the hilly trails. It's not
a bunch of suburban little boxes. At the time, it's
like beautiful and nice. Edith lives in a white farmhouse
with gingerbread trim and a wrap around porch. It's idyllic,
it's nestled among her family's vineyards and.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Peach orchid orchids. God damn it. Why can't I do
that one?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
You've always been orchard orchard. Yeah, although a peach orchid
would be gorgeous.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
I'm actively trying to not kill an orchid right now
at home, so that might be the problem.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Don't overwater it, Okay.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
I'm not going to tell you what I saw on
Instagram and how to make it work, but that you
take it.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
All apart and pull the roots out. Yeah, don't do that.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
I did it.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Did it work. It's working.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
For the first time in my life, I've seen an orchid,
but I've never seen a bud before.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
They always just die. No, thank you, but no, you're right,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
You guys will fucking clap for anything. That's crazy. A
plant bloomed and she gets credit. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
I didn't kill a plant, but actually it is.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
It is amazing because I watched someone do that also
over there, and I was like, should I because I
also have an orchid that I'm trying not to kill,
and I was like, I'm going to do this. I
can't risk it. And it was like a whole thing,
and I was like, I wouldn't risk it.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
It's going to die anyways, So all right, well, at
least you get those little hair clips out of it
to make us into a positive those cute little nineties
right clips.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
So she's living this nice life with peaches, and she
loves to go on long walks in the countryside, and
she becomes kind of famous around town for these wandering
walks because a woman wandering on her own, oh god,
she must be wealthy.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
She must be the empress of the world.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
And a Fresno b reporter writes that Edith is known
by locals, yeah, to be quote to be a quote
powerful hiker, and her tall, wiry figure was frequently seen swinging.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Down the hill trails. What are you swinging? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Is that bigfoot?

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Look at that large person. It's like kind of insulting.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
Neighbors view Edith as a little unpredictable but ultimately harmless,
and she might mutter to herself a lot, but they
mostly see her standing on hilltops. Then this is cupping
her hands around her face to see into the distance better.
I don't know, like wears waldo kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
I think.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
I wonder what, Yeah, I wonder what she was looking for.
She sounds cool, she sounds like should be here.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
I mean this was if it was.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Now, yeah, for real, first of all, but also it's like,
what was the problem. She went to Europe, she got
the Lord. She tried to talk about it, and everyone's like,
you're insane. Go to a sanitarium. And then her family's like,
you don't have to do that because we're rich. Here's
a little house. Then you're out by yourself in a field.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
I could have you could have just done my whole story.
I'm so sorry, but I'm you're right.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, okay, Because it seems it's like, leave her alone.
How about she doesn't have to wear sixteen layers of
silk everywhere she goes, and she won't mutter to herself
all the time.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'm so fucking my god, it's fucking broad.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
I need to get fourteen ribs removed, put this courset on.
She's like, where are my rights? I can't even vote? Okay,
I was thinking of that the whole time.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
That was great.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
I just killed two minutes so I could think of
that joke. Okay.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
So things take a turn.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
When Edith's father dies in nineteen thirteen, she's eighth in
her early forties, and she and her brothers split his
estate of one point six million dollars in No, but
that's in nineteen thirteen dollars, so today today's.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Money one point three million dollars would.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
Be some point six's like she's gonna matter. No, No,
I'm telling you it's one point six one point three.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Oh yeah, so I thought you.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Okay, you didn't give it away? Is it ten million dollars? No?
Is it close? No?

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Do you want to go one more time?

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Sure? Higher? Lower? Hire someone sit higher? Oh my god,
I love this game show. Okay, then I'm gonna say
seventeen million dollars.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Spanned four point nine point four million dollar way four
nine point I'm so hot, it's so hot up here.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
How long did you stay at Mad Dog in the fog?

Speaker 3 (32:21):
I took a nap, I swear to god, I took
a nap. And that's all that matters.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Forty nine million dollars. Yeah, Jesus Christ. So that's there.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
The estate and the brothers, Matt and Nay, no shock
to anyone fucking.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Hate each other like of course they do.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
They're like fighting over fifty million fucking dollars. Just like succession, right,
and they're put in charge of their sister's care, which
of course is hard because they hate each other. But
they actually really love their sister and want to take
care of her, so they're not total dicks. Good and
uh Matt and Nay clashed violently over control of the

(32:59):
profits of that money and management of their ranch, particularly
the orchards.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. I need it.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
I just need applause for anything we all do.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Chanet really withheld from me.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
That's why we're here, girl, that's why we're here. You
worked very hard to get applauded for the word orchard.
You deserve it.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
But they basically put their differences apart long enough to
make sure that their sister is safe and under the
supervision of a living nurse as her caretaker, and at
the family ranch at least she can be taken care
of and you know, contained. But also it seems like
they care about her. Here's a picture of something I
don't remember what. Let's see put anything up.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Oh Jesus Christ. Okay, that's I didn't mean to do that.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Okay, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Million dollar mystery of the matters.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Thank you, good looking, so too soon now, but it
also was too huge, and it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
I liked how big it was. It felt like modern art,
kind of.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Like what you do you see up close, what you
see far away?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
If you get different, it's a dolphin.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
So on July fourteenth, nineteen twenty nine, a fifty seven
year old now Edith, leaves the house around seven am
for her regular morning walk. It's a cool summer day,
so she wears a light dress, maybe not all her silks,
and her housekeeper plans to see her return in time
for lunch. Remember she's like famous for her strolls.

Speaker 4 (34:41):
That's insulting walks, yeah, stroll hikes.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
I a strow.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh she can only stroll?

