November 25, 2021 • 36 mins
In this bonus episode, Johnathan reviews the case of Mair Smyth with Tori Telfer, author of the award-winning book Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion. They talk about the profile of the female con artist, what Telfer has learned from her research on famous con women, why these smart criminals make some of the dumbest mistakes, and how listeners can avoid falling prey to cons.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
The con woman's likability is the single most important tool.
She has sharp as a chef's knife and fake as
a theater mask. Without her likability, she would be nothing.
If you like her, and you will like her, then
her work will be so much easier. It'll all be
over quickly. You'll hardly feel a thing that is. Award
(00:28):
winning author Tory Telfer reading an excerpt from her latest book,
Confident Women, about the greatest female con artists of all time.
She's the perfect person to talk to about the greatest
female con artist I ever met and got scamped by.
I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is a bonus episode of
Queen of the Con where I interview a woman who
(00:49):
has literally spent years researching and writing about the mayor
Smith's of the world. This is episode ten, Anatomy of
a Con. Tori, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really, really, really enjoyed your book. I finished it
(01:11):
in two days and it was just a rip roaring
good time, which is what my Amazon review said. Thank you, congratulations.
Just what an amazing what an amazing tale of dozens
of dozens of dozens of different Cohn women throughout history. Yeah, well,
thank you for having me. So your book focuses on
(01:32):
female con artists. Is there a difference between male and
female con artists or are all con artists the same
on a macro level. I believe all con artists are
kind of doing the same thing. But there is one
very notable difference between male and female con artists, which
is the stereotypes they use, the cliches that they use
(01:53):
to get you. So male con artists are more likely
to pretend to be a doctor or a lawyer or
important busines this man, you know something. Very male female
con artists know that you're going to be a little
bit suspicious of a female who's trying to sell you
the Brooklyn Bridge because women don't. Women aren't in construction,
so she so she's more likely to be a a
(02:16):
seer or a you know, a wounded mother or a
grieving widow. Female con artists are are definitely not afraid
of sexist stereotypes, and they'll lean into them to get
what they want. My book, Confident Women is about con
women throughout the ages, you know, from the Civil War
to the court of Marie Internette to today. Some of
(02:37):
these women are still in prison today and I've divided
it into four sections, so it's kind of four different
types of con women, from the con women who are
really obsessed with money to the con women who are
really obsessed with disguises, and all shades in between. I
do think my con artist Mayor Smith, kind of borrows
from every single category. It sounds like, how did you
(02:59):
get into a con artistry? Were you a victim? Ever? No,
of nothing more than a few minor cons. You know,
the type we all experience, the roommate who doesn't do X,
Y and Z, or the person on the street who
says they need money for this, but it's for that. No,
I've never been like a capital of the victim. I
came at it through writing about female criminals. My first
(03:19):
book was about female serial killers, so I was looking
around for something a little later. But as you know, well,
con artists are not as light as people think they are. Right.
It's like all fun and games at first, and then
it gets really dark. Yeah, it's all funny games until
it happens to you. You know, your book brought me
(03:41):
so much comfort in a strange way. After I realized
I was conned, I felt so alone, like I'm the
only one that's ever happened to you. But then I
started finding a bunch of other victims of my con artists,
and the read your book, and I realized that being
a con artist is a lot of people's full time profession.
You know, it was Mayor Smith's full time profession. I
(04:02):
had no idea. Con artists are literally everywhere, but until
one cons you, you have no idea. You just have
no idea. I like the excerpt you read from your book,
the con woman's likability is the single most important tool
she has. As soon as I read that, I was like, yes, yes, Yes,
(04:22):
that was Mayor. She was so likable, she was so lovable,
and that's how she got deep into her victims lives
to condemn. And that's something you found again and again
and again in your book. You gotta fall in like
with them immediately, immediately, because if they're not likable, and
if you don't personally like them, then it becomes clear
(04:44):
how outrageous their demands are, or the cracks in their
story become so apparent. I mean, it's like we would
do a lot of things for our friends, right If
a friend asked to borrow a cup of sugar, borrow
five dollars. That's not weird. If a total stranger on
the street asks those same thing, things were going to
be wary. So the con woman has to become our
friend really fast. And yeah, like all these women in
(05:06):
my book are so good at socializing, it's really stunning. Yeah,
she's skilled, a skilled socialize her. She knows how to
get in deep and get in quick and make make
you like her. That's the common thread. I've spoken to
my gosh, dozens of victims of Mayor Smith, and all
of them say the same thing. They liked her immediately. Wow. Yeah,
I'm not surprised. What is the psychological profile of a
(05:35):
con what motivates them, what drives them? I think con
artists have a lot of different things going on, but
if I was gonna find one or two commonalities, money
is a huge one. It's not that romantic, but it
is such a consistent presence in these stories. But I
think another commonality is power, you know, power over the victims,
(05:57):
over their own narrative. And actually that's something I saw
in serial killers too. It's very different crimes, but the
the criminal comes down to having this desire for power
over other people. It's funny, you say that it kind
of reminds me, And don't hate me for saying this.
Rape rape is not really about sex most times exactly,
(06:18):
It's about power, and it's also about having instilling fear
in someone's eyes and getting off on that fear. Yes, yeah,
I think that crimes, or at least these particularly violent
or just major crimes, are often not about what they
sound like on the surface, which ties into a belief
(06:40):
I held for like ten years now, especially living in
this town, Los Angeles. Nothing is what it appears to be.
Looks are deceiving. Things look one way when really it's
the other way, But you have no idea until you're
into it. One of my favorite movies of all time
is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Have you seen that movie a
long time ago? So don't quiz me on it. Steve
(07:03):
Martin and Michael Caine. It's about, you know, con women
and con men. On the French Riviera. I was showing
Nicolas property in Florida. He goes, if I'm going to
invest sixteen million bucks, I want to do with someplace? Now,
I say, like, we're He goes, how about Australia and
then he hits me boom, or Australia. What are you
kidding me? We gotta go meet Mr Australia himself. I
(07:26):
say so, he goes why not? I go why up?
Pretty soon the whole group goes, why so? Here we are.
And never for a second did I think any of
those gargantu and elaborate, unbelievable cons featured in the movie
were based on real stories. But your book is chalk
full of stories like that, and each con is more
(07:49):
elaborate and magnificent than the one before. The woman pretending
to be Maria Antoinette, I'd never heard this story before
until I read your book. She scams the jeweler out
of a million dollar diamond necklace, essentially using elaborate impersonations
and really forged letters. Right. That was Mayor Smith's go
to the modern day equivalent of forged letters, forged emails
(08:13):
to scam people. How is that story not better known?
How have I never you know? I'm an educated guy,
I am well read. I've never heard that story before.
Why is it not more known? Why is it not
like a big Hollywood movie about the Marie Antoinette necklace scam?
I think there are two reasons. One is probably just
plain old fashioned sexism. We do know the stories of
(08:34):
con men a lot better. Ponzi made off ABC, Nail,
the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge twice. These are
just more famous than the con women's stories. But in
terms of this specific con woman, she was really a nobody.
She was an orphan, she was poor, she was not
very proper, and I think that historians with a capital
(08:58):
H looked down on her story for a very long
time and we're like, oh, that can't possibly be um
worthy of examining. But as a matter of fact, she
kind of. She was one of the one of the
things that kicked off the French Revolution. Actually, my gosh,
just such a compelling story, and it reminded me of
Mayor because, like you said, she she came from nowhere.
