October 16, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is in a glass coffin...but so is an American man along the shores of Lake Michigan. Chris Siriano tells this curious story about the coffin, the man inside of it, and the harebrained scheme to steal his diamond necklace.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and up next a story
you won't forget. In nineteen twenty four, when Soviet leader
Vladimir Lenin died, the Soviets preserved his body by placing
him in a hermetically sealed glass coffin. Lesser known, though,
is that around the same time in Benton Harbor, Michigan,
(00:31):
a religious colony called the House of David, did the
same for their leader. Here's our own Monty Montgomery with
the story of a robbery, a glass coffin, and a
local legend.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The year is nineteen twenty seven. The place Benton Harbor, Michigan,
home of the House of David, a religious colony led
by Benjamin Pernow, who preached that if you followed his
message and gave all your worldly possessions to him, never die.
Unfortunately for ben though, he contracted tuberculosis, which he died from.
(01:07):
Here's Chris Siriano with what happened next.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He didn't teach ever that he was going to die,
So here he died, and it was pandemonium. It was
mass chaos at the House of David. So Benjamin they
kept wrapped in damp, warm towels for eight days, thinking
that he was going to rise again. Finally the Barren
County corner said, listen, it's been eight days. You either
(01:34):
bury the guy or we're going to bury him.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But luckily for the House of David they had the
Soviets to look towards for inspiration.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, during that process of having him wrapped like that,
they found out the process that linen in Russia had
been used to embalm and put his body in a
hermetically sealed glass coffin. That's what they did.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And there Ben Purnell sat for the next sixty some
years in his hermetically sealed glass coffin. Well, his massive
mansion decayed around him as the House of David dwindled
the numbers due to their belief in celibacy.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But in nineteen eighty eight, twice the House of Diamond
house got broke into but the first time that they
ran quickly. The second time was not a good day.
These kids, these four kids, had studied the movement of
(02:33):
the House of David people. They had sat out in
the woods. They were locals, they were in their backyard. Basically,
they figured out when the House of David people moved
back and forth around the Diamond house. They came back
on a particular day that they knew that there wasn't
much movement. Some one of the weekend days, they cut
(02:56):
a hole in the roof of the Diamond House mansion
where they dropped down and they spent the entire day
stealing things, so vases, earned statues, oil paintings from all
over the world. These things came from the richest of
rich people that joined those things disappeared. Well, one of
(03:17):
the worst things that happened was they weren't satisfied with
just items that were in the rest of the mansion.
They wanted to see Ben because he's that's a big, big,
big part of our local history is him and his
body being in there. And they found out that he
was in his parlor. There's a stone wall that separates
(03:41):
the catwalk from the Diamond House annex into his area,
and it's got a big steel bank vault door on it,
so there's no way you're getting to that door. And
there's wire electric wires like shock wires from the door,
so even if you touch the door, you're probably gonna
go to Heaven real quick somewhere, right, So they went back.
(04:02):
One of them was a contractor they went back to
his house, got a big ramming bar and they rammed
a hole through the stone wall, and they made it
big enough where they could pull the rest of the
rocks out and they could get their bodies through the hole.
And they got into his parlor where his tomb is at,
(04:23):
and I interviewed those people. They told me, Chris, when
we got in there, it was like a pharaoh's tomb.
So around Ben's glass sealed coffin, which was up at
an angle, were piles and piles of rings and diamonds
and rubies and necklaces and vases, And it was like
(04:46):
what happened to the stuff when people came there? The
beautiful things that they came there with, They couldn't have
those anymore, right, they didn't know. They just had to
give them away. Well, they were saved. A majority of
them were s the Diamond House. So when he was buried,
he was buried like a farrow and like an emperor.
(05:12):
So they took some things off of that. But the
sad thing was as Ben had a twenty two carrot
diamond ring on his finger and a big, huge diamond
filled and ruby filled white gold custom made necklace from
house of David Jewelers. They wanted those things bad, and
(05:32):
they took the pride bar, the ramming bar, and pried
the glass dome off of his coffin, which is hermetically sealed,
can't be sealed again, but they so they broke the
ring off of his finger, broke his finger in the meantime,
and ripped the medallion off his neck, and the twenty
two carrot diamond on his finger was one of the
(05:54):
biggest in the world at the time. They got away.
They got away with that break in, and it was
advertised all over everywhere, all over the country. It was
a big deal. Finally, I interviewed the state police officer
at my museum one day and he said, Chris, I'm
(06:17):
the one that made the arrest. And I said, tell
me about it, and he said, we had we had
pictures the House of David had people had pictures of
all these things that were in the Diamond House. And
he said, were Me and my partner are driving through
Benton Heights, which is a rough part of Dodge in
this area, and we look over and in front of
(06:39):
this trailer is this little nickel plated parlor stove with
flowers growing out of it. That was it right, So
they walked up to the door, knocked on the door,
and a lady answered and said, ma'am, we loved that
stove that you have out there. Can you tell us
where you or we can get something like that. And
she said, well, my e gave it to me for
(07:01):
some gift, but he doesn't live here anymore, but here's
his name and phone number. Bam, he gets busted. He's
got loose lips. They all go down right, So come
to find out, and both the people that did the
job did the stealing, and the police officer told me
that what happened was because there was such a massive
(07:23):
amount of things, because it was so written about in
the media, they were afraid to sell up everything. So
they took everything and divided it equally amongst them, and
then they would take it and hide it. One hit
it like in the upstairs of his barn. The other
guy hit it in a storage area in his basement.