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Yeah, oh she's fucking walking, Like, let her live, let
her stride even but even I isn't back by lunch,
and she's nowhere to be found on the trails or
in town. And because her family is so prominent, the
response to the nurses called to the sheriff is you know,
in their friend of the family, it's pretty quick. And
knowing that Edith's eccentric appearance may have attractive attention, remember

(35:11):
she's not wearing all her skirts. Oh that's right, the
sheriff suspects that someone who knew she was both vulnerable
and from her rich family might have kidnapped her, and
so the deputies assigned to stay at the house and
keep watch for anyone who might drop off a ransom note,
like that's her immediate suspicion. But nobody ever comes with.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
A ransom note.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
Hundreds of people descend on the ranch in case the grounds.
Edith was seen every single day, and there's just eerially
no sign of her whatsoever not on the ranch grounds. Man,
Allie just really wanted to fuck with me, but putting.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Or or which really just keeps putting it in there.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
I'm not going to say that anymore.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Did you ever go to orchard supply hardware's going that
could help you? Just think of that.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Okay, thank you, I'll.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Get you a nomadic aid that fixes this problem by
the time the story is over.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
So, basically they look over where they can't find her.
Neighbors and local townspeople.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Join the search.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Dogs, horses, everyone is looking for her because this is fair.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
What dogs and horses? Hey, man, this way rusty after
you lay on their own accord.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
This is weird. Yeah, May remember name nay.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
May is out there.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
There's some joke there.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
The Los Angeles Bank, where most of Edith's money is kept,
puts up a thousand dollars reward for information leading to
her being found.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Do you want to or should we.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Just fifty eight thousand dollars?

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Eighteen?

Speaker 4 (36:43):
It's fucking this is it's never satisfying. It's never right,
and it's never satisfying anyway.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I like it.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
That's we saw the photo. It's a big old thing and.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
This is a this is the time where Georgia kind
of doesn't want to do her story anymore. You know,
you saw that.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
I don't like going first. I don't know why it is.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, you just got power through it.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah, it's really funny, as you can always tell because
my glass is always empty by the end of the
show and Karen's is it like who gets nervous? And
thank you? That's feet. So there's some tips.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
Someone says they spotted Edith in the town of red Bluff,
which is more than one hundred miles nobody north of
Eden's home.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
They're trying to rep red Bluff back there. We love it, and.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
But there's like there's always like wild goose shades tips
and nothing comes fruition. And so basically, with Edith having
been missed in a whole week, the weather gets much hot.
It's in the middle of summer, and the concern is
that Edith could not survive in such conditions without food
or water. And you know at night, we know it
gets really cold as well, and she wasn't.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Wearing a lot of layers.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
So meanwhile, her brothers Matt and Nay are forced into
close proximity over the course of the investigation, which they
don't like to do, and they have screaming matches in
the Sheriff's office in front of newspapers. Like these dudes,
they're like the Gallagher brothers, like a Rasis.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
We're just like, can't even you know.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Nolan, Liam are in a the sheriffs. I like that
they the journalists are there where. It's like if everyone
could meet, well, my brother and I fight, that would
be great.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
I hate you so much that I can't not yell
at you in front of a place that's going to
tell everyone we're.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yelling at you.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
You immediately turn around, right or that word.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
And so basically Nay blames his brother for hiring the
nurse that Edith ran away from, saying it's the nurse's
fault that she ran and it's his brother's fault for
hiring him.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
And Matt on the other hand.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Believes that Edith has been kidnapped, and so they're just
arguing about what happened to her in neither of them no,
and it's not cool. So basically, despite all the sightings
and efforts put into finding Edith, she's still not found
by the end of summer, and people begin moving on
from what has become a harrowing and really strenuous weeks

(39:19):
long search effort until September nineteenth, a little more than
two months after Edith disappears, the eighteen year old son
of a neighboring rancher is walking along a dried up
creek bed. Yeah, looking for a looking for a stick
to knock fruit off the trees.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
It sounds illegal.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, that's what we like to do out in the country.
It's stick time, we say to each other. And then
we search and search in the creek bed.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
And then this part is why they hate us.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yes, when he finds Edith's body, and shit, why everyone
hates us?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I was about to say shouldn't do a character right
right before you. Sorry, that's on me.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
It's badly decomposed.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
And this leads sheriff to wonder if Edith's body could
have possibly been in this one spot since she died.
But the creek bed is about a mile and a
half from Edith's house and has been searched many, many
times since Edith's disappearance two months prior, so it seems
that the only possible explanation is that Edith's body had
been brought there sometime after her death, right Like, they

(40:29):
couldn't have just not seen it, right, since the most
thorough searching was done and the week after her disappearance.
Another theory is that maybe she was alive for a
week and wandering and then died in the spot, either
at someone's hand or of natural causes. And at the
same time, a deputy sheriff says that that spot had

(40:49):
been searched at least fifty times. Oh wow, yeah, it's
very mysterious, but in many weeks after her disappearance, and
by different parties every time.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
So yeah, it.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Seems like that it's there's a disagreement on like when
people actually search that area. But it's enough times to
be like, it's not two times, it's fifty times.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Right.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
That's that's math.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
That is simple math.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
So it's possible that Edith died at this spot in
the spot of natural causes, but she would have to
have been somewhere else during the roughly two week period
when the highest number.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Of people were looking for her.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
But basically, uh okay. So Edith's cousin Read Wolf's Skille,
recalls looking in that exact spot almost two weeks after
Edith's disappearance, and Read, along with another cousin, is the
one to identify her body via clothes and shoes.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Found near her. And so at this point, Edith's brother Nay,
who had thought Edith had wandered away and it was
the housekeeper's fault, he changes his mind and agrees with
his estranged brother because it's just doesn't make any sense
that no one would have found her.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
He thinks that will play is involved. And basically it's
very strange, and you know that they think someone had
been trying to keep her hidden until she was found.
And strangely, Edith is not wearing the shirt and skirt
she left home in. Instead, she's wearing brown men's overalls
described as a kind mostly worn by carpenters. And there's

(42:26):
a handwritten note in her pocket, so basically they have
to do a chemical process to find out what it
actually says because it's so worn. But it says, quote,
do not give anything dot dot dot, do not show sympathy,
dot dot dot, do not speak to any nurse, dot
dot dot, do not speak magic, walk out, sleep only

(42:47):
in the daytime, and drink water, bathe before I dress,
use gifts, shun all change, right, Like there's no way
or decoding that.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Or she's writing a song, but hold on, do you
think there's a possibility this is like a list to
herself and she went out in disguise.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
It seems like, yeah, maybe she's trying to escape, Like
maybe there's more to her captivity than just keeping her
at home, right, maybe they're actually keeping her captive. And
so there's not a lot about the handwriting and whether
it was hers or not written. But about a day later,
investigators discovered that signs that someone has been living in

(43:27):
a shack on the ranch bordering the Wolf's skilled property.
The owner of the property had thought that the cabin
had been abandoned for years, but on the stove there
are eggshells and other food scraps, as if someone had
been living there.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
We haven't seen scrambled eggs here in twenty five years. Right,
thank you. I had to do it.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
You did, and I appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
The bed looks like it had been recently slept in,
and on the walls various phrases have been scrawled and
they look like religious works, ws and phrases that Edith
often wrote on her walks on like fences and stuff.
Another neighboring rancher, I mean, this is so stupid, says
that on July seventeen, three days after her disappearance, when