(09:19):
She was poor, but through fake emails and fake text
messages and impersonating different people, she could appear to be
this well connected woman dating a politician, an Irish Heiri's
worth millions. All of these these things came to life
with Mayor when you'd read emails addressed to her. Her
best friend was Jennifer Aniston. Of course, Jennifer Aniston would
(09:45):
text and email her all the time, and she would
show the victim. Look, Jennifer Aniston just texted me this,
just email me this. You know, So there's a fake
Brad Pitt in my book. So this is There are
so many parallels here, Yes, yes, yes, yes. Psychic Rose
Marx is another con artists you profile in your book.
She scams, I mean, she scams a bunch of people,
(10:07):
but really her best known victim is as an author
ju Devereaux. She scams Jude out of twenty million dollars
using a thousand different confidence tricks and emotional manipulations over
the course of years. In my estimation, Rose Marx is
what Mayor Smith was working towards, but she never found
(10:27):
such a wealthy client. Mayor ended up scamming tens of
thousands from a bunch of different clients and that's all
they could afford to pay. But I guess she was
looking for a big fish like Rose Mars found. Yeah.
I think Rose Marks really lucked out when it comes
to being a con artist. There can't be that many,
you know, extremely successful millionaires who happened to be in
(10:48):
a vulnerable position when the con artists comes around. I mean,
for this poor author Jude Devereaux. It was just like
a horrifically perfect situation. When she met the con woman.
She was having marriage troubles, she couldn't have a kid,
you know, just everything in her life was upset, and
so Rosemar swooped in and was able to maintain this
(11:08):
decades long relationship. But I think she kind of just
got lucky, like there probably aren't too many people like
that out there for the people like Mayor Smith to find. Yes,
but she did do damage, i'll reveal to listeners now
is something that's not in any of the podcast, so
we didn't cover because we never got an actual interview
from this victim who Mayor scammed as a psychic. So
(11:29):
this victim came to see Mayor as a psychic and
she ended up testifying against her. You'll hear her in
episode eight. She testifies on the stand against her. She
found a Mayor as a psychic, and then Mayor quickly
convinced her, Oh, by the way, I'm also a psychologist
IV a degree in psychology, so i also offer life coaching.
So she started offering this woman life coaching and then
(11:51):
quickly impersonated the woman confided in her I'm in love
with this guy, you know, and think to yourself, how
many times have you been in love with someone you
would move heaven and earth to get them right. So
Mayor sees is on that she starts impersonating the guy
and she tells the victim, Oh, by the way, the
guy you're in love with, he's also taking life coaching
for me. And I know this is improper, but I
(12:12):
can broke her a romance, you know, if you want
me to. It's just gonna take so many more life
coaching sessions, you know. So over the course of a year,
this victim shells out dollars ten dollars because she thinks,
you know, and every time she comes to a life
coaching Mayor would show her a text. Oh look at
what Jesse. Jesse was the guy's name. Look at what
Jesse just texted me. He's thinking about you. He's going
(12:34):
to ask you out. So it wasn't until a year
into it the woman finally realized Jesse wasn't taking life
coaching from her, like there was all a scam to
shake money out of her, and she was just devastated.
You know, Oh that that's got hurt so much. Yeah,
I mean, the audacity to pull off something like that
is just mind blowing to me. And it's heartless. You
(12:57):
really can't have any feeling or for another human being
to impersonate the one they're in love with and then
try to trick them out of money. No, most of
these con women are incredibly selfish, you know. I would
say maybe after their likability, that's the most notable thing
about them. I mean, because the likability is all fake,
oh totally, And they don't like anyone except themselves exactly,
(13:19):
and and and who they present themselves to be isn't real.
So what you're liking as a victim, because you know,
she was my best friend for four years. I loved her,
she was like a sister. But all of that was
fake and I never really knew the real her, the
real her, she's a con woman who scammed victims all
over the world. I never knew that was the real her.
The woman that I saw was a damsel in distress
(13:41):
and Irish heiress who am helping get her inheritance. I
even feel stupid saying that out loud, but but I
fell for it. I fell for it, hook line and sinker. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you're not alone, As you know, well, so
many victims of con artists don't come forward because they
do feel so gullible and ashamed. Very true. And I've
(14:03):
had so many arguments with victims on the phone because
they would call me victims of my can artists and
they tell me the story. There were a couple real
estate investors in New York that she scammed out a
sixty grand because she tricked them into believing her daughter
had cancer and needed emergency surgery and insurance didn't cover it,
and she needed sixty dollars quick. There's always an element
of I need this quick because she's gonna die. So
(14:26):
they wired her sixty grand. Oh, there's always wires, always wired.
Money is always being wired, always wires. Yeah, that's yeah.
So when someone asks you for a wire, make sure
you're not getting calm, because that's like a red flag, right. Yeah.
Near the end of my investigation, after police arrested Mayor,
these New York real estate guys called me up and
(14:47):
they're like, hey, we want to pay you, we want
to reward you for what you've done, we want to
help you. And I'm like, I don't want your money, guy,
I want you to go to police and file a
report so she can get arrested in New York. That
would help me, Can you do that? But they didn't
want to because they're embarrassed. They fell for it, so
(15:08):
sante times. She was kind of like Mayor Smith on steroids. Right.
She would introduce her husband Kenneth, as an ambassador, a
ploy that got them into a lot of important places
like the White House during the Ford administration. She kind
of looked a little bit like Elizabeth Taylor if you squinted,
(15:29):
so she would impersonate Elizabeth Taylor, and her last con
lead to murder essentially right, because she didn't start out
a murderer. She tried to scam this New York socialite
out of her seven point seven million dollar apartment, and
similar to Mayor Mayor tried to scam Bob, the Newport
(15:50):
Beach engineer out of his too homes. She tried to
trick him into adding her name to the title of
his two homes because she was going to buy this
fifteen million dollar Newport Beach home with her an inheritance
that was coming any day they got a realtor. She
looked at the house a bunch of times. Bob brought
his kids, one of the last times to pick out
their bedroom. She was going to buy one of the
(16:10):
kids a Lamborghini like the kids loved her, and she
put in an offer on the house. You know, as
long as it's on paper, you can do anything right.
And con artists know this. But what differentiates the Mayor
Smith from Sante Climes is Mayor didn't actually kill anyone yet,
but Sante did. Why did Sante kill that woman? Well,
(16:34):
Santa actually killed more than one person, or rather had
her son do it. This wealthy woman was her third victim,
and she I think she's an example of what happens
when a con artist. Well let me let me rephrase. Maybe.
I don't think that every con artist is capable of murder.
I mean, that's a huge that's a very different crime.
(16:55):
But in this case, things escalated and she got in
so deep, and she was so desperate for money, and
she did a million cons, but none of them were
quite working out. I don't know if Mayor ever reached
that point where she had her cons bubbling, but the
money wasn't quite coming in, and so that's on things
escalated to murder because it was out of desperation or
(17:17):
and in one murder no, two murders out of a
fear that the victim would talk. So it was a
very like end of the road type scenario for her.
If that makes sense, It does make sense. And I
used to think Mayor Smith was not capable of murder,
but I have since reevaluated because for the first time
(17:37):
ever we spoke to her daughter. Her daughter ended up
testifying against her during the trial, and her daughter wove
this tail of being raised by a con artist her daughter.
She was having her daughter forged signatures on hundreds of
mortgage documents. You know, she got away with like half
a million dollars from Northern Ireland, and her daughter, as
(18:00):
a child, unknowingly helped her do that. So someone tipped
Mayor off that police in Northern Ireland are investigating her,
so they had to get out of there quick. And
while they're packing up Mayor's husband at the time, Stephen Smith,
he had like seventeen greyhounds. He was a greyhound racer,
so they didn't have time to rehome them. So Mayor
(18:21):
made him put down the seventeen greyhounds. Wow, oh no, yeah,
killed seventeen dogs without even thinking about it. Oh, she's
Cruella de Ville she is, and she wore them back
to Tennessee. Kidding, we don't know that. I don't think
she did m But after I heard that story, and
(18:41):
I'm a dog owner, I take it you're a dog owner.
