Samuel & Eloise Popeil

Salesman and grandfather of the American Infomercial, Samuel Popeil, had such a rocky marriage that his wife Eloise hired killers to take him out. But wait, there's more! Listen now and you'll get this story PLUS betrayal, PLUS their outrageous trial for free! This offer is not available in stores!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody. Hey, Hey, going back to the show. I'm
Diana and I'm Eli. Always so wonderful to have you
with us and every day, always, every time, and I'm
so excited to be here doing another story. It's really
a highlight of my week. Sit down to record um
and that is not a diss on my week. I

(00:23):
genuinely enjoy it. The rest of my week is hell. Oh,
it's a good week. It's Halloween season. Hey, every week
is a good week. We got our decorations up up.
We told you we had them up last time, but
they weren't quite done yet. Now they are. Yes, We're excited,
even though the lawn is going to get mode tomorrow,
so I might have to move them around a little bit,
but it's fine, it needs it. I'm very excited. We

(00:45):
might go this week. Georgia Renaissance Fair is for the
first time, I believe, Yeah, having a hunt in their grounds.
And this is so cool because we always wonder what
the hell do they do with this place all year
when the Renaissance Air isn't going on. My friends from
high school, Emily and Sarah and I we would go
every single year. It was like our thing to go

(01:06):
and we always have a blast. And every year we're like,
where is my renfair after dark where you have all
the gross ship the real Renaissance going on uncensored and
there's no kids around, so you know to worry, you know,
you're just like, we're really you know, getting the real
Renaissance experience. I feel like it would be super gross

(01:29):
it never happened again, would be like a renaissance Freaknick,
But whatever, I am ready to see him one time
just a little. Well, before we get into this episode,
we've got some uh something important to talk about because
recently y'all served as our answering machine and gave us
some great feedback about lettering in high schools. Yes, we're

(01:49):
still on this lettering in high school, varsity college, all
these things where you get the letter on your jacket,
and we talked about it at length. With the information
you guys sent us, it was a lot of We
had a we had a really good time. But then
we got this message yes from Richard on Instagram. Hey,
Diana and Eli, thanks so much for the great entertaining podcast.

(02:11):
Thank you Richard, thank you. During the intro of the
most recent pod, you went back and answered the question
of what it means to letter in school. I'm still
not sure you answered the question. You explained that you
get a letter and or jacket and some very cute pins.
But what do you have to do to letters? Does
every drama student letter? Does everyone on the football team letter?

(02:31):
I don't understand what it takes to letter? Thanks Richard, Richard,
you blew our minds. You're right. We were like, damn,
we did not a letter either. Still, we took it
on ourselves to look it up. Yes, and we still
don't know. It turns out it's quite quite arbitrary. Each

(02:54):
school kind of makes the criteria for lettering. I guess.
But it seemed to be that if you were let
ring in volunteer service, it would be like a set
number of hours you had to volunteer. With athletics, it
was like you didn't miss any games, practices or events,
and you performed like you excelled in them. You were
there um. And then with drama it sounds like there's

(03:18):
a certain number of like events per year you have
to participate in, either on stage or in tech or
whatever our production activities, and so it would be like
two musicals to drama nights too, you know, a literary
night or you know Shakespeare or something like that, So
you would fulfill all these different criteria. But it's all

(03:38):
the school's kind of decide it for themselves, and then
you can either sew the letter onto your jacket or
some Some people frame it at home and don't wear it.
Was something else I didn't know. Some people put it
in like a shoe box somewhere, likely never to be
seen again, still bringing it with them from move to move,

(04:01):
well into their thirties, right right, and still in that
shoebox every few years ago. Oh yeah, hey, did you
did you know that? I lettered? And I'm across the
house like, yes I do. I didn't know that, So
hopefully we can. Seems like it's just a whole lot
of nonsense. Oh and then I forgot to mention that

(04:22):
with all of them, it seems like whatever you're lettering
in you must also be in good academic standing. Well
you can't. Well, they make exceptions. I think they do too.
I think they do too. U. So yeah, sorry, Richard,
you were so right about that. We did not answer
that question very well. Um, we had a great time

(04:42):
talking about flair though. Yeah. Well, let's not get too
lost in the past. Uh. I hope that clears it
up as well as anyone could. Um, you know, sure, well,
if you got anything else to say about it, we're
probably not going to get into it again. I'm going
to bring it up again, but we'll be happy to
hear it. Yeah, I will respond to your message with interest.