(44:13):
everyone is looking for her, he heard a woman's screams
coming from the cabin and just didn't do anything about it.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Does nothing.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
Yeah, So the mystery of whether Edith was living in
the cabin, which seems likely, and whether she was alone
or held there, we don't know. But prior to her
disappearance in recent years she was She had always returned
home from her hike, so it's not.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Like she was totally held captive. She was allowed to
roam as much as she wanted.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
So three surgeons examined Edith's body and at least one
of them.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Doctor A. A.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Berger, your best friend, my best bestie. He disagrees with
the theory that there's foul play involved, and none of
her because none of her bones are broken and she
hasn't ingested any poison, and both he and the pathologist
named Am Moody.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
What's with all these it was all initials.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
But yeah, actually find a blood clot in her brain.
Oh all right, so they say she could have died
of natural causes, but it doesn't explain how she got
to the spot where she was found after they had
already looked there. But any evidence from the overalls is inconclusive.
I mean, it's the they're not doing hardcore science on

(45:27):
those overalls back then, you know, they're like, shake them out.
Nothing great, Yeah, that's that's forensic files back then.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, shake them out and then read the ruins of
the dust on the grass.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
So basically, a couple months later, the Solano County Corner
concludes an in question to the cause of death, and
that Solano you guys like Salona.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
They're literally doing it to every city and county.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
But I want it, I want I know. And the
verdict is death from cause unknown. I think there's another photo.
Let's take a look at this picture.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
If there is.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
He, then that was her.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
I'm telling you I'm older than her.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
There's like she's thirty. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
It's all botox and filler over here.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
But do we think that her the blood clot in
her brain had something to do with her behavior?

Speaker 3 (46:27):
That would be my like stupid random guess. Yeah, you know,
it's yeah, might be.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
It would be my very educated.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
I bet right, I mean be interesting, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
To know. I thought that from an episode of Law
and Orders, behavior changes.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
It'd be really interesting to know.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Unfortunately, I'm telling the story for my favorite murder, which
means we don't fucking know.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
And then by the.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
Time that her verdict her cause of death is is released,
Edith's brothers seemed to be ready to just let go.
They do't make any public contests of the findings. Nay
and his wife accompany edith body to Los Angeles, where
she's buried in a plot next to her parents, and
the brothers battle it out over how to manage Vee's estate,

(47:13):
because she did have a chunk of that, and they
were looked into and they didn't need her portion of
the estate, and it seems like they hated each other
but cared about her. So after a month they agree
to put a trust company in charge of what she
left behind, which is somewhere between in today's money.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Nine and eighteen million dollars I know. And because she
was worth so much, some speculate that it was her brother's.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
But it doesn't seem I just said that, it doesn't
seem like him. And that's the story of the unexplained
disappearance and death of Edith Irene Wolfskille, the Empress of
the World, The.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Empress of the world. Thank you, crazy, slam it down.
That was great, Yeah, okay, everything's great. Now where do you?
Where do you handle? Where do you?

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Kendra? Kendra?

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Where do you? If you were going to go apple picking?
What would you walk through to do that?

Speaker 3 (48:17):
A field.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Of trees, A cops of trees? Oh, someone reads books.
All right, We'll just let's get through my story real
quick and get out of here.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
We're all busy.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
My story starts in the late nineteen eighties when I
was at my prime. Oh what's this. Let's take a look.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Oh my god, that's right, Billy, I wish could never
I wrong name.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Meanwhile in Orange County, I don't.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Know what she's gonna do.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
It's so funny.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Today she texts me and she's like, is it okay
if I have been send a photo of you and
you're not gonna know what it is, but I'm gonna
put it up, like do you trust me? Basically, and
she was like, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
No, no, go back.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
I want to see the storage nailed it.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
Yeah, he was like, I don't want to embarrass you
or anything.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
But I think that's perfect.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Oh my god, it's his mammoth right there.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
You're doing You're in mammoth wearing a mammoth sweatshirt. I'm
trying to seriously graduate from high school with all my
eyebrows and tack.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Oh my god, that makes me want to cry. I
don't know why. It's like I just.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Thought i'd you know, really ground I loves at the
top of this story.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay, thank you. So this does start. We make our
way back to the barrier, but it starts at Princeton
University in New Jersey. If you've ever heard of it,
Admissions officials receive an application that they take note of.
It's less a formal application and more of a glorified
note sent by a seventeen year old student named Alexi Santana,

(50:26):
and in it, Alexi paints a romantic picture of his
life in Utah, hurting cattle by day and reading Plato
by campfire at night, sleeping outside under the stars with
his horse named good Enough by his side. Ouch, right,
good enough.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
It sounds like the beginning of legally Blonde.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
We'll see what if I just read you this script
of legally Blonde? I'm like and good night. So there's
no teacher recommendations or list of extracurricular activities that are
included in this. Apparently that's what you do and you
can submit for college. There's not even a high school transcript,
but Alexi does include a newspaper clipping from a track

(51:09):
meet that he's won. And then Alexi explains that his
difficult life circumstances an absent father and a deathly old
mother who needs his constant care have kept him from
traditional schooling. He actually claims that he's never once set
foot in a school and that he's entirely self taught,
and yet he has higher than average set scores and

(51:32):
a clear athletic talent. The Princeton officials are amazed, and
in the end, Alexi is not only admitted to Princeton,
but he's given a twenty thousand dollars athletic scholarship. But
he has to defer for a year because of his
sick mother. But in the fall of nineteen eighty nine,
he finally arrives on the Princeton campus. But what no

(51:54):
one at Princeton knows is that this brilliant, philosophical, athletic
young cowboy named Alexei Santana does not exist. And the
Alexi who shows up on campus to begin matriculation, I
I just threw it. It is actually a twenty nine year
old drifter with a criminal rap sheet and a history

(52:15):
of this same con that he's already pulled right here
in the Bay Area. This is the story of the
college conman James.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Hoague, whoa love a con man, Love a con man story.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
So some of the main sources used in this one
are David Samuel's deep dive article for The New Yorker
entitled The Runner, which ran. Thank you for getting all
the way down on the ground.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
She also ran, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
That is the runner right there. David Samuel's deep dive
article The Runner, which ran in The New Yorker in
two thousand and one, a New York Times article by
James Barron An M. A. Farber, and a Denver Post
article entitled The con Artist next Door by Nancy Loughholm.
So James Hoague is born in nineteen fifty nine in

(53:06):
a working class neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. And from
the beginning, sure two things. From the beginning, two things
are pretty clear. James is smart, and he's obsessed with running.
He's very good at it, so much so that he
sees running as his ticket to a higher income bracket.