I'm not, but a dog lover, a dog's sympathizer. Yes,
if she has the cold bloodedness to do that, she
could kill. She could kill without even a piece of
remorse or guilt. She could kill. Yeah. Yeah, that that
shows some real narcissism. You know, dogs are in my way.
Dogs get killed this story. I mean, I am a
(19:05):
little bit jealous. I didn't hear about it for my book.
It's so intense. It's as if con artist Mayor Smith
read your book and chose different elements from all the
female con artists you profiled to create her own con
artists self. She mixes and matches from all the great
cons in your book, which is just amazing. But I
(19:26):
know that's impossible because your book only came out this
year and she's been conning since she was a little girl. Yes,
con artists are very intelligent people, that's a fair statement.
But for being so intelligent, they make a lot of
stupid mistakes that ultimately lead to their demise. Why is
that my con artist gave me her email password. At
(19:47):
one point in our relationship two years in, she's stuck
on the highway in traffic. She thinks she can't get
into her email account from her phone. She thinks she's hacked.
She calls me, I'm at work. I got hacked. I
got hacked. So she asked me to log in and
make sure her email account was still okay. So I did,
and it was, and I forgot the whole thing. Ever
happened until a few months after I got condom like,
oh my god, I have her email password. Did it
(20:10):
still work? Yes? Oh, I logged into her account. I
found twenty three other aliases. I found a bunch of
other victims. She was scamming. She had a profile on
sugar Daddy for me dot com men were paying her
monthly fee for sex. Then she was blackmailing them to
go to their wives when they wanted to end the
payment arrangement. Another classic con. Yes, but I wasn't the
only one. She gave her email password too. She gave
(20:32):
it to you, another victim she was scamming. When the
victim was helping her set up an Amazon firestick so
it's like this, she's so smart and yet so dumb.
Maybe it's stemming from the narcissism we keep talking about,
where it's like they assume everyone else is dumb or
just not at their level. So it's like, it's no
big deal to give you my email password because you're
(20:53):
not going to create aliases and you don't know how
I work. You know, it seems to me to be
a very narcissistic move, like, sure, you can go ahead
and have my password. I don't care, you'll never catch me. Ironically,
you did catch her. I do think it's a case of, like,
you know that famous statement, how does it go? Does
the lion ever waste time thinking about what the lambs
(21:15):
are doing? So we're all like sheep to her, and
she's the lion thinking, oh, I can give them my password.
I can give them ammunition against me, but they'll never
use it because they're too stupid. You know, she's overly
confident in that case. Yeah, I think that makes a
lot of sense. Another thing she did that ultimately led
to her demise is while she was dating her Newport
(21:37):
Beach victim Bob, she texted me a picture of him
and asked me what I thought of him, and I said, oh,
he's a good looking guy. I think he's great, you know,
go for it because we were best friends. But I
ended up using that very picture of Bob and I
started my blog with I know his name is Bob,
I know he's an engineer Newport Beach, and I know
maryor Smith is scamming him. And I didn't really believe
(21:58):
for a second that Bob would actually find my blog,
but by god, he did. His ex wife found it
and sent it to him, and then he ended up
dumping mare. And you know, she was this close. She
had drawn up the paperwork for him to add her
name to the titles of his two Newport Beach homes
because she put an offer on this fifteen million dollar
home she's gonna buy, and it comes so close. He
(22:20):
found it in the nick of time. Your blog saved him,
it did, but that's her fault. Like if I didn't
have that picture of him, there was no way if
I started the blog without the picture, you know, it
wouldn't resonate, no one would know who I'm talking about.
But his ex wife googled her, found his picture, found
my blog, and realized she's a con artist, but she
(22:40):
would get off on that. She would have barbecues and
dinner parties with multiple victims she's scamming, and multiple victims.
She's told different stories too, So at any point one
of us could have said something where the stories didn't
matched up and out at her, but we never did.
But she must have got off on that razor thin
like I can get caught and minute. Yeah, that sounds
(23:01):
like some very classic thrill seeking behavior. You know, like
maybe she unconsciously or subconsciously wanted to increase the stakes
for herself. She wanted to flirt with getting caught, increase
the danger, and so she gave you passwords and pictures
just to like up the stakes, right, will this be
enough for them to catch me or not? It's weird,
(23:24):
It's super weird. What is your takeaway? You've studied con
artists for years and you put a ton of research
into your book, Confident Women, which most people don't know.
And I mentioned this in my podcast, but we can
repeat it here. Con artist is short for confidence artist. Yes,
very few people know that. I didn't know it myself
(23:44):
before I started my book. I felt like I was
born knowing it at this point because they and still
confidence in their victims, in them to scam them, and
they're also very confident people themselves. Absolutely, But do you
believe con artists are born or are a maid? Oh?
I think it's a little of both. But I will
(24:06):
say many of the women in my book, I do
think we're born into some form of conning. I mean
the con artists who do have that pathological liar streak,
that's sociopathic streak born, because I don't think you can
grow into a sociopath, right, That's something I mean, I
don't know if we fully understand it yet as a species,
but it's interesting you bring up the phrase or the
(24:27):
term sociopath. So for the longest time, I believed Mayor
was a sociopath. But I've since done some research about
sociopaths versus psychopaths. I'm not even sure what the difference
is anymore. I've read so many conflicting definitions of the two,
and today in our culture, as I'm sure you've noticed,
we use them totally interchangeably. I'm a Google expert, so
(24:49):
my latest Google tells me psychopaths tend to be more manipulative,
can be seen by others as charming, lead a semblance
of a normal life and minimize risk in criminal activities.
A psychopath doesn't have the ability to feel guilt, whereas
a sociopath tends to be more erratic and rage prone
and they're unable to lead a normal life. When a
(25:10):
sociopath commits a crime, it's usually spur the moment or
reaction in a rage. It's not planned. Okay, okay, I
mean we definitely use them interchangeably in culture. But that's
really good to know. So sociopath is more of like
a berserker maniac type, right, can't control his emotions exactly.
But a psychopath is the CEO or the you know,
(25:32):
the politician. Yeah, they can look normal, they can be
friendly and charming, but and they know what they're doing
and they're not going to get caught. Mary Smith is
a psychopath, but I think she was born a psychopath
because in the podcast we hear from her childhood friend
who knew her at eleven twelve years old, Mary Smith
tricked this girl as Mary Smith is a girl herself,
(25:52):
tricking another girl into going into a stranger's house, going
into a bedroom, putting on a stranger's clothes and taking
a picture. And it made such a mark in this
girl's life, who is now a woman. Jen Westwood who
called me up because she's like, why did she have
me do that? It just doesn't make any sense. But
it's an eleven year old girl flexing her muscle of manipulation.
(26:14):
Can I get this girl to do the crazy things? Yes?
I can. Oh, that's so sinister. And it's that risk
taking behavior to you know, it's like will I get caught?
Will she get caught? So that makes me think. You know,
Mayor Smith is a born con artist. Yeah, I buy that.
She claims she had childhood trauma. She claims she was
(26:37):
molested to other people, but I don't believe that because
she tried to make her daughter claim she was molested
by her grandfather and it wasn't true. Yeah, it wasn't true.
And and that drove the daughter against Mayor early on,
because she was trying to get her to lie to
say she was molested when she wasn't. Wow, that's really dark.