(05:07):
So I think we've got to get into today's story. Definitely,
um so exciting. This story was emailed to us this
summer by Vanessa. Thank you Vanessa for sending this in
and again above and beyond from Vanessa. She sent a
bunch of links to articles with it, which saved us
some time. Thanks Vanessa. Yes, now, this is kind of

(05:27):
a quick little story. We we don't really have much
about the early days of these people's relationship. Unfortunately, all
that's really out there is the crazy stuff. But look,
that's all we're here for anyway, right, It's enough for me.
So we had to bring this to you because it
is definitely one of those stories that really, you know,
you hear it and you just go what why? And

(05:51):
really that's kind of all the criteria there is here
on ridiculous romance. So yeah, let's jump right into a
story about another couple who's heinous divorce involved higher thugs,
death threat, jury trials, and a shocking ending that will
make you question the sanity of everyone involved. Perfect, Yes,

(06:11):
let's go, Hey the French, come listen. Well, Elia and
Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, a
romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a lover. It
might be any type of person at all, and abstract
cons are a concrete wall. But if there's a story.
Were the second glance Ridiculous Rolettes a production off I

(06:35):
Heart Radio. In January of nineteen fifteen, a man named
Samuel Pope Peal was born in New York City. Well,
I guess the baby was born a man from an
egg uh Samuel Pope Peal. He was one of four
children his parents had. His parents were Jewish immigrants named

(06:56):
Isidore and Mary Pope Peal. Now. He grew up in
Asbury Park, New Jersey, and he admired his uncle, Nathan Morris,
who was a successful salesman who eventually took on Samuel
as an apprentice. Nathan would go and demonstrate in department
stores and on the seaside boardwalk of his town, and
Samuel learned all the ins and outs of salesmanship from him.

(07:17):
He learned what excited people and what made them apprehensive,
and how to turn skeptics into regular customers. One of
Nathan's top selling items, according to an article in Harets,
was the Morris Metrics slicer, an old timey vegetable slicer
with this like adjustable blade that you could raise up
and down and kind of pick your thickness of whatever

(07:38):
you're slicing. Nifty little gadget for you know, early nineteen hundreds.
So when Samuel was seventeen, he stepped in for the
first time as a substitute for his uncle in a
department store sales pitch. He's going in with the gadgets.
He's like, I can do it, uncle, Uncle Nathan, I can.

(07:59):
I can put me in coach. I could sell this thing.
Let me give it a whirl. Yeah, And so he
gets up in front of the crowd, he pulls out
the Metric slicer and he's like, hey, everybody, check this out,
and he promptly almost sliced his whole finger off, and
they were all like, I don't want one. Yeah, it
looks dangerous. The potato. I guess I'll say no, thank

(08:23):
you so much. I don't have the numbers, but speculation station,
I'm going to say they sold zero that day. But
Samuel was persistent. He kept at it, and before long
he was as slick a salesman as anybody, largely because
he became so good at demonstrating those items. You know what.

(08:45):
He had his first misstep, but then he hit his
stride and yeah, got really good at it. Maybe that's
what gave him the determination, like never again. He was like,
I'm so embarrassed. How could you? He spit on himself
in here? He had this energy. In nine, Samuel and

(09:06):
his brother Raymond set up their own company and also
started selling kitchen gadgets. His competition is a spirit of
invention after all, I mean, Shelley is a friendly family rivalry.
No no problem around Thanksgiving time. Thanks for teaching me everything,
you know, uncle, Now I'm going to put you out
of business, all right. And a couple of years later,

(09:28):
Samuel and Raymond took their company, Pope Hell Brothers, out
to Chicago, Illinois. There's an article from Carnegie Museum that
says that Samuel quote unlike his contemporaries reversed the relationship
between product design and marketing in a way that tapped
into the consumer psyche like never before tried or accomplished.