(53:27):
His dream is to parlay his incredible athletic skills into
a scholarship to a top tier college, which will then
lay the foundation for his future success. One child childhood
friend named Keith Mark will later the two first names
my least favorite thing in the world, will later describe
James as quote one of the smartest kids that I've

(53:49):
ever known, a very good, polite kid, never in any trouble,
trained all the time, had a tremendous gift to run,
literally the best runner he could have been Olympic class.
He had big time talent, is what he had. End
quote is what he had. But Keith, actually the full

(54:09):
end of the the end of the full quote is
includes this important line quote. But when we were in
high school, James was very much an individualist and he
did not like to be told what to do. End quote.
I mean, hey, join us, join us, James. So from
a young age, James resists and rebels against any authority,

(54:31):
and he seems to have a bit of an ego
as well. So now it's nineteen seventy seven, James enrolls
at the University of Wyoming. No one nobody lives there.
That's right, that's nobody was there. So he's made it
on the varsity cross country team as a freshman. It's
his dream come true. And actually, the University of Wyoming

(54:55):
has been investing in its track program and recruiting the
best young runners from a the world. Calm live in Wyoming.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Run run away.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
So for the first time in his life, James is
actually struggling to keep up. The other recruits are way
faster than him. He starts practicing harder, He pushes his
body to the point of injury and his friends can
tell that it's all getting to him because he seems
to get really down on himself. But they also noticed
that he suddenly got a bunch of stuff like medals

(55:30):
and bicycles and stereos that he never had before, and
it is at the very least suspicious. So now James
is around twenty years old, he's a sophomore. He's in
his sophomore year of college, doing very well in classes.
You did great, no one noticed, but he's still struggling
on the track. He competes in a regional track meet.

(55:51):
He finishes this one's a heartbreaker, two hundred and twenty
six out of two hundred and fifty runners.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
You just don't even want to.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
No, you know at that point, and he takes his
running very seriously. So obviously this is devastating. This is
that kind of thing where like you're in high school
and you're like, God, I'm so good at this thing,
and then you you step one foot out into the
real world and you're like, I'm fucking terrible at everything.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
That's what Los Angeles is full of. That's really hot
people from their hometown who come to LA and then
it's like the most beautiful people you've ever seen in
your fucking life. Yeah, and you're just cute. Yeah, that's right,
you're the neighbor. You become the neighbor in the sitcom.
You're I don't know about.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
You're cute and you're like maybe you can tap dance
a little. And other than that, everyone's a supermodel and
they're like a quadruple triple threat.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah, listen, we'll explain Hollywood to you and just give
us a second. So now, Jane and I said that,
and he's doing okay. So out of two fifty, he
comes in two twenty six, right, not lock up. Not
long after this, James drops out of school completely and
then he resurfaces down in Austin, Texas, where he enrolls

(57:04):
at the University of Texas. Nope with a major with
a major in chemical engineering.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
Wait, he can do chemical engineering? And he's like mad
at running. Yes, like I can do neither of those things.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
And he's still depressed. We've got a look on the
bright side, guys, who are you gar So he also
joins the track team and he's getting excellent grades, but
he is not doing well at track. UT's head recruiter,
James Blackwood will remember. Quote he wasn't a bad college runner,

(57:37):
probably better than average decent, But I think he thought
he was better than a lot of guys on the
Texas team. Then he got out there with them and
they ran him into the ground. End quote. Yeah. So,
in nineteen eighty two, James's five year eligibility to complete
to compete in NCAA events expires, effectively his college running career.

(58:02):
But instead of focusing his energy on getting his degree
in chemical engineering, which was what he was doing and
apparently good at, he gets really depressed and the next
year he's caught stealing equipment from a local bike shop.
So he's arrested, and this is his first documented run
in with the law, but it is not his last.

(58:23):
So he drops out of ut with only a couple
credits left for him to graduate, and then he just disappears.
How many credits do you still need to grow?

Speaker 3 (58:36):
I almost have my associates in very many, many things.
Oh so I was like, no, I don't want to
do that. I'm I'll switch it cald Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
What about cooking? Okay, So about two years after this,
in late nineteen eighty five, James is now around twenty
five years old, and he resurfaces. This time it's at
the enrollment office of Palo Alto High School also known
as PALLI and James is now claiming to be seventeen

(59:06):
years old.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Oh shit.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
He tells them that he is an orphan named j
Mitchell Huntsman, and he has an incredible story. He claims
he was born in San Diego but raised on a
Nevada commune and write all of it, and he says
he's entirely self educated. This is going to fund sound
familiar and just a disciplined athlete who runs upwards of

(59:30):
sixty miles a week. That part might actually be true.
He also claims both of his parents have recently died
in a car accident, but he still wants to work
towards his diploma while putting his running skills to use
on the school's track team. He plans to hopefully get
admitted to Stanford University in a couple of years, which
happens to be which happens to be right across the

(59:53):
street from Palo Alto High School.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
So he was just like, you know what, let me start.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Over, Yes, start over in high school. In high school?
So uh, he can't let the track dream go sure,
obviously me neither right, you'll do it someday. So and
it's kind of weird because he could have had a
degree from college in chemical engineering, but he's going.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Back, got a basics suck those nees up, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
So the good news is James's scheme totally works and
people buy this story. Even though he looks a bit
older than he claims to be, his classmates and teachers
just shrug it off. One faculty member actually tells reporters
later quote, as a teacher, I thought it was rude
for me to even think that he was older, even

(01:00:46):
though he was very thin and you could see the
shadow of his beard.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Okay, now this is that Drew Barrymore movie goes back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
To exactly same if she loved jogging. Okay, So what's
a important is that twenty five year old James is
now running high school track again, and this time he
is killing it. Of course, he got his second chance
as Jay Huntsman. He crushes the first competitive cross country
race that he is enrolled in, so much so that