It is dark, but there's a light at the end
(26:57):
of this tunnel. Come with mere. Smith's daughter did end
up testifying against her, and one of the most profound
things she said in talking to her in the interview
is and I'm quoting Chelsea here. My mom is always
(27:19):
far away from the place that she's lying about. She
grew up in Maine, but I grew up in Tennessee,
so she was lying to a bunch of people in
Tennessee about stuff that happened in Maine. So she always
makes sure her lives are hard to dispute. Is that
a theme you see? And the con artists you studied,
they're lying about things that it's hard to check the
truth of what they're lying about, so you let it go.
(27:41):
Oh one, I don't even know which anecdote to start with.
I mean, there's a woman in my book who lived
during the time of the Civil War. Her name was
probably Lauretta J. Williams, but we don't really know. I
remember this one, yeah, and she she wrote a memoir about,
you know, dressing as a man and fighting for the
Confederate at side, and she made it hard to fact
(28:02):
check by conveniently leaving out last names, just fluring the details.
So it's like, you know, she says she fought under
General Dave, Like who can check that there might be
a hundred of them? There might be a hundred And
then The distance thing reminded me a lot of Margaret
Lydia Burton, who actually conned with her daughter and they
(28:23):
were moved around the US like so frequently. They were
on the run, always on the run. That's such a
great chapter in your book. Yeah, but they Margaret which
was her real name, was always lying about the place
she had just come from. So you know, she would
she would run out, run from Virginia to Georgia, and
then she would say back in Virginia, I was a
(28:44):
general's wife, but he died tragically and I lost both
my kids, you know. So and this in the fifties too. Um,
so we don't people can't look her up on Facebook
or whatever. Right, you could just google her? Yeah, right.
And so it's like, Okay, she told me she was
a wealthy widow from Virginia, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Like,
what are you gonna do? We're prone to believe. So, yeah,
(29:06):
that distance thing is a big part of a lot
of these cons. Yeah, they're always lying about someplace far
away that it's hard to check. Yes. Interesting. So I
have a question about psychics. The vast majority of psychics
I think are con artists. Is that your take I guess.
I mean, I hate to throw a whole population under
(29:27):
the bus, just the majority. I mean, do you believe
psychics are real? I don't know for sure, but I
will say I wouldn't be surprised if someone if I
got a vision, if someone told me for sure, like
this person can actually just have some connection to the
spirit realm, I would believe that. I think there have
been instances in history of people who just had these
(29:49):
extra sensory powers. That being said, you know, I talked
to Rosemark's son, the psychic son, and he was very
much talking about how all the psychics in their air,
in their community, we're using the same tricks as his mom,
but his mom happened to get caught and go to jail.
So just based on that little piece of anecdotal evidence,
you know, he seemed to think they were all doing
(30:12):
the same thing, which would imply that they are all
con artists. I mean, I do believe psychics are real,
and I do believe Mayor Smith had psychic abilities. I've
witnessed her read strangers and bring them to tears with
specific things. One time, this woman sits down. We went
(30:33):
to a party and the hotel had hired Mayor to
do readings for the guests. So my husband and I
are there, and you know, a woman sits down and
Mayor's like, you're dating a guy in l A and
New York. You've got to make a decision. You're gonna
lose them both. And the woman just starts crying like
I don't know what to do, Like how did she
pick that out of the air? Okay, are you positive
(30:55):
she didn't research the guests beforehand, because some psychics do that.
I'm positive because they were random hotel guests. You couldn't know.
This is a party open to the public. You don't
know who's going to be there. Okay, So you know,
there are some psychics who are good people, working hard
and trying to do good for the world. But a
lot of psychics are con artists, especially Rose Marks. When
they start telling you it's gonna you're gonna have to
(31:17):
sacrifice this much money if you want this good thing
to happen, and you're gonna have to give this much
money if you want this good thing, and I can
set a spell, you know, right, Once huge amounts of
money get involved, then it's no, you're no longer doing
a service. You know you're not You're no longer providing
a solace to people. And something I'm gonna shock you
with because as I'm interviewing you now, the podcast is
still being edited. You haven't heard it. You have no idea,
(31:38):
but this was a revelation. Mayor Smith practiced witchcraft. She's spooky.
I have scared her. Yeah, she is spooky. She would
do these binding spells where she uses chicken bones douse
with dragon's blood. You know what dragon's blood is. No,
it's not blood from a dragon. It's some kind of
(31:58):
oil they sell in botanic Us, where like you know, voodoo,
people go to buy there. It's like a target for
like witchcraft, a botanica. And she would get these penis
shaped candles and carve a man's name into it and
burn it. It's supposed to make the men want you.
And she had like voodoo dolls. She practiced witchcraft. Is
that a thing you've seen with con women you've studied?
(32:19):
Were any of them witches? I know you have a
chapter The Spiritualists where you talk about people wanting to
communicate with the dad. So they'll pretend they're talking to
your dead relative if you pay them so much money,
and they have all the parlor tricks and the noises
in the light and the smoke. Yeah, none of them
were practicing witches. I I don't think any of the
(32:40):
women in my chapter bought their own stick at all. Um, So, no,
that's not something I've seen. I mean, do you think
Mayor was just doing it as like an aesthetic thing
to seem more spooky, or do you think she really
meant it? No, she really meant it, because other accounts
I've heard that are not included that I'll mention here
mother victims. When she would want to shut someone up,
(33:02):
and I know she must have done this with me
when I was onto her, she would go and buy
the whole tongue of a cow, and she would cut
the tongue. Apparently you can buy cow tongues from places
like a butcher shop. I mean, I'm a vegetarian. The
whole thing disgusts me. But she would buy a cow tongue,
she would cut the cow tongue open, she'd write the
(33:23):
person's name on a piece of paper, put it in
the cow tongue, sew it up, and then freeze it
and that person can no longer speak ill of you
because their name is on a piece of paper in
a cow tongue frozen. Well, it didn't work for you.
It didn't work, But I do believe she believed. She
believed that it would work. I believe she did. Yeah,
(33:45):
So do you think your name is in a cow
tongue and a freezer? Still? I am sure? And it's
an honor. How many people can say they're in a
frozen cow tongue? But I can very few. Ultimately, I
believe good triumphs over evil eventually, and I think that's
what happened here. And um, I'm glad I got her,
(34:07):
and it turned me onto this whole world of con
artists and my god, your book. I had such a
good time reading it, and it brought me so much
comfort because it just made me feel like I'm not alone.
I was the victim of I know they say prostitutions
the oldest profession, but I disagree. I think con artistry
is the oldest profession and con artists are everywhere. So
if you're listening, the next time a stranger introduces themselves
(34:30):
into your life and they're kind and loving and they
want to help and they want to become friends real fast,
you're probably getting caught, and do not do wire transfers.
Do not if anyone wants you to wire them money.
It's a con. Yes, Tory Telfer, thank you so much
for joining us here today. Your book, Confident Women is
available anywhere books are sold. It's a page turner. I
(34:53):
read it in two days. And you also do a
podcast also Criminal Broads if you like stories of women
who have committed crimes. I've got about sixty two. I
have a feeling Mayor Smith is going to be sixty three. Well,
you have yourself a great day, Tory, thank you so much,
Thank you so much. Alright, byebye, Queen of the con.
(35:21):
The Irish Heiress is a production of a y R
Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by Me Jonathan Walton.
Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza
Rosen for a y R Media. Written by Jonathan Walton,
Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate producer Eric Newman. Sound
(35:44):
designed by Cameron Taggy, Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy.
