July 24, 2025 • 55 mins
When a fancy lady rolled into town, she captivated everyone. An heiress-elect, she was about to come into some serious cash, which was exciting! But then tragedy struck. And then mystery. And then drama. A lot of stuff struck. What happened to Violet Charlesworth? Listen to find out!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zi.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
What Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
How you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm doing pretty well about you? How are you doing?
You look good?
Speaker 4 (00:11):
Hanging in there, hanging in there?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Listen. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Oh girl, I'm glad you asked because I asked you. Now,
this is ridiculous, right, yes, it is?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
American elections like this one is? It's ridiculous. It's not
like painful tragic. Is the Florida Senate District fifteen special election?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So Florida Senate like the local state Senate, sure right,
They have a District six fifteen special election on Tuesday,
June twenty fourth, right, right now. The people running are
replacing a longtime state senator after she passed. Okay. The
person who initially announced was named Randolph Bracy.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And then his leading opponent then announced and it was
his sister, Lavon Bracy. His sister decided to go against him,
and then his mother was there. People are like, well,
this is got to be breaking up with the family.
She's like, no, I'm going to run my daughter's campaign.
So his mother's running his sister's campaign to beat him.
(01:09):
It's awesome, and it's like he was like, you know,
since he announced first. When his sister announced, he was like,
it was disappointing a little hurtful. And people were like,
well are you why are you doing? And they asked
her lavon the sister. She says, I'm not, you know,
running against any of them. I'm running for the people
of Senate District fifteen.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So and the mom was like, you know, you can
see why the mom supports her, And I think, uh,
I don't know who wins, but I think she's got
the advantage because if you if the people here in
the local like mom took come.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
On, no, your mom's size was you They're like the
family hears he's running, it's like we have to do
it camp, bringing a team up to absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
She was like, I don't know if they had like
a super pack for this Florida State Senate that's all
the campaign adds would be about.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
That's incredible, and you know what it is ridiculous, ridiculous exactly.
You know what else is ridiculous? Consu So, I don't know,
(02:22):
this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one h ridiculous. I know you've done I've done
her that so many times. We've really delved into the
mind of the con artist before. Yes, and there's like
(02:44):
a certain psychology that allows people to manipulate others. What
I find really interesting, because I'm the one talking right now,
is that there are certain blueprints, like classic structures for
the cons and they get used over and over and
over again.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Oh okay, yes, like there's con tropes, yes exactly, and
so we talk about them in rather quick succession and
like the grand scheme of things here, but it never
ceases to amaze me the people who fall for the
oldest scams in the book.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh yeah, you know, and I think that's where like
the magnetic personality comes in, right, tru con artists.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, and they get you too distracted from your reasonable mind.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yes, yes, because like the con artist overrides all logic
and self preservation in the mark in order for like
the scheme to really kick it in that momentary gain,
and people who are otherwise smart and savvy, they'll fall
victims totally.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
The smartest possible can fall victims.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And we've said it before that, like a lot of
wealthy and or powerful victims, they never come forward because
they're embarrassed. So that makes me wonder how many con
stories are out there that will never know?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
How many drops are in the ocean, Elizabeth, this is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
A really good question. Thank you Elizabeth for asking that.
The ones you know, they say, they stay secret, they
skirt the law. They've got to be going on right
now if you're out.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
There, I'm running three four right now the same and.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
The situation that you're in mirrors the con stories we tell.
Get help Yea.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
By the way, I'm not actually a Turkish shrimp merchant.
You're not, so if you hear anyone asking about that,
just to go.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Fronting your operation for so long. The problem is when
a Turkish shrimp merchant comes to you, like it feels
like you're in it, and it feels unique to you,
and like you tell yourself all these lies in order
to have the good story and feel good about this
Turkish shrimp merchant.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That's exactly because like.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Dashing comes in and it's like yeah, and so like
you know, you see this on various advice subreddits, like
when people are so deep into a story they don't
get it. Yeah, Like someone posts about their partner or
their spouse or like boyfriend girlfriend and they're like, oh,
we have this great relationship except for just this one
thing the art room, and no, this is no They'll
(04:54):
they'll say, away, this great relationship, there's just one thing,
and then they'll detail what sounds like an actual nightmare
of being stuck with his total loser. So like a
lot of times a poster finally sees the truth after
having written and oh, I saw it in writing or
I said it out loud, Others like have to have
the red flags pointed to it to him.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So like someone's like.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
My husband's really great except for the fact that he
like pouts and refuses to eat whenever I make something
he's not in the mood for for dinner, and like, yeah,
he controls the finances so I can't buy other food.
Oh yeah, he also throws the food in the trash
and kicks the doors, and he's always like saying really
rude things to me and calls me stupid idiot. But
we have a great relationships other than that. Yeah, So
like those are the.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Three times a day when I feed.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Him, Those are the kind of everyday people who fall
for scams, whether it be financial or romantic.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
That's the stories you tell yourself exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I'm not victim blaming here, no, No, it's always easy
to judge from the sidelines because you don't know how
you'll react.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
We're all susceptible to this dynamic completely.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So anyway, I need to shift gears for a second, Sarah,
let's talk about Edwardy in Britain.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That's quite the downs, Yeah, it is. I like to
keep you on your toes totally.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay. So this was the period of time from the
death of Queen Victoria nineteen o one to like beginning
of World War one.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, the beginning of the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, very short era, but it had these lasting effects
and like people are still captivated, especially with the Coats. Well,
it was all about conspicuous consumption and like crazy class stratification.
So it's like that this glittering surface, but there's a
rigid hierarchy outward. Respectability was a big thing, and so
(06:35):
the newspapers at the time were filled with stories of
like debutantes, extravagant weddings, heiresses coming into vast.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes, look at their special children.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Them and then all the middle class like shopkeepers, bankers,
they wanted in on it, not that they could ever
achieve it. I'm buying a suit, yeah, but they wanted
to be in the orbit of total so they would
like fall over themselves to cater to those whims, right,
because they wanted long term paye you know, like they'll
break for security. Yeah. So meanwhile, there are women of
means who did this very like careful dance of social maneuvering.
(07:09):
And so they had the right clothes, their accent was correct,
they had the family pedigree, and everything was networking so
that the rich stuck together and they'd cut each other
a lot of slack. And so then into this world
a gal named Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Floated, Wait, what was her name?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
You know that one of my best friends in life
is named charles Worth. They grew up across the street
from charles.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Worth, the Charlesworth family.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, and we used to talk about how rare that
name is, like he has to be related to he has.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
To be so we're going to have to do a
deep dog.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Oh, this one's for you, Jese to Jay.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So she exploited the swells with this astonishing audacity.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, so Jay, I'll be proud love for him, So Violet.
She was born May Charlesworth in eighteen eighty four in
Stratford Shure, England. She had three older siblings, her mom Miriam,
her dad David. He was an insurance agent and a
modest like lower.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Local class merchant.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Insurance. I don't know, yeah, so just like every day
kind of stuff. But then I've also, here's the problem
with this whole thing. For every fact, they're like alternate
facts that get finding the truth in. This is difficult
on stupid stuff like what's her dad's name? What did
he do?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
David?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, it's like he was Richard and he was a tailor. No,
he was David, the insurance.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Guy, Taylor insurance guy.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
He was like yeah. So violence early years totally average
for just a working class kid. By in her teenage years,
she was known locally for her beauty, like she has
really lovely dark eyes, she had an appealing figure, and
she had a gift for conversation. She had it all
and so she and her mother they were very, very close.
(08:59):
She's the baby and sometimes in like later press reports,
they called it unwholesomely dependent.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Oh yeah, so there was that kind of a great
gardens thing.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, missus Charlesworth. She reinforced Violet's belief that she
was destined for high society if you are worth more
than this. Yeah. So in nineteen oh seven, Violet, her mom,
her dad, her eighteen year old sister Eileen, and then
a chauffeur named Watts who sometimes now people think that
(09:31):
might have been Violet's husband. Okay, yeah, rolled into a
town called Real on the north coast of Wales. It
was like a pretty nice seaside resort town back then.
After the chauffeur, I couldn't find anything about this supposedly
being the husband, aside from I found this book about
like the history of Real, Okay, so there's just like
(09:54):
a side note about yeah. And then Violet Charlesworth came
rolling through here and it's just but yeah, I was like,
oh that's interesting anyway. So they're living at this manor
house bod erw Yeah, and so like you, I think
you can actually stay there now. So but she like
they captivated and she quickly becomes like this local fashion
(10:17):
icon in town, and she toodled around in these super
fancy cars, like the nicest ones in the day. She
wore this really eye catching red motor cloak. Motorcloak, why
are we not all wearing motor cloaks.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I do like all the early cars being convertibles because
they're coming out of coaches and wagons and stuff, and
so they're like, oh, yeah, of course we'll save money
by not putting a top on. It used to that
you to need a motor She.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Always had her dogs in the car with her fun
I bet she had a cool scarf game. She must have.
She must have. So Miriam and Violet, the mom and
the daughter, they concocted this backstory that she would then
use to infiltrate the upper class. So violence mom people
to believe that Violet was the god daughter of General
(11:04):
Gordon of Khartum. Oh, that sounds believable, and everyone knew
who he was. He'd been killed in action in eighteen
eighty five while defending Khartum from rebel Muslims in Sudan Ah,
So he served in Pembrokeshire early in his career, so
it kind of made sense that he had like the
real in the area. So she has this famous godfather
(11:24):
and what's better, she had a one hundred thousand pounds
inheritance from him coming to her on her twenty fifth birthday.
That's like fourteen million dollars today. We've seen this before,
like people will spot the con artist cash because they
truly believe the con artist is about to come into
some serious money, and the con has convinced the mark. Look,
(11:45):
I'm totally good for it. I'll pay you back double,
maybe trouble sometimes because like I'm so honorable, I'm such
a good.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I really appreciate you looking out for me now when
I don't have it special.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
To me because I don't know about you. But I
don't lend my like I'll give someone money and be
pleasantly surprised when they pay it back, but I always
assume I'm never going to see it again.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Do you tell them though, No? No, I mean, like, okay,
so you lend them and you go through the active lending, sure,
and you just think of it as like like I
have to.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Be okay with partying with that amount permanently.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
So you do kind of believe it'll come back, but
you just don't expect it.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Most of the time, I don't expect it okay, like otherwise,
no dice, Like if I can't afford to just let
it go, then like forget it.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I just put the sharks on them. If they don't
pay me back, the sharks are coming.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I'm gonna be honest with you. Yeah, people don't really
ask me for money. Really, I don't have any.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, you don't hang out with it, but I hang
out with people who are poor. And they were like, hey, man,
as we take turns barring for each other.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The people of real though, they were fascinated by Violet.
Everyone wanted to befriend this beautiful young heiress. So she
starts up the con can you spot me? She has
all these nice things, diamonds, cars for this manor house.
