May 9, 2024 • 51 mins
Jack Shepherd was a petty, pretty thief. He wasn't very good at it, so he got caught a lot. And he escaped a lot. Just like Henry More Smith. He, too, couldn't stop stealing and couldn't stop freeing himself from prison life. These guys prove that you can't keep a good (well, at least non-violent) man down.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of Iheartradiozaren Burnette.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yo, Lizabeth Dutton, what's up, Claude?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Not much. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Doing pretty well, doing pretty well? Thanks for asking? How
are you?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I'm great as always. I'm just great.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So happy to hear that.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Listen. You know it's ridiculous. Yes, I do, give it
to me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, Elizabeth, all right, I'm not I want to preface this.
I'm not making fun of the front part. I'm making
front of the back part. Okay. Last year, there's this
news story about this guy, Christian Montenegro, okay, and he
married a rag doll. Like, that's not I'm not casting
aspersions on this person. No, no, like his wife, Natalia
(00:40):
is a rag doll. And he broke up with his
ex girlfriend, right, and so then he started dating Natalia
the rag doll. And then he decided, well, I'm happy
with her. We can make a good life of this.
So then he got married to the rag doll. And
people are like this, this is not right. People are like, no, no,
he's it's fine. So they're debating, right anyway, This is
the part that it gets me because I don't whatever
(01:02):
you've been marry what bridge, marry a building out? Okay, right,
there was a video last year of him going to
the doctors in which he's called paramedics because he was
worried that his rag doll had fallen. Ill keep in
mind they have three rag doll children, so he was
worried he was going to be a single rag doll
father to their rag doll kids.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Where where is this?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And it goes long enough that I do not think
it's a prank. I have to believe that this is
a compulsion. It is into South America. Why are you
being like, what does it matter?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Where he and slap them.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It takes place in the land of magical realism, Colombia.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Oh, Colombia, Columbia. So there you go, ridiculous, right, and
just the last part, guess what three rags ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Three rag doll kids, a rag doll wife. And when
he gets sick he goes to a people a people hospital, Elizabeth,
and he needs to go to a rag doll hospital.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I'm all progressive. Where is.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It not fine taking a rag doll to a human hospital?
It's like taking me to a vent that we come on,
do you want to save your wife or.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Not the event, because we got the cops on her too.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
That's why, honestly that I recommend it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I'm not going to be like, you know, if he
wants to leave a red No.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Three or something together, I think we can afford another conversation.
He sewed another kid.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You don't get to do that kind of like, come on, now,
come on now, that is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Do you
know what else is ridiculous? No, but I'm here for it,
escaping and then escaping and then escaping some more like
the spirit This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd
(03:07):
and outrageous capers. Heycin Cuns, it's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
No, you heard that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
You've talked about escape artists.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Before once or twice. Yes, I'm a fan those.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Who break out of lock up and make it an
absolute art.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, a statement multiple attempts.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
A commentary on man's isolation amid the masses and desperate
need for liberation. You know something high falutine like that?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Ta? I like that you focused on more recent ridiculous escapermen.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yes, and the ridiculousness of the artist.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
A postmodern analysis completely. I want to take us back.
You heard I want to take his way back.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Please lay back.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I got two ogs for you to Oh wow, oh jeez.
All right, let's start in the seventeen hundred. This is
like you starting everything going back to Dracula. Dracula.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I'm always Yeah, when Memed the second could have killed Dracula,
Draca could have killed the second, go back to and
then he failed. Yeah, when Gladly and Paler failed to
kill Memo the second you get America, that's when.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
You're like, what caused the Cuban missile crisis? You're like, okay,
well it starts with me.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You know, Meed the second in the Fall of Constantinople
in fourteen fifty three.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Now every time, so I'm taking to the seventeen hundreds,
and I'm not going to mangle any French or Italian pronunciations.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Not because I've worked hard on my diction and my focus.
It's because there aren't any nice raw Okay. So the
first dude is a fellow named Jack Shepherd. I can
say that nice you got that Jack Shepherd. He is,
Now I'm gonna screw hard. He's known as the eighteenth
century's most notorious robber and thief. That's saying a lot.
(04:53):
Is it purely in his home country of England, Likely
because he wasn't a global.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Phenom, kind of a highwayman.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Not really, you'll see. He was also referred to as
the most glamorous rogue in London.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One of those kind of guy, yes, jigglob with deep pockets,
he drops things in.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
He was born. He was born on March fourth. Did
you ever when when I was in high school, we
used to say to the nuns, like, you'd raise your
hand and be like, what's today's date, and they'd say
March fourth, and we'd all get up and walk forward.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're making that up. You did not really do that?
Did you guys actually get up out of your seats?
You really did? Multiple kids?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, just one time one March wow. And then we
looked at each other and we're like, oh god, I.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Love that for you know, do you actually have that?
That's so precious and dear he was.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But this was March forth.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh wow, that's coming back, mourning coming back.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, it's like better than when May the fourth, when
people do the whole star. No, no, no, March fourth
so his family was terribly poor.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
They lived in Spittlefields in London, in the East End.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Spitfield.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Well, No, the location gets its name from the fact
that many of the original inhabitants had both poorly formed
dentician and severe allergies.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I don't leading them.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Oh no, it led them to like produce abnormally large
quantities of saliva, and those were expelled as they yelled
at outsiders who crossed the area's large open meadow. Thus
Spittlefields pollen rich meadow.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
They gaps in their teeth.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And they yelled at And do you think this is funny?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Do you think this is funny.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Because it's not true. The land actually belonged to Saint
Mary's Spittle, a hospital built in eleven ninety seven. Yeah,
so spittle is a corruption of the word hospital. Okay,
but I think my explanation is way better.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh yeah, to so much better. So they dropped the
hoe and made spittle.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, drop the hoe made so. An earlier name for
the area was Lallsworth. Lol, like laugh out loud, You
did not you made that's true. That's true. So in
Jack Shepherd's time, it was an area notorious for highwaymen,
as you said, bad men and prostitutes and so Jack
(07:18):
he stayed away from all that. When he was fifteen
he got an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Five years later,
he's twenty years old. Because I can do math and
I also had to be hooked on phonics. He was
an accomplished craftsman, of course, twenty years old. He was
a small fellow.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
They don't have TV. No, he was all the time
in the world.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
He was too poor for it. Everyone else had it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I was on your candle light. You can be working kid.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
He was a litland He was five four spine bone slight,
but he had like this dazzling smile. He didn't have
the Spittlefields dentician. He had a dazzling smile and a
magnetic personality, okay, And so that made him really popular
in the neighbor especially in the pubs. And it was
in those taverns that he fell in with the wrong crowd,
(08:06):
the shady underbelly of Spittlefield. And so most notably was
a prostitute named Elizabeth Lyon aka Edgeworth Best Edgeworth, Edgeworth,
Best District Best Best was a big, beautiful mama whole
lot of rosa very popular with the fellas, and Jack
(08:27):
was sprung hubba hubba. And so the more time and
money he spent with best, the deeper into that dark
side of things he got. Lots of drinking, lots of carousing.
This wasn't good for woodworkings.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Are no will be selling his tools?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah? Well, as a one time man of the trades,
you know that you have to be able to focus
and show up on time and get the work done.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Oh yeah, and you have to tell your tools you.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Can't send things just you can't like send things to
voicemail and ignore the inbox. So his income took a
dip and he wasn't getting the work he once was
because he was spending all this money on booze and
on yeah, and so he had to make ends meet.
He needed cash. He started stealing. In the spring of
seventeen twenty three, he got busted for the first time shoplifting.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Taking other people's tools.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover, he yelled, Did
he really that's no, that's a smith's lyric.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Oh. I thought that they pulled it from him like
it's an old British story. I just have never.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Heard he had. He was Spinhall over.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
The I'm not going to believe anything.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So soon enough, he starts hanging out with a very
bad ombre named Joseph Blake aka Blueskin.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
William Blake's little brother. Blueskin. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
No, one's really sure how he got that name.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Colloidal silver, that's how he got that name.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
He had like a really swarthy complexion. He was also blue,
super hairy, Okay, especially in the facial region, So maybe
that was it. This is what they're speculating. Okay, some
thought maybe had a port wine birthmark.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Okay, maybe he's more sense, lot more sense.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He could have been part smurf.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's I'm going with that one. Smurf from the waist down. Okay,
be like a mermaid or something. Yeah, it's like fish
for the waist down. He's smurf from the waist down.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Blueskin something. He doesn't wear pants a lot because everyone
can see.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, well, but I thought his feet he can't hire that,
yeah blue foot. Well his legs, they see his ankles,
they go out, they go all the way up.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Any blueskin, Blueskin, he shows Jack Shepherd the Ropes takes
him from an amateur shoplifter to a professional thief. He's
good at it, but he's also not good at it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
He's an interesting line there, professional thief amateur SHOPLIFTERA when
someone else pays you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Enough, did you get you get sponsorships?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Okay, there you go. You're a factory rider exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So he gets arrested and imprisoned five times between seventeen
twenty three and seventeen twenty four. Of those five arrests,
he got out four times. The poor folks in Spittlefields
loved this, of course they loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They had no TV, they had no TV.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
But the rich people in town did. So. Let's take
a look at his first escape. Seventeen twenty three. He
got sent to Saint Anne's Roundhouse for pickpocketing. That's where
they invented the roundhouse.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
They had the roundhouse just for pickpockets.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's where they invented it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Like all the cut purses go here.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, Bess came to visit him, and that was a
bad idea because the jailers recognized her as a lady
of the night and then she gets arrested.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
No, just in some position.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, she wasn't out. I think she had like warrants.
And so she and Jack they're sent together to new
prison in Clerkenwell, and it was there that they were
locked in a cell known as the newgate Ward.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh okay, I think I've heard of.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah. Somehow Jack gets a hold of a file these things. Yeah,
and so the couple they'd only been locked up overnight,
but it was too much for Jack. He's like, I
can't take this with Jack, he filed his way through
his shackles. Then he used the file to gouge a
hole in the wall right under the window, Not like
a big hole that went all the way through, just
one that like it was placed as such that he
(12:10):
could loosen one of the iron bars that blocked the
wig window and wiggle it out of place. So they
got the window open. Bess and Jack tied sheets and
blankets together and did the old cliche rope out of
the window escape. They lowered themselves to the ground, and
then they climbed over a twenty two foot high wall.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Wow, freedom, how are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They did it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Twenty twenty two feet. If they're standing on one shoulder
and you get one up the other one has to pull.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The other one five foot flour exactly. He's not. She's
a she's a big lady. Yeah. I don't know how
they did.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
She she threw them over and rope back over.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Let's say that's how it happened. All right, let's just
say it. I'm going to go ahead and say it.