Audio engineering by Elliott Herman. Legal counsel for A y
R Media. Gianni Douglas Executive producer for I Heart Radio,
Chandler Eights
The con woman's likability is the single most important tool.
She has sharp as a chef's knife and fake as
a theater mask. Without her likability, she would be nothing.
If you like her, and you will like her, then
her work will be so much easier. It'll all be
over quickly. You'll hardly feel a thing that is. Award
(00:28):
winning author Tory Telfer reading an excerpt from her latest book,
Confident Women, about the greatest female con artists of all time.
She's the perfect person to talk to about the greatest
female con artist I ever met and got scamped by.
I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is a bonus episode of
Queen of the Con where I interview a woman who
(00:49):
has literally spent years researching and writing about the mayor
Smith's of the world. This is episode ten, Anatomy of
a Con. Tori, thank you so much for joining us today.
I really, really, really enjoyed your book. I finished it
(01:11):
in two days and it was just a rip roaring
good time, which is what my Amazon review said. Thank you, congratulations.
Just what an amazing what an amazing tale of dozens
of dozens of dozens of different Cohn women throughout history. Yeah, well,
thank you for having me. So your book focuses on
(01:32):
female con artists. Is there a difference between male and
female con artists or are all con artists the same
on a macro level. I believe all con artists are
kind of doing the same thing. But there is one
very notable difference between male and female con artists, which
is the stereotypes they use, the cliches that they use
(01:53):
to get you. So male con artists are more likely
to pretend to be a doctor or a lawyer or
important busines this man, you know something. Very male female
con artists know that you're going to be a little
bit suspicious of a female who's trying to sell you
the Brooklyn Bridge because women don't. Women aren't in construction,
so she so she's more likely to be a a
(02:16):
seer or a you know, a wounded mother or a
grieving widow. Female con artists are are definitely not afraid
of sexist stereotypes, and they'll lean into them to get
what they want. My book, Confident Women is about con
women throughout the ages, you know, from the Civil War
to the court of Marie Internette to today. Some of
(02:37):
these women are still in prison today and I've divided
it into four sections, so it's kind of four different
types of con women, from the con women who are
really obsessed with money to the con women who are
really obsessed with disguises, and all shades in between. I
do think my con artist Mayor Smith, kind of borrows
from every single category. It sounds like, how did you
(02:59):
get into a con artistry? Were you a victim? Ever? No,
of nothing more than a few minor cons. You know,
the type we all experience, the roommate who doesn't do X,
Y and Z, or the person on the street who
says they need money for this, but it's for that. No,
I've never been like a capital of the victim. I
came at it through writing about female criminals. My first
(03:19):
book was about female serial killers, so I was looking
around for something a little later. But as you know, well,
con artists are not as light as people think they are. Right.
It's like all fun and games at first, and then
it gets really dark. Yeah, it's all funny games until
it happens to you. You know, your book brought me
(03:41):
so much comfort in a strange way. After I realized
I was conned, I felt so alone, like I'm the
only one that's ever happened to you. But then I
started finding a bunch of other victims of my con artists,
and the read your book, and I realized that being
a con artist is a lot of people's full time profession.
You know, it was Mayor Smith's full time profession. I
(04:02):
had no idea. Con artists are literally everywhere, but until
one cons you, you have no idea. You just have
no idea. I like the excerpt you read from your book,
the con woman's likability is the single most important tool
she has. As soon as I read that, I was like, yes, yes, Yes,
(04:22):
that was Mayor. She was so likable, she was so lovable,
and that's how she got deep into her victims lives
to condemn. And that's something you found again and again
and again in your book. You gotta fall in like
with them immediately, immediately, because if they're not likable, and
if you don't personally like them, then it becomes clear
(04:44):
how outrageous their demands are, or the cracks in their
story become so apparent. I mean, it's like we would
do a lot of things for our friends, right If
a friend asked to borrow a cup of sugar, borrow
five dollars. That's not weird. If a total stranger on
the street asks those same thing, things were going to
be wary. So the con woman has to become our
friend really fast. And yeah, like all these women in
(05:06):
my book are so good at socializing, it's really stunning. Yeah,
she's skilled, a skilled socialize her. She knows how to
get in deep and get in quick and make make
you like her. That's the common thread. I've spoken to
my gosh, dozens of victims of Mayor Smith, and all
of them say the same thing. They liked her immediately. Wow. Yeah,
I'm not surprised. What is the psychological profile of a
(05:35):
con what motivates them, what drives them? I think con
artists have a lot of different things going on, but
if I was gonna find one or two commonalities, money
is a huge one. It's not that romantic, but it
is such a consistent presence in these stories. But I
think another commonality is power, you know, power over the victims,
(05:57):
over their own narrative. And actually that's something I saw
in serial killers too. It's very different crimes, but the
the criminal comes down to having this desire for power
over other people. It's funny, you say that it kind
of reminds me, And don't hate me for saying this.
Rape rape is not really about sex most times exactly,
(06:18):
It's about power, and it's also about having instilling fear
in someone's eyes and getting off on that fear. Yes, yeah,
I think that crimes, or at least these particularly violent
or just major crimes, are often not about what they
sound like on the surface, which ties into a belief
(06:40):
I held for like ten years now, especially living in
this town, Los Angeles. Nothing is what it appears to be.
Looks are deceiving. Things look one way when really it's
the other way, But you have no idea until you're
into it. One of my favorite movies of all time
is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Have you seen that movie a
long time ago? So don't quiz me on it. Steve
(07:03):
Martin and Michael Caine. It's about, you know, con women
and con men. On the French Riviera. I was showing
Nicolas property in Florida. He goes, if I'm going to
invest sixteen million bucks, I want to do with someplace? Now,
I say, like, we're He goes, how about Australia and
then he hits me boom, or Australia. What are you
kidding me? We gotta go meet Mr Australia himself. I
(07:26):
say so, he goes why not? I go why up?
Pretty soon the whole group goes, why so? Here we are.
And never for a second did I think any of
those gargantu and elaborate, unbelievable cons featured in the movie
were based on real stories. But your book is chalk
full of stories like that, and each con is more
(07:49):
elaborate and magnificent than the one before. The woman pretending
to be Maria Antoinette, I'd never heard this story before
until I read your book. She scams the jeweler out
of a million dollar diamond necklace, essentially using elaborate impersonations
and really forged letters. Right. That was Mayor Smith's go
to the modern day equivalent of forged letters, forged emails
(08:13):
to scam people. How is that story not better known?
How have I never you know? I'm an educated guy,
I am well read. I've never heard that story before.
Why is it not more known? Why is it not
like a big Hollywood movie about the Marie Antoinette necklace scam?
I think there are two reasons. One is probably just
plain old fashioned sexism. We do know the stories of
(08:34):
con men a lot better. Ponzi made off ABC, Nail,
the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge twice. These are
just more famous than the con women's stories. But in
terms of this specific con woman, she was really a nobody.
She was an orphan, she was poor, she was not
very proper, and I think that historians with a capital
(08:58):
H looked down on her story for a very long
time and we're like, oh, that can't possibly be um
worthy of examining. But as a matter of fact, she
kind of. She was one of the one of the
things that kicked off the French Revolution. Actually, my gosh,
just such a compelling story, and it reminded me of
Mayor because, like you said, she she came from nowhere.
(09:19):
She was poor, but through fake emails and fake text
messages and impersonating different people, she could appear to be
this well connected woman dating a politician, an Irish Heiri's
worth millions. All of these these things came to life
with Mayor when you'd read emails addressed to her. Her
best friend was Jennifer Aniston. Of course, Jennifer Aniston would
(09:45):
text and email her all the time, and she would
show the victim. Look, Jennifer Aniston just texted me this,
just email me this. You know, So there's a fake
Brad Pitt in my book. So this is There are
so many parallels here, Yes, yes, yes, yes. Psychic Rose
Marx is another con artists you profile in your book.