So like you, you're good for it, and what a
person to have owing you a favor, Harris. So she
(13:06):
collected money from like a number of suitors and dupes,
and then she used like the gifts or the loans
to speculate thousands of pounds on the stock exchange, and
then she used that to purchase more of the trappings
of her luxurious lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Oh, I thought she was trying to make up the
fourteen mills.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, she's base but then she props up her con
she looks the more she.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Can take and you need a new fer.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It was unusual at that time for a woman to
invest in the stock market completely, and one of the
money one of the money guys she worked with at
the time, said that she had a quote masculine grasp
of business compliment. One one of her victims was a
former neighbor from before she moved to Wales. This widow
(13:50):
named missus Smith. She loaned Violet four hundred pounds, which
was pretty much all the money she had in the world,
saved up over a life and Violet was like, look,
the money's gonna come back plus some. I just you know,
got to turn twenty five.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, I just hope nothing happens to me in my
twenty fourth year.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Another victim was doctor Edward Hughes Jones, and.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
She come to Jones Jones.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
She cozied up to him. They even became engaged to
be married. Oh yeah, he asked her, asked her for
her hand before he knew about the twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
He really did like her.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, he really did. He liked her, Yeah, smitten. They
were like going together. He liked her so much. That
he loaned her five thousand pounds and she promised to
pay it back as soon as she turned twenty five
and then like today, that'd be like half a million dollars.
Oh snap, make sweetheart, can you loan me that's.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
More than that's an investment?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, but then he watches her just spend the money
and other funds like water. The average wage at the
time was like one pound a week. Oh wow, Violet
was spending four thousand pounds a year. Oh yeah, she's
just reckless. So he called off the wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I'm going to say, people are going to find that offensive.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Sets there's absolutely no way like saddling with.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
This totally, you're going to waste all my money.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You're beautiful, but you're toxic and so but he's like, ps,
you still got to pay me back, like my cash,
and she comes no surprise that she didn't pay him back,
had no intention to do so. She also extorted ten
thousand pounds from a London stockbroker and you know, so
ten thousand pounds, Wow, it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Now is using new suitors to get rid of old suitors,
like tell him to go away.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
She's like flitting around she's not just in will she
goes to London Liverpool. Yeah, so they don't know about each.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Other, but if they do confront her, then she can
have somebody perhaps, Oh, dare you go step away?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
The lady is mine. So over the next three years,
like she expands dramatically, and she had this like really
sophisticated system where she had letters from fake lawyer that
said that her fortune would be released, and she had
references from people that she'd already deceived and used those
to dupe the next group Ponzi style. She like would
(16:11):
go to these local dances and charity teas and like
reinforce this aura of status, like I have to go
do all this charity work, always around, always at the
right places. One of the things she'd done was rent
a country house near Inverness. It's beautiful up there. The
property is like it was pure Highlands Monarch of the
Glen stuff like Tartan everything. Wow, she's absolutely gaga over Scotland,
(16:37):
but like chirsty version of Scotland. She bought bagpipes.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, she's like.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
She wore traditional Highland dress and I was like, she
had a player piano in the home.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
What's that game? You run with the log and you
try to flip it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Caber tossing giant hot dog. She had this player piano
only played Scottish music on an endless loop and wow,
Scotland stuff in your head twenty four sevens. So about
those docs.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And they did that in Abu Grabe. I mean that's
kind of.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Keep in mind that, like at this time, identity documents
totally rare, and there are no credit scores.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Oh yeah, it's hard to confirm. You have to have
somebody to go. I know who they are, right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
So a letter that had like respectable letterhead, real or.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Forged, Yeah, exactly, good for credit line.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So by late nineteen oh eight, her scheme is beginning
to unravel, Like merchants who had been promised repayment after
her birthday realized that like months had gone by and
they're like, wait, when is this Galsberd.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, anybody knows. They're like a big calendar in town.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So people are finding out it's like nineteen oh nine,
January nineteen oh nine, she's gonna turn twenty five, and
so some of them took out writs for unpaid debts,
and like gossip starts to swirl in this upper middle
class circles in Edinburgh, uh, London, Liverpool. She's resourceful, she
just moves on. But then like the volume of unpaid
(18:07):
obligations reached a scale that was just like absolutely impossible
to avoid. Okay, and so she's up against all.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
This spiders going to the home office, to the home office,
but whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, like the and they're all everyone's talking and pretty
soon like someone's gonna file exactly, So they have all
this pressure. Violet and her mom are like, Okay, we
need to come up with a plan. They're desperate, but
this this is so crazy. It just let's take a break. Oh,
you got to sit through some ads first. Okay, there's
(18:39):
some well, there are plenty more than when we come back,
we're going to ask and answer the question. Will Violet
ever turn twenty five?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Okay, we're in the final days of December nineteen oh eight,
oh and.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Everyone's counting them down. Charles Christmas for everybody, Oh buddy Christmas.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
She's cornered. She's got this elaborate web of credit that's collapsing.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Around, and is she preparing as cover like a big
party for herself because she should be excited. No, she's
just she should be like doing a debutante ball. She
should be planning like the biggest fever.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
But at this point she's like trying to keep her
head down.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, she's like buying tickets America.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Everyone had been charmed by her elegance, you know, merchants
and bankers. They're like, no, pay.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Me, yeah exactly, I want to be third in line.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And they're starting to get the real rumblings about court action,
bankruptcy petitions. They're like following her from city to city.
She's bound. Oh so she's creeping up on nineteen oh nine,
the years she's going to turn twenty five. In desperation, Violet,
her mother, her sister Eileen, and their chauffeur Watts a
ka potentially her actual husband or somebody. They all head
(20:08):
up to penn mine war In Uh this like village
on the Welsh coast. It's known for its rugged cliffs
bracing sea air. They checked into the penn mine Wir
Hotel on the pretext of like we just want to
quiet New Year's holiday.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Everybody, Yeah, get away, pill forget about.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I like to use old fashioned Edwardian terms, the old terms,
the old Chilaxations. It's I'm going to open a shop Chilaxations,
and it's just always closed, like.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
That popcorn kettle corn shop and the kettle corn shop.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
There's a kettle corn shop in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Yeah, it's never opened.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
The holidays open, Yeah, two hours exact day.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Why I have a storefront for four days?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Not a lot of store for kettle corn.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I don't know another front. I'm suspicious, Yeah, I know
I have.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm suspicious about my.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
What mob Son fails onn Is this you used to
have a kettle corn business?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes, exactly. Let's go break in, yeah, and then make
an episode about her. Okay. So January second, nineteen oh nine,
Violet got herself all dressed up for like a seaside walk. Okay,
she's looking good. She had this gray walking suit on,
like a dark hat. Pins had a pearl brooch, a broach.
She's in a great moody.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Your family can dress.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
She was telling people it's my birthday next week. And
so she Watts and Eileen, the sister, they were like,
let's go for a drive. Why not? Sounds fun?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So they wanted to go to Colwan Bay, but the
day was absolutely gorgeous, So they just kept going all
the way to bangor okay, sure, I don't know what
that means.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Just like like the old Bang, they did not go
to me old Banger.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Old Banger and mash. So all the way back, Violet
was like begging, wants please let me drive, and he's like, well,
you know what, you're almost the birthday girl. You go
right ahead, and he's like, I'll sit next to you,
Eileen backseat. So they like toodled around all day and
then they decided to head back and like about nine
o'clock that night, tragedy strag Oh yes seven.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yes, close, Oh, tragedy.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
I want you to pickure it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It's January second, nineteen oh nine, a cold, dark night.
You are a sixteen year old boy. You're out for
a stroll in the countryside with your dog, a Corgi
named Kevin. Of course it's the Welsh spelling ce f
i n what. You've worked hard all on your family's farm,
and after dinner and arrest, you and Kevin want to
(23:04):
take in the night air before you settle down for
the night. You're sensitive type, but you're strong confident. You're
wise beyond your years, and your dog is super smart,
and when no one's around he.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Talks to you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
As you crust a small rise, you see something in
the distance. It's a woman in fancy clothes. She's obviously
in distress. She runs up to you and breathlessly tells
you there's been an accident. A car almost went off
the cliff. She's on her way to the end to
go get help. You tell her to head over there
and ask for your dad. He's having a pint with
his mates. Tell him to come quick, you say. You
(23:39):
and Kevin run toward where she said the accident happens.
Your feet are swift on the ground. Kevin houffs along
next to you, his little corky legs pumping away. He
calls up to you in excitement. How bad do you
think it is? You tell him it must be very bad.
It sounds like the car left the road at the
point everyone around calls the devil's thumb. It's where a
(24:00):
jagged piece of rocks spikes up between the roadway and
the cliff below the roiling Irish sea. Very bad, indeed,
Kevin says. You both sprint on. You reach the roadway
and spot the car. The windshield has been smashed out
and lies cracked on the ground. It looked as if
the driver lost control of the car and swerved toward
a narrow opening in the boundary wall and knock part
(24:22):
of the wall down. Jumped through the gaps and came
to a rest about eighteen inches from the edge of
the cliff. On the ground by the edge of the
road is a man in a chauffeur's outfit. You run
to him. He's dazed but not bleeding. You ask what happened,
and he tells you he wasn't driving. The lady was
the one I saw? You ask him, no, He says
it was Violet. He tells you she was thrown from
(24:44):
the car. The waves crash on the rocks below, but
you see a flat outcropping. Wait here, you tell the man.
Then you head for the cliff and begin to scramble
down the slope. What are you doing, whispers Kevin. I
need to see if I can save the lady. You answer,
what's that? The chauffeur asks you, Uh, nothing, you say,
Then you start down the precipice. The water there's only
(25:06):
a foot or so deep, and there's a steep drop off.
After that, you wade into the shallows and you look
around no body. You do find two things. There's one
of those tartan Scottish caps, a tam O'Shanter, and then
there's a journal. You flip through the pages, reading by
the dim light of a full moon on the inside
of the covert, says Violet Charlesworth. The pages are in
(25:28):
a neat script, notes about road trips made to places
like Sheffield and Edinburgh. You hear someone call your name.
It's your dad. He's returned with the other lady. The
local police superintendent and a doctor. Get up here, son,
your father shouts. You scramble back up the rocks. Anything
the policeman ask you, You hand him the hat and
the notebook. No sign of the lady, you tell him.
(25:50):
He nods grimly. Kevin sits to the side of the scene,
taking it all in. You sit on a low, smooth
rock next to him. This whole thing is fishy, he
tells you. Oh, that's for sure, you respond. That driver,
he tells you he was silent until everyone got here,
then he started that moaning again. I don't trust any
of them, you tell him. Then the two of you
(26:12):
sit silently and ponder the scene, looking out at the
moonlight on the rough sea beyond, watching the good people
of your town do the best to find the body
of a woman taken all too soon. Kevin, Kevin the corky.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
What a tragedy on the eve of her birthday, where
she's about to get great wealth. She's the only victim
of a car, a single car accident, just the classic
fell off the.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Clue, don't casket, it's why, God, God, where is your
dark sense of humor taking?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Please? Kevin, tell me some answers here? So is there
The initial story was that the car almost went over
the cliff. Yeah, Violet gets thrown through the windshield into
the water. Watts was also thrown thrown through the window. Yeah,
that's what they're saying, is that she just burst through.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
The top splash, just like that was That's.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
What it sounded like. And then Watts he went, he
fell through the windshield the same time, and then he went,
oh yeah, he he almost went into the water, but
he managed to land on the edge of.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
The heped the earth. Yeah, she didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Willpower, and she's just light as a feather and breezy
and just carried on the wind. Aileen safe in the
back seat. Yeah, Violet was presumed dead. Now they just
had to find her body. So generally when there's this
type of accident, the body washes up not too long after,
as I've learned, a couple of days, a couple of
days at most hers didn't show up.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I thought sharks and like you know, crabs would handle more.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
The press was on it. It wasn't even a week
after the accident and they were crying feul the Canarvin
and Denby Harold. They brought the heat on January for real.