(01:01:16):
he gets write ups in a local newspaper about him.
To that. Yeah, but one sports reporter from a newspaper
called The Peninsula Times Tribune, which doesn't exist anymore. That
journalist named Jason Cole is there that day, and he's
a little skeptical. He has this nagging feeling about this
very mature looking student, so he decides to do some digging,

(01:01:40):
to the point where he actually requests a copy of
j Huntsman's birth certificate from the city of San Diego.
And that's when Jason learns the real Jay Huntsman died
in infancy more than a decade earlier. So although he
can't explain the why here, Jason is positive that Pali,
his newest track star, is actually a grown man. God,

(01:02:03):
how creepy the best. I love it so much. It's
the kind of thing where, like I it would be
like a weird dream slash nightmare I would have where
it's like I'd be in high school and people like, hey,
you go into the dance of like I'm forty two,
what are you guys doing? I can't I shouldn't be here.
Where are my pants? So while journalist Jason Cole works

(01:02:26):
on this expose, James's living life is a life as
an orphaned high school track star, and the Pali community
just embraces and supports him. In October of nineteen eighty five,
he wins the Stanford Invitational High School cross country race.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
See if you want you can't win.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
You know, you have to keep a low profile. You
got like fourth place.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
No, no, not not old two hundred and twenty fifth place.
He's gonna win every single chance he gets.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Shit.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
And this is actually described by one reporter as quote,
the most prestigious high school race in the country for
an adult, for an old man. But only days after
that victory comes Jason Cole's byline, as in the Peninsula

(01:03:15):
Times Tribune, and it says, it's pretty Mystery Runner's history.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
Oh that's a snappy title.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Yeah, So anyway we can get these pictures from a
little further back at all, we may have we made it.
That could have been us uploading them that way for sure. Okay.
So basically that says the Mystery Runners History, and it
exposes James and deposits that he stole Jay Huntsman's identity
after seeing the birth and death dates on the headstone.

(01:03:48):
One of James's old friends from Wyoming is interviewed in
this article and he describes James as quote mischievous before
adding quote, but I thought he would have grown out
of it by now. Woo, So what do you mean
he's only a junior ouch. So before they have a
chance to expel him, James drops out of Pali and

(01:04:11):
he's like, no, no, I'll see myself out. And then
the end authorities decide not to press charges White, but
the community he leaves behind is stunned. An article in
Pally's Verdet magazine, this is a high school so rich
they have their own magazine what and they report quote

(01:04:32):
His teammates all liked him. They were pretty upset that
he pulled their chain. That he pulled their chain when
he left. It wasn't like they hated him from then on.
They were just really disappointed that he wasn't what he
said he was and that they had been bamboozled.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
That was that Karen's voice.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
She's like, I'm a journalist from Pally's magazine ver Day,
and we're pissed about Jay Huntsman being not real. Just
to give you a sense, this is what Ja Huntsman
James look like, claiming to be a seventeen year old. Please,

(01:05:11):
we should have put that up earlier. It's gonna get close.
It's gonna be close.

Speaker 5 (01:05:16):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Hey, hey Darcy, Hey Darcy, do you have your homework?
Can I borrow your homework?

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
But but he looks like James Spader, and he does
look like an eighties teenager, like movie teenager, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
He does have a little Vince Averil in him too.
Oh my god, doesn't he He's got an eighties eighties Vince.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Old school style and the shirt Vince would wear that shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Hey, do you guys want to meet in the quad
for lunch? No, Dad, get away from us.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
I mean they probably just thought it was a narc right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
This was years before twenty one Jump Street. I think though,
it's like when people are super into running. You're like, yeah,
I guess that's what he looks like. I don't know
that's that what it is running son, I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Fucky looks like my husband Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
We'll have to do a side by side. Okay. So
a few weeks after he exits himself from Pally, he
gets caught writing a bad check while buying contact lenses.
So he pleads with the shop owner and says, I
promise that I'll come and pay you back. Just please
don't have me arrested. Shop owners like, you're a good

(01:06:36):
kid from the track team, and James skips town and
never pays that shop owner back, man, But we're going
to make a donation tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Just kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
So months later, he resurfaces in Vail, Colorado with a
whole new song and dance. This time, he gets himself
a seasonal job at a cross training camp, the kind
where rich people pay to train alone longside champion athletes.
But this scam is not what you think it is.
This time James has sold himself as doctor James Hogue

(01:07:08):
with a PhD in bioengineering, Jesus out of you guessed it,
Stanford University, that's right. No one notices until nineteen eighty seven,
a couple of years later, when an old acquaintance of
his from back in Austin learns that James is employed
at this camp as a doctor and reports him.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
Fuck that guy, you know, Like, how do you know
while you were in Austin he didn't get a fucking doctorate?
I mean, dick, and what does it snitches?

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
I think snitches get stitches for sure, But don't you
think James like stole something of his and it just like,
there's that fucking guy that took that really good stereo
I loved, yeah or something.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Or he's a doctor.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
What's that thing when they pretend stolen Valor, that's the one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
It's stolen doctor Valor. Okay, According to the camp owner,
When Sames is confronted about this, the camp owner says, quote,
he didn't say much. He didn't say too much. I
don't think he ever admitted he wasn't who he said
he was. He never apologized. It was like, hey, I
got busted. I'll go somewhere else and scam them. End quote.

(01:08:15):
You've got to interview people like this at your newspaper,
if you have the power to do this. That's a
good quote, because that's just what James does. Within months,
he's drifted to San Diego, and in October of that year,
he burglarizes oh bike. He burglarizes the bike shop his

(01:08:37):
roommate owns. So he shows up in town, gets a roommate,
Nice to meet you, cool, we like the same movies. Whatever,
will you share your like frozen dinners with me?