(09:49):
So basically, you know business basics. You find a need,
you know, with your customer, your potential customer, you invent
something to address that in eat and then you sell
it to them. Sure, and you're fulfilling their need. And
everyone's happy. Yeah, because I'm a customer and I'm like, oh,
thank goodness, you've got the thing that I've been waiting for.
I'll buy that the thing I was already waiting for. Well,

(10:12):
Samuel was like, what if I just make something and
then tell you you needed it all along, even though
you really don't. And wow, did it work? Oh my goodness,
it worked. Nobody needs a knife that can cut through
a tin can or slice the tomato paper thin or
anything like that, but he convinced people that they did,

(10:35):
and they bought millions of his inventions. Well I didn't
think I needed that, but now that you show it
to me, yeah, I do like spending money on stuff
aside from food and you know, things I need for
my job. I don't think I've bought anything that I
need in many years. It's all stuff that I've been

(10:56):
told I need. I'm sure, yeah, yeah, I need. I
need a galaxy light. I need a mask for my foot.
So when i take it off, it's all black and
I'm like, oh, we got all the toxins. Do you
remember those? It's like a couple of years ago is
a big trend. It was like, I add all over
my news feed and several other people as we were
talking about it for a while. Interesting, it's very weird

(11:18):
looking ship. And I was like, oh, sure because they
were like, oh, your toxins come out through your feet
well of course for something and we absorbed them whatever,
and I was like, what is this wizardry? So there's
not a ton of information out there about Samuel's early
days beyond that kind of like we said, there's even
less information about his first marriage to a woman named

(11:40):
Julia Schwartz, but together he and Julia gave birth to
a son in nineteen thirty five named Ron Pope Peel.
When Ron was six years old, Samuel and Julia divorced,
and little Ron went to go live with his grandparents
in Florida. Now, in the early days of popular television,
in the nineteen forties, Samuel started purchasing ad space and

(12:01):
off our spots on TV for his little seven dollars
and fifty cents per minute, which is around let's see
here transferred eighty dollars today. Can you imagine getting a
minute on TV? I would be all over TV. Yes,
I know right. You'd be like, give me thirty minutes. Now,

(12:24):
why are you the money? No, I can just pay
for my own TV, he would tell me. Easily. You
guys be getting the ridiculous romance TV show, that's for sure. Yeah,
it would be this, but we'd have a camera on
I know. Yeah, you'd get to look at us in
our blanket for it. So then in nineteen fifty two,
Samuel's son Ron moved back to Chicago. He was seventeen

(12:44):
years old, and he was going to learn the business
from his father. He was going to take his amazing
sales style, add a few of his own tricks, and
then all those tricks made Ron into a legend. At
a very young age. His father like to me, everything
you know, so I can, you know, go do my
own thing, take over the business. So in n six,

(13:07):
Pope Pio Brothers invented a new product that would bring
the Pope Peel name to homes across America, the chopp
oh Matic. It was about a foot tall. It had
a long handle on a spring attached to like a
zigzag blade at its base, and when you slapped the
handle on top at the base, you could chop anything

(13:29):
you wanted into tiny pieces. Very useful, but because it
had so many uses, it was really difficult for salesmen
to carry around everything they needed to truly show off
what the Choppo Mattic could do. Because you know, this
is like demonstration era sales, and you had to go

(13:49):
to stores and set up a whole thing, or you
can go to door to door or whatever. So imagine
rolling up with your briefcase and you pull out the
Choppo Matic and also a cutting board, a bundle of carrots,
some celery, some ice cubes, a couple of hard boiled eggs,
a ham, alive turkey. Whatever, we're gonna chop up this