Oh yeah, here's the headline. Mystery of the North Wales
Coast ladies. Remarkable disappearance, wild rumors, strange stories, fresh clues.
(28:13):
So good. The very long article begins quote it is
difficult to know what to believe and what to write
about the pennmind mar Motoring mystery. The police offer no
explanation of the disappearance of the young lady, and English
journalists and photographers have visited the spot and played the
part of amateur detectives to very little purpose. In fact,
(28:36):
the more one penetrates into the affair, the more problematic
the solution becomes. But let the story be related. Oh
so I love they're bagging on journalists coming in from
England and playing amateur sleuth. But then they go on
and dedicate an incredible number of column inches to playing
amateur sleuth and quoting the English papers in their amateur sloothing.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, they're like, look, I'm going to amateur sloth. Don't
get in the way.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Are all amateur sluic? That's okay, Yeah, it's okay, Let
go into it. Okay. So the paper details what's known
about the accident and how the family was informed, and
they were all upset and they left for a home
in Reel, but yet they didn't request a search of
the water. They mentioned that a reporter from the Liverpool
Post interviewed the doctor who said that Eileen and Watts
(29:21):
were super upset but not really injured. Okay, And they
try and go interview Violet's parents at the manor house
in Reel, but they refused to speak with anyone. Most
of the people they talked to in the reporter him
or herself say the car didn't really look like it
was in that bad of an accident. In fact, a
family friend came and drove it home for them.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
But it was they hit the front of the car
enough to be thrown through the windshield.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But there's no damage.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Works, yeah, and no commensary damage, and the radiator suddenly works.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
One just started up driving, just missing a windshield or
a windscreen. That's gonna say. So there's a lot of
speculation in the article about the body. Where is it?
How in the world does it not turned out you.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Got to be at least be willing to flip a cart.
You're gonna pull this star.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And you were talking about how everything's a convertible, right,
So they talk about how the cap was found, but
it didn't add up because a woman out for a
drive would securely pin such a hat to her head.
It wouldn't fall off like that. Like this is early
CSI going deep.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And then here's the kicker. There's a section in the
middle of the article with the subheading financial affairs. This
is when we start to see it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It's like a Wikipedia page.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Oh I know.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Quote. Thursday's post adds that Miss Violet Charlesworth was to
have been the defendant at the Real County Court on
the fifteenth of this month, and an action for the
recovery of a sum of five hundred pounds in which
she was indebted, and that a leading tradesman in the
South of England obtained judgment in the High Court against
the missing young lady for the sum of one hundred
and ninety four pounds. Inquiries by a correspondent of The
(30:53):
Star show that during the last twelve months Miss Violet
Charlesworth incurred liabilities running into several thousands of pounds, and
that quite recently a London tradesman obtained a judgment against
her in the County Court for a considerable sum. It
goes on, they're talking about the trail, yeah, and so
they also say that one of the tradesmen got telegram
(31:14):
seven forty five pm Miss Violet Gordon Charlesworth killed in
motor accident near Conway on Saturday night. That's it. So
they're like, you know, sorry, and they they're constantly just
like summarizing what all these other papers say. So it's like,
well that's you know, it's not us, it's doing this
crazy slipping. It's them.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So they're all like pointing at the Daily Mail. Yeah,
they're the ones.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
So they talk about how like she leased a house,
this big hall and she paid and she paid all
these people to come and decorate it and they she
never paid any of them. So basically she's in huge
financial trouble. She also apparently had a big life insurance policy.
Really huh, And but there was checked Oh yeah, there
(31:57):
were sightings of her all across England into Scotland, Ireland.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
With the disappearance back of the christ it was.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Similar, but like no one was buying the story. Everything
was hanky. Kevin the Corgy totally correct. Kevin new in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool.
Her creditors are like stunned by this because like some
were thinking, well, you know, maybe the estate will pay
the debts, you know, maybe it'll come through. But like
the smart people they're like, this is all a big fraud.
(32:29):
There were no clear witnesses accident Philadelphia. Yeah, the local
constables like they saw the where like the hat and
the journal were found, and they're like, that's awfully convenient,
like just to toss off the edge. It looked like
it was placed there, like not really scattered about. Scotland
Yards sent detectives to Wales and then there was a
(32:50):
break in the case from a beautiful windswept town on
the west coast of Scotland. Let's take a break, fill
up on some ads, and when we return will head
to the highlands. All right, Saren Elizabeth Zaren, I'm over here. Hey,
(33:26):
those ads were good. Huh oh my god, bottomless, bottomless
ads so good.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
All you can eat.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
All you can take. January ninth, nineteen o nine, a
telegraph arrived in Real Wales from a village near Oban
on the Scottish West Coast.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Okay, I don't know where any of that is.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But seems like well to me. It seems like it'll
get there. But the Scots they're not going to be
the ones to have a wool pulled over their eyes.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Thank you very That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So here's the Northern Daily Telegram at January eighteenth, nineteen
oh nine, quote Miss Violet Charlesworth, the principal figure in
the Welsh motorcar mystery, is reported to have been discovered
in Oben, the tracing of her whereabouts being due to
the clever work of a Scottish policeman with true Sherlock
Holmes instincts. He is stationed at Tomberbory, a remote fishing
(34:20):
village with fifteen hundred inhabitants on the northeast coast of
the Isle of Mull, which forms part of the County
of Argyllshire and is only accessible by steamer A four
hours run up the Sound of Mull from open and
the story of his essay in real detective work is
told in the following letter received by Superintendent Ivor Davies
(34:41):
of the flintsher police. I would watch the heck app
on the Isle of Mull like love. Please BritBox Acorn,
get on this. I need this.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
So.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The letter goes on to detail that the cops saw
this lady show up the small village and rent a
room at one of the hotels there. He'd read about
the crash in Whales. He was suspicious. I think this
is Violet, he told the guy who ran the hotel
keep an eye on her correspondence. The letter continues, quote
she engaged rooms at a farmhouse near this town and
was to have taken possession of this the same week.
(35:18):
While engaging these rooms, she asked the farmer's wife if
she would be allowed to keep a Saint Bernard dog.
She left here yesterday for Oben without paying her bill,
saying she'd be back on Saturday. The hotel keeper kept
some of her luggage. When she arrived at this hotel,
she signed her name in the visitors book as Margaret MacLeod.
After she left yesterday, the page was found to have
(35:39):
been cut out of the visitor's book. From the description
of this lady and the finding of the telegram in
her bedroom, I am fully convinced this is the missing
Lady Motorist. Interesting now, the telegram in her bedroom was
addressed to Violet Charlesworth. Exactly Lady Motorists. I'm the lady host,
(36:00):
the lady host who needs to keep her opinions to herself.
I'll never let that review. So anyway, the lady host,
Lady Motorist and dear Violet telegram. Okay, So Violet, she
gets picked up at the Palace Hotel in Oben. So
she's like, I want to rent a farmhouse on this island.
It's beautiful. Can I have a Saint Bernard? But then
(36:23):
she's like, I'll be right back, and then she just
goes and picks up. I don't know, but I need
to talk about how much I love open Please. I've
been curious about beautiful. They make fabulous whiskey there. Oh
it's the seafood Capital of Scotland, Zeron, is it really?
It really is? In putting together my outline for this story,
on my little bullet points, I went on a big,
open side quest and it just made me want to
(36:46):
go back. I love I love it. If Scotland had
more sunny days, I'd move back in a heartbeat. I
bet it's really the only reason I left. I mean,
I'm a California girl. I need sunshine. I go into
seasonal effective destort her very easily. I wonder if they'll
take me as an asylum seeker.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You know they have those sun visors. You can just
like hook up on the SAT.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I could, I totally could, But I need like real
global warming.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah, exactly, it's stuff's moving, It's I don't make the
sunlight's changing its latitude, but.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Whatever it might, who's to say, Zaren, I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I'm not either.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I just leave it to the experts.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So I just play one in my bedroom.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your bedroom, sciences, yikes, Why did I put this in that?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
And I drink it at the voltage no one can
see me. I gotta make a note of my journey
invisibility teachers.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Okay, So open Violet, She's going by miss Margaret McLeod
and open. The cops come to her, she sticks to
her story. They're like, we found this telegram addressed to
Violet in your room. She's like, I don't know what
that's about. Yeah, who's where am I? Where's my saint?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I'm Maggie McLeod, her sister and Watts.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
They go to Glasgow, I mean, because like, hello, why
wouldn't you And then they go up to Oben to
verify that it's her. So Eileen sits with her, talks
to her and goes to the authorities and is like
that's not right. Gasps go up across the lands and
that's awesome. Yeah, and like.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
No one thinks to question the one that's coming in
to confirm her, and she goes.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
She's like, well, let me talk to her again. They
go and have lunch. She goes, actually, like my sister.
They kept this up for a few days. Like she
and her sister, who she claimed not to know, went
back to Glasgow. Then they go to Edinburgh together.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I really wanted to test this.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Each stop she's harassed by journalists looking for confession, Like
they get the rooms across the hall right, oh yeah,
and they pointed out that Miss McLeod, who claimed to
be Scottish, had a Northern English accent, and like she's
like whatever, she just kept up through She's like, that's
not me. I don't know what you're talking about. She
would constantly know it's not me. Then, on January twenty third,
(38:56):
the Liverpool Weekly Weekly Mercury ran this heading confession, Oh yeah, quote,
it is no use my denying it any longer. I
am Miss Violet Charlesworth of in these words uttered to
a special representative of the Daily Chronicle in Edinburgh, Miss
(39:19):
Margaret MacLeod, Oben and Tomer Bory finally threw up the
game of bluff. She's been playing with such superb assurance
during the past few days. I suppose I may take it,
Miss Violet. I said that the incident at Pembermer Point
was invented in order that you might escape the liabilities
which were pressing upon you. Invented, she exclaimed, raising her
(39:44):
eyebrows in astonishment. Nothing of the sort. Do you say
that you were in the car when it started on
the return journey from Bangor? Was my next question? Of course,
I was what my sister and Watts told you was
perfectly true, it was a genuine accident, then how came
you to disappear wild? When the accident happened, Watts pulled
(40:07):
me from the seat, I was at the wheel and
then he slipped down the cliff. My sister Eileen, as
she has told you, open the door and was thrown
to the ground. And what happened to you, miss Violet?