She threw him over the wall.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like it like, rope back over exactly, she climbed up
and got a baby.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
They went in prisons. No more.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's a lot of filing too, and you were trying
to file through metal that Can we just say.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Cute couple alerts? Oh my god, go to jail together.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Oh dude, ship them forever.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Seventeen twenty four. A year later, Jack's twenty two. He
was still on his thieving bs. He gets caught. He
was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death. It seems
like a lot for theft. Yeah, So back to Newgate.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What did he steal?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I don't know. He stole the Declaration of Independence before
it was written. The cell for the Condemned at Newgate
was at the end of a dark passage, and to
get to the passage you had to go through this
hatch that was like ringed with huge iron spikes.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
No, So that's true. August thirtieth, seventeen twenty four, Jack
filed away at one of the spikes Nice so that
with a little push it would just snap right off. Okay,
he got it almost through, and once again Best comes
to visit Nice, and I'm guessing she didn't have warrants
this time. She just like, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
She brought the rope, and then she.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Brought another prostitute with her, a gal named mal Maggot,
mall maggot, m o l l oh mall like Molly Maggot. Okay,
And now I'm not of that world, but I would
imagine that's not a name that drums up a lot
of business.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Very specific type of business. Maybe she's like going for
the goth guys and she wants them to know, like
perhaps you know a dead girl.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Oh be sick. Okay, So Bess and Maul they waltzed
to visit Jack on death Row and they managed to
distract the guard. How okay, magic trick, I you know,
I can't imagine how. And so while the guard was
otherwise occupied, Jack snapped off the spike and then he
was able to squeeze through the space and make a
break for it, and the girls helped him run off,
(14:48):
and then they all went together. Maggot time, maggot so.
But he only tasted freedom for a couple months then
he gets locked up. His last escape was his most
famous one. It was October fifteenth, seventeen twenty four, and
there's a lot of footage of the escape available online.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You keep doing that, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So the location was once again Newgate Prison. The jailers
cuffed him while he was in the cell, hoping that
would prevent him from getting out sometime again with cheese.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What are they cuffing him with?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He just always rope, like loosely woven hemp rope. So
at some point he managed to get his thin wrists
out of the shackles, and then he pulled a loose
nail out of the wall. Which is why maintenance is important.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So important. It's the little things. Yeah, broken window policies,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So he used the nail to pick the lock on
the chain that connected his ankle to the floor, and
then he used the nail to pick the lock on
the door. Oh yeah, And then he used the nail
to pick the lock in the area outside the block
where he was kept, and then another lock and another lock.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
This is like the TV shows I watched, like The Musketeers,
Like this is so the medieval escape plane. Totally get
a nail, work it out of something.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And you know, he's on the roof of the prison.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I love this for him.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
He still had a shackle around his ankle, and oh
I forgot Then he's like, oh man, I forgot something.
So he runs back to the cell and he grabs
a blanket.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
He breaks back into the prison.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Where's the staff? Where's the staff? Anyway, he runs back
up to the roof with the blanket and he uses
it to slide over to the roof next door, and
then he pops into a top floor window. This place
was someone's home and snuck around and then out the
front door. And he waited until the morning, and he
went to a cobbler. Smart so being the local folk here. Yeah, well,
(16:33):
he was able to convince the cobbler to cut off
the leg. Iron I feel like I would have gone
to a blacksmith, but like, you.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Know, any port similar tools.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So he swanned around for two weeks just partying it up.
And then the law caught up with him, and when
they went to make they went to arrest him. Dude
was hammered. What Yeah, he was wasted. So he didn't run,
he didn't resist, he's just all how dry.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Jack.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Of course, he gets arrested, he's convicted and once again
sentenced to death. I told you he was a folk hero, yes, already.
When it was time to take him to the gallows,
the road leading there was lined with women crying and
like wailing and throwing flowers at his speak. Ladies, man
to the end, you know. Daniel Dafoe, author of Robinson Cruiser,
(17:19):
not personally but yes, big fan of Jack's. Earlier in
the year, Jack Shepherd had written an autobiography, What a
narrative of all the robbery's escapes, et cetera of John Shepherd.
That was his book, except Jack didn't write it. Daniel
Dafoe did. Yeah. They're pals, and it's called Ghost Road,
he writes book. Yeah. So, and they were such pals
(17:42):
that Daniel Dafoe and his publisher came up with a
plan to wait fifteen minutes after Jack got the rope
and then grabbed the body, and they wanted to revive him,
which they heard had worked a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, back then, sometimes hangings you'd hear about this.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It's the old equival of like one hack. They don't
want you to know, like you can wait fifteen.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well sometimes that's the next.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, my cousin knows a guy who knows a guy
who brought a handman back to life. That kind of
thing totally works. They saw it on the hit ABC
show nine one ps nine one one got even campier
from Fox to ABC. It's amazing and I love it,
but I don't watch TV anyway. Jack, he didn't make it,
and Daniel Dafoe is unsuccessful. This is like my one
(18:22):
percent where it's murdered by the state. Yeah, it's up
for debate anyway, Rip to that man. Plays were written
about Jack and performed after his death. In eighteen forty,
William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel called Jack Shephard and
it was crazy popular, and the authorities didn't care for that,
so much so that they refused to license any plays
in London with Jack Sheppard in the title for forty
(18:44):
years after the publication. That takes it to one hundred
and fifty years after his dath.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Dude. Wait before we take a break, Harry Styles, get
on this. You can get back from Timothy Shallame all
the ris he's stolen from you.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, now get it, and also a David Bowie soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It's perfect. When we come back. I'm going to tell
you about a guy who was often compared to old Jack. Yeah,
(19:25):
escaper boys, Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I'm digging this, dude, That Jack Shepherd was dope. What
else you got?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Well, we're having a lot of fun, yes we are.
And I've already killed a.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Man off you table the state, no less so this news.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Henry Moore Smith is his name, Henry Morris Smith, m
O r E. Like just how much Smith Morse? Yeah,
Henry Moore Smith. He was the North American Jack Shepherd,
an escape artist, sort of a folk hero. O. This
all goes down about like one hundred years after Jack
Shepherds eighteen thirties, twenties eighteen, early eighteen teens. Smith is
(20:01):
a con man, horse thief, burglar, and most importantly an
escape artist. He had a bunch of aliases. Frederick, Henry Moore,
Henry J. Moon, William Newman, you know whatever those.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Are good forgettable but sounding really good names exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So eighteen twelve, he arrives in Halifax.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Nova Scotia, Canadian.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
He was vague about where he'd come from or like
where he was born. There are no records of him
prior to this time. He was well dressed and polite
in his mid twenties. He said he was a tailor,
and then he'd just arrived from England.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Okay, so one local, pretty good story, because there's a
lot of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, a local said quote. He was perfectly inoffensive, gentle
and obliging, used no intoxicating liquors, refrained from idle conversation
in all improper language, and was apparently free from every
evil habit.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
That's weird, correct me if I'm wrong, But they you
be describing me?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Oh, I know you never said a bad word in
your life?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, I mean is that where we were reading it?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
You no intoxicating liquors, doesn't smoke weed. Yeah, never like
the Zaren Burnett story.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I never bad language, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Smith though. He said he went to Cambridge and so
just like you. Of course, fancy is what I'm trying
to He also said he said he could speak five languages.
It's basically the Zaren Burnette. He said he had a
small fortune held in the Bank of England. Bingo. Here's
(21:36):
one where it's like I was reading this and I
was like, is this Zaren or is this this Smith.
That's because he carried a Bible with him all the
time and he could recite whole chapters of scripture.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Oh yeah, and you want to hear Ruth. I'll tell
you right now, lays Ruth the whole thing. And they
have some kings to next maybe judges, what do you
got how much time.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
You They would ask this guy by his spiritual pass like,
tell us about your spiritual that's the question, right, I'm
going to start asking Pew And he said he ran
a Methodist prayer meeting back in England just like you.
Here's one that actually I could see you doing. One
time someone asked him where he was from, and he
(22:19):
just laughed and pointed at the full moon.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's very I'm gonna in the act.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And so you know, all these people like they're kind
of captivated by him. One person was John Bond, not
John Bond, Jovie John Bond, John Bond exactly, uh double
o six. He thought that Smith was the Beasknees, so
he hired him to work on his farm near Windsor,
(22:45):
just northwest of Halifax, and Smith he fit right in
with the family. He joined them for meals and prayers.
He was like, hold on, I need to pray before
I eat this rule. So he also romance the daughter.
There are a lot of Elizabeths going on here today.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
God's a big fan of and so ministers.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
As was the custom of the day, Smith married Elizabeth
within the year.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
There you go, hey, quick, dude. It happened.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
The couple moved out and Smith started his own tailor shop.
He's like, you know what, I'm just going to go
out on my own here. Things were blissful, and until
they weren't. In Halifax at the big fancy mansions, things
started going missing. Someone was slipping in during the night
and stealing silver, jewelry, anything else of values, virtues. And
(23:37):
it wasn't just palatial homes. Offices and stores got it,
and it wasn't just expected high ticket items. The Chief
Justice of the British Colony of Nova Scotia, Samson Salter Blowers.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's a hell of a name.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Samson Salter Blowers.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Or Salter Blowers yeah, he had.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Three law books taken from his chambers. To the judge,
He's like, I kind of need those, you guys. He
offered a reward for their return, and a few days later,
Henry Moore Smith shows up. He's like, I'm here to
take the reward.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
He heard the book.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
He's like, I bought these from a stranger, you know,
as you don't. I don't practice the law, but I'd
like these expensive law books please. You know, he's like
sitting minding his own business, sitting on a bench reading
the Bible, just like sunning himself. Dude comes up. You
look like you're into big books. You want to buy
some lawbooks. So the townsfolk weren't fools, so like where
(24:33):
Smith is living in Windsor, they start thinking, like, hold
on a second. He goes to Halifax a lot, and
he leaves early in the morning, and he doesn't come
back to like the next day he returned those books.
Why would he buy them when he comes back from.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Before?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And he always has stuff with him when he gets
back from Halifax, like random stuff and sometimes a lot
of cash. And then there was a break in the case.
Man got pinched for stealing a coat. But He swore
up and down that he'd bought the coat from Smith,
so the authorities issued an arrest warrant. They headed out
to pick Smith up in Windsor, but he was already
in the wind That was his first escape, with many
(25:14):
more to come. He disappeared for almost two years. There
you go, yeah, and so what of Elizabeth, Right, She's
just probably go back to the farm. I feel for
the Elizabeths of the world.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yes, you do.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So. Two years later, eighteen fourteen, he popped back up
in Saint John, New Brunswick, and he was making friends.