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Best friends, And he goes and burglarizes his bike shop
and he steals about twenty grand in tools and bike parts,
which is in today's money work.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
What is it eighty it's eighty seven eighty seven, and
today's twenty is two hundred and forty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
It's fifty six thousand dollars. And then he skips town
and he goes to the southwestern Utah city of Saint
George and he starts working there as a bike mechanic
with all of his roommates stolen.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
So, Dick, yeah, that is just.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
But within a year setting up shop there, another cyclist
notices that some of James's tools have a different guy's
name engraved on them. So once again on Shwinn or whatever. Hey,
you didn't say your name was Shwinn. So he gets
narked on as well. Okay, and when officers search James's home,

(01:09:46):
they find a lot of stolen property, as well as
evidence that he's been applying to Ivy League schools again,
this time under the name Alexis Santana. So now we're
back at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
Like, how did he get that name? He picked it
out of a like birth month favorite band?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Yes whatever, I wanted that to sound like smooth, but
it didn't. We can't clear it anyway, Alexi Santana. It's
that's the name you come up with when you are stoned.
So the good news is Alexi has been accepted to
both Princeton and Brown. Wow, but he's decided to go

(01:10:27):
to Princeton. He actually got in Jesus, So these plans
are put on hold, remember back at the beginning, because
his very deathly ill mother was sick and so Alexi
had to defer for a year. Remember that this was
when James was arrested and convicted on possession of stolen
property charges and sentenced to five years in prison. Oh
my sick mom. Yepp my sick mom in prison. Here's

(01:10:51):
the good news. He's paroled after ten months. Of course,
so you'd think a prison sentence would derail the whole
Ivy League Fantasy League plan, but Alexi Santana has his
explanation ready to go, so it's all fine. Princeton buys
it and allows James to quietly complete his prison sentence.

(01:11:12):
They don't realize they're doing that. So then then the
fall of nineteen eighty nine, twenty nine year old James
arrives in New Jersey campus as freshman Alexi Santana ready
for the eighty nine ninety school year. But traveling across
state lines is a violation of his parole, and this
violation triggers a warrant for his arrest. Unfortunately, Utah authorities

(01:11:35):
have no idea how to find him. So on Princeton's campus,
freshman Alexi Santana. He's shy, he's a little awkward, but
there's something about him.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
Oh god, we would totally have dated this point.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I'd absolutely be like, I don't know, he's just so
old looking.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):
He's so mysterious and old looking and old looking.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
So his classmates mostly like him, they just kind of
can't follow his life story. The New York Times reports
that Alexi quote seemed so unflappable that hardly any of
his classmates asked about his apparent discrepancies in the stories
he told about himself. He told some students that he
was an orphan, others that his mother was dying. End quote.

(01:12:23):
But hey, let's not get bogged down in details. What's
important here is that Alexi maintains a loaded class schedule,
gets great grades, and gets invited to join some of
the most exclusive university clubs because he's a man. But
most importantly, but it was like, Bob Dylan is here

(01:12:48):
to boo Alexi Santana thank you. Most importantly, Alexi has
quickly become the most one of the most talked about
athletes on the Princeton track team. He's back, baby. So
in February of nineteen ninety one, Alexi participates in the
Harvard Yale Princeton track meet in New Haven, Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
What kind of snacks are at that?

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
I mean, thanks little finger sandwiches with no crusts. Finally,
all of his track based reality denying underage dreams are
coming true, I wrote. But there's a snag. A runner
from one of the other schools is a poly graduate
and they recognize Alexi. Alexi, why aren't you talking to me? Alexi? Oh,

(01:13:32):
his name wasn't Alexi at that other school? They recognize
this new Alexei Santana as the old Jay whatever his
name was. It's really James Hoague and she immediately calls
reporter Jason Cole, who reaches out to Princeton.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
The old guy from the back of the hen that's right,
old journalist.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
It's like, I don't know about that beard that you have.
He breaks the news, the weird news to Princeton, Princeton.
So in the middle of class, the cops walk into
his lecture hall and dramatically arrest James and take him
away in handcuffs. You're not young.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Someone's running for reelection that year.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah, that's right. You go make an example of that
super weird old guy. He's charged with violating parole, forgery,
wrongful impersonation, and falsifying records, and he is able to
post bail incredibly sold some of his stolen stuff while
awaiting trial. He is allowed to relocate to Cambridge, Massachusetts,

(01:14:39):
where he starts taking classes at Harvard Extension. He won't stop.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
It's funny how hard I tried to get away from
college and this fucking guy.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
This guy can't stay away. He's like, assign me something
long and difficult.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
At one point he's hired to cattle precious minerals and
gems for the college and these people are supposed to
be fucking smart. While he's working there, about fifty grand
worth of gems go missing from Harvard worth.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
Around fifty grand. You said that button nine hundred and thirty.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars. You go too high.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
You're stupid. You got too low and you're tucking.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
This is it's a it's a humbling practice.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
Uh huh, this podcast, this spot, this.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Whole situation and life. They're also an expensive microscope and
a chair with the Harvard seal imprinted on it go missing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
Can I just sell this at a pawnshop? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Actually, the police find all of these items in James's room,
so he's again arrested. He's charged with even more crimes.
He's found guilty on four counts back in Princeton, so
he's he's found guilty on those charges. Now he's found
guilty for these stuff at Harvard for all these crimes.
He serves somewhere around two years. Uh huh, put up

(01:16:07):
the picture of big white head again. And then a
couple of years after getting out of prison. In nineteen
ninety six, James is back in the news for going
back to Prinson, posing as a geology student named Jim MacArthur.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Guy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
He's like, hold on this time, I'm gonna wear my
sweater a little bit, a little bit tighter, collar up
British accent. He has arrested for trespassing, although it does
seem like those charges were dropped in nineteen ninety seven.
The following year, he lands in Teleride, Colorado. By now

(01:16:45):
nuh uh.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
By.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Now he's in his late thirties working as a carpenter
and a contractor, courting the very ritzy clientele that lives there.
His passion is still running now, can't get rid of
that jogger and I'm He becomes known for always literally
running around town. So even though he is trying to
live a lower profile life, his story has actually become

(01:17:10):
widely circulated at this point, and he's actually kind of famous.
In two thousand and one, writer David Samuels pens a
deep dive on James for The New Yorker. Two thousand
and three, filmmaker Jesse Moss makes a documentary about him
called con Man. Jesse was a student at Pali while
Jay Huntsman went to school there. So James he works

(01:17:35):
in Telly Ride for a while, running around town. He's
the contractor everybody wants to hire, until he's caught after
a woman accuses him of stealing her throw pillows. That's right,
what she's like. Their contractor was here to give me
a bid on that crack in the floorboard.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
My nasty throat pillow.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
And now my throat pillars are gone. So she Noja
goes to his house to confront him. I don't do that,
And at the front door of his house she looks
past and then throw pillows are on his couch.

Speaker 4 (01:18:06):
Okay, that is the weirdest thing to steal, Like what
did he shove them up his shirt?