I asked, Ah, you would like to know? I dare say,
she replied with a playful nod of the head. All
I can tell you is that I got away from
the scene of the accident without anyone knowing.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
That's all you can tell.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, So she goes on. She tells the reporter that
she realized the crash was like a perfect cover to
make a run for it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Okay, but she didn't go with the whole I hit
my head and have any you know.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
She's like, she's like everything's collapsing around you. And she
said she loved reading the coverage that she generated, just
so entertained by it. So her story didn't just take
over the UK press?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Would you be entertained by that? I know you would
never like fake your death and run away. But if
you what's say you did? Do you think you would
read the press. Would you be the ted.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I think I might know
it might how about you?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
No, definitely not. I wouldn't. I think we get in
my head. I would. I'd maybe have somebody like read
it for me and tell me if they have anything
key in there that's a giveaway, like, oh no, they've
got a very important bit of evidence. I'd have somebody
monitoring it, but it wouldn't be mean, like an actor
not reading my reviews. This again, Yeah, yeah, I got
to keep I need my confidence. How about the run?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
The first day would bother me, and then you get
used to it totally.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I'm trying to manage my head too much.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
What's a good thing to do. I don't. There's no management.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
We are without Rudder up top. So she's super entertained
by the coverage. It's all over the globe because one
paper said it was big news anywhere that people spoke English.
Oh yeah, sure, but the perspective was a little different.
So here's the Detroit Free Press in the US of
A telling it as of February seventh.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Let's hear a Detroit.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Headline England upset over one girl, whole country and hysterics,
says to Violet Charlesworth, the missing motorist. Newspaper hunt through
Great Britain for her discovered in Scotland seventeen days after
she quote disappeared to escape creditors. And then here's the
opening paragraph, London, February sixth. If the myth of British
(42:21):
phlegm had not been exploded long ago, the history of
the first eighteen days of January would go far toward
doing it. During that time, the British press and people
have devoted themselves with an enthusiasm bordering on the hysterical,
to the affairs of a young woman who ran away
January second to escape from her creditors and managed more
(42:41):
or less to hide herself until January nineteenth.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, they don't have the sand over.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
There, flem as in like Calmn September. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I was thinking, like the old four temperaments.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Like me, Yeah, what a piece.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
They're going to hysterics and I know what that means.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah at that time, like a bunch of ladies. But
you're also running the big headline Detroit Free Press like me.
Look in the mirror. Okay, guys, everybody think about that,
so the papers covered absolutely every development. I do need
to point out that someone got cheeky about that time
(43:18):
and named a racehorse Violet Charles Ruth, which made for
very interesting newspapers dot com perusing. It was just like
the like betting lines of like twelve to one.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Okay, you're getting the headlines of like yeah Charles.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
So while waiting to go to trial, she made sure
to stay in the spotlight. She gave interviews with national
papers Daily Mail got to do it. She wrote a
song about her faked death called Goodbye Girly what and
then had the lyrics printed in the paper Hell.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yes, rights you do.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Zodiac never did that. There was a stage show written
about her, and then she debuted at the London Hippodrome
playing herself.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Are you kidding? She did the Jackie Robinson I'll Play Myself.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
A silent movie deal in which she was going to
play herself.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, did agree to direct.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, he was right there.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well he was in the twenties and Britishilman.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
It wasn't him. Now people refer to her as an
a Dwardian influencer. Really yeah, because that was basically what
she's doing. Well, the police investigation continues. They discovered that
she owed a grand total of twelve thousand pounds to
people from whom she'd borrowed money, and another twelve thousand
in stock market liabilities, and she was eventually declared bankrupt.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I mean naturally obvious physically.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Her social currency was also running out, so she had.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Terrible had any left.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
She had a terrible stage fright, and like doing the
play that's about her, And then she kept getting booed
off stage by audiences night after night.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
That would getting booed playing yourself. She was not meant
for this, meant for the stageless.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I can see how like that would give you stage
right if they're just constantly booing you.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well, I'll give you more than stage You could play
me better.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Than me, dumb dumbs and they're like anyone else.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Stage that's like confirmation stage confirmation. You don't belong here.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
You're bad at you. February nineteen ten, she and her
mom appeared at Derby Police Court on three separate charges
unlawfully incurring a certain debt and liability to Martha Smith,
the widow Smith oh Right Good to the amount of
four hundred and one pounds by means of fraud other
than false pretenses. They got charged with obtaining by false
pretenses in November nineteen oh eight, the same sum of
(45:51):
money from Martha Smith with intended to fraud, and the
last one fraudulently conspiring to obtain from Martha Smith and
Edward Hughes Jones, the Doctor the Bow certain large sums
of money. So Miriam the mom was like, you know what,
I was the one conned. Violet conned me the mom
(46:11):
her mom. Yeah, I think we now know the mom.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Yeah, I think we always knew.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
There was a huge care the one who coached. Yeah,
I thought she was getting that cartoon money. Yeah. Come on.
So there's this huge crowd there. They all want to
get in see the circus in the courtroom. Missus charles Worth.
She comes in dressed in black and wears like a black.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Bonnet, mourning the loss of her own life, yes.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
And of course and the loss of her trust and
her daughter who conned her. According to the papers, she
seemed very distressed. She had to be assisted to her
seat by a police matron. Violet was reported to be
like very pale and appeared to be ill, and she
just cried the whole time, she wore like a really
big black hat, you know, kind of subdued.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Big at okay, yeah, and then a.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
White feather boa get it girl, like just go for it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
You need a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Let's do it, Mama and I guess like they both
were like sick in some way, Like the Mom's like
I've heard trouble stressed. Violet, it's like I have the
Sunday scaries, you know. So February twenty third verdict is
in the jury thirty minutes of deliberations. That's bad, found
them both guilty of conspiracy and false pretense.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah, that's like we just need enough time to go
around the room.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah. So the judge is like, guess what, Mom, I
got your number. You were the mastermind. But also Violet,
you were a willing participant, so you're both terrible people.
They get sense to five years penal servitude. Miriam like
literally swooned. The police matron on hand had to tend
to her like dab her brow and keep it falling.
Oh yeah, Viole. Violets sat there like in a daze,
(47:56):
like completely still as the verdict was read and like
kind of staring off into the distance. And then she
gets up to leave the courtroom and she sees her
sister and like gives like a faint smile and then
is escorted out and kind of creeped everyone up. They
later had their sentences reduced to three years. They tried
to appeal that got denied. They were sent to Aylesbury Prison,
(48:16):
which is one of the few ones that was equipped
to hold women for long sentences. The prison registers described
Violet as quote healthy, neat in person, reserved in manner,
it was good, and that a prison inspector's report said
that she quote bears her sentence with unusual calm, engages
in no misconduct, but converses little with her fellow inmates
(48:40):
and like a lot of people thought she was just
relieved because it was so exhausting. Yeah, there's that too.
So records show that she got out after serving two years,
likely for like a good behavior, and people don't really
know what happened after that. So there are some reports
that she went to live on the Isle of Man.
(49:00):
Most say she went to Scotland to live out her
days because she was so obsessed. But the UK Genealogy
Service find My Past they believe that her mother, Miriam
died in Lancashire in nineteen twenty and then they pulled
a death record for a May Charlesworth in Stoke on
Trent in nineteen fifty seven. So her legacy does live on. Yeah,
(49:22):
the spot where she crashed the car is now called
Violet's Leap. Wow, there you go, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (49:30):
My friend Jay's family's crazy. That's why you know Jay,
I had no idea you had it like that. Now.
I really enjoyed that. Also, it was the you said earlier,
the Edwardian influencer, and I kind of like poop poo
died at first. I thought about it while you were
telling the story, and I think your spot on in
terms of it, she really was like an early influencer.
But like she would have been a huge star. She
(49:51):
would have been able to have a TV show or
some kind of streaming series or like a podcast that
everybody talks about. You don't call her violin.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
You know, all the right outfits.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Yeah, you said she was stylist, she said, you know,
and she's well trained by her mother. So we see
that Kardashian like, oh, like, my mother is a celebrity
and she trained me to do this lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
You know what I mean, she's an a dwarding Kardashian.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, right, I think she would have been. She's she's okay,
the same way that Woody Allen is lucky that he
was born when he was born, she's unlucky that she
was born and she was born. She just had like
another century.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Oh yeah, huge.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
She might not have ever even had to do any
of this getting married. All this behavior would have been rewarded,
and that we would all talk about her marrying one
of the most richest people in the world.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Totally good points.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
You'res Elizabeth. You see how he did. That's all smooth
like it It was really clever. You didn't see it coming.
Speaker 4 (50:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I can tell I again go back to my thing
about it's the same like blueprint every time. And so again,
if someone's like I'm going to come into an inheritance
or like my stocks will realize at a certain time,
I don't believe them. If it's other people's money too.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Definitely that and also things that don't exist don't exist. Yeah,
so someone said tells you it's about to happen, it
doesn't exist exactly what it does exist, Then you can
do something about it.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Until that point.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
I'm a simple man, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I need a talkback. I'm simple, I need a talkback.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Oh God, I love.
Speaker 6 (51:28):
Hey's Aaron and Elizabeth listening to the Minor League episode.
I couldn't help but remember the minor league team in
my hometown, New Orleans. For a long time, they were
the Zephyrs, and they had two giant nutrient as their mascots.
But now they're the baby Cakes and they have the
most scary haunt you in your nightmares mascot. It's a
(51:52):
kincake baby that looks like it drove around with chewy
meth raccoon.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
The Baby Cakes like T shirt. I love that. Oh
that's so good. Thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
I do need to mention too that we have a
special award, the a Ridiculous Crime Heroes Award, that we
don't really ever give out, but something that you know,
we talk about the emails, right, We do appreciate that
and we greatly We don't no one answers them, but
we do read them totally. And so Beth from Western
(52:32):
Massachusetts is a ridiculous crime hero. Yes, because Beth started
listening to the show a couple of weeks ago and
powered through Binge listens yes, all the way through, Like
I'm talking like seventy eight episodes every day. I don't
know how I didn't annoy her.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I can't believe voice.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
But she she was loving it, and she gave us updates.
We got like nine emails from Beth the like daily updates,
and it was we we been binge the emails. You know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
We figured if she's going to binge, just we should
binge her. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So, Beth, we do read the emails.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
You read all your email.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
No one ever answers. We read all the emails that
come in get read. They just don't get and they.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
Don't always get read aloud. But we read allowed to
each other.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Oh my gosh, Beth, it was so much fun.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
We started looking forward to them. We're like, oh, we
got a new one, Beth.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Best crime hero.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Let's see. That's it for today. You can find us
online at Ridiculous crime dot com. Did you know we
just won the American Chemical Society's Garvin Olin Metal for
the website.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
I'm so proud.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
It's for achievement in Women in Chemistry.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
I can't wait to tell my mother.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
God, she be so excited. She's she loves coding, shes
chemistry too. Everything is always like metals, you should.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
Learn to chemistry. I'm like, you mean learn to coade.
She's like, no, learn to chemistry.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
American Chemical Societies, Garvin Olin Metal. I love that's going
on my resume. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue
Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime, pod
Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Please and then
leave us at talkback. I think that's my most important part.
I want to hit that up the hardest. Leave it Talkback,
(54:16):
download the free iHeart app, do It, do It, do
It reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
and Sarah Burnett, produced and edited by Prince of Wales
and Dolphins Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutgers.
Speaker 4 (54:34):
Judith.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Research is by Mysterious Heiress Marissa Brown. The theme song
is by duped Love Struck, Welshman Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Bolensworth.