So he buddied up with an officer of a local regiment,
Colonel Daniel and All. Danny wanted a horse, but not
just Danny horse. He wanted a black horse that would
match the team that pulled his carriage. It was all
(25:47):
about the esthetics of it, you know, you know, you
might as well be.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Get the horse you can get.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So his new pal Smith is like, look at me,
I'm coming to the rescue. I know exactly where you
can get one. That's exactly what you want. Daniel gives
him the money, go buy the horse for me, like
you know, orders him around. That's your new friend. You
make him go to your military. And so Smith gets
the money and you can guess what happened.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
He took off never see him again.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
He took the money and ran no horse, no horse.
So he still wanted a horse for himself though. Smith
got it in my head when someone's like, you know,
they suggest something, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Do you want a burrito? And you're like, I didn't,
but now I do.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Now I think I could go from now.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I got the money for a burrito exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
So he wants a horse. But at the same time,
he didn't want to use all this cash that he had,
so he stole one that belonged to Will's Frederick Knox,
a magistrate, and he likes sticking it to the legal establishment.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, so why not go right to the man who's
gonna bust you.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Will's Frederick kna the magistrate. He was the son of
a British Undersecretary of State, and he really loved his
horse and he wanted it back. So he gets word
of this and like a description of Smith, and he
chased after Smith for four days trying to catch him
and get the horseback. Like he wanted justice. He cold justice.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I'm surprised he didn't hire like some Scottish clan to
hunt him down or something.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He found Smith four days later, three hundred miles away
and picked two Nova Scotia.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And I will take old Nova SCOSTI. Oh not pick two? Yeah,
I thought I just take any two Nova Scosts you
were offering. Sorry, go on.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So they he gets arrested. He tries to escape a
handful of times from this, but he's eventually brought back
to New Brunswick for trial. So while he's locked up,
Smith meets a guy who will change his life. And
the man was named Walter Bates, and he was the
county sheriff. They actually wind up changing each other's lives.
(27:54):
Bates became obsessed with Smith. Wait what the sheriff. The
sheriff fascinated.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
He's not behind bars, He's not a dirty sheriff. He's
running this person.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Running the prison. He's like a straight ahead. He later
wrote about Smith quote as a character singular and unprecedented.
He was just fascinated by him.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Really yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So as the trial approached Smith, he keeps moaning about
a pain in his side. Real bad, he said, like
real bad, it hurts.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I got big bad booboo.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Bates is like, how did that happen? That's how he talked. Yeah,
We've heard tapes, I've seen video. He's like, how did
that happen? And Smith told him that when Knox caught him,
he hit Smith in the side with the butt of
his pistol and that whether he broke a rib or
damaged an Oregon, who knows, but he's just in complete agony.
(28:46):
Baits is like, oh my god, that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
You got busted guts man.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, So he gets worse and worse, and they Bates
brings in a bunch of different doctors to look at him,
but they couldn't seem to make it any better. And
when it got to the point where he could like
hardly lift his head, he asked for someone to come
and take down his will as he was going to
dictate it to so Bates he wrote to call on
Smith's lawyer. He said, quote, I fear we shall be
(29:12):
disappointed in our expectations of the trial of the prisoner
more Smith at the approaching court. I presume from his
appearance he will be removed by death before that time.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Death is a coming on a coling.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah, he's not going to make it to trial, and
that afternoon Smith screams out in pain and he asks
the guard to heat up a brick and bring it
to warm his feet.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Okay, brick, you know they put it in like a blanket, and.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Like the tender hearted guard, he's like, oh my god.
Of course he ran to get him the brick, and
then he accidentally left the cell door open, and like
the guy can barely move. You're not thinking, you know,
he's just his eyes are rolled back and he's on
his steathbed. The guard comes back with the brick and
Smith is gone. He played the long game. Yeah, that
(29:58):
was a long so Ba and the brick toning guard.
They wound up facing charges of negligence for allowing the
prisoner to escape, and New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore,
he put up a reward for Smith's capture.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I want more.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It wasn't like he was laying low and hiding out there.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Where is?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
He started burgling on the regular. He lifted a silver watch, cash,
like a bunch of other stuff from a house near
the jail.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Oh, go off again.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
He's like, I know where I need to go. I'm
going west to Maine. Oh right, So He's like he
stopped for food at a tavern, and while he was there,
he stole a bunch of silver teaspoons. I just can't
control himself. He stayed at an inn near Fredericton, the
colony's capital, Oh, of course, and stole a bunch of
(30:47):
expensive clothes out of someone else's luggage. Like he went
into their roomins zink my hands.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Everything stickies to him, what kind of things?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Like the fellow travelers, they didn't suspect him of anything.
They he told him he was a businessman of one
of them. He's like, I'm a bounty hunter chasing an
army deserter. Here's the best. He's like, I'm a law
man on the trail of a notorious horse thief who
broke out of Kingston jail chasing myself. All of his
(31:15):
tall tails and small sifts caught up with him. He
was busted just as he was about to enter the
United States. They locked him up ankles and wrists, and
they sent him back to Kingston to stand trial. The
whole wrists and ankle thing wasn't enough, though, because like,
once again, he slips the shackles and he finds sweet,
sweet freedom. He'd only been in custody a few hours
(31:38):
when he took off into the night. So he heads
back to Fredericton and once he's there he steals choice.
He steals another horse. It's like the hot wiring of
the day. He steals him from stables at night. But
it'd be funnier if he horse jacked him. Like you know,
someone's riding up and they get a stop, he shoves
him off his saddle and rides off plates to so
(32:03):
remember New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Whatmore, the one who
announced the rewards leading to his capture. So on the
run this time Smith broke into his house and while
Wetmore was having a dinner party.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yes early dinner gang energy completely.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
And so he didn't crap on the drapes like that.
Instead he grabbed a bunch of the guests coats and
scurried away like that'll show them.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I love in Canada. Stealing coats is the mood.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Like this time the cops found him, they hauled them away.
Where was he hiding in a barn?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Okay, I.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Think he was probably All his loot, including the coats,
was hidden under the hay in the law and so
you know. They like, He's like, fine, fine, you got me,
you got me. Let's take a break. We come back.
I'm going to tell you about his next adventure. And
it's a doozy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Elizabeth Zarin, Hey, I got first time you did?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You came in first, good job. So Henry Moore Smith?
How much Smith?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
More Smith?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Smith? They brought him back to Kingston, the one in Canada,
not in Jamaica. Ah, and they locked him up.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, that one has not as good as music.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, the Jamaican So back with he's back with Sheriff Bates.
He loves him and Bates. Yeah, Bates is fooling around
this time though. They well, they gave Smith the full
body search and then they chained him to the floor
by the leg. So it wasn't long before a sound
(33:57):
was heard. Not Smith crying in agony over a created ailment.
It was the sound of filing metal, of course. So
the guards run to the cell and they find him
halfway out the window.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Just liked Baker working for him.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I get that for you. Baits baits Baker. So they
they find him hanging halfway out the window, They grab
his legs, they ink him back into the cell. They
demanded that he hand over the tools that he'd used,
and so he passes them this little saw that he
made out of a knife blade. He's like, oh shucks. Yeah,
and I don't know how he got that one in there,
(34:31):
but he did.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Don't want to know.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I don't want to know. Like maybe he started sporting
a huge pompadour.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, probably was probably.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
So the guards they got a new chain and they
locked him up again, and then they heard a noise,
the same metal filing noise. Now you and I have
learned that modern day bank employees would probably assume it
was rats or a short in the candle scorners. They'd
shrug it off and then they get cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
That can't be filed.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We took the file, so luckily these guards were on it.
So they dashed back to the cell and they find
Smith sitting there kind of like a kid who is
just doing something and then ran back to the bed
to sit on it like a good god seeing child.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
He's absolutely nothing, absolutely just sitting there staring back at
you totally.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
So the guards tell him stripped down.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Oh and so he's like, what is this?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Three doors? So he obeyed, and the guards discovered a
ten inch saw blade tied to his thigh with a string. Wow,
that's comfortable.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah sounds wow.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Okay, Sheriff Bates outraged. He's just livid.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I thought I could trust Yeah, he's always been through.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
He's like, I'm not about to be embarrassed again. So
he calls a blacksmith and he orders the guy to
craft an iron collar oh for Smith, and leg irons
and handcuffs, and then he wants each of those chained
to the floor. The whole get up wound up weighing
forty six hounds. Wow. Can you imagine that?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I know who hired the kinkster to run the prison?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Like ca can you picture it? Zarn?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, I don't think I can.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Close your eyes. Oh, I'm gonna have you picture it.
You are a jailer at the lock up in Kingston,
New Brunswick. You're sitting in your quiet office at the jail,
reading the paper and softly whistling to yourself. You started
a couple of weeks ago, and it's not a bad gig.
You've heard lots of stories though about Henry Moore Smith.
(36:30):
He's a thief, but more importantly he's an escape artist.
He really got sheriff bates good last time, and the
sheriff didn't take kindly to that. But you've also noticed
that the sheriff talks about Smith in weirdly reverential tones.
He's kind of in awe of him and is for
sure fascinated by him, and is desperate to know what
makes this guy tick. Smith is back now, and you've
been told to keep a tight eye on him. Yesterday,
(36:53):
the blacksmith came and locked it up like you've never
seen before. Chains, shackles, cups. He looks afright, and you
can what it would feel like to be bound like that.
Last night they had to call the locksmith back to
shorten the chains after he tried to wrap the ones
he had around his neck. Suddenly you hear a commotion.
It's Smith, for sure, and he's shouting chains rattle. Smith
(37:15):
calls out Bible verses in between screeches and moans. He's
off his rocker, you think to yourself as you run
to the cell. He's in the cell, bashing his hand
against the walls, slamming the chain into the bricks. With
a clink, the chain snaps. Smith stops and you stare
at each other in silence. The broken link clatters to
the ground. You tell Smith to stay right there while
(37:37):
you shout down the hall for someone to get the
blacksmith again. You're thankful for the four other chains that
hold Smith there against his will, although no one would
get hurt if he escaped again, just Sheriff Bates' pride
in your career. You walk into the cell and you
sit on the floor beside Smith. His hands and ankles
are bloody. He has a crazed look in his eye.