(14:10):
live turkey, Throw a pillow, throw a pillow. I don't know. Hey,
you can chop any metics, and you gotta prove it.
So this prompted Samuel to get rawn on TV. Some
of this cheap ad space that he had bought with
a taped demonstration of the Chopper Mattic for the first

(14:32):
time in n and not exactly, but it went a
little something like this, Ladies and gentlemen, this brand new
gadget is going to change the way you do things
around with the kitchen. That's right. All your chopping worries
are a thing of the past with the greatest kitchen
appliance ever made, the Choppo Matic. Oh, the Choppo Matic.
Oh my, many years of shredding cabbage for COSA are

(14:53):
finally behind me. That's right. And as a man, I
sure do love crushed ice. It's a cinch with this
stainle steel blade. But surely a product like this must
cost tens of thousands of dollars. Well, actually, the listed
retail price is just five dollars and cents. I'm on
the fence, but I don't want to pay that much.
Could I get it for any less? Well, you're in

(15:15):
four treat because if you call right now during this
exclusive television broadcast, it can be all yours for just
three dollars and cents. But wait, there's more. If you
call today, we'll send in this booklet with fifties secret
recipes from world famous chefs, secret recipes from famous chefs. However,
did you get those torture and blackmail? Wow? Something like that.

(15:42):
And Ron was alone on camera in these early days
and he would just stand behind a counter and demonstrate
the product in real time. And it's pretty impressive. And
it followed in his father's philosophy. Nobody needed this, but
the idea of making a simple task simpler, safer, and
faster had people foaming at the mouths. So this did

(16:04):
three things. One, the Chappo Matic was a massive hit,
sold over two million units. Two, the Pope Pio Brothers
was now a brand name that became synonymous with making
life in the kitchen easier. And three, Ron Popeio became
a household name himself, setting him on a path that

(16:24):
would make him one of the most recognized and respected
salesman in American history. That's pretty crazy, because we love
a salesman here. And the Choppo Matic led to other
inventions like Dialomatic and eventually the Vegematic, which Ron would
sell over nine million units of and bring in fifty
million dollars. Incredible on a vegematic Vegematics, it's pretty cool.

(16:47):
And this was before the as seen on TV stores. Yeah,
he really had the number, and sales is a cutthroat business.
But you know, fortunately these guys are all fair emily right.
I mean, at the end of the day, family always
comes first, except that if you remember Uncle Nathan, Samuel's

(17:08):
mentor who taught him everything he knew about being a salesman.
In ninety, Nathan Morris released a fancy new product called
the Rodo Shop and this was striking le similar to
the Chopper Mattic, and Samuel was not having that, so
he ended up suing his mentor and uncle for copyright infringement.

(17:31):
This is a this is like a roy family situation.
In the courtroom, they had this big, heated exchange. He
and Samuel were going at each other. Nathan was pissed
that Samuel was so ungrateful for like the big break
that he gave him in the sales business, and Samuel
fought back with him that you know, he was just
using what he taught him to make his own business,

(17:52):
and now his uncle was trying to steal that back.
So it got real hot and angry and they're fighting
and fighting and fighting right there in the courtroom, and
then all of a sudden Nathan collapsed from a heart attack.
He was rushed to the hospital and he survived, and
Samuel felt terrible that he'd put his uncle through all this,
so he really rethought the lawsuit and he was like, okay,

(18:13):
instead of instead of pushing forward and suing him because
he was definitely gonna win, I will settle this, you know,
for a reasonable some that both parties were happy with.
And the very next day, Uncle Nathan hopped out of
bed like Grandpa Joe when Charlie won his Golden ticket,

(18:34):
like prime of his life. Nothing had ever happened, super healthy.
Come on, do we have to enter speculation station to
say that there's no way Nathan had a real heart.
No way, he totally faked that. That's is George Bluth move.
So that's that's a pretty crazy stage. Throughout the Pope

(18:56):
Peal family was like uh and just how crazy things
would get around Samuel sometimes do. And most of the
history out there is focused on their son ron because
he broke off in the mid sixties. He started his
own company, ron Co, which exploded sold some of the
most famous as seen on TV inventions that you still