She scams, I mean, she scams a bunch of people,
(10:07):
but really her best known victim is as an author
ju Devereaux. She scams Jude out of twenty million dollars
using a thousand different confidence tricks and emotional manipulations over
the course of years. In my estimation, Rose Marx is
what Mayor Smith was working towards, but she never found
(10:27):
such a wealthy client. Mayor ended up scamming tens of
thousands from a bunch of different clients and that's all
they could afford to pay. But I guess she was
looking for a big fish like Rose Mars found. Yeah.
I think Rose Marks really lucked out when it comes
to being a con artist. There can't be that many,
you know, extremely successful millionaires who happened to be in
(10:48):
a vulnerable position when the con artists comes around. I mean,
for this poor author Jude Devereaux. It was just like
a horrifically perfect situation. When she met the con woman.
She was having marriage troubles, she couldn't have a kid,
you know, just everything in her life was upset, and
so Rosemar swooped in and was able to maintain this
(11:08):
decades long relationship. But I think she kind of just
got lucky, like there probably aren't too many people like
that out there for the people like Mayor Smith to find. Yes,
but she did do damage, i'll reveal to listeners now
is something that's not in any of the podcast, so
we didn't cover because we never got an actual interview
from this victim who Mayor scammed as a psychic. So
(11:29):
this victim came to see Mayor as a psychic and
she ended up testifying against her. You'll hear her in
episode eight. She testifies on the stand against her. She
found a Mayor as a psychic, and then Mayor quickly
convinced her, Oh, by the way, I'm also a psychologist
IV a degree in psychology, so i also offer life coaching.
So she started offering this woman life coaching and then
(11:51):
quickly impersonated the woman confided in her I'm in love
with this guy, you know, and think to yourself, how
many times have you been in love with someone you
would move heaven and earth to get them right. So
Mayor sees is on that she starts impersonating the guy
and she tells the victim, Oh, by the way, the
guy you're in love with, he's also taking life coaching
for me. And I know this is improper, but I
(12:12):
can broke her a romance, you know, if you want
me to. It's just gonna take so many more life
coaching sessions, you know. So over the course of a year,
this victim shells out dollars ten dollars because she thinks,
you know, and every time she comes to a life
coaching Mayor would show her a text. Oh look at
what Jesse. Jesse was the guy's name. Look at what
Jesse just texted me. He's thinking about you. He's going
(12:34):
to ask you out. So it wasn't until a year
into it the woman finally realized Jesse wasn't taking life
coaching from her, like there was all a scam to
shake money out of her, and she was just devastated.
You know, Oh that that's got hurt so much. Yeah,
I mean, the audacity to pull off something like that
is just mind blowing to me. And it's heartless. You
(12:57):
really can't have any feeling or for another human being
to impersonate the one they're in love with and then
try to trick them out of money. No, most of
these con women are incredibly selfish, you know. I would
say maybe after their likability, that's the most notable thing
about them. I mean, because the likability is all fake,
oh totally, And they don't like anyone except themselves exactly,
(13:19):
and and and who they present themselves to be isn't real.
So what you're liking as a victim, because you know,
she was my best friend for four years. I loved her,
she was like a sister. But all of that was
fake and I never really knew the real her, the
real her, she's a con woman who scammed victims all
over the world. I never knew that was the real her.
The woman that I saw was a damsel in distress
(13:41):
and Irish heiress who am helping get her inheritance. I
even feel stupid saying that out loud, but but I
fell for it. I fell for it, hook line and sinker. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you're not alone, As you know, well, so
many victims of con artists don't come forward because they
do feel so gullible and ashamed. Very true. And I've
(14:03):
had so many arguments with victims on the phone because
they would call me victims of my can artists and
they tell me the story. There were a couple real
estate investors in New York that she scammed out a
sixty grand because she tricked them into believing her daughter
had cancer and needed emergency surgery and insurance didn't cover it,
and she needed sixty dollars quick. There's always an element
of I need this quick because she's gonna die. So
(14:26):
they wired her sixty grand. Oh, there's always wires, always wired.
Money is always being wired, always wires. Yeah, that's yeah.
So when someone asks you for a wire, make sure
you're not getting calm, because that's like a red flag, right. Yeah.
Near the end of my investigation, after police arrested Mayor,
these New York real estate guys called me up and
(14:47):
they're like, hey, we want to pay you, we want
to reward you for what you've done, we want to
help you. And I'm like, I don't want your money, guy,
I want you to go to police and file a
report so she can get arrested in New York. That
would help me, Can you do that? But they didn't
want to because they're embarrassed. They fell for it, so
(15:08):
sante times. She was kind of like Mayor Smith on steroids. Right.
She would introduce her husband Kenneth, as an ambassador, a
ploy that got them into a lot of important places
like the White House during the Ford administration. She kind
of looked a little bit like Elizabeth Taylor if you squinted,
(15:29):
so she would impersonate Elizabeth Taylor, and her last con
lead to murder essentially right, because she didn't start out
a murderer. She tried to scam this New York socialite
out of her seven point seven million dollar apartment, and
similar to Mayor Mayor tried to scam Bob, the Newport
(15:50):
Beach engineer out of his too homes. She tried to
trick him into adding her name to the title of
his two homes because she was going to buy this
fifteen million dollar Newport Beach home with her an inheritance
that was coming any day they got a realtor. She
looked at the house a bunch of times. Bob brought
his kids, one of the last times to pick out
their bedroom. She was going to buy one of the
(16:10):
kids a Lamborghini like the kids loved her, and she
put in an offer on the house. You know, as
long as it's on paper, you can do anything right.
And con artists know this. But what differentiates the Mayor
Smith from Sante Climes is Mayor didn't actually kill anyone yet,
but Sante did. Why did Sante kill that woman? Well,
(16:34):
Santa actually killed more than one person, or rather had
her son do it. This wealthy woman was her third victim,
and she I think she's an example of what happens
when a con artist. Well let me let me rephrase. Maybe.
I don't think that every con artist is capable of murder.
I mean, that's a huge that's a very different crime.
(16:55):
But in this case, things escalated and she got in
so deep, and she was so desperate for money, and
she did a million cons, but none of them were
quite working out. I don't know if Mayor ever reached
that point where she had her cons bubbling, but the
money wasn't quite coming in, and so that's on things
escalated to murder because it was out of desperation or
(17:17):
and in one murder no, two murders out of a
fear that the victim would talk. So it was a
very like end of the road type scenario for her.
If that makes sense, It does make sense. And I
used to think Mayor Smith was not capable of murder,
but I have since reevaluated because for the first time
(17:37):
ever we spoke to her daughter. Her daughter ended up
testifying against her during the trial, and her daughter wove
this tail of being raised by a con artist her daughter.
She was having her daughter forged signatures on hundreds of
mortgage documents. You know, she got away with like half
a million dollars from Northern Ireland, and her daughter, as
(18:00):
a child, unknowingly helped her do that. So someone tipped
Mayor off that police in Northern Ireland are investigating her,
so they had to get out of there quick. And
while they're packing up Mayor's husband at the time, Stephen Smith,
he had like seventeen greyhounds. He was a greyhound racer,
so they didn't have time to rehome them. So Mayor
(18:21):
made him put down the seventeen greyhounds. Wow, oh no, yeah,
killed seventeen dogs without even thinking about it. Oh, she's
Cruella de Ville she is, and she wore them back
to Tennessee. Kidding, we don't know that. I don't think
she did m But after I heard that story, and
(18:41):
I'm a dog owner, I take it you're a dog owner.