You've seen that before. Once you were in the woods
(38:00):
with your father and you came upon a wolf with
its leg caught in a trap. The wolf snarled at you,
but its eyes showed deep terror. You asked your dad
if he was going to shoot the wolf put it
out of his misery. He assessed the beautiful beast's leg
from afar and determine it was something that could heal
if it were free. He got a big stick and
approached the wolf. The wolf lashed out and snarled some more,
(38:21):
but its eyes just showed desperation. Your father was able
to ledge the stick into the trap and free the wolf.
It sprinted away from you without a second glance. No
limp or yelp. As pained as it was, it wasn't
interested in hurting you. It just wanted to be free,
even if it meant to die in the woods on
its own terms. That's what you see as you look
into Henry Smith's eyes. He is raving, he is shouting,
(38:43):
he is quoting the Bible and flailing against his shackles,
but his eyes showed terror. He just wants to be free.
You go to the corner of the cell and you
get a wet rag from a bucket. You softly wipe
the blood from his arms, from his neck. He rises
against you, but you can see in his eyes that
he you mean him no harm, and you don't fear him.
You have nothing but compassion for him. Society and circumstance
(39:06):
have driven him to this state, just like the wolf.
So Smith's horse theft trial kicked off May eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That was beautiful. I mean, I gotta say honestly, Normally
they're pretty darn funny, but that one was beautiful. I
loved my father.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The wo.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Oh I was deep, and the snow I was there, Yes,
I was there, And then I had compassion for my
fellow human.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, it's just amazing, went threw a lot together.
I'm a better person.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
That was a journey.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
He's humane. So Smith's horse trial, May eighteen fifteen. He
gets brought into the prisoner's dock for trial, and he
kept up this wild behavior. He like ripped his shirt
and snap his fingers.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I've waited on people like that before. I know that vibe.
Yeah so and he like at one.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Point he kicked at the wooden railing until they had
to bring leg irons and buying him up again, just
flailing around. The prosecutor was Attorney General Wetmore, the guy
whose dinner party guests the coat. I will not recuse
your honor. I have a personal interest in this. I
don't think they had an insanity defense.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Then that's what I was just about, asking when that comes.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I don't know, and I was too lazy to look
it up.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I don't really know if they even would acknowledge it's
the same thing we recognize it as.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Then I looked it up, and I wondered to myself
today did they have it? And I thought, should you
look it up? And I thought, yeah I should? Am
I going to know?
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Who knows? Who cares?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
If you want to find it out.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
There's Google exactly exactly. Cheese. So but the lawyer he's like,
I've got it. He points out that when Smith was arrested,
he wasn't on the horse. He was just so there's
no way to prove possession. He's just near it. It
seems like a sound, argued.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Man, He's gotten the law worked out exactly.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
H So it went to the jury and they discussed
it for two hours, and then they came back guilty
and him to be hanged. Damn right. So Attorney General
Wetmore he asked for a report on Smith's state of
mind and behavior before he could set a date for
the execution.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Not the century to be stealing horses, No.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
And so Bates he goes to Smith's cell to try
to talk to him about the whole situation. But apparently
Bates said quote he paid no attention, patted his hands,
saying and acted the fool as usual.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Bits is real hard.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
He wouldn't talk.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
All the time, he plays.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And he's just slapping himself. In what were to be
his final days, he made a bunch of puppets using
fabric from his clothes, sock puppets, straw from his bedding,
and then he called them his family man. He would
put on puppet shows for the staff or like any
visitors that would come in.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Did he marry one of them because he's very.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And then he was, oh, my wife. So by August
things are looking bleak that they're looking and then they
weren't because his lawyer had been working around the clock
to save him and it worked. He was pardoned. He
was crazy, but was like, yeah, they were like, look
(42:29):
at this behavior. He does not know anything about what's going.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
On, so they would rather feed him than put him
in the rope.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I just don't understand it. That type of morality sometimes,
like what you're gonna punish him this way? Like keeping
him alive.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
They took pity on him and compassion. Bates goes to
Smith in the cell and is like, homie've been pardoned.
Smith doesn't understand or care. He's just like what he
said something about wanting potatoes for dinner. Okay, So one
condition not breaking and they're not going to actually have
to pay for his upkeep because one condition of the
(43:05):
release was that he had to get the h double
hockey sticks out of wondering about someone else's.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Probably be crazy down in Newfoundland.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, to go to the United States. They got a
lot of you guys down there, So baits Bates was
sad to see him. Bates is like, we've spent a
year together. Of course I feel bad, really like Bates
is like trying so hard to connect with him. He can't.
So he buys Smith a whole brand new outfit, like
(43:37):
a first day of school outfit, and buys him a
ticket on a ship headed for Nova Scotia. Wow, and
like he mubbles and shuffles. Smith mumbles and shuffles, and
he looks all dazed as he gets on the boat.
And like Bates stands there and watches the boat sail
away with his little wounded wolf on board, and I'm
sure he is like a hanky. So the boat docks
(43:59):
in Novas Goosha, and Smith made like Kaiser sosay and
lost the limp on his way off the boat walked
off a fully seen man.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Oh yeah, I was Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
When straighten up, it straightens out at Nova Scotia, the
act worked. He weaseled his way to Yeah. A few
years went by. He really is willing to commit a long,
long game every time.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Incredible.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He a few years later, he's going by the name
William Newman. He gets arrested in new Haven, Connecticut for
stealing jewelry silver. Oh yeah, he's like stealing from innkeepers
at this point. And then he worked the oh my
side is killing me con there for a bit, but
like striking out with that gambit. He then decided to
saw his way through the cell door. He gets recaptured.
(44:51):
He was convicted of burglary at trial and he got
three years of hard labor and investigators discovered his previous
identity and contacted Sheriff Bates and Bates rushed.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, he goes down there. Bates goes to his cell
and Smith acts like he's never seen Bates before in
his life. Wow, He's like, who are you?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Would you love to see like Matt Damon and Philip
Seymour Hoffman play that scene, right? I know we can't
get that, but wouldn't that be amazing?
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Oh god?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
So Bates he's baffled, but he's like a little crushed
and so after doing.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
He's devastating.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Is so he you know, Smith does his time and
he gets sort of lost in the shuffle. He's hard
to track in this era, but that didn't stop Bates.
He spent the rest of his days trying to track
Smith down. He said that he could connect Smith to
thefts in Boston, New York, Connecticut, Ontario, Canada. Bates heard
about a preacher named Henry Hopkins in the South who
(45:53):
got arrested in eighteen twenty seven and was sentenced to
seven years in prison. He was sure that that was Smith,
but he couldn't make it down there, and he wasn't
able to physically confirm it. But basically, any time there
was a report of a clever thief, Bates was like,
it's Smith. It's my boy, It's there. He goes, there's
that beautiful boy. I want to buy him another suit,
(46:15):
and Smith sous his eye. Smith so captivating him that
Bates joined the Ridiculous Crime Book Club, and he really
a corker of all time. Called The Mysterious Stranger, or
Memoirs of the Noted Henry Moore.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Smith Guess what You're Getting for Your Birthday?
Speaker 3 (46:36):
It was published in Connecticut, then it gets republished in England.
The Halifax newspaper, The Acadian Recorder.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
A great Acadian paper.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Serialized it in eighteen seventeen, and they sold the book
for a shilling a copy. And The Mysterious Stranger had
seven printings.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
I bet it did.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
The last one was in It appeared in nineteen twelve.
That was one hundred years after Smith.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Got to un of money.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Christ's Cloud Story certified hit.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
The combined sales at that time topped forty thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh yeah, I can make this into hit today.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
That's a lot even today.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah, you can make this into a movie and have
it hit immediately.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
A new edition of it was published in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
So. At the end of The Mysterious Stranger, Bates wrote, quote,
in all the adventures, we are not called upon to
witness any acts of violence and blood. And it is
perhaps owing to the absence of this repulsive trait, that
we do not behold him in a more relentless light.
So basically, he didn't hurt nobody.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, totally your rule.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Yeah, so, and that's what makes him a ridiculous criminal, perfect, ridiculous, totally.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
The only person you hurt was Baits, really, my man, Baits. Yeah,
it hurt his heart, Yes, he just bruised it.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Im Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Oh, man, I I can't. I gotta admit I think
we should dip our toes more into the Canadian waters
because some of the crimes up there are just so
filled with a bizarre passion. You know, it's like it's
not like that. I don't I'm not trying to like
fall into like the Oh it's the Great White North
and they're cold and lonely. But I think they're cold
and lonely up there in the Great White North, Elizabeth,
(48:15):
because we always hear that these stories of like couples
going across the country, people being committed to like even
in Canada is always he's very big and grand and
long lasting, and like this guy commits to the bit.
There's something about it that has like a Texas quality
of bigger than life, but but but the old but humble.
You know, it's like a humble and kind version of
(48:37):
the we're bigger than life but Canada. So anyway, that's mine.
What's yours, Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway? Thank you for asking,
of course every time you know why I got your
back for.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Once you asked me. I I'm just into the long
game of it all. Like if you're gonna do it,
commit like wow, And that's that's putting a lot of
trust in your your your long game.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Totally and that all things would go out and work
out your benefit. Also, he didn't take the moment to,
like when the boat's pulling away, to break down and
kind of wave, because then someone could chase the boat down.
He waited until the boat got to the next nation.
Then he's like, Okay, I think I'm free.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I know me too, all right, that's what I have.
Oh oh you know what we do need I talk about?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Oh yeah, when you queue that up?
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Oh god, I love ge.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Heyes, Aaron and Elizabeth. I wanted to update you on
something totally ridiculous going on on the internet right now.
If you need any industrial glraade glycine, uh dong Hua
gene long is your man. You see, there is a
manufacturer of industrial grade glycine in China that made a
(49:56):
TikTok advertising their product and it has gone absolutely by
And I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Okay, okay, I don't have the TikTok no, but glycine.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
That is this is I like that someone can go
viral pushing glycine.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
I know right. That's now I want to know what
ridiculous that is certified. I gotta find the video. Don't
send us the video. The interns will find it.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Send the video.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
That's all I have for today. You can find us
online at ridiculous Crime dot com. You can find us
on social media, but not TikTok. Do you have TikTok?
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I'm trying to get rid of all of them, one
at a time. One or two I think I've gotten
I think I still have accounts, but I only look
at like, yeah, one or two of the.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
Man I don't have the TikTok. Email ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com, but most importantly, leave us a talk
back on the iHeart app reach out did it? Ridiculous
Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett, produced
(51:08):
and edited by Traveling Shackle salesman Dave Cousten. Research is
by horse Borrower Marissa Brown and horse Ad Jason Andrea
Song Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Fired prison
Guards Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided
by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot
and Mister Andrea Executive producers are Coatless Dinner guests Ben
(51:30):
Bolan and Noel.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Brown Disquime Say It One More Time Crime Ridiculous Crime
is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of Iheartradiozaren Burnette.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yo, Lizabeth Dutton, what's up, Claude?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Not much. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Doing pretty well, doing pretty well? Thanks for asking? How
are you?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
I'm great as always. I'm just great.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So happy to hear that.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Listen. You know it's ridiculous. Yes, I do, give it
to me.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, Elizabeth, all right, I'm not I want to preface this.