(19:16):
hear about today. But wait, there's more, Samuel Pope Peal
wasn't just an inventor who slices and dices. And if
you stay tuned for this exclusive podcast event, we're gonna
throw in a fabulous, curious and all around ridiculous romance
had no extra charge to you. That's right. Stay tuned

(19:36):
and you'll get not only the story of Samuel Pope
pel but we'll also bring you his marriage to Eloise
Little and that's not all coming up. We're gonna give
you Samuel Pope Pele and his marriage to Eloise, and
we're gonna throw in his divorce as well. It's all
coming up for the lolo price of just a few
commercial Welcome back to the deal. I mean, so everybody. So,

(20:05):
here's what we know about Eloise's early life. She was
born in nineteen twenty five. In nineteen fifty four, she
married Samuel Popil. She was twenty eight, he was thirty nine,
and at some point they had two children. That's about
all we know about their happy marriage truly. I mean,

(20:26):
we we've talked about this, but really all the history
that is about them at all is just side notes
in stories about Ron. They're much more famous son, So
you might be out there saying, Hey, lion Diana, what
am I going to do with such little information? But
don't touch that dial, because if I got a story
for you. In nineteen sixty five, just a little over

(20:46):
ten years after their marriage, Eloise filed for divorce. The
circumstances aren't exactly known as to why this divorce started,
but I think we can certainly spend some time in
an old specular Asian station taking a little lay over here,
wondering what they'll happen between the two of them. Maybe
it'said weird Rube Goldberg machines for everything. She's like tripping

(21:10):
over like robotic hands, and they're just like, I can't
take it anymore. He's hit in the face of the waffle. Yes,
pours the coffee in the wrong place. Yeah, She's like,
I replaced this carpet already this year, shrank the kids, Yes,
all those gadgets exactly. Maybe he just like maybe he

(21:30):
was always trying to patent everything and sue all the time.
Oh you mean, like he'd be like, I love you, honey. Oh, yes,
I love you too, Dear, I love you too. That's
what I said. You can't just steal my saying I'll
see you and caught exactly exactly probably, I imagine, just
like everything was an infomercial to him, So like like, honey,

(21:53):
I'm I'm taking you out for romantic dinner tonight. That's nice, yes, yes,
but wait, there's more. You come to dinner, I'll give
you this nice steak dinner with not just one side,
but two sides of your choice. Call now, I'll throw
in a side salad and a dessert and a bottle
of wine for just avorce. Yes, I can see that.

(22:16):
I can see Okay, I want a divorce. He can't
turn it off. Oh my god, that would be even
if he just talked in that voice. How are you today?
How's the weather outside? It's a beautiful day. It's not
just beautiful, it's extra beautiful. Oh, she like snaps. It's

(22:40):
partly cloudy today. It's sunny and cloudy and there's a breeze.
And you can have it all by just stepping outside
and her hands slowly form two fists. So yeah, we
can't find out exactly what caused this divorce and ality,
although those are perfectly plausible reasons, um, but we do

(23:06):
know that it was contested and it lingered in court
for years. It wasn't until nineteen seventy two that Samuel
and Eloise actually separated and Eloise moved to Los Angeles, California,
according to an article in The l A Times, but
a quote from Eloise at their trial starts to kind

(23:26):
of summarize why she finally got out and what took
her so long. She said, quote, the reason I could
not live with my husband was that for ten years,
since October of nineteen sixty four, he has had me
followed day and night. He has had my phones bugged
all the time. He had electronic beeping devices on my cars.