And Noel Brownsworth WHI Say It one more Time Ridiquious Crime.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zi.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
What Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
How you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm doing pretty well about you? How are you doing?
You look good?
Speaker 4 (00:11):
Hanging in there, hanging in there?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Listen. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Oh girl, I'm glad you asked because I asked you. Now,
this is ridiculous, right, yes, it is?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
American elections like this one is? It's ridiculous. It's not
like painful tragic. Is the Florida Senate District fifteen special election?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So Florida Senate like the local state Senate, sure right,
They have a District six fifteen special election on Tuesday,
June twenty fourth, right, right now. The people running are
replacing a longtime state senator after she passed. Okay. The
person who initially announced was named Randolph Bracy.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And then his leading opponent then announced and it was
his sister, Lavon Bracy. His sister decided to go against him,
and then his mother was there. People are like, well,
this is got to be breaking up with the family.
She's like, no, I'm going to run my daughter's campaign.
So his mother's running his sister's campaign to beat him.
(01:09):
It's awesome, and it's like he was like, you know,
since he announced first. When his sister announced, he was like,
it was disappointing a little hurtful. And people were like,
well are you why are you doing? And they asked
her lavon the sister. She says, I'm not, you know,
running against any of them. I'm running for the people
of Senate District fifteen.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So and the mom was like, you know, you can
see why the mom supports her, And I think, uh,
I don't know who wins, but I think she's got
the advantage because if you if the people here in
the local like mom took come.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
On, no, your mom's size was you They're like the
family hears he's running, it's like we have to do
it camp, bringing a team up to absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
She was like, I don't know if they had like
a super pack for this Florida State Senate that's all
the campaign adds would be about.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
That's incredible, and you know what it is ridiculous, ridiculous exactly.
You know what else is ridiculous? Consu So, I don't know,
(02:22):
this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one h ridiculous. I know you've done I've done
her that so many times. We've really delved into the
mind of the con artist before. Yes, and there's like
(02:44):
a certain psychology that allows people to manipulate others. What
I find really interesting, because I'm the one talking right now,
is that there are certain blueprints, like classic structures for
the cons and they get used over and over and
over again.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Oh okay, yes, like there's con tropes, yes exactly, and
so we talk about them in rather quick succession and
like the grand scheme of things here, but it never
ceases to amaze me the people who fall for the
oldest scams in the book.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh yeah, you know, and I think that's where like
the magnetic personality comes in, right, tru con artists.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, and they get you too distracted from your reasonable mind.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yes, yes, because like the con artist overrides all logic
and self preservation in the mark in order for like
the scheme to really kick it in that momentary gain,
and people who are otherwise smart and savvy, they'll fall
victims totally.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
The smartest possible can fall victims.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And we've said it before that, like a lot of
wealthy and or powerful victims, they never come forward because
they're embarrassed. So that makes me wonder how many con
stories are out there that will never know?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
How many drops are in the ocean, Elizabeth, this is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
A really good question. Thank you Elizabeth for asking that.
The ones you know, they say, they stay secret, they
skirt the law. They've got to be going on right
now if you're out.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
There, I'm running three four right now the same and.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
The situation that you're in mirrors the con stories we tell.
Get help Yea.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
By the way, I'm not actually a Turkish shrimp merchant.
You're not, so if you hear anyone asking about that,
just to go.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Fronting your operation for so long. The problem is when
a Turkish shrimp merchant comes to you, like it feels
like you're in it, and it feels unique to you,
and like you tell yourself all these lies in order
to have the good story and feel good about this
Turkish shrimp merchant.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That's exactly because like.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Dashing comes in and it's like yeah, and so like
you know, you see this on various advice subreddits, like
when people are so deep into a story they don't
get it. Yeah, Like someone posts about their partner or
their spouse or like boyfriend girlfriend and they're like, oh,
we have this great relationship except for just this one
thing the art room, and no, this is no They'll
(04:54):
they'll say, away, this great relationship, there's just one thing,
and then they'll detail what sounds like an actual nightmare
of being stuck with his total loser. So like a
lot of times a poster finally sees the truth after
having written and oh, I saw it in writing or
I said it out loud, Others like have to have
the red flags pointed to it to him.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So like someone's like.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
My husband's really great except for the fact that he
like pouts and refuses to eat whenever I make something
he's not in the mood for for dinner, and like, yeah,
he controls the finances so I can't buy other food.
Oh yeah, he also throws the food in the trash
and kicks the doors, and he's always like saying really
rude things to me and calls me stupid idiot. But
we have a great relationships other than that. Yeah, So
like those are the.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Three times a day when I feed.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Him, Those are the kind of everyday people who fall
for scams, whether it be financial or romantic.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
That's the stories you tell yourself exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I'm not victim blaming here, no, No, it's always easy
to judge from the sidelines because you don't know how
you'll react.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
We're all susceptible to this dynamic completely.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So anyway, I need to shift gears for a second, Sarah,
let's talk about Edwardy in Britain.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That's quite the downs, Yeah, it is. I like to
keep you on your toes totally.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay. So this was the period of time from the
death of Queen Victoria nineteen o one to like beginning
of World War one.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, the beginning of the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, very short era, but it had these lasting effects
and like people are still captivated, especially with the Coats. Well,
it was all about conspicuous consumption and like crazy class stratification.
So it's like that this glittering surface, but there's a
rigid hierarchy outward. Respectability was a big thing, and so
(06:35):
the newspapers at the time were filled with stories of
like debutantes, extravagant weddings, heiresses coming into vast.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes, look at their special children.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Them and then all the middle class like shopkeepers, bankers,
they wanted in on it, not that they could ever
achieve it. I'm buying a suit, yeah, but they wanted
to be in the orbit of total so they would
like fall over themselves to cater to those whims, right,
because they wanted long term paye you know, like they'll
break for security. Yeah. So meanwhile, there are women of
means who did this very like careful dance of social maneuvering.
(07:09):
And so they had the right clothes, their accent was correct,
they had the family pedigree, and everything was networking so
that the rich stuck together and they'd cut each other
a lot of slack. And so then into this world
a gal named Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Floated, Wait, what was her name?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
You know that one of my best friends in life
is named charles Worth. They grew up across the street
from charles.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Worth, the Charlesworth family.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, and we used to talk about how rare that
name is, like he has to be related to he has.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
To be so we're going to have to do a
deep dog.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Oh, this one's for you, Jese to Jay.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So she exploited the swells with this astonishing audacity.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, so Jay, I'll be proud love for him, So Violet.
She was born May Charlesworth in eighteen eighty four in
Stratford Shure, England. She had three older siblings, her mom Miriam,
her dad David. He was an insurance agent and a
modest like lower.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Local class merchant.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Insurance. I don't know, yeah, so just like every day
kind of stuff. But then I've also, here's the problem
with this whole thing. For every fact, they're like alternate
facts that get finding the truth in. This is difficult
on stupid stuff like what's her dad's name? What did
he do?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
David?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, it's like he was Richard and he was a tailor. No,
he was David, the insurance.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Guy, Taylor insurance guy.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
He was like yeah. So violence early years totally average
for just a working class kid. By in her teenage years,
she was known locally for her beauty, like she has
really lovely dark eyes, she had an appealing figure, and
she had a gift for conversation. She had it all
and so she and her mother they were very, very close.
(08:59):
She's the baby and sometimes in like later press reports,
they called it unwholesomely dependent.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Oh yeah, so there was that kind of a great
gardens thing.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, missus Charlesworth. She reinforced Violet's belief that she
was destined for high society if you are worth more
than this. Yeah. So in nineteen oh seven, Violet, her mom,
her dad, her eighteen year old sister Eileen, and then
a chauffeur named Watts who sometimes now people think that
(09:31):
might have been Violet's husband. Okay, yeah, rolled into a
town called Real on the north coast of Wales. It
was like a pretty nice seaside resort town back then.
After the chauffeur, I couldn't find anything about this supposedly
being the husband, aside from I found this book about
like the history of Real, Okay, so there's just like
(09:54):
a side note about yeah. And then Violet Charlesworth came
rolling through here and it's just but yeah, I was like,
oh that's interesting anyway. So they're living at this manor
house bod erw Yeah, and so like you, I think
you can actually stay there now. So but she like
they captivated and she quickly becomes like this local fashion
(10:17):
icon in town, and she toodled around in these super
fancy cars, like the nicest ones in the day. She
wore this really eye catching red motor cloak. Motorcloak, why
are we not all wearing motor cloaks.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I do like all the early cars being convertibles because
they're coming out of coaches and wagons and stuff, and
so they're like, oh, yeah, of course we'll save money
by not putting a top on. It used to that
you to need a motor She.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Always had her dogs in the car with her fun
I bet she had a cool scarf game. She must have.
She must have. So Miriam and Violet, the mom and
the daughter, they concocted this backstory that she would then
use to infiltrate the upper class. So violence mom people
to believe that Violet was the god daughter of General
(11:04):
Gordon of Khartum. Oh, that sounds believable, and everyone knew
who he was. He'd been killed in action in eighteen
eighty five while defending Khartum from rebel Muslims in Sudan Ah,
So he served in Pembrokeshire early in his career, so
it kind of made sense that he had like the
real in the area. So she has this famous godfather
(11:24):
and what's better, she had a one hundred thousand pounds
inheritance from him coming to her on her twenty fifth birthday.
That's like fourteen million dollars today. We've seen this before,
like people will spot the con artist cash because they
truly believe the con artist is about to come into
some serious money, and the con has convinced the mark. Look,
(11:45):
I'm totally good for it. I'll pay you back double,
maybe trouble sometimes because like I'm so honorable, I'm such
a good.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I really appreciate you looking out for me now when
I don't have it special.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
To me because I don't know about you. But I
don't lend my like I'll give someone money and be
pleasantly surprised when they pay it back, but I always
assume I'm never going to see it again.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Do you tell them though, No? No, I mean, like, okay,
so you lend them and you go through the active lending, sure,
and you just think of it as like like I
have to.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Be okay with partying with that amount permanently.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
So you do kind of believe it'll come back, but
you just don't expect it.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Most of the time, I don't expect it okay, like otherwise,
no dice, Like if I can't afford to just let
it go, then like forget it.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I just put the sharks on them. If they don't
pay me back, the sharks are coming.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I'm gonna be honest with you. Yeah, people don't really
ask me for money. Really, I don't have any.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, you don't hang out with it, but I hang
out with people who are poor. And they were like, hey, man,
as we take turns barring for each other.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The people of real though, they were fascinated by Violet.
Everyone wanted to befriend this beautiful young heiress. So she
starts up the con can you spot me? She has
all these nice things, diamonds, cars for this manor house.