The lady hit it closing. Lady hid it underneath her
(07:45):
wrap around her mobile home. None of them sold anything,
so they got all that stuff back except the twenty
two carret diamond ring, which McCoy brothers appraised it like
two and a half million dollars, and the giant medallion,
which was a praise that over half a million dollars.
(08:06):
They found out that those kids took those to the
South side of Chicago and sold them to a jewelry
dealer there like a swap guy, for twelve thousand cash.
And then he back then you didn't have to have
anybody's driver's license, you didn't have to ask questions. You
(08:26):
just bought stuff and sold stuff. So he had taken
the diamond out and sold it to a diamond buying
place in London for like sixty thousand. Supposedly they chopped
it up and sold it off differently so it wouldn't
be detected. But that's all gone now. The scariest thing
(08:52):
was the girl that told me the story. She came
in my museum twice two days in a row, spent
hours without saying one word, and finally I went up
to her. My mom and I were there, and I said,
you seem really fascinated by this story. Can you tell
me why? And she said do you want to know?
And I said, yeah, I do want to know. And
(09:12):
she said, I'm the one that broke into diamond House,
and I was like, oh my gosh, I mean, this
is all my stuff is right here in front of her,
and she was capable of getting into this place. So
she went on to tell me the whole story, the
whole all the details. It was so good. I should
have filmed her, but she was a mammoth girl. She
(09:33):
kind of killed me. But in the end she said, Chris,
you know what, I would do it again. Right now,
she says, the best high I ever had in my life.
I'm thinking I can't buy a good enough secury system
at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And it's a big country.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
My mom used to always tell me as a kid,
explaining the unexplainable to me and the fun and the weird,
and my goodness, this is both fun and weird, and
my goodness, a guy that tries to basically entomb himself
and surround himself with jewelry. I always think of the
great poem by Shelley Asymandias. And as hard as these guys,
(10:15):
and this one sort of cult leader tried to talk
about his eternal life and everyone else as well. A
little something happened. He died, and everybody else was going
to die too. The story of a strange, almost little
cult in Benton Harbor, Michigan, The House of David. Here
on our American stories.
This is our American stories, and up next a story
you won't forget. In nineteen twenty four, when Soviet leader
Vladimir Lenin died, the Soviets preserved his body by placing
him in a hermetically sealed glass coffin. Lesser known, though,
is that around the same time in Benton Harbor, Michigan,
(00:31):
a religious colony called the House of David, did the
same for their leader. Here's our own Monty Montgomery with
the story of a robbery, a glass coffin, and a
local legend.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
The year is nineteen twenty seven. The place Benton Harbor, Michigan,
home of the House of David, a religious colony led
by Benjamin Pernow, who preached that if you followed his
message and gave all your worldly possessions to him, never die.
Unfortunately for ben though, he contracted tuberculosis, which he died from.
(01:07):
Here's Chris Siriano with what happened next.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
He didn't teach ever that he was going to die,
So here he died, and it was pandemonium. It was
mass chaos at the House of David. So Benjamin they
kept wrapped in damp, warm towels for eight days, thinking
that he was going to rise again. Finally the Barren
County corner said, listen, it's been eight days. You either
(01:34):
bury the guy or we're going to bury him.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But luckily for the House of David they had the
Soviets to look towards for inspiration.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, during that process of having him wrapped like that,
they found out the process that linen in Russia had
been used to embalm and put his body in a
hermetically sealed glass coffin. That's what they did.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And there Ben Purnell sat for the next sixty some
years in his hermetically sealed glass coffin. Well, his massive
mansion decayed around him as the House of David dwindled
the numbers due to their belief in celibacy.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But in nineteen eighty eight, twice the House of Diamond
house got broke into but the first time that they
ran quickly. The second time was not a good day.
These kids, these four kids, had studied the movement of
(02:33):
the House of David people. They had sat out in
the woods. They were locals, they were in their backyard. Basically,
they figured out when the House of David people moved
back and forth around the Diamond house. They came back
on a particular day that they knew that there wasn't
much movement. Some one of the weekend days, they cut
(02:56):
a hole in the roof of the Diamond House mansion
where they dropped down and they spent the entire day
stealing things, so vases, earned statues, oil paintings from all
over the world. These things came from the richest of
rich people that joined those things disappeared. Well, one of
(03:17):
the worst things that happened was they weren't satisfied with
just items that were in the rest of the mansion.