I'm not making fun of the front part. I'm making
front of the back part. Okay. Last year, there's this
news story about this guy, Christian Montenegro, okay, and he
married a rag doll. Like, that's not I'm not casting
aspersions on this person. No, no, like his wife, Natalia
(00:40):
is a rag doll. And he broke up with his
ex girlfriend, right, and so then he started dating Natalia
the rag doll. And then he decided, well, I'm happy
with her. We can make a good life of this.
So then he got married to the rag doll. And
people are like this, this is not right. People are like, no, no,
he's it's fine. So they're debating, right anyway, This is
the part that it gets me because I don't whatever
(01:02):
you've been marry what bridge, marry a building out? Okay, right,
there was a video last year of him going to
the doctors in which he's called paramedics because he was
worried that his rag doll had fallen. Ill keep in
mind they have three rag doll children, so he was
worried he was going to be a single rag doll
father to their rag doll kids.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Where where is this?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And it goes long enough that I do not think
it's a prank. I have to believe that this is
a compulsion. It is into South America. Why are you
being like, what does it matter?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Where he and slap them.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It takes place in the land of magical realism, Colombia.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Oh, Colombia, Columbia. So there you go, ridiculous, right, and
just the last part, guess what three rags ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Three rag doll kids, a rag doll wife. And when
he gets sick he goes to a people a people hospital, Elizabeth,
and he needs to go to a rag doll hospital.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I'm all progressive. Where is.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It not fine taking a rag doll to a human hospital?
It's like taking me to a vent that we come on,
do you want to save your wife or.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Not the event, because we got the cops on her too.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
That's why, honestly that I recommend it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I'm not going to be like, you know, if he
wants to leave a red No.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Three or something together, I think we can afford another conversation.
He sewed another kid.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
You don't get to do that kind of like, come on, now,
come on now, that is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Do you
know what else is ridiculous? No, but I'm here for it,
escaping and then escaping and then escaping some more like
the spirit This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd
(03:07):
and outrageous capers. Heycin Cuns, it's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
No, you heard that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
You've talked about escape artists.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Before once or twice. Yes, I'm a fan those.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Who break out of lock up and make it an
absolute art.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, a statement multiple attempts.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
A commentary on man's isolation amid the masses and desperate
need for liberation. You know something high falutine like that?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Ta? I like that you focused on more recent ridiculous escapermen.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yes, and the ridiculousness of the artist.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
A postmodern analysis completely. I want to take us back.
You heard I want to take his way back.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Please lay back.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I got two ogs for you to Oh wow, oh jeez.
All right, let's start in the seventeen hundred. This is
like you starting everything going back to Dracula. Dracula.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I'm always Yeah, when Memed the second could have killed Dracula,
Draca could have killed the second, go back to and
then he failed. Yeah, when Gladly and Paler failed to
kill Memo the second you get America, that's when.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
You're like, what caused the Cuban missile crisis? You're like, okay,
well it starts with me.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You know, Meed the second in the Fall of Constantinople
in fourteen fifty three.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Now every time, so I'm taking to the seventeen hundreds,
and I'm not going to mangle any French or Italian pronunciations.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Not because I've worked hard on my diction and my focus.
It's because there aren't any nice raw Okay. So the
first dude is a fellow named Jack Shepherd. I can
say that nice you got that Jack Shepherd. He is,
Now I'm gonna screw hard. He's known as the eighteenth
century's most notorious robber and thief. That's saying a lot.
(04:53):
Is it purely in his home country of England, Likely
because he wasn't a global.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Phenom, kind of a highwayman.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Not really, you'll see. He was also referred to as
the most glamorous rogue in London.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
One of those kind of guy, yes, jigglob with deep pockets,
he drops things in.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
He was born. He was born on March fourth. Did
you ever when when I was in high school, we
used to say to the nuns, like, you'd raise your
hand and be like, what's today's date, and they'd say
March fourth, and we'd all get up and walk forward.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You're making that up. You did not really do that?
Did you guys actually get up out of your seats?
You really did? Multiple kids?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, just one time one March wow. And then we
looked at each other and we're like, oh god, I.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Love that for you know, do you actually have that?
That's so precious and dear he was.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But this was March forth.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh wow, that's coming back, mourning coming back.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, it's like better than when May the fourth, when
people do the whole star. No, no, no, March fourth
so his family was terribly poor.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
They lived in Spittlefields in London, in the East End.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Spitfield.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Well, No, the location gets its name from the fact
that many of the original inhabitants had both poorly formed
dentician and severe allergies.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I don't leading them.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Oh no, it led them to like produce abnormally large
quantities of saliva, and those were expelled as they yelled
at outsiders who crossed the area's large open meadow. Thus
Spittlefields pollen rich meadow.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
They gaps in their teeth.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And they yelled at And do you think this is funny?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Do you think this is funny.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Because it's not true. The land actually belonged to Saint
Mary's Spittle, a hospital built in eleven ninety seven. Yeah,
so spittle is a corruption of the word hospital. Okay,
but I think my explanation is way better.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh yeah, to so much better. So they dropped the
hoe and made spittle.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, drop the hoe made so. An earlier name for
the area was Lallsworth. Lol, like laugh out loud, You
did not you made that's true. That's true. So in
Jack Shepherd's time, it was an area notorious for highwaymen,
as you said, bad men and prostitutes and so Jack
(07:18):
he stayed away from all that. When he was fifteen
he got an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Five years later,
he's twenty years old. Because I can do math and
I also had to be hooked on phonics. He was
an accomplished craftsman, of course, twenty years old. He was
a small fellow.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
They don't have TV. No, he was all the time
in the world.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
He was too poor for it. Everyone else had it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I was on your candle light. You can be working kid.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
He was a litland He was five four spine bone slight,
but he had like this dazzling smile. He didn't have
the Spittlefields dentician. He had a dazzling smile and a
magnetic personality, okay, And so that made him really popular
in the neighbor especially in the pubs. And it was
in those taverns that he fell in with the wrong crowd,
(08:06):
the shady underbelly of Spittlefield. And so most notably was
a prostitute named Elizabeth Lyon aka Edgeworth Best Edgeworth, Edgeworth,
Best District Best Best was a big, beautiful mama whole
lot of rosa very popular with the fellas, and Jack
(08:27):
was sprung hubba hubba. And so the more time and
money he spent with best, the deeper into that dark
side of things he got. Lots of drinking, lots of carousing.
This wasn't good for woodworkings.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Are no will be selling his tools?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah? Well, as a one time man of the trades,
you know that you have to be able to focus
and show up on time and get the work done.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Oh yeah, and you have to tell your tools you.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Can't send things just you can't like send things to
voicemail and ignore the inbox. So his income took a
dip and he wasn't getting the work he once was
because he was spending all this money on booze and
on yeah, and so he had to make ends meet.
He needed cash. He started stealing. In the spring of
seventeen twenty three, he got busted for the first time shoplifting.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Taking other people's tools.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover, he yelled, Did
he really that's no, that's a smith's lyric.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Oh. I thought that they pulled it from him like
it's an old British story. I just have never.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Heard he had. He was Spinhall over.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
The I'm not going to believe anything.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So soon enough, he starts hanging out with a very
bad ombre named Joseph Blake aka Blueskin.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
William Blake's little brother. Blueskin. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
No, one's really sure how he got that name.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Colloidal silver, that's how he got that name.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
He had like a really swarthy complexion. He was also blue,
super hairy, Okay, especially in the facial region, So maybe
that was it. This is what they're speculating. Okay, some
thought maybe had a port wine birthmark.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Okay, maybe he's more sense, lot more sense.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
He could have been part smurf.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That's I'm going with that one. Smurf from the waist down. Okay,
be like a mermaid or something. Yeah, it's like fish
for the waist down. He's smurf from the waist down.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Blueskin something. He doesn't wear pants a lot because everyone
can see.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, well, but I thought his feet he can't hire that,
yeah blue foot. Well his legs, they see his ankles,
they go out, they go all the way up.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Any blueskin, Blueskin, he shows Jack Shepherd the Ropes takes
him from an amateur shoplifter to a professional thief. He's
good at it, but he's also not good at it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
He's an interesting line there, professional thief amateur SHOPLIFTERA when
someone else pays you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Enough, did you get you get sponsorships?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Okay, there you go. You're a factory rider exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So he gets arrested and imprisoned five times between seventeen
twenty three and seventeen twenty four. Of those five arrests,
he got out four times. The poor folks in Spittlefields
loved this, of course they loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They had no TV, they had no TV.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
But the rich people in town did. So. Let's take
a look at his first escape. Seventeen twenty three. He
got sent to Saint Anne's Roundhouse for pickpocketing. That's where
they invented the roundhouse.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
They had the roundhouse just for pickpockets.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's where they invented it.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Like all the cut purses go here.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, Bess came to visit him, and that was a
bad idea because the jailers recognized her as a lady
of the night and then she gets arrested.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
No, just in some position.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, she wasn't out. I think she had like warrants.
And so she and Jack they're sent together to new
prison in Clerkenwell, and it was there that they were
locked in a cell known as the newgate Ward.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh okay, I think I've heard of.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah. Somehow Jack gets a hold of a file these things. Yeah,
and so the couple they'd only been locked up overnight,
but it was too much for Jack. He's like, I
can't take this with Jack, he filed his way through
his shackles. Then he used the file to gouge a
hole in the wall right under the window, Not like
a big hole that went all the way through, just
one that like it was placed as such that he
(12:10):
could loosen one of the iron bars that blocked the
wig window and wiggle it out of place. So they
got the window open. Bess and Jack tied sheets and
blankets together and did the old cliche rope out of
the window escape. They lowered themselves to the ground, and
then they climbed over a twenty two foot high wall.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Wow, freedom, how are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They did it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Twenty twenty two feet. If they're standing on one shoulder
and you get one up the other one has to pull.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The other one five foot flour exactly. He's not. She's
a she's a big lady. Yeah. I don't know how
they did.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
She she threw them over and rope back over.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Let's say that's how it happened. All right, let's just
say it. I'm going to go ahead and say it.