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
And here's the thing. You can do anything you want
with them because they're yours. Now you've stolen that, fair
and square. So this leads to a search of his property,
and per an article from the Denver Post, officers find
quote a storage locker and a horse trailer crammed with
enough fine and odd stolen items to stock a flea market.

(01:18:33):
Among them moose antlers, medical books, stuffed bears, bicycles, red silk,
high heels, ooo, rare wood, copper pans, power saws, and
chilled champagne. All right, they would add up to nearly
seven thousand items and top one hundred thousand dollars in value.

(01:18:55):
And he was just like a klepto, or like he
likes to remember things sentimental.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Oh that's nice.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
He's an old softie and he loves throw pillows. Again,
James is arrested and sent to jail. He's released in
twenty twelve. Things are quiet for a while, but then
in September of twenty sixteen, James is caught building what
newspapers describe as an illegally constructed camouflaged shack on public
land right on the side of a Colorado mountain. Oh,

(01:19:25):
can we take a look at the shack.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
Oh it's a real cloth Oh man, that's some unibomber.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Shit right right now. Listen. So when the officers show
up to arrest him, he bolts out a back door.
There's more than one door this shack. What never forget
the chemical engineer inside of James. He's not a dumb man.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
The back door of your creepy shack.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Yeah, He's like, let's say, I'm put a door on
the front. Got our side door where I can run
out the next time I'm arrested. He goes on the
Lamford two months and he's caught again a month later,
trying to build another shack, not far from the first shack. No,
I think we can look at that second shock. There
it is he started.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
That's less of a shack and more of a lean to.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Yeah, well, the thing is he was trying to figure
out where to put the third door on the shot
and then he's like, God, damn it, the cops are here.
During this arrest, police find seventeen thousand dollars on his person,
as well as evidence proving that he'd sold around seventy
thousand dollars worth of stolen goods on eBay. Because now

(01:20:35):
he's updated his act for them Digital Age. James is
convicted on a handful of new charges and sentenced to
six years in prison. Officers working on his case will
describe him as quote a man of brevity, only responding
to the detective's questions in a few short words. He
didn't seem malicious, but he did paint himself as a
victim of the government and of social hierarchy and class structures,

(01:21:02):
perhaps like you mean school class structures. His long history
of deception was masked by a pale, aged and relatively
small framed body, and more than anything, he loved to run.
That literally is the end of that quote. And can
we look at that picture? This is him?

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
Oh man, very looks like a teenager.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Yeah, well we'll.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Talk both talks up here.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
Hey, Bobby, do you have a date to the winter formal.
That's me and my crazy hair and eyebrows, and he runs, runs,
runs away. In twenty nineteen, James Hogue is paroled. As
far as anyone knows, he's living somewhere in Colorado. Do
you think he came to our Denver show?

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Shit?

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
Shit? He impersonated a murdery Now he pointed at people,
you're a drag along whatever. He's still on the radar
of police and reporters, and every so often he resurfaces
in the news. The last big sighting seems to be
in twenty twenty one, when Aspen police respond to a
burglary at an apartment building, but James is not the burglar.

(01:22:14):
Officers incidentally catch him illegally siphoning electricity with an extension
cord from one building's exterior outlet into his car.

Speaker 3 (01:22:24):
Yes, oooh, I didn't know that's illegal. I would do that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Yeah, it's just out there.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
It puts a fucking lock on it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
As one of the many judges who've encountered James Hogue
puts it, quote, I've heard nothing about any mental health
issues or substance issues or other explanations for his pattern
of behavior other than this is a lifestyle of a
career criminal from what I can tell end quote, but
his mo is certainly fascinating. James seems to be motivated

(01:22:52):
by a unique combination of financial gain, a deep recurring
desire to reinvent himself, a misguided need to stick it
to the man, and of course his ultimate passion finding
the opportunity to run competitively against teenagers. To some, to some,
James has We're so close to some, James has almost

(01:23:14):
become a mythical literary figure. Back at Pally, for example,
teachers have paired the Great Gatsby with the David Samuels
New Yorker piece on James, which is hilarious and insane,
and director Jesse Moss, the Pali alum who made the
documentary con Man, has evoked this same comparison, saying, quote,
I love that James, like Gatsby, was able to transcend

(01:23:37):
his low birth to attain this high position. But he was,
like Gatsby, brought low. I think that makes it an
extraordinary American story. And that's the story of serial scammer
at one time Bay Area High School James howd right job,

(01:23:59):
Thank you, Love a love a scammer.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
Love a scammer, but always have fun with scammer, your
own scammer.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
Do we have time for a home down everybody?

Speaker 6 (01:24:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
Five minutes for Oh, here's Vincere.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
There is it's James.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
Listen, gentlemen, Hi, how are you?

Speaker 7 (01:24:19):
How's it going? High?

Speaker 5 (01:24:20):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Hi Hi Hi?

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
Two tremendous shows. Great job, I realized. Since we're in
this neck of the woods, I just want to point
out how much we really love It's It ice cream
sandwich is a nice.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
Cause they want to send it on.

Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
A box over that's right, anyone from It's It.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Hey, the It's It people.

Speaker 7 (01:24:43):
But in the meantime, I'm going to be over under
that exit sign to pick up whoever you choose.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
Thank you, oops, thank you, And we're I guess we're
out of hot dogs, so we have a buck polite
as koozi.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Oh yeah, that's nicey.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
Okay, who can earn tell them about it?

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Okay, This is a part where someone tells a hometown.
As we learned that first night in Denver, do not
come up here talking about some other city in some
other state. No one wants to fucking hear that shit.
It should be it should be Bay area.

Speaker 4 (01:25:16):
Northern California, Northern California, Central, Central, Northern.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
We had a real good Redding one last night. A
cheetah great. Uh, don't be so drunk. You can't tell
your own story. It needs a beginning, middle, and end,
and ultimately just really be yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
Okay, Okay, who's got a hometown. Don't point at anyone.
You fucking swear to God.

Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
You're very confident. Okay, go go find vince Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
That was a mistake. That was a huge mistake.

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
Look over there, My spanks are right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
They stood up and then turned to the rest of
the audience, did muscles and squatted. We're fucked right.

Speaker 3 (01:25:55):
Now, We're fucked. This is what you got to do
it next time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
Okay. I hate it. I hate picking people. It's heartbreaking, stupid.
I just also, they get real mad, but it's all
Maddy get really mad.