So like you, you're good for it, and what a
person to have owing you a favor, Harris. So she
(13:06):
collected money from like a number of suitors and dupes,
and then she used like the gifts or the loans
to speculate thousands of pounds on the stock exchange, and
then she used that to purchase more of the trappings
of her luxurious lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Oh, I thought she was trying to make up the
fourteen mills.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, she's base but then she props up her con
she looks the more she.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Can take and you need a new fer.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It was unusual at that time for a woman to
invest in the stock market completely, and one of the
money one of the money guys she worked with at
the time, said that she had a quote masculine grasp
of business compliment. One one of her victims was a
former neighbor from before she moved to Wales. This widow
(13:50):
named missus Smith. She loaned Violet four hundred pounds, which
was pretty much all the money she had in the world,
saved up over a life and Violet was like, look,
the money's gonna come back plus some. I just you know,
got to turn twenty five.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, I just hope nothing happens to me in my
twenty fourth year.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Another victim was doctor Edward Hughes Jones, and.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
She come to Jones Jones.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
She cozied up to him. They even became engaged to
be married. Oh yeah, he asked her, asked her for
her hand before he knew about the twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
He really did like her.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, he really did. He liked her, Yeah, smitten. They
were like going together. He liked her so much. That
he loaned her five thousand pounds and she promised to
pay it back as soon as she turned twenty five
and then like today, that'd be like half a million dollars.
Oh snap, make sweetheart, can you loan me that's.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
More than that's an investment?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, but then he watches her just spend the money
and other funds like water. The average wage at the
time was like one pound a week. Oh wow, Violet
was spending four thousand pounds a year. Oh yeah, she's
just reckless. So he called off the wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I'm going to say, people are going to find that offensive.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Sets there's absolutely no way like saddling with.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
This totally, you're going to waste all my money.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You're beautiful, but you're toxic and so but he's like, ps,
you still got to pay me back, like my cash,
and she comes no surprise that she didn't pay him back,
had no intention to do so. She also extorted ten
thousand pounds from a London stockbroker and you know, so
ten thousand pounds, Wow, it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Now is using new suitors to get rid of old suitors,
like tell him to go away.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
She's like flitting around she's not just in will she
goes to London Liverpool. Yeah, so they don't know about each.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Other, but if they do confront her, then she can
have somebody perhaps, Oh, dare you go step away?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
The lady is mine. So over the next three years,
like she expands dramatically, and she had this like really
sophisticated system where she had letters from fake lawyer that
said that her fortune would be released, and she had
references from people that she'd already deceived and used those
to dupe the next group Ponzi style. She like would
(16:11):
go to these local dances and charity teas and like
reinforce this aura of status, like I have to go
do all this charity work, always around, always at the
right places. One of the things she'd done was rent
a country house near Inverness. It's beautiful up there. The
property is like it was pure Highlands Monarch of the
Glen stuff like Tartan everything. Wow, she's absolutely gaga over Scotland,
(16:37):
but like chirsty version of Scotland. She bought bagpipes.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, she's like.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
She wore traditional Highland dress and I was like, she
had a player piano in the home.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
What's that game? You run with the log and you
try to flip it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Caber tossing giant hot dog. She had this player piano
only played Scottish music on an endless loop and wow,
Scotland stuff in your head twenty four sevens. So about
those docs.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And they did that in Abu Grabe. I mean that's
kind of.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Keep in mind that, like at this time, identity documents
totally rare, and there are no credit scores.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Oh yeah, it's hard to confirm. You have to have
somebody to go. I know who they are, right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
So a letter that had like respectable letterhead, real or.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Forged, Yeah, exactly, good for credit line.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So by late nineteen oh eight, her scheme is beginning
to unravel, Like merchants who had been promised repayment after
her birthday realized that like months had gone by and
they're like, wait, when is this Galsberd.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, anybody knows. They're like a big calendar in town.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So people are finding out it's like nineteen oh nine,
January nineteen oh nine, she's gonna turn twenty five, and
so some of them took out writs for unpaid debts,
and like gossip starts to swirl in this upper middle
class circles in Edinburgh, uh, London, Liverpool. She's resourceful, she
just moves on. But then like the volume of unpaid
(18:07):
obligations reached a scale that was just like absolutely impossible
to avoid. Okay, and so she's up against all.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
This spiders going to the home office, to the home office,
but whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, like the and they're all everyone's talking and pretty
soon like someone's gonna file exactly, So they have all
this pressure. Violet and her mom are like, Okay, we
need to come up with a plan. They're desperate, but
this this is so crazy. It just let's take a break. Oh,
you got to sit through some ads first. Okay, there's
(18:39):
some well, there are plenty more than when we come back,
we're going to ask and answer the question. Will Violet
ever turn twenty five?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Okay, we're in the final days of December nineteen oh eight,
oh and.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Everyone's counting them down. Charles Christmas for everybody, Oh buddy Christmas.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
She's cornered. She's got this elaborate web of credit that's collapsing.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Around, and is she preparing as cover like a big
party for herself because she should be excited. No, she's
just she should be like doing a debutante ball. She
should be planning like the biggest fever.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
But at this point she's like trying to keep her
head down.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, she's like buying tickets America.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Everyone had been charmed by her elegance, you know, merchants
and bankers. They're like, no, pay.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Me, yeah exactly, I want to be third in line.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And they're starting to get the real rumblings about court action,
bankruptcy petitions. They're like following her from city to city.
She's bound. Oh so she's creeping up on nineteen oh nine,
the years she's going to turn twenty five. In desperation, Violet,
her mother, her sister Eileen, and their chauffeur Watts a
ka potentially her actual husband or somebody. They all head
(20:08):
up to penn mine war In Uh this like village
on the Welsh coast. It's known for its rugged cliffs
bracing sea air. They checked into the penn mine Wir
Hotel on the pretext of like we just want to
quiet New Year's holiday.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Everybody, Yeah, get away, pill forget about.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I like to use old fashioned Edwardian terms, the old terms,
the old Chilaxations. It's I'm going to open a shop Chilaxations,
and it's just always closed, like.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
That popcorn kettle corn shop and the kettle corn shop.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
There's a kettle corn shop in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Yeah, it's never opened.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
The holidays open, Yeah, two hours exact day.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Why I have a storefront for four days?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Not a lot of store for kettle corn.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I don't know another front. I'm suspicious, Yeah, I know
I have.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm suspicious about my.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
What mob Son fails onn Is this you used to
have a kettle corn business?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yes, exactly. Let's go break in, yeah, and then make
an episode about her. Okay. So January second, nineteen oh nine,
Violet got herself all dressed up for like a seaside walk. Okay,
she's looking good. She had this gray walking suit on,
like a dark hat. Pins had a pearl brooch, a broach.
She's in a great moody.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Your family can dress.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
She was telling people it's my birthday next week. And
so she Watts and Eileen, the sister, they were like,
let's go for a drive. Why not? Sounds fun?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
So they wanted to go to Colwan Bay, but the
day was absolutely gorgeous, So they just kept going all
the way to bangor okay, sure, I don't know what
that means.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Just like like the old Bang, they did not go
to me old Banger.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Old Banger and mash. So all the way back, Violet
was like begging, wants please let me drive, and he's like, well,
you know what, you're almost the birthday girl. You go
right ahead, and he's like, I'll sit next to you,
Eileen backseat. So they like toodled around all day and
then they decided to head back and like about nine
o'clock that night, tragedy strag Oh yes seven.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yes, close, Oh, tragedy.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
I want you to pickure it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It's January second, nineteen oh nine, a cold, dark night.
You are a sixteen year old boy. You're out for
a stroll in the countryside with your dog, a Corgi
named Kevin. Of course it's the Welsh spelling ce f
i n what. You've worked hard all on your family's farm,
and after dinner and arrest, you and Kevin want to
(23:04):
take in the night air before you settle down for
the night. You're sensitive type, but you're strong confident. You're
wise beyond your years, and your dog is super smart,
and when no one's around he.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Talks to you.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
As you crust a small rise, you see something in
the distance. It's a woman in fancy clothes. She's obviously
in distress. She runs up to you and breathlessly tells
you there's been an accident. A car almost went off
the cliff. She's on her way to the end to
go get help. You tell her to head over there
and ask for your dad. He's having a pint with
his mates. Tell him to come quick, you say. You
(23:39):
and Kevin run toward where she said the accident happens.
Your feet are swift on the ground. Kevin houffs along
next to you, his little corky legs pumping away. He
calls up to you in excitement. How bad do you
think it is? You tell him it must be very bad.
It sounds like the car left the road at the
point everyone around calls the devil's thumb. It's where a
(24:00):
jagged piece of rocks spikes up between the roadway and
the cliff below the roiling Irish sea. Very bad, indeed,
Kevin says. You both sprint on. You reach the roadway
and spot the car. The windshield has been smashed out
and lies cracked on the ground. It looked as if
the driver lost control of the car and swerved toward
a narrow opening in the boundary wall and knock part
(24:22):
of the wall down. Jumped through the gaps and came
to a rest about eighteen inches from the edge of
the cliff. On the ground by the edge of the
road is a man in a chauffeur's outfit. You run
to him. He's dazed but not bleeding. You ask what happened,
and he tells you he wasn't driving. The lady was
the one I saw? You ask him, no, He says
it was Violet. He tells you she was thrown from
(24:44):
the car. The waves crash on the rocks below, but
you see a flat outcropping. Wait here, you tell the man.
Then you head for the cliff and begin to scramble
down the slope. What are you doing, whispers Kevin. I
need to see if I can save the lady. You answer,
what's that? The chauffeur asks you, Uh, nothing, you say,
Then you start down the precipice. The water there's only
(25:06):
a foot or so deep, and there's a steep drop off.
After that, you wade into the shallows and you look
around no body. You do find two things. There's one
of those tartan Scottish caps, a tam O'Shanter, and then
there's a journal. You flip through the pages, reading by
the dim light of a full moon on the inside
of the covert, says Violet Charlesworth. The pages are in
(25:28):
a neat script, notes about road trips made to places
like Sheffield and Edinburgh. You hear someone call your name.
It's your dad. He's returned with the other lady. The
local police superintendent and a doctor. Get up here, son,
your father shouts. You scramble back up the rocks. Anything
the policeman ask you, You hand him the hat and
the notebook. No sign of the lady, you tell him.
(25:50):
He nods grimly. Kevin sits to the side of the scene,
taking it all in. You sit on a low, smooth
rock next to him. This whole thing is fishy, he
tells you. Oh, that's for sure, you respond. That driver,
he tells you he was silent until everyone got here,
then he started that moaning again. I don't trust any
of them, you tell him. Then the two of you
(26:12):
sit silently and ponder the scene, looking out at the
moonlight on the rough sea beyond, watching the good people
of your town do the best to find the body
of a woman taken all too soon. Kevin, Kevin the corky.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
What a tragedy on the eve of her birthday, where
she's about to get great wealth. She's the only victim
of a car, a single car accident, just the classic
fell off the.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Clue, don't casket, it's why, God, God, where is your
dark sense of humor taking?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Please? Kevin, tell me some answers here? So is there
The initial story was that the car almost went over
the cliff. Yeah, Violet gets thrown through the windshield into
the water. Watts was also thrown thrown through the window. Yeah,
that's what they're saying, is that she just burst through.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
The top splash, just like that was That's.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
What it sounded like. And then Watts he went, he
fell through the windshield the same time, and then he went,
oh yeah, he he almost went into the water, but
he managed to land on the edge of.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
The heped the earth. Yeah, she didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Willpower, and she's just light as a feather and breezy
and just carried on the wind. Aileen safe in the
back seat. Yeah, Violet was presumed dead. Now they just
had to find her body. So generally when there's this
type of accident, the body washes up not too long after,
as I've learned, a couple of days, a couple of
days at most hers didn't show up.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I thought sharks and like you know, crabs would handle more.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
The press was on it. It wasn't even a week
after the accident and they were crying feul the Canarvin
and Denby Harold. They brought the heat on January for real.