She threw him over the wall.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like it like, rope back over exactly, she climbed up
and got a baby.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
They went in prisons. No more.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's a lot of filing too, and you were trying
to file through metal that Can we just say.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Cute couple alerts? Oh my god, go to jail together.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Oh dude, ship them forever.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Seventeen twenty four. A year later, Jack's twenty two. He
was still on his thieving bs. He gets caught. He
was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death. It seems
like a lot for theft. Yeah, So back to Newgate.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What did he steal?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I don't know. He stole the Declaration of Independence before
it was written. The cell for the Condemned at Newgate
was at the end of a dark passage, and to
get to the passage you had to go through this
hatch that was like ringed with huge iron spikes.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
No, So that's true. August thirtieth, seventeen twenty four, Jack
filed away at one of the spikes Nice so that
with a little push it would just snap right off. Okay,
he got it almost through, and once again Best comes
to visit Nice, and I'm guessing she didn't have warrants
this time. She just like, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
She brought the rope, and then she.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Brought another prostitute with her, a gal named mal Maggot,
mall maggot, m o l l oh mall like Molly Maggot. Okay,
And now I'm not of that world, but I would
imagine that's not a name that drums up a lot
of business.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Very specific type of business. Maybe she's like going for
the goth guys and she wants them to know, like
perhaps you know a dead girl.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Oh be sick. Okay, So Bess and Maul they waltzed
to visit Jack on death Row and they managed to
distract the guard. How okay, magic trick, I you know,
I can't imagine how. And so while the guard was
otherwise occupied, Jack snapped off the spike and then he
was able to squeeze through the space and make a
break for it, and the girls helped him run off,
(14:48):
and then they all went together. Maggot time, maggot so.
But he only tasted freedom for a couple months then
he gets locked up. His last escape was his most
famous one. It was October fifteenth, seventeen twenty four, and
there's a lot of footage of the escape available online.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You keep doing that, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So the location was once again Newgate Prison. The jailers
cuffed him while he was in the cell, hoping that
would prevent him from getting out sometime again with cheese.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What are they cuffing him with?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He just always rope, like loosely woven hemp rope. So
at some point he managed to get his thin wrists
out of the shackles, and then he pulled a loose
nail out of the wall. Which is why maintenance is important.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So important. It's the little things. Yeah, broken window policies,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So he used the nail to pick the lock on
the chain that connected his ankle to the floor, and
then he used the nail to pick the lock on
the door. Oh yeah, And then he used the nail
to pick the lock in the area outside the block
where he was kept, and then another lock and another lock.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
This is like the TV shows I watched, like The Musketeers,
Like this is so the medieval escape plane. Totally get
a nail, work it out of something.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And you know, he's on the roof of the prison.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I love this for him.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
He still had a shackle around his ankle, and oh
I forgot Then he's like, oh man, I forgot something.
So he runs back to the cell and he grabs
a blanket.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
He breaks back into the prison.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Where's the staff? Where's the staff? Anyway, he runs back
up to the roof with the blanket and he uses
it to slide over to the roof next door, and
then he pops into a top floor window. This place
was someone's home and snuck around and then out the
front door. And he waited until the morning, and he
went to a cobbler. Smart so being the local folk here. Yeah, well,
(16:33):
he was able to convince the cobbler to cut off
the leg. Iron I feel like I would have gone
to a blacksmith, but like, you.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Know, any port similar tools.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So he swanned around for two weeks just partying it up.
And then the law caught up with him, and when
they went to make they went to arrest him. Dude
was hammered. What Yeah, he was wasted. So he didn't run,
he didn't resist, he's just all how dry.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Jack.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Of course, he gets arrested, he's convicted and once again
sentenced to death. I told you he was a folk hero, yes, already.
When it was time to take him to the gallows,
the road leading there was lined with women crying and
like wailing and throwing flowers at his speak. Ladies, man
to the end, you know. Daniel Dafoe, author of Robinson Cruiser,
(17:19):
not personally but yes, big fan of Jack's. Earlier in
the year, Jack Shepherd had written an autobiography, What a
narrative of all the robbery's escapes, et cetera of John Shepherd.
That was his book, except Jack didn't write it. Daniel
Dafoe did. Yeah. They're pals, and it's called Ghost Road,
he writes book. Yeah. So, and they were such pals
(17:42):
that Daniel Dafoe and his publisher came up with a
plan to wait fifteen minutes after Jack got the rope
and then grabbed the body, and they wanted to revive him,
which they heard had worked a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, back then, sometimes hangings you'd hear about this.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It's the old equival of like one hack. They don't
want you to know, like you can wait fifteen.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well sometimes that's the next.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, my cousin knows a guy who knows a guy
who brought a handman back to life. That kind of
thing totally works. They saw it on the hit ABC
show nine one ps nine one one got even campier
from Fox to ABC. It's amazing and I love it,
but I don't watch TV anyway. Jack, he didn't make it,
and Daniel Dafoe is unsuccessful. This is like my one
(18:22):
percent where it's murdered by the state. Yeah, it's up
for debate anyway, Rip to that man. Plays were written
about Jack and performed after his death. In eighteen forty,
William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel called Jack Shephard and
it was crazy popular, and the authorities didn't care for that,
so much so that they refused to license any plays
in London with Jack Sheppard in the title for forty
(18:44):
years after the publication. That takes it to one hundred
and fifty years after his dath.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Dude. Wait before we take a break, Harry Styles, get
on this. You can get back from Timothy Shallame all
the ris he's stolen from you.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
This is it.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, now get it, and also a David Bowie soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It's perfect. When we come back. I'm going to tell
you about a guy who was often compared to old Jack. Yeah,
(19:25):
escaper boys, Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I'm digging this, dude, That Jack Shepherd was dope. What
else you got?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Well, we're having a lot of fun, yes we are.
And I've already killed a.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Man off you table the state, no less so this news.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Henry Moore Smith is his name, Henry Morris Smith, m
O r E. Like just how much Smith Morse? Yeah,
Henry Moore Smith. He was the North American Jack Shepherd,
an escape artist, sort of a folk hero. O. This
all goes down about like one hundred years after Jack
Shepherds eighteen thirties, twenties eighteen, early eighteen teens. Smith is
(20:01):
a con man, horse thief, burglar, and most importantly an
escape artist. He had a bunch of aliases. Frederick, Henry Moore,
Henry J. Moon, William Newman, you know whatever those.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Are good forgettable but sounding really good names exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So eighteen twelve, he arrives in Halifax.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Nova Scotia, Canadian.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
He was vague about where he'd come from or like
where he was born. There are no records of him
prior to this time. He was well dressed and polite
in his mid twenties. He said he was a tailor,
and then he'd just arrived from England.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Okay, so one local, pretty good story, because there's a
lot of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, a local said quote. He was perfectly inoffensive, gentle
and obliging, used no intoxicating liquors, refrained from idle conversation
in all improper language, and was apparently free from every
evil habit.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
That's weird, correct me if I'm wrong, But they you
be describing me?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Oh, I know you never said a bad word in
your life?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, I mean is that where we were reading it?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
You no intoxicating liquors, doesn't smoke weed. Yeah, never like
the Zaren Burnett story.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I never bad language, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Smith though. He said he went to Cambridge and so
just like you. Of course, fancy is what I'm trying
to He also said he said he could speak five languages.
It's basically the Zaren Burnette. He said he had a
small fortune held in the Bank of England. Bingo. Here's
(21:36):
one where it's like I was reading this and I
was like, is this Zaren or is this this Smith.
That's because he carried a Bible with him all the
time and he could recite whole chapters of scripture.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Oh yeah, and you want to hear Ruth. I'll tell
you right now, lays Ruth the whole thing. And they
have some kings to next maybe judges, what do you
got how much time.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
You They would ask this guy by his spiritual pass like,
tell us about your spiritual that's the question, right, I'm
going to start asking Pew And he said he ran
a Methodist prayer meeting back in England just like you.
Here's one that actually I could see you doing. One
time someone asked him where he was from, and he
(22:19):
just laughed and pointed at the full moon.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's very I'm gonna in the act.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And so you know, all these people like they're kind
of captivated by him. One person was John Bond, not
John Bond, Jovie John Bond, John Bond exactly, uh double
o six. He thought that Smith was the Beasknees, so
he hired him to work on his farm near Windsor,
(22:45):
just northwest of Halifax, and Smith he fit right in
with the family. He joined them for meals and prayers.
He was like, hold on, I need to pray before
I eat this rule. So he also romance the daughter.
There are a lot of Elizabeths going on here today.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
God's a big fan of and so ministers.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
As was the custom of the day, Smith married Elizabeth
within the year.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
There you go, hey, quick, dude. It happened.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
The couple moved out and Smith started his own tailor shop.
He's like, you know what, I'm just going to go
out on my own here. Things were blissful, and until
they weren't. In Halifax at the big fancy mansions, things
started going missing. Someone was slipping in during the night
and stealing silver, jewelry, anything else of values, virtues. And
(23:37):
it wasn't just palatial homes. Offices and stores got it,
and it wasn't just expected high ticket items. The Chief
Justice of the British Colony of Nova Scotia, Samson Salter Blowers.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's a hell of a name.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Samson Salter Blowers.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Or Salter Blowers yeah, he had.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Three law books taken from his chambers. To the judge,
He's like, I kind of need those, you guys. He
offered a reward for their return, and a few days later,
Henry Moore Smith shows up. He's like, I'm here to
take the reward.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
He heard the book.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
He's like, I bought these from a stranger, you know,
as you don't. I don't practice the law, but I'd
like these expensive law books please. You know, he's like
sitting minding his own business, sitting on a bench reading
the Bible, just like sunning himself. Dude comes up. You
look like you're into big books. You want to buy
some lawbooks. So the townsfolk weren't fools, so like where
(24:33):
Smith is living in Windsor, they start thinking, like, hold
on a second. He goes to Halifax a lot, and
he leaves early in the morning, and he doesn't come
back to like the next day he returned those books.
Why would he buy them when he comes back from.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Before?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And he always has stuff with him when he gets
back from Halifax, like random stuff and sometimes a lot
of cash. And then there was a break in the case.
Man got pinched for stealing a coat. But He swore
up and down that he'd bought the coat from Smith,
so the authorities issued an arrest warrant. They headed out
to pick Smith up in Windsor, but he was already
in the wind That was his first escape, with many
(25:14):
more to come. He disappeared for almost two years. There
you go, yeah, and so what of Elizabeth, Right, She's
just probably go back to the farm. I feel for
the Elizabeths of the world.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yes, you do.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
So. Two years later, eighteen fourteen, he popped back up
in Saint John, New Brunswick, and he was making friends.