Speaker 3 (01:26:11):
Here she comes, it be comes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
She's scurried. Oh she's the scurrier. She's okay, we like her,
We like her.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
Yeah, yeah him.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
Sydney like Australia, Sydney, Sydney. Everybody say hi to Sydney.

Speaker 5 (01:26:30):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Hey is it going? Hey great?

Speaker 3 (01:26:34):
How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Are you a weightlifter? I am now no, no, just
because you did that post when you when you got picked,
you did that pose.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
I'm ready. Oh ship, yeah you are. Where are you from, Sydney?

Speaker 5 (01:26:46):
We flew in from Phoenix area zone.

Speaker 3 (01:26:49):
Oh my god.

Speaker 5 (01:26:50):
We love you guys, and we're so happy you're here.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
We're so scared for you right now, Sydney. I'm scared
for myself. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:26:57):
So okay, so pretty pretty local.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
Bay area adjacent? Can we go Lake Tahoe? Yeah? Oh yes,
that's fair. Is that cool? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
Absolutely, okay, I thought. So this is my mom's story.

Speaker 5 (01:27:11):
This is a two part awful, terrible, shitty story that
happened to my mother.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
Oh my god, yes, awful, terrible.

Speaker 5 (01:27:19):
So first part of this story, my mother grew up
in Lake Tahoe.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
So she is about seventeen years.

Speaker 5 (01:27:26):
Old, nineteen seventy three, nineteen seventy four, Lake Tahoe. So
she's walking down the street, she's going to her friend's house,
walking and then a man comes up from behind her
and grabs her, grabs her, pulls her into his vehicle.
She like fights him, She's like, hey, fuck you, you

(01:27:47):
piece of shit gets her.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
She's seventeen, she's a baby.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
I'm twenty nine teeny tiny baby, it looks like I'm strong.
She was stronger than at seventeen. So grabs her, pulls
her into vehicle. I don't know if it's a van,
don't know if it's a car, but basically she's fighting
him off and then gets into his vehicle and she
was like, fucking you. Piece of shit throws her in,
slams the door, and she's like, all right, I'm gonna

(01:28:12):
get it out. She reaches for a door handle and
there's no door handle, and she's like he has done
this before, and she's like cool, So now this is
like my life. And so this piece of shit takes
her back to his house and is like, Okay, you're

(01:28:33):
gonna like be here, and so he like beats her
and like sexually assault her multiple times over multiple days. Awful, terrible.
But my mother she's very smart and she's.

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
Like, hey, I'm like a human.

Speaker 5 (01:28:49):
I'm a human, which like kind of doesn't relate to
some serial offenders. Some of them, it does, and she's like,
I would love to be your girlfriend. I really I'm
really into you. You're really cool, and so he's like cool, awesome.
So he like beats her sexually assaults her over multiple days,

(01:29:10):
and she's like, I would love to see you after
this because I'm really into you, and like breaks her ribs,
breaks her cheekbone, piece of shit.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Awful terrible.

Speaker 5 (01:29:19):
It ends up with a good story, kind of take
my word. Yeah, And so then he's she's like, yeah,
I just like need to like get back to work.
I need to work. I have a normal life. I
have a normal job. And he's like, cool, so you'll
like see me after this, right, And she's like, yeah,
I would love to see you. So he lets her go.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
She's like.

Speaker 5 (01:29:45):
Fucking out, I'm out, get me the fuck out here.
So she dips and she's like, fuck you, you piece
of shit, tells the police please never catch him.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
And I'm like an armchair like sleuth.

Speaker 5 (01:29:57):
I've like try to pin nineteen seventy like California crimes
to someone. She's in a true crime, which is why
I got into you guys. She very much baptized me
by fire, which is why I'm here. Yeah, and so
never fucking found the guy. Awful terrible. But second part
of the story happens in La I'm sorry not as

(01:30:20):
local mingo boo, Los Angeles, California, California.

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
Not northern sorry la boo.

Speaker 5 (01:30:28):
So my mom a few years later, after living through this,
she is like walking down the streets. She's going to
go buy cake mix for her friend to go bake
a birthday cake for her friend. She's walking down the
street and she were from Phoenix, and she's like, okay,
first time we ever experienced a haboob. She's like, it
was like this level of visibility fog, can't see fucking

(01:30:53):
shit nothing. And she's walking down the sidewalk and she's going,
she's seventeen. She's like, cool, we're going, I'm gonna make
a birthday cake. And then she's walking by this ravine
and this guy again comes it from behind her, snatches her,
pulls her down to this ravine and she's like, fuck you, you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
Piece of shit. This is not fucking happening again. This
is not gonna happen again.

Speaker 5 (01:31:21):
And she fucking fights him, and he's like trying to
pull her down, trying to like sexually fucking assault her
again or a beautiful fucking family, and.

Speaker 3 (01:31:28):
She's like, no, fuck you.

Speaker 5 (01:31:29):
And so she fucking fights this guy off and is
like hate you, awful, terrible human.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
And so she's like fuck you, gets away from this guy.

Speaker 5 (01:31:38):
Uh, goes to the police and is like, hey, uh again,
some other piece of shit, probably straight cis man tried
to fucking sexual assault me.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
Awful.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
They fucking find the guy, they catch him, and he
is like a serial violent sexual fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:32:00):
Pritter. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:32:02):
That's that's the word. Sexual fucking like cerial. And now
he because of my mother, he is in prison the
rest of his life. Yes, I sit here, I'm here
so so so long because of like the strength of
my mother.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Creak job. It's not gonna happen again. That's right, that's right,
and this is life sitting everybody list say I thank you, yes,
thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:32:39):
Wow, amazing, Well Oakland night two be guys, we've done it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
Did it, We've really done it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
Thank you for supporting us on this little tour that
we're doing six years later after we were like we've
been made. Thank you. We've been waiting to do this
for so long and it's been so scary, but everyone's
been showing up and really really loud and supportive, and
your community that we love and appreciate so much. So

(01:33:15):
thank you guys for coming.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
We love you. Stay sexy and.

Speaker 6 (01:33:24):
Thank you, wel Glynn, Thank you so much, Elvis, Do
you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 4 (01:33:39):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squillacci.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Com and follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Or you can watch us on YouTube. Search for My
Favorite Murder, then like and subscribe. Goodbye,

All Episodes

508 - Live at Paramount Theatre (Oakland Night 2)

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}508 - Live at Paramount Theatre (Oakland Night 2)