Oh yeah, here's the headline. Mystery of the North Wales
Coast ladies. Remarkable disappearance, wild rumors, strange stories, fresh clues.
(28:13):
So good. The very long article begins quote it is
difficult to know what to believe and what to write
about the pennmind mar Motoring mystery. The police offer no
explanation of the disappearance of the young lady, and English
journalists and photographers have visited the spot and played the
part of amateur detectives to very little purpose. In fact,
(28:36):
the more one penetrates into the affair, the more problematic
the solution becomes. But let the story be related. Oh
so I love they're bagging on journalists coming in from
England and playing amateur sleuth. But then they go on
and dedicate an incredible number of column inches to playing
amateur sleuth and quoting the English papers in their amateur sloothing.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, they're like, look, I'm going to amateur sloth. Don't
get in the way.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Are all amateur sluic? That's okay, Yeah, it's okay, Let
go into it. Okay. So the paper details what's known
about the accident and how the family was informed, and
they were all upset and they left for a home
in Reel, but yet they didn't request a search of
the water. They mentioned that a reporter from the Liverpool
Post interviewed the doctor who said that Eileen and Watts
(29:21):
were super upset but not really injured. Okay, And they
try and go interview Violet's parents at the manor house
in Reel, but they refused to speak with anyone. Most
of the people they talked to in the reporter him
or herself say the car didn't really look like it
was in that bad of an accident. In fact, a
family friend came and drove it home for them.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
But it was they hit the front of the car
enough to be thrown through the windshield.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But there's no damage.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Works, yeah, and no commensary damage, and the radiator suddenly works.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
One just started up driving, just missing a windshield or
a windscreen. That's gonna say. So there's a lot of
speculation in the article about the body. Where is it?
How in the world does it not turned out you.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Got to be at least be willing to flip a cart.
You're gonna pull this star.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And you were talking about how everything's a convertible, right,
So they talk about how the cap was found, but
it didn't add up because a woman out for a
drive would securely pin such a hat to her head.
It wouldn't fall off like that. Like this is early
CSI going deep.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And then here's the kicker. There's a section in the
middle of the article with the subheading financial affairs. This
is when we start to see it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
It's like a Wikipedia page.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Oh I know.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Quote. Thursday's post adds that Miss Violet Charlesworth was to
have been the defendant at the Real County Court on
the fifteenth of this month, and an action for the
recovery of a sum of five hundred pounds in which
she was indebted, and that a leading tradesman in the
South of England obtained judgment in the High Court against
the missing young lady for the sum of one hundred
and ninety four pounds. Inquiries by a correspondent of The
(30:53):
Star show that during the last twelve months Miss Violet
Charlesworth incurred liabilities running into several thousands of pounds, and
that quite recently a London tradesman obtained a judgment against
her in the County Court for a considerable sum. It
goes on, they're talking about the trail, yeah, and so
they also say that one of the tradesmen got telegram
(31:14):
seven forty five pm Miss Violet Gordon Charlesworth killed in
motor accident near Conway on Saturday night. That's it. So
they're like, you know, sorry, and they they're constantly just
like summarizing what all these other papers say. So it's like,
well that's you know, it's not us, it's doing this
crazy slipping. It's them.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So they're all like pointing at the Daily Mail. Yeah,
they're the ones.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
So they talk about how like she leased a house,
this big hall and she paid and she paid all
these people to come and decorate it and they she
never paid any of them. So basically she's in huge
financial trouble. She also apparently had a big life insurance policy.
Really huh, And but there was checked Oh yeah, there
(31:57):
were sightings of her all across England into Scotland, Ireland.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
With the disappearance back of the christ it was.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Similar, but like no one was buying the story. Everything
was hanky. Kevin the Corgy totally correct. Kevin new in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool.
Her creditors are like stunned by this because like some
were thinking, well, you know, maybe the estate will pay
the debts, you know, maybe it'll come through. But like
the smart people they're like, this is all a big fraud.
(32:29):
There were no clear witnesses accident Philadelphia. Yeah, the local
constables like they saw the where like the hat and
the journal were found, and they're like, that's awfully convenient,
like just to toss off the edge. It looked like
it was placed there, like not really scattered about. Scotland
Yards sent detectives to Wales and then there was a
(32:50):
break in the case from a beautiful windswept town on
the west coast of Scotland. Let's take a break, fill
up on some ads, and when we return will head
to the highlands. All right, Saren Elizabeth Zaren, I'm over here. Hey,
(33:26):
those ads were good. Huh oh my god, bottomless, bottomless
ads so good.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
All you can eat.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
All you can take. January ninth, nineteen o nine, a
telegraph arrived in Real Wales from a village near Oban
on the Scottish West Coast.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Okay, I don't know where any of that is.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But seems like well to me. It seems like it'll
get there. But the Scots they're not going to be
the ones to have a wool pulled over their eyes.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Thank you very That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So here's the Northern Daily Telegram at January eighteenth, nineteen
oh nine, quote Miss Violet Charlesworth, the principal figure in
the Welsh motorcar mystery, is reported to have been discovered
in Oben, the tracing of her whereabouts being due to
the clever work of a Scottish policeman with true Sherlock
Holmes instincts. He is stationed at Tomberbory, a remote fishing
(34:20):
village with fifteen hundred inhabitants on the northeast coast of
the Isle of Mull, which forms part of the County
of Argyllshire and is only accessible by steamer A four
hours run up the Sound of Mull from open and
the story of his essay in real detective work is
told in the following letter received by Superintendent Ivor Davies
(34:41):
of the flintsher police. I would watch the heck app
on the Isle of Mull like love. Please BritBox Acorn,
get on this. I need this.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
So.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The letter goes on to detail that the cops saw
this lady show up the small village and rent a
room at one of the hotels there. He'd read about
the crash in Whales. He was suspicious. I think this
is Violet, he told the guy who ran the hotel
keep an eye on her correspondence. The letter continues, quote
she engaged rooms at a farmhouse near this town and
was to have taken possession of this the same week.
(35:18):
While engaging these rooms, she asked the farmer's wife if
she would be allowed to keep a Saint Bernard dog.
She left here yesterday for Oben without paying her bill,
saying she'd be back on Saturday. The hotel keeper kept
some of her luggage. When she arrived at this hotel,
she signed her name in the visitors book as Margaret MacLeod.
After she left yesterday, the page was found to have
(35:39):
been cut out of the visitor's book. From the description
of this lady and the finding of the telegram in
her bedroom, I am fully convinced this is the missing
Lady Motorist. Interesting now, the telegram in her bedroom was
addressed to Violet Charlesworth. Exactly Lady Motorists. I'm the lady host,
(36:00):
the lady host who needs to keep her opinions to herself.
I'll never let that review. So anyway, the lady host,
Lady Motorist and dear Violet telegram. Okay, So Violet, she
gets picked up at the Palace Hotel in Oben. So
she's like, I want to rent a farmhouse on this island.
It's beautiful. Can I have a Saint Bernard? But then
(36:23):
she's like, I'll be right back, and then she just
goes and picks up. I don't know, but I need
to talk about how much I love open Please. I've
been curious about beautiful. They make fabulous whiskey there. Oh
it's the seafood Capital of Scotland, Zeron, is it really?
It really is? In putting together my outline for this story,
on my little bullet points, I went on a big,
open side quest and it just made me want to
(36:46):
go back. I love I love it. If Scotland had
more sunny days, I'd move back in a heartbeat. I
bet it's really the only reason I left. I mean,
I'm a California girl. I need sunshine. I go into
seasonal effective destort her very easily. I wonder if they'll
take me as an asylum seeker.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
You know they have those sun visors. You can just
like hook up on the SAT.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I could, I totally could, But I need like real
global warming.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah, exactly, it's stuff's moving, It's I don't make the
sunlight's changing its latitude, but.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Whatever it might, who's to say, Zaren, I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I'm not either.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I just leave it to the experts.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
So I just play one in my bedroom.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Your bedroom, sciences, yikes, Why did I put this in that?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
And I drink it at the voltage no one can
see me. I gotta make a note of my journey
invisibility teachers.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Okay, So open Violet, She's going by miss Margaret McLeod
and open. The cops come to her, she sticks to
her story. They're like, we found this telegram addressed to
Violet in your room. She's like, I don't know what
that's about. Yeah, who's where am I? Where's my saint?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I'm Maggie McLeod, her sister and Watts.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
They go to Glasgow, I mean, because like, hello, why
wouldn't you And then they go up to Oben to
verify that it's her. So Eileen sits with her, talks
to her and goes to the authorities and is like
that's not right. Gasps go up across the lands and
that's awesome. Yeah, and like.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
No one thinks to question the one that's coming in
to confirm her, and she goes.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
She's like, well, let me talk to her again. They
go and have lunch. She goes, actually, like my sister.
They kept this up for a few days. Like she
and her sister, who she claimed not to know, went
back to Glasgow. Then they go to Edinburgh together.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I really wanted to test this.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Each stop she's harassed by journalists looking for confession, Like
they get the rooms across the hall right, oh yeah,
and they pointed out that Miss McLeod, who claimed to
be Scottish, had a Northern English accent, and like she's
like whatever, she just kept up through She's like, that's
not me. I don't know what you're talking about. She
would constantly know it's not me. Then, on January twenty third,
(38:56):
the Liverpool Weekly Weekly Mercury ran this heading confession, Oh yeah, quote,
it is no use my denying it any longer. I
am Miss Violet Charlesworth of in these words uttered to
a special representative of the Daily Chronicle in Edinburgh, Miss
(39:19):
Margaret MacLeod, Oben and Tomer Bory finally threw up the
game of bluff. She's been playing with such superb assurance
during the past few days. I suppose I may take it,
Miss Violet. I said that the incident at Pembermer Point
was invented in order that you might escape the liabilities
which were pressing upon you. Invented, she exclaimed, raising her
(39:44):
eyebrows in astonishment. Nothing of the sort. Do you say
that you were in the car when it started on
the return journey from Bangor? Was my next question? Of course,
I was what my sister and Watts told you was
perfectly true, it was a genuine accident, then how came
you to disappear wild? When the accident happened, Watts pulled
(40:07):
me from the seat, I was at the wheel and
then he slipped down the cliff. My sister Eileen, as
she has told you, open the door and was thrown
to the ground. And what happened to you, miss Violet?