So he buddied up with an officer of a local regiment,
Colonel Daniel and All. Danny wanted a horse, but not
just Danny horse. He wanted a black horse that would
match the team that pulled his carriage. It was all
(25:47):
about the esthetics of it, you know, you know, you
might as well be.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Get the horse you can get.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
So his new pal Smith is like, look at me,
I'm coming to the rescue. I know exactly where you
can get one. That's exactly what you want. Daniel gives
him the money, go buy the horse for me, like
you know, orders him around. That's your new friend. You
make him go to your military. And so Smith gets
the money and you can guess what happened.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
He took off never see him again.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
He took the money and ran no horse, no horse.
So he still wanted a horse for himself though. Smith
got it in my head when someone's like, you know,
they suggest something, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Do you want a burrito? And you're like, I didn't,
but now I do.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Now I think I could go from now.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I got the money for a burrito exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
So he wants a horse. But at the same time,
he didn't want to use all this cash that he had,
so he stole one that belonged to Will's Frederick Knox,
a magistrate, and he likes sticking it to the legal establishment.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, so why not go right to the man who's
gonna bust you.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Will's Frederick kna the magistrate. He was the son of
a British Undersecretary of State, and he really loved his
horse and he wanted it back. So he gets word
of this and like a description of Smith, and he
chased after Smith for four days trying to catch him
and get the horseback. Like he wanted justice. He cold justice.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I'm surprised he didn't hire like some Scottish clan to
hunt him down or something.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He found Smith four days later, three hundred miles away
and picked two Nova Scotia.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And I will take old Nova SCOSTI. Oh not pick two? Yeah,
I thought I just take any two Nova Scosts you
were offering. Sorry, go on.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So they he gets arrested. He tries to escape a
handful of times from this, but he's eventually brought back
to New Brunswick for trial. So while he's locked up,
Smith meets a guy who will change his life. And
the man was named Walter Bates, and he was the
county sheriff. They actually wind up changing each other's lives.
(27:54):
Bates became obsessed with Smith. Wait what the sheriff. The
sheriff fascinated.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
He's not behind bars, He's not a dirty sheriff. He's
running this person.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Running the prison. He's like a straight ahead. He later
wrote about Smith quote as a character singular and unprecedented.
He was just fascinated by him.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Really yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So as the trial approached Smith, he keeps moaning about
a pain in his side. Real bad, he said, like
real bad, it hurts.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I got big bad booboo.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Bates is like, how did that happen? That's how he talked. Yeah,
We've heard tapes, I've seen video. He's like, how did
that happen? And Smith told him that when Knox caught him,
he hit Smith in the side with the butt of
his pistol and that whether he broke a rib or
damaged an Oregon, who knows, but he's just in complete agony.
(28:46):
Baits is like, oh my god, that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
You got busted guts man.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, So he gets worse and worse, and they Bates
brings in a bunch of different doctors to look at him,
but they couldn't seem to make it any better. And
when it got to the point where he could like
hardly lift his head, he asked for someone to come
and take down his will as he was going to
dictate it to so Bates he wrote to call on
Smith's lawyer. He said, quote, I fear we shall be
(29:12):
disappointed in our expectations of the trial of the prisoner
more Smith at the approaching court. I presume from his
appearance he will be removed by death before that time.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Death is a coming on a coling.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah, he's not going to make it to trial, and
that afternoon Smith screams out in pain and he asks
the guard to heat up a brick and bring it
to warm his feet.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Okay, brick, you know they put it in like a blanket, and.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Like the tender hearted guard, he's like, oh my god.
Of course he ran to get him the brick, and
then he accidentally left the cell door open, and like
the guy can barely move. You're not thinking, you know,
he's just his eyes are rolled back and he's on
his steathbed. The guard comes back with the brick and
Smith is gone. He played the long game. Yeah, that
(29:58):
was a long so Ba and the brick toning guard.
They wound up facing charges of negligence for allowing the
prisoner to escape, and New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore,
he put up a reward for Smith's capture.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I want more.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It wasn't like he was laying low and hiding out there.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Where is?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
He started burgling on the regular. He lifted a silver watch, cash,
like a bunch of other stuff from a house near
the jail.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Oh, go off again.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
He's like, I know where I need to go. I'm
going west to Maine. Oh right, So He's like he
stopped for food at a tavern, and while he was there,
he stole a bunch of silver teaspoons. I just can't
control himself. He stayed at an inn near Fredericton, the
colony's capital, Oh, of course, and stole a bunch of
(30:47):
expensive clothes out of someone else's luggage. Like he went
into their roomins zink my hands.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Everything stickies to him, what kind of things?
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Like the fellow travelers, they didn't suspect him of anything.
They he told him he was a businessman of one
of them. He's like, I'm a bounty hunter chasing an
army deserter. Here's the best. He's like, I'm a law
man on the trail of a notorious horse thief who
broke out of Kingston jail chasing myself. All of his
(31:15):
tall tails and small sifts caught up with him. He
was busted just as he was about to enter the
United States. They locked him up ankles and wrists, and
they sent him back to Kingston to stand trial. The
whole wrists and ankle thing wasn't enough, though, because like,
once again, he slips the shackles and he finds sweet,
sweet freedom. He'd only been in custody a few hours
(31:38):
when he took off into the night. So he heads
back to Fredericton and once he's there he steals choice.
He steals another horse. It's like the hot wiring of
the day. He steals him from stables at night. But
it'd be funnier if he horse jacked him. Like you know,
someone's riding up and they get a stop, he shoves
him off his saddle and rides off plates to so
(32:03):
remember New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Whatmore, the one who
announced the rewards leading to his capture. So on the
run this time Smith broke into his house and while
Wetmore was having a dinner party.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yes early dinner gang energy completely.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
And so he didn't crap on the drapes like that.
Instead he grabbed a bunch of the guests coats and
scurried away like that'll show them.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I love in Canada. Stealing coats is the mood.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Like this time the cops found him, they hauled them away.
Where was he hiding in a barn?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Okay, I.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Think he was probably All his loot, including the coats,
was hidden under the hay in the law and so
you know. They like, He's like, fine, fine, you got me,
you got me. Let's take a break. We come back.
I'm going to tell you about his next adventure. And
it's a doozy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Elizabeth Zarin, Hey, I got first time you did?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You came in first, good job. So Henry Moore Smith?
How much Smith?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
More Smith?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Smith? They brought him back to Kingston, the one in Canada,
not in Jamaica. Ah, and they locked him up.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, that one has not as good as music.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, the Jamaican So back with he's back with Sheriff Bates.
He loves him and Bates. Yeah, Bates is fooling around
this time though. They well, they gave Smith the full
body search and then they chained him to the floor
by the leg. So it wasn't long before a sound
(33:57):
was heard. Not Smith crying in agony over a created ailment.
It was the sound of filing metal, of course. So
the guards run to the cell and they find him
halfway out the window.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Just liked Baker working for him.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I get that for you. Baits baits Baker. So they
they find him hanging halfway out the window, They grab
his legs, they ink him back into the cell. They
demanded that he hand over the tools that he'd used,
and so he passes them this little saw that he
made out of a knife blade. He's like, oh shucks. Yeah,
and I don't know how he got that one in there,
(34:31):
but he did.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Don't want to know.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
I don't want to know. Like maybe he started sporting
a huge pompadour.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, probably was probably.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
So the guards they got a new chain and they
locked him up again, and then they heard a noise,
the same metal filing noise. Now you and I have
learned that modern day bank employees would probably assume it
was rats or a short in the candle scorners. They'd
shrug it off and then they get cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
That can't be filed.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
We took the file, so luckily these guards were on it.
So they dashed back to the cell and they find
Smith sitting there kind of like a kid who is
just doing something and then ran back to the bed
to sit on it like a good god seeing child.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
He's absolutely nothing, absolutely just sitting there staring back at
you totally.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
So the guards tell him stripped down.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Oh and so he's like, what is this?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Three doors? So he obeyed, and the guards discovered a
ten inch saw blade tied to his thigh with a string. Wow,
that's comfortable.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah sounds wow.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Okay, Sheriff Bates outraged. He's just livid.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I thought I could trust Yeah, he's always been through.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
He's like, I'm not about to be embarrassed again. So
he calls a blacksmith and he orders the guy to
craft an iron collar oh for Smith, and leg irons
and handcuffs, and then he wants each of those chained
to the floor. The whole get up wound up weighing
forty six hounds. Wow. Can you imagine that?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I know who hired the kinkster to run the prison?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Like ca can you picture it? Zarn?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, I don't think I can.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Close your eyes. Oh, I'm gonna have you picture it.
You are a jailer at the lock up in Kingston,
New Brunswick. You're sitting in your quiet office at the jail,
reading the paper and softly whistling to yourself. You started
a couple of weeks ago, and it's not a bad gig.
You've heard lots of stories though about Henry Moore Smith.
(36:30):
He's a thief, but more importantly he's an escape artist.
He really got sheriff bates good last time, and the
sheriff didn't take kindly to that. But you've also noticed
that the sheriff talks about Smith in weirdly reverential tones.
He's kind of in awe of him and is for
sure fascinated by him, and is desperate to know what
makes this guy tick. Smith is back now, and you've
been told to keep a tight eye on him. Yesterday,
(36:53):
the blacksmith came and locked it up like you've never
seen before. Chains, shackles, cups. He looks afright, and you
can what it would feel like to be bound like that.
Last night they had to call the locksmith back to
shorten the chains after he tried to wrap the ones
he had around his neck. Suddenly you hear a commotion.
It's Smith, for sure, and he's shouting chains rattle. Smith
(37:15):
calls out Bible verses in between screeches and moans. He's
off his rocker, you think to yourself as you run
to the cell. He's in the cell, bashing his hand
against the walls, slamming the chain into the bricks. With
a clink, the chain snaps. Smith stops and you stare
at each other in silence. The broken link clatters to
the ground. You tell Smith to stay right there while
(37:37):
you shout down the hall for someone to get the
blacksmith again. You're thankful for the four other chains that
hold Smith there against his will, although no one would
get hurt if he escaped again, just Sheriff Bates' pride
in your career. You walk into the cell and you
sit on the floor beside Smith. His hands and ankles
are bloody. He has a crazed look in his eye.
You've seen that before. Once you were in the woods
(38:00):
with your father and you came upon a wolf with
its leg caught in a trap. The wolf snarled at you,
but its eyes showed deep terror. You asked your dad
if he was going to shoot the wolf put it
out of his misery. He assessed the beautiful beast's leg
from afar and determine it was something that could heal
if it were free. He got a big stick and
approached the wolf. The wolf lashed out and snarled some more,
(38:21):
but its eyes just showed desperation. Your father was able
to ledge the stick into the trap and free the wolf.