They wanted to see Ben because he's that's a big, big,
big part of our local history is him and his
body being in there. And they found out that he
was in his parlor. There's a stone wall that separates
(03:41):
the catwalk from the Diamond House annex into his area,
and it's got a big steel bank vault door on it,
so there's no way you're getting to that door. And
there's wire electric wires like shock wires from the door,
so even if you touch the door, you're probably gonna
go to Heaven real quick somewhere, right, So they went back.
(04:02):
One of them was a contractor they went back to
his house, got a big ramming bar and they rammed
a hole through the stone wall, and they made it
big enough where they could pull the rest of the
rocks out and they could get their bodies through the hole.
And they got into his parlor where his tomb is at,
(04:23):
and I interviewed those people. They told me, Chris, when
we got in there, it was like a pharaoh's tomb.
So around Ben's glass sealed coffin, which was up at
an angle, were piles and piles of rings and diamonds
and rubies and necklaces and vases, And it was like
(04:46):
what happened to the stuff when people came there? The
beautiful things that they came there with, They couldn't have
those anymore, right, they didn't know. They just had to
give them away. Well, they were saved. A majority of
them were s the Diamond House. So when he was buried,
he was buried like a farrow and like an emperor.
(05:12):
So they took some things off of that. But the
sad thing was as Ben had a twenty two carrot
diamond ring on his finger and a big, huge diamond
filled and ruby filled white gold custom made necklace from
house of David Jewelers. They wanted those things bad, and
(05:32):
they took the pride bar, the ramming bar, and pried
the glass dome off of his coffin, which is hermetically sealed,
can't be sealed again, but they so they broke the
ring off of his finger, broke his finger in the meantime,
and ripped the medallion off his neck, and the twenty
two carrot diamond on his finger was one of the
(05:54):
biggest in the world at the time. They got away.
They got away with that break in, and it was
advertised all over everywhere, all over the country. It was
a big deal. Finally, I interviewed the state police officer
at my museum one day and he said, Chris, I'm
(06:17):
the one that made the arrest. And I said, tell
me about it, and he said, we had we had
pictures the House of David had people had pictures of
all these things that were in the Diamond House. And
he said, were Me and my partner are driving through
Benton Heights, which is a rough part of Dodge in
this area, and we look over and in front of
(06:39):
this trailer is this little nickel plated parlor stove with
flowers growing out of it. That was it right, So
they walked up to the door, knocked on the door,
and a lady answered and said, ma'am, we loved that
stove that you have out there. Can you tell us
where you or we can get something like that. And
she said, well, my e gave it to me for
(07:01):
some gift, but he doesn't live here anymore, but here's
his name and phone number. Bam, he gets busted. He's
got loose lips. They all go down right, So come
to find out, and both the people that did the
job did the stealing, and the police officer told me
that what happened was because there was such a massive
(07:23):
amount of things, because it was so written about in
the media, they were afraid to sell up everything. So
they took everything and divided it equally amongst them, and
then they would take it and hide it. One hit
it like in the upstairs of his barn. The other
guy hit it in a storage area in his basement.
The lady hit it closing. Lady hid it underneath her
(07:45):
wrap around her mobile home. None of them sold anything,
so they got all that stuff back except the twenty
two carret diamond ring, which McCoy brothers appraised it like
two and a half million dollars, and the giant medallion,
which was a praise that over half a million dollars.
(08:06):
They found out that those kids took those to the
South side of Chicago and sold them to a jewelry
dealer there like a swap guy, for twelve thousand cash.
And then he back then you didn't have to have
anybody's driver's license, you didn't have to ask questions. You
(08:26):
just bought stuff and sold stuff. So he had taken
the diamond out and sold it to a diamond buying
place in London for like sixty thousand. Supposedly they chopped
it up and sold it off differently so it wouldn't
be detected. But that's all gone now. The scariest thing
(08:52):
was the girl that told me the story. She came
in my museum twice two days in a row, spent
hours without saying one word, and finally I went up
to her. My mom and I were there, and I said,
you seem really fascinated by this story. Can you tell
me why? And she said do you want to know?
And I said, yeah, I do want to know. And
(09:12):
she said, I'm the one that broke into diamond House,
and I was like, oh my gosh, I mean, this
is all my stuff is right here in front of her,
and she was capable of getting into this place. So
she went on to tell me the whole story, the
whole all the details. It was so good. I should
have filmed her, but she was a mammoth girl. She
(09:33):
kind of killed me. But in the end she said, Chris,
you know what, I would do it again. Right now,
she says, the best high I ever had in my life.
I'm thinking I can't buy a good enough secury system
at this point.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And it's a big country.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
My mom used to always tell me as a kid,
explaining the unexplainable to me and the fun and the weird,
and my goodness, this is both fun and weird, and
my goodness, a guy that tries to basically entomb himself
and surround himself with jewelry. I always think of the
great poem by Shelley Asymandias. And as hard as these guys,
(10:15):
and this one sort of cult leader tried to talk
about his eternal life and everyone else as well. A
little something happened. He died, and everybody else was going
to die too. The story of a strange, almost little
cult in Benton Harbor, Michigan, The House of David. Here
on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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