I asked, Ah, you would like to know? I dare say,
she replied with a playful nod of the head. All
I can tell you is that I got away from
the scene of the accident without anyone knowing.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
That's all you can tell.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, So she goes on. She tells the reporter that
she realized the crash was like a perfect cover to
make a run for it.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Okay, but she didn't go with the whole I hit
my head and have any you know.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
She's like, she's like everything's collapsing around you. And she
said she loved reading the coverage that she generated, just
so entertained by it. So her story didn't just take
over the UK press?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Would you be entertained by that? I know you would
never like fake your death and run away. But if
you what's say you did? Do you think you would
read the press. Would you be the ted.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I think I might know
it might how about you?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
No, definitely not. I wouldn't. I think we get in
my head. I would. I'd maybe have somebody like read
it for me and tell me if they have anything
key in there that's a giveaway, like, oh no, they've
got a very important bit of evidence. I'd have somebody
monitoring it, but it wouldn't be mean, like an actor
not reading my reviews. This again, Yeah, yeah, I got
to keep I need my confidence. How about the run?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
The first day would bother me, and then you get
used to it totally.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I'm trying to manage my head too much.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
What's a good thing to do. I don't. There's no management.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
We are without Rudder up top. So she's super entertained
by the coverage. It's all over the globe because one
paper said it was big news anywhere that people spoke English.
Oh yeah, sure, but the perspective was a little different.
So here's the Detroit Free Press in the US of
A telling it as of February seventh.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Let's hear a Detroit.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Headline England upset over one girl, whole country and hysterics,
says to Violet Charlesworth, the missing motorist. Newspaper hunt through
Great Britain for her discovered in Scotland seventeen days after
she quote disappeared to escape creditors. And then here's the
opening paragraph, London, February sixth. If the myth of British
(42:21):
phlegm had not been exploded long ago, the history of
the first eighteen days of January would go far toward
doing it. During that time, the British press and people
have devoted themselves with an enthusiasm bordering on the hysterical,
to the affairs of a young woman who ran away
January second to escape from her creditors and managed more
(42:41):
or less to hide herself until January nineteenth.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, they don't have the sand over.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
There, flem as in like Calmn September. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I was thinking, like the old four temperaments.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Like me, Yeah, what a piece.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
They're going to hysterics and I know what that means.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah at that time, like a bunch of ladies. But
you're also running the big headline Detroit Free Press like me.
Look in the mirror. Okay, guys, everybody think about that,
so the papers covered absolutely every development. I do need
to point out that someone got cheeky about that time
(43:18):
and named a racehorse Violet Charles Ruth, which made for
very interesting newspapers dot com perusing. It was just like
the like betting lines of like twelve to one.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Okay, you're getting the headlines of like yeah Charles.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
So while waiting to go to trial, she made sure
to stay in the spotlight. She gave interviews with national
papers Daily Mail got to do it. She wrote a
song about her faked death called Goodbye Girly what and
then had the lyrics printed in the paper Hell.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yes, rights you do.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Zodiac never did that. There was a stage show written
about her, and then she debuted at the London Hippodrome
playing herself.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Are you kidding? She did the Jackie Robinson I'll Play Myself.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
A silent movie deal in which she was going to
play herself.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah, did agree to direct.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, he was right there.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well he was in the twenties and Britishilman.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
It wasn't him. Now people refer to her as an
a Dwardian influencer. Really yeah, because that was basically what
she's doing. Well, the police investigation continues. They discovered that
she owed a grand total of twelve thousand pounds to
people from whom she'd borrowed money, and another twelve thousand
in stock market liabilities, and she was eventually declared bankrupt.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I mean naturally obvious physically.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Her social currency was also running out, so she had.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Terrible had any left.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
She had a terrible stage fright, and like doing the
play that's about her, And then she kept getting booed
off stage by audiences night after night.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
That would getting booed playing yourself. She was not meant
for this, meant for the stageless.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I can see how like that would give you stage
right if they're just constantly booing you.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well, I'll give you more than stage You could play
me better.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Than me, dumb dumbs and they're like anyone else.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Stage that's like confirmation stage confirmation. You don't belong here.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
You're bad at you. February nineteen ten, she and her
mom appeared at Derby Police Court on three separate charges
unlawfully incurring a certain debt and liability to Martha Smith,
the widow Smith oh Right Good to the amount of
four hundred and one pounds by means of fraud other
than false pretenses. They got charged with obtaining by false
pretenses in November nineteen oh eight, the same sum of
(45:51):
money from Martha Smith with intended to fraud, and the
last one fraudulently conspiring to obtain from Martha Smith and
Edward Hughes Jones, the Doctor the Bow certain large sums
of money. So Miriam the mom was like, you know what,
I was the one conned. Violet conned me the mom
(46:11):
her mom. Yeah, I think we now know the mom.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Yeah, I think we always knew.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
There was a huge care the one who coached. Yeah,
I thought she was getting that cartoon money. Yeah. Come on.
So there's this huge crowd there. They all want to
get in see the circus in the courtroom. Missus charles Worth.
She comes in dressed in black and wears like a black.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Bonnet, mourning the loss of her own life, yes.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
And of course and the loss of her trust and
her daughter who conned her. According to the papers, she
seemed very distressed. She had to be assisted to her
seat by a police matron. Violet was reported to be
like very pale and appeared to be ill, and she
just cried the whole time, she wore like a really
big black hat, you know, kind of subdued.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Big at okay, yeah, and then a.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
White feather boa get it girl, like just go for it.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
You need a little bit.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Let's do it, Mama and I guess like they both
were like sick in some way, Like the Mom's like
I've heard trouble stressed. Violet, it's like I have the
Sunday scaries, you know. So February twenty third verdict is
in the jury thirty minutes of deliberations. That's bad, found
them both guilty of conspiracy and false pretense.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah, that's like we just need enough time to go
around the room.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah. So the judge is like, guess what, Mom, I
got your number. You were the mastermind. But also Violet,
you were a willing participant, so you're both terrible people.
They get sense to five years penal servitude. Miriam like
literally swooned. The police matron on hand had to tend
to her like dab her brow and keep it falling.
Oh yeah, Viole. Violets sat there like in a daze,
(47:56):
like completely still as the verdict was read and like
kind of staring off into the distance. And then she
gets up to leave the courtroom and she sees her
sister and like gives like a faint smile and then
is escorted out and kind of creeped everyone up. They
later had their sentences reduced to three years. They tried
to appeal that got denied. They were sent to Aylesbury Prison,
(48:16):
which is one of the few ones that was equipped
to hold women for long sentences. The prison registers described
Violet as quote healthy, neat in person, reserved in manner,
it was good, and that a prison inspector's report said
that she quote bears her sentence with unusual calm, engages
in no misconduct, but converses little with her fellow inmates
(48:40):
and like a lot of people thought she was just
relieved because it was so exhausting. Yeah, there's that too.
So records show that she got out after serving two years,
likely for like a good behavior, and people don't really
know what happened after that. So there are some reports
that she went to live on the Isle of Man.
(49:00):
Most say she went to Scotland to live out her
days because she was so obsessed. But the UK Genealogy
Service find My Past they believe that her mother, Miriam
died in Lancashire in nineteen twenty and then they pulled
a death record for a May Charlesworth in Stoke on
Trent in nineteen fifty seven. So her legacy does live on. Yeah,
(49:22):
the spot where she crashed the car is now called
Violet's Leap. Wow, there you go, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (49:30):
My friend Jay's family's crazy. That's why you know Jay,
I had no idea you had it like that. Now.
I really enjoyed that. Also, it was the you said earlier,
the Edwardian influencer, and I kind of like poop poo
died at first. I thought about it while you were
telling the story, and I think your spot on in
terms of it, she really was like an early influencer.
But like she would have been a huge star. She
(49:51):
would have been able to have a TV show or
some kind of streaming series or like a podcast that
everybody talks about. You don't call her violin.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
You know, all the right outfits.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Yeah, you said she was stylist, she said, you know,
and she's well trained by her mother. So we see
that Kardashian like, oh, like, my mother is a celebrity
and she trained me to do this lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
You know what I mean, she's an a dwarding Kardashian.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, right, I think she would have been. She's she's okay,
the same way that Woody Allen is lucky that he
was born when he was born, she's unlucky that she
was born and she was born. She just had like
another century.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Oh yeah, huge.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
She might not have ever even had to do any
of this getting married. All this behavior would have been rewarded,
and that we would all talk about her marrying one
of the most richest people in the world.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Totally good points.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
You'res Elizabeth. You see how he did. That's all smooth
like it It was really clever. You didn't see it coming.
Speaker 4 (50:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I can tell I again go back to my thing
about it's the same like blueprint every time. And so again,
if someone's like I'm going to come into an inheritance
or like my stocks will realize at a certain time,
I don't believe them. If it's other people's money too.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Definitely that and also things that don't exist don't exist. Yeah,
so someone said tells you it's about to happen, it
doesn't exist exactly what it does exist, Then you can
do something about it.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
Until that point.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
I'm a simple man, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I need a talkback. I'm simple, I need a talkback.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Oh God, I love.
Speaker 6 (51:28):
Hey's Aaron and Elizabeth listening to the Minor League episode.
I couldn't help but remember the minor league team in
my hometown, New Orleans. For a long time, they were
the Zephyrs, and they had two giant nutrient as their mascots.
But now they're the baby Cakes and they have the
most scary haunt you in your nightmares mascot. It's a
(51:52):
kincake baby that looks like it drove around with chewy
meth raccoon.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
The Baby Cakes like T shirt. I love that. Oh
that's so good. Thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (52:08):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
I do need to mention too that we have a
special award, the a Ridiculous Crime Heroes Award, that we
don't really ever give out, but something that you know,
we talk about the emails, right, We do appreciate that
and we greatly We don't no one answers them, but
we do read them totally. And so Beth from Western
(52:32):
Massachusetts is a ridiculous crime hero. Yes, because Beth started
listening to the show a couple of weeks ago and
powered through Binge listens yes, all the way through, Like
I'm talking like seventy eight episodes every day. I don't
know how I didn't annoy her.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
I can't believe voice.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
But she she was loving it, and she gave us updates.
We got like nine emails from Beth the like daily updates,
and it was we we been binge the emails. You know.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
We figured if she's going to binge, just we should
binge her. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So, Beth, we do read the emails.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
You read all your email.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
No one ever answers. We read all the emails that
come in get read. They just don't get and they.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
Don't always get read aloud. But we read allowed to
each other.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Oh my gosh, Beth, it was so much fun.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
We started looking forward to them. We're like, oh, we
got a new one, Beth.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Best crime hero.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
There you are.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Let's see. That's it for today. You can find us
online at Ridiculous crime dot com. Did you know we
just won the American Chemical Society's Garvin Olin Metal for
the website.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
I'm so proud.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
It's for achievement in Women in Chemistry.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
I can't wait to tell my mother.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
God, she be so excited. She's she loves coding, shes
chemistry too. Everything is always like metals, you should.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
Learn to chemistry. I'm like, you mean learn to coade.
She's like, no, learn to chemistry.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
American Chemical Societies, Garvin Olin Metal. I love that's going
on my resume. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue
Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime, pod
Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Please and then
leave us at talkback. I think that's my most important part.
I want to hit that up the hardest. Leave it Talkback,
(54:16):
download the free iHeart app, do It, do It, do
It reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
and Sarah Burnett, produced and edited by Prince of Wales
and Dolphins Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutgers.
Speaker 4 (54:34):
Judith.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Research is by Mysterious Heiress Marissa Brown. The theme song
is by duped Love Struck, Welshman Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Bolensworth.
And Noel Brownsworth WHI Say It one more Time Ridiquious Crime.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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