It sprinted away from you without a second glance. No
limp or yelp. As pained as it was, it wasn't
interested in hurting you. It just wanted to be free,
even if it meant to die in the woods on
its own terms. That's what you see as you look
into Henry Smith's eyes. He is raving, he is shouting,
(38:43):
he is quoting the Bible and flailing against his shackles,
but his eyes showed terror. He just wants to be free.
You go to the corner of the cell and you
get a wet rag from a bucket. You softly wipe
the blood from his arms, from his neck. He rises
against you, but you can see in his eyes that
he you mean him no harm, and you don't fear him.
You have nothing but compassion for him. Society and circumstance
(39:06):
have driven him to this state, just like the wolf.
So Smith's horse theft trial kicked off May eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That was beautiful. I mean, I gotta say honestly, Normally
they're pretty darn funny, but that one was beautiful. I
loved my father.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
The wo.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Oh I was deep, and the snow I was there, Yes,
I was there, And then I had compassion for my
fellow human.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, it's just amazing, went threw a lot together.
I'm a better person.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
That was a journey.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
He's humane. So Smith's horse trial, May eighteen fifteen. He
gets brought into the prisoner's dock for trial, and he
kept up this wild behavior. He like ripped his shirt
and snap his fingers.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I've waited on people like that before. I know that vibe.
Yeah so and he like at one.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Point he kicked at the wooden railing until they had
to bring leg irons and buying him up again, just
flailing around. The prosecutor was Attorney General Wetmore, the guy
whose dinner party guests the coat. I will not recuse
your honor. I have a personal interest in this. I
don't think they had an insanity defense.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Then that's what I was just about, asking when that comes.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I don't know, and I was too lazy to look
it up.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I don't really know if they even would acknowledge it's
the same thing we recognize it as.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Then I looked it up, and I wondered to myself
today did they have it? And I thought, should you
look it up? And I thought, yeah I should? Am
I going to know?
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Who knows? Who cares?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
If you want to find it out.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
There's Google exactly exactly. Cheese. So but the lawyer he's like,
I've got it. He points out that when Smith was arrested,
he wasn't on the horse. He was just so there's
no way to prove possession. He's just near it. It
seems like a sound, argued.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Man, He's gotten the law worked out exactly.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
H So it went to the jury and they discussed
it for two hours, and then they came back guilty
and him to be hanged. Damn right. So Attorney General
Wetmore he asked for a report on Smith's state of
mind and behavior before he could set a date for
the execution.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Not the century to be stealing horses, No.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
And so Bates he goes to Smith's cell to try
to talk to him about the whole situation. But apparently
Bates said quote he paid no attention, patted his hands,
saying and acted the fool as usual.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Bits is real hard.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
He wouldn't talk.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
All the time, he plays.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And he's just slapping himself. In what were to be
his final days, he made a bunch of puppets using
fabric from his clothes, sock puppets, straw from his bedding,
and then he called them his family man. He would
put on puppet shows for the staff or like any
visitors that would come in.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Did he marry one of them because he's very.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And then he was, oh, my wife. So by August
things are looking bleak that they're looking and then they
weren't because his lawyer had been working around the clock
to save him and it worked. He was pardoned. He
was crazy, but was like, yeah, they were like, look
(42:29):
at this behavior. He does not know anything about what's going.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
On, so they would rather feed him than put him
in the rope.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I just don't understand it. That type of morality sometimes,
like what you're gonna punish him this way? Like keeping
him alive.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
They took pity on him and compassion. Bates goes to
Smith in the cell and is like, homie've been pardoned.
Smith doesn't understand or care. He's just like what he
said something about wanting potatoes for dinner. Okay, So one
condition not breaking and they're not going to actually have
to pay for his upkeep because one condition of the
(43:05):
release was that he had to get the h double
hockey sticks out of wondering about someone else's.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Probably be crazy down in Newfoundland.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, to go to the United States. They got a
lot of you guys down there, So baits Bates was
sad to see him. Bates is like, we've spent a
year together. Of course I feel bad, really like Bates
is like trying so hard to connect with him. He can't.
So he buys Smith a whole brand new outfit, like
(43:37):
a first day of school outfit, and buys him a
ticket on a ship headed for Nova Scotia. Wow, and
like he mubbles and shuffles. Smith mumbles and shuffles, and
he looks all dazed as he gets on the boat.
And like Bates stands there and watches the boat sail
away with his little wounded wolf on board, and I'm
sure he is like a hanky. So the boat docks
(43:59):
in Novas Goosha, and Smith made like Kaiser sosay and
lost the limp on his way off the boat walked
off a fully seen man.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Oh yeah, I was Kaiser.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
When straighten up, it straightens out at Nova Scotia, the
act worked. He weaseled his way to Yeah. A few
years went by. He really is willing to commit a long,
long game every time.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Incredible.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He a few years later, he's going by the name
William Newman. He gets arrested in new Haven, Connecticut for
stealing jewelry silver. Oh yeah, he's like stealing from innkeepers
at this point. And then he worked the oh my
side is killing me con there for a bit, but
like striking out with that gambit. He then decided to
saw his way through the cell door. He gets recaptured.
(44:51):
He was convicted of burglary at trial and he got
three years of hard labor and investigators discovered his previous
identity and contacted Sheriff Bates and Bates rushed.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, he goes down there. Bates goes to his cell
and Smith acts like he's never seen Bates before in
his life. Wow, He's like, who are you?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Would you love to see like Matt Damon and Philip
Seymour Hoffman play that scene, right? I know we can't
get that, but wouldn't that be amazing?
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Oh god?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
So Bates he's baffled, but he's like a little crushed
and so after doing.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
He's devastating.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Is so he you know, Smith does his time and
he gets sort of lost in the shuffle. He's hard
to track in this era, but that didn't stop Bates.
He spent the rest of his days trying to track
Smith down. He said that he could connect Smith to
thefts in Boston, New York, Connecticut, Ontario, Canada. Bates heard
about a preacher named Henry Hopkins in the South who
(45:53):
got arrested in eighteen twenty seven and was sentenced to
seven years in prison. He was sure that that was Smith,
but he couldn't make it down there, and he wasn't
able to physically confirm it. But basically, any time there
was a report of a clever thief, Bates was like,
it's Smith. It's my boy, It's there. He goes, there's
that beautiful boy. I want to buy him another suit,
(46:15):
and Smith sous his eye. Smith so captivating him that
Bates joined the Ridiculous Crime Book Club, and he really
a corker of all time. Called The Mysterious Stranger, or
Memoirs of the Noted Henry Moore.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Smith Guess what You're Getting for Your Birthday?
Speaker 3 (46:36):
It was published in Connecticut, then it gets republished in England.
The Halifax newspaper, The Acadian Recorder.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
A great Acadian paper.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Serialized it in eighteen seventeen, and they sold the book
for a shilling a copy. And The Mysterious Stranger had
seven printings.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
I bet it did.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
The last one was in It appeared in nineteen twelve.
That was one hundred years after Smith.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Got to un of money.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Christ's Cloud Story certified hit.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
The combined sales at that time topped forty thousand copies.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh yeah, I can make this into hit today.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
That's a lot even today.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah, you can make this into a movie and have
it hit immediately.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
A new edition of it was published in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
So. At the end of The Mysterious Stranger, Bates wrote, quote,
in all the adventures, we are not called upon to
witness any acts of violence and blood. And it is
perhaps owing to the absence of this repulsive trait, that
we do not behold him in a more relentless light.
So basically, he didn't hurt nobody.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, totally your rule.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Yeah, so, and that's what makes him a ridiculous criminal, perfect, ridiculous, totally.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
The only person you hurt was Baits, really, my man, Baits. Yeah,
it hurt his heart, Yes, he just bruised it.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Im Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Oh, man, I I can't. I gotta admit I think
we should dip our toes more into the Canadian waters
because some of the crimes up there are just so
filled with a bizarre passion. You know, it's like it's
not like that. I don't I'm not trying to like
fall into like the Oh it's the Great White North
and they're cold and lonely. But I think they're cold
and lonely up there in the Great White North, Elizabeth,
(48:15):
because we always hear that these stories of like couples
going across the country, people being committed to like even
in Canada is always he's very big and grand and
long lasting, and like this guy commits to the bit.
There's something about it that has like a Texas quality
of bigger than life, but but but the old but humble.
You know, it's like a humble and kind version of
(48:37):
the we're bigger than life but Canada. So anyway, that's mine.
What's yours, Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway? Thank you for asking,
of course every time you know why I got your
back for.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Once you asked me. I I'm just into the long
game of it all. Like if you're gonna do it,
commit like wow, And that's that's putting a lot of
trust in your your your long game.
Speaker 2 (48:56):
Totally and that all things would go out and work
out your benefit. Also, he didn't take the moment to,
like when the boat's pulling away, to break down and
kind of wave, because then someone could chase the boat down.
He waited until the boat got to the next nation.
Then he's like, Okay, I think I'm free.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I know me too, all right, that's what I have.
Oh oh you know what we do need I talk about?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Oh yeah, when you queue that up?
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Oh god, I love ge.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Heyes, Aaron and Elizabeth. I wanted to update you on
something totally ridiculous going on on the internet right now.
If you need any industrial glraade glycine, uh dong Hua
gene long is your man. You see, there is a
manufacturer of industrial grade glycine in China that made a
(49:56):
TikTok advertising their product and it has gone absolutely by
And I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Okay, okay, I don't have the TikTok no, but glycine.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
That is this is I like that someone can go
viral pushing glycine.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
I know right. That's now I want to know what
ridiculous that is certified. I gotta find the video. Don't
send us the video. The interns will find it.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Send the video.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
That's all I have for today. You can find us
online at ridiculous Crime dot com. You can find us
on social media, but not TikTok. Do you have TikTok?
Speaker 2 (50:38):
I'm trying to get rid of all of them, one
at a time. One or two I think I've gotten
I think I still have accounts, but I only look
at like, yeah, one or two of the.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
Man I don't have the TikTok. Email ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com, but most importantly, leave us a talk
back on the iHeart app reach out did it? Ridiculous
Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett, produced
(51:08):
and edited by Traveling Shackle salesman Dave Cousten. Research is
by horse Borrower Marissa Brown and horse Ad Jason Andrea
Song Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Fired prison
Guards Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided
by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot
and Mister Andrea Executive producers are Coatless Dinner guests Ben
(51:30):
Bolan and Noel.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Brown Disquime Say It One More Time Crime Ridiculous Crime
is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts my heart Radio,
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