I'm not, but a dog lover, a dog's sympathizer. Yes,
if she has the cold bloodedness to do that, she
could kill. She could kill without even a piece of
remorse or guilt. She could kill. Yeah. Yeah, that that
shows some real narcissism. You know, dogs are in my way.
Dogs get killed this story. I mean, I am a
(19:05):
little bit jealous. I didn't hear about it for my book.
It's so intense. It's as if con artist Mayor Smith
read your book and chose different elements from all the
female con artists you profiled to create her own con
artists self. She mixes and matches from all the great
cons in your book, which is just amazing. But I
(19:26):
know that's impossible because your book only came out this
year and she's been conning since she was a little girl. Yes,
con artists are very intelligent people, that's a fair statement.
But for being so intelligent, they make a lot of
stupid mistakes that ultimately lead to their demise. Why is
that my con artist gave me her email password. At
(19:47):
one point in our relationship two years in, she's stuck
on the highway in traffic. She thinks she can't get
into her email account from her phone. She thinks she's hacked.
She calls me, I'm at work. I got hacked. I
got hacked. So she asked me to log in and
make sure her email account was still okay. So I did,
and it was, and I forgot the whole thing. Ever
happened until a few months after I got condom like,
oh my god, I have her email password. Did it
(20:10):
still work? Yes? Oh, I logged into her account. I
found twenty three other aliases. I found a bunch of
other victims. She was scamming. She had a profile on
sugar Daddy for me dot com men were paying her
monthly fee for sex. Then she was blackmailing them to
go to their wives when they wanted to end the
payment arrangement. Another classic con. Yes, but I wasn't the
only one. She gave her email password too. She gave
(20:32):
it to you, another victim she was scamming. When the
victim was helping her set up an Amazon firestick so
it's like this, she's so smart and yet so dumb.
Maybe it's stemming from the narcissism we keep talking about,
where it's like they assume everyone else is dumb or
just not at their level. So it's like, it's no
big deal to give you my email password because you're
(20:53):
not going to create aliases and you don't know how
I work. You know, it seems to me to be
a very narcissistic move, like, sure, you can go ahead
and have my password. I don't care, you'll never catch me. Ironically,
you did catch her. I do think it's a case of, like,
you know that famous statement, how does it go? Does
the lion ever waste time thinking about what the lambs
(21:15):
are doing? So we're all like sheep to her, and
she's the lion thinking, oh, I can give them my password.
I can give them ammunition against me, but they'll never
use it because they're too stupid. You know, she's overly
confident in that case. Yeah, I think that makes a
lot of sense. Another thing she did that ultimately led
to her demise is while she was dating her Newport
(21:37):
Beach victim Bob, she texted me a picture of him
and asked me what I thought of him, and I said, oh,
he's a good looking guy. I think he's great, you know,
go for it because we were best friends. But I
ended up using that very picture of Bob and I
started my blog with I know his name is Bob,
I know he's an engineer Newport Beach, and I know
maryor Smith is scamming him. And I didn't really believe
(21:58):
for a second that Bob would actually find my blog,
but by god, he did. His ex wife found it
and sent it to him, and then he ended up
dumping mare. And you know, she was this close. She
had drawn up the paperwork for him to add her
name to the titles of his two Newport Beach homes
because she put an offer on this fifteen million dollar
home she's gonna buy, and it comes so close. He
(22:20):
found it in the nick of time. Your blog saved him,
it did, but that's her fault. Like if I didn't
have that picture of him, there was no way if
I started the blog without the picture, you know, it
wouldn't resonate, no one would know who I'm talking about.
But his ex wife googled her, found his picture, found
my blog, and realized she's a con artist, but she
(22:40):
would get off on that. She would have barbecues and
dinner parties with multiple victims she's scamming, and multiple victims.
She's told different stories too, So at any point one
of us could have said something where the stories didn't
matched up and out at her, but we never did.
But she must have got off on that razor thin
like I can get caught and minute. Yeah, that sounds
(23:01):
like some very classic thrill seeking behavior. You know, like
maybe she unconsciously or subconsciously wanted to increase the stakes
for herself. She wanted to flirt with getting caught, increase
the danger, and so she gave you passwords and pictures
just to like up the stakes, right, will this be
enough for them to catch me or not? It's weird,
(23:24):
It's super weird. What is your takeaway? You've studied con
artists for years and you put a ton of research
into your book, Confident Women, which most people don't know.
And I mentioned this in my podcast, but we can
repeat it here. Con artist is short for confidence artist. Yes,
very few people know that. I didn't know it myself
(23:44):
before I started my book. I felt like I was
born knowing it at this point because they and still
confidence in their victims, in them to scam them, and
they're also very confident people themselves. Absolutely, But do you
believe con artists are born or are a maid? Oh?
I think it's a little of both. But I will
(24:06):
say many of the women in my book, I do
think we're born into some form of conning. I mean
the con artists who do have that pathological liar streak,
that's sociopathic streak born, because I don't think you can
grow into a sociopath, right, That's something I mean, I
don't know if we fully understand it yet as a species,
but it's interesting you bring up the phrase or the
(24:27):
term sociopath. So for the longest time, I believed Mayor
was a sociopath. But I've since done some research about
sociopaths versus psychopaths. I'm not even sure what the difference
is anymore. I've read so many conflicting definitions of the two,
and today in our culture, as I'm sure you've noticed,
we use them totally interchangeably. I'm a Google expert, so
(24:49):
my latest Google tells me psychopaths tend to be more manipulative,
can be seen by others as charming, lead a semblance
of a normal life and minimize risk in criminal activities.
A psychopath doesn't have the ability to feel guilt, whereas
a sociopath tends to be more erratic and rage prone
and they're unable to lead a normal life. When a
(25:10):
sociopath commits a crime, it's usually spur the moment or
reaction in a rage. It's not planned. Okay, okay, I
mean we definitely use them interchangeably in culture. But that's
really good to know. So sociopath is more of like
a berserker maniac type, right, can't control his emotions exactly.
But a psychopath is the CEO or the you know,
(25:32):
the politician. Yeah, they can look normal, they can be
friendly and charming, but and they know what they're doing
and they're not going to get caught. Mary Smith is
a psychopath, but I think she was born a psychopath
because in the podcast we hear from her childhood friend
who knew her at eleven twelve years old, Mary Smith
tricked this girl as Mary Smith is a girl herself,
(25:52):
tricking another girl into going into a stranger's house, going
into a bedroom, putting on a stranger's clothes and taking
a picture. And it made such a mark in this
girl's life, who is now a woman. Jen Westwood who
called me up because she's like, why did she have
me do that? It just doesn't make any sense. But
it's an eleven year old girl flexing her muscle of manipulation.
(26:14):
Can I get this girl to do the crazy things? Yes?
I can. Oh, that's so sinister. And it's that risk
taking behavior to you know, it's like will I get caught?
Will she get caught? So that makes me think. You know,
Mayor Smith is a born con artist. Yeah, I buy that.
She claims she had childhood trauma. She claims she was
(26:37):
molested to other people, but I don't believe that because
she tried to make her daughter claim she was molested
by her grandfather and it wasn't true. Yeah, it wasn't true.
And and that drove the daughter against Mayor early on,
because she was trying to get her to lie to
say she was molested when she wasn't. Wow, that's really dark.
It is dark, but there's a light at the end
(26:57):
of this tunnel. Come with mere. Smith's daughter did end
up testifying against her, and one of the most profound
things she said in talking to her in the interview
is and I'm quoting Chelsea here. My mom is always
(27:19):
far away from the place that she's lying about. She
grew up in Maine, but I grew up in Tennessee,
so she was lying to a bunch of people in
Tennessee about stuff that happened in Maine. So she always
makes sure her lives are hard to dispute. Is that
a theme you see? And the con artists you studied,
they're lying about things that it's hard to check the
truth of what they're lying about, so you let it go.
(27:41):
Oh one, I don't even know which anecdote to start with.
I mean, there's a woman in my book who lived
during the time of the Civil War. Her name was
probably Lauretta J. Williams, but we don't really know. I
remember this one, yeah, and she she wrote a memoir about,
you know, dressing as a man and fighting for the
Confederate at side, and she made it hard to fact
(28:02):
check by conveniently leaving out last names, just fluring the details.
So it's like, you know, she says she fought under
General Dave, Like who can check that there might be
a hundred of them? There might be a hundred And
then The distance thing reminded me a lot of Margaret
Lydia Burton, who actually conned with her daughter and they
(28:23):
were moved around the US like so frequently. They were
on the run, always on the run. That's such a
great chapter in your book. Yeah, but they Margaret which
was her real name, was always lying about the place
she had just come from. So you know, she would
she would run out, run from Virginia to Georgia, and
then she would say back in Virginia, I was a
(28:44):
general's wife, but he died tragically and I lost both
my kids, you know. So and this in the fifties too. Um,
so we don't people can't look her up on Facebook
or whatever. Right, you could just google her? Yeah, right.
And so it's like, Okay, she told me she was
a wealthy widow from Virginia, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Like,
what are you gonna do? We're prone to believe. So, yeah,
(29:06):
that distance thing is a big part of a lot
of these cons. Yeah, they're always lying about someplace far
away that it's hard to check. Yes. Interesting. So I
have a question about psychics. The vast majority of psychics
I think are con artists. Is that your take I guess.
I mean, I hate to throw a whole population under
(29:27):
the bus, just the majority. I mean, do you believe
psychics are real? I don't know for sure, but I
will say I wouldn't be surprised if someone if I
got a vision, if someone told me for sure, like
this person can actually just have some connection to the
spirit realm, I would believe that. I think there have
been instances in history of people who just had these
(29:49):
extra sensory powers. That being said, you know, I talked
to Rosemark's son, the psychic son, and he was very
much talking about how all the psychics in their air,
in their community, we're using the same tricks as his mom,
but his mom happened to get caught and go to jail.
So just based on that little piece of anecdotal evidence,
you know, he seemed to think they were all doing
(30:12):
the same thing, which would imply that they are all
con artists. I mean, I do believe psychics are real,
and I do believe Mayor Smith had psychic abilities. I've
witnessed her read strangers and bring them to tears with
specific things. One time, this woman sits down. We went
(30:33):
to a party and the hotel had hired Mayor to
do readings for the guests. So my husband and I
are there, and you know, a woman sits down and
Mayor's like, you're dating a guy in l A and
New York. You've got to make a decision. You're gonna
lose them both. And the woman just starts crying like
I don't know what to do, Like how did she
pick that out of the air? Okay, are you positive
(30:55):
she didn't research the guests beforehand, because some psychics do that.
I'm positive because they were random hotel guests. You couldn't know.
This is a party open to the public. You don't
know who's going to be there. Okay, So you know,
there are some psychics who are good people, working hard
and trying to do good for the world. But a
lot of psychics are con artists, especially Rose Marks. When
they start telling you it's gonna you're gonna have to
(31:17):
sacrifice this much money if you want this good thing
to happen, and you're gonna have to give this much
money if you want this good thing, and I can
set a spell, you know, right, Once huge amounts of
money get involved, then it's no, you're no longer doing
a service. You know you're not You're no longer providing
a solace to people. And something I'm gonna shock you
with because as I'm interviewing you now, the podcast is
still being edited. You haven't heard it. You have no idea,
(31:38):
but this was a revelation. Mayor Smith practiced witchcraft. She's spooky.
I have scared her. Yeah, she is spooky. She would
do these binding spells where she uses chicken bones douse
with dragon's blood. You know what dragon's blood is. No,
it's not blood from a dragon. It's some kind of
(31:58):
oil they sell in botanic Us, where like you know, voodoo,
people go to buy there. It's like a target for
like witchcraft, a botanica. And she would get these penis
shaped candles and carve a man's name into it and
burn it. It's supposed to make the men want you.
And she had like voodoo dolls. She practiced witchcraft. Is
that a thing you've seen with con women you've studied?
(32:19):
Were any of them witches? I know you have a
chapter The Spiritualists where you talk about people wanting to
communicate with the dad. So they'll pretend they're talking to
your dead relative if you pay them so much money,
and they have all the parlor tricks and the noises
in the light and the smoke. Yeah, none of them
were practicing witches. I I don't think any of the
(32:40):
women in my chapter bought their own stick at all. Um, So, no,
that's not something I've seen. I mean, do you think
Mayor was just doing it as like an aesthetic thing
to seem more spooky, or do you think she really
meant it? No, she really meant it, because other accounts
I've heard that are not included that I'll mention here
mother victims. When she would want to shut someone up,
(33:02):
and I know she must have done this with me
when I was onto her, she would go and buy
the whole tongue of a cow, and she would cut
the tongue. Apparently you can buy cow tongues from places
like a butcher shop. I mean, I'm a vegetarian. The
whole thing disgusts me. But she would buy a cow tongue,
she would cut the cow tongue open, she'd write the
(33:23):
person's name on a piece of paper, put it in
the cow tongue, sew it up, and then freeze it
and that person can no longer speak ill of you
because their name is on a piece of paper in
a cow tongue frozen. Well, it didn't work for you.
It didn't work, But I do believe she believed. She
believed that it would work. I believe she did. Yeah,
(33:45):
So do you think your name is in a cow
tongue and a freezer? Still? I am sure? And it's
an honor. How many people can say they're in a
frozen cow tongue? But I can very few. Ultimately, I
believe good triumphs over evil eventually, and I think that's
what happened here. And um, I'm glad I got her,
(34:07):
and it turned me onto this whole world of con
artists and my god, your book. I had such a
good time reading it, and it brought me so much
comfort because it just made me feel like I'm not alone.
I was the victim of I know they say prostitutions
the oldest profession, but I disagree. I think con artistry
is the oldest profession and con artists are everywhere. So
if you're listening, the next time a stranger introduces themselves
(34:30):
into your life and they're kind and loving and they
want to help and they want to become friends real fast,
you're probably getting caught, and do not do wire transfers.
Do not if anyone wants you to wire them money.
It's a con. Yes, Tory Telfer, thank you so much
for joining us here today. Your book, Confident Women is
available anywhere books are sold. It's a page turner. I
(34:53):
read it in two days. And you also do a
podcast also Criminal Broads if you like stories of women
who have committed crimes. I've got about sixty two. I
have a feeling Mayor Smith is going to be sixty three. Well,
you have yourself a great day, Tory, thank you so much,
Thank you so much. Alright, byebye, Queen of the con.
(35:21):
The Irish Heiress is a production of a y R
Media and I Heart Radio, hosted by Me Jonathan Walton.
Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions and Eliza
Rosen for a y R Media. Written by Jonathan Walton,
Consulting producer Evan Goldstein, Senior Associate producer Eric Newman. Sound
(35:44):
designed by Cameron Taggy, Mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggy.
Audio engineering by Elliott Herman. Legal counsel for A y
R Media. Gianni Douglas Executive producer for I Heart Radio,
Chandler Eights
Host
Johnathan Walton
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