(23:48):
He was insanely jealous of everyone and everything. That's intense. Yeah,
that's quite an accurate, she says. Uh, you know, so
that was like before she filed for divorce, So it's
not like he was doing this the whole time that
we know of. She cites it as being like from
the from essentially when she filed for divorce into the

(24:09):
proceeding years after when so he got mad that she
wanted a divorce, and or he got mad, right, he
got possessive and he was just you know, spying on
her all the time. And that's why she filed for divorce,
and then he continued that and wouldn't let her, you know,
lead her, lead her whole life. It really reminds me
of our other episode about Bert and Linda Pogash, because

(24:32):
he was he was also a very rich man who
just would not leave her alone and stalked her and
hired people to follow her. And I mean they weren't married,
and not that that really makes it better or worse
in either situation, but it's it gives me a lot
of hints of that just very wealthy, very disconnected from

(24:53):
reality kind of person who thinks they can just control
everything and everyone in their life, right, and then once
they have something, they have it for because they wanted,
And you don't get to just walk out on me, right,
I tell you when it's over. Kind of kind of
feeling yep. She's like, I want a divorce and he's like,
but wait, there's more more marriage to me that another

(25:15):
eight years, Jesus. So, after Eloise got to California, she
found herself a new boyfriend named Dan Ayers. Okay, how
you doing Dan? Dan was a union shop steward at
Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, and he and Eloise
hit it off quickly after meeting. Eloise was still haunted
by Samuel's anger and his oppressive behavior during their contested divorce,

(25:39):
and Dan really hated what this was doing to her.
He also felt that Eloise should be entitled to her
husband's hundred million dollar fortunes. So yeah, I'm pretty sure
he kept his shoulder real close for her to cry on,
you know, and he was like, you deserve so much more, baby,
and so do I. You know, I think we both
just deserve so so much more. I'm willing to stand

(26:00):
by you through this the whole time, right up until
we get that right. Yeah, and maybe after that we'll see.
But in June of the next year, things took a
turn for the worse for them when Dan lost his
job as the shop steward, and by December they were
fed up with trying to get Samuel to agree to
this divorce. He's still dragging it out and everything, and

(26:23):
that's when Dan decided to call an old friend. His
name was Donald Reid, and he worked for the same
company that Dan had. He was on the committee that
did bargaining for the union, but he was also an
ex convict who had served time in Michigan for armed robbery,
according to a report by Jay Compton on the trial,
and in mid December, Dan contacted Read and staid he

(26:45):
had a job for him that could pay thirty even dollars.
Clearly learned a lot the Popio family, but wait, there
could be more. And in fact, he said money is
no object. And Reid said, okay, well, what's the job?
And Dan said, you gotta go kill Samuel Popeil. It's

(27:10):
one of those types of jobs, right, And Read was
pretty unsure about this from the start because he'd just
been asked to murder someone. But I'm kind of glad
to hear that. He was a little hesitan. He wasn't
immediately like oh sure. I mean, he'd never done this before,
so it was a little bit of a weird ask.
But Dan insisted that like, no, this is a good,
clean job. It's going to come with a huge paycheck.

(27:32):
And he told Read that Samuel was worth a hundred
million bucks. But quote, he has all the money tied up.
It's just as much Eloise's money as it is his.
He's got to go. And he told Read all about
Samuel's home in Chicago. He gave him like his living habits.
He told him about his security, which I imagine was

(27:52):
a bunch of like automated machines. It's secure, o matic.
But he's like, he's got like an inspector gadget on
him that comes over his head and it'll slap you
in the face with a glove in your face. He's
got a little flowered if you look at it, don't
shake his hand and you'll get a bus. But he

(28:16):
told him that if he went to Chicago and checked
it out, he would see, you know, kind of what
the layout was. So Read took a minute to think
about it, but ultimately he said, all right, Dan and Eloise,
you guys should come over to my place and we'll
talk more about it. Yeah, And a few days later
Dan and Eloise did. They went by Reid's house and
they discussed killing Samuel. Eloise thought it was a great idea.

(28:40):
She was ready to pay Read whatever he wanted out
of the money that she would eventually get after Samuel
was dead. And she figured, fine, if you don't want
to divorce me, then I'm gonna get what's mine anyway. Right,
She's like, okay, well, if we're married, i'm legally entitled
your money if you die. So sure, fine, don't divorce me,
all right, it's actually better for me if you don't. Um.

(29:03):
So they hand Read a ticket to Chicago and some
money and a camera, and they told him go to Chicago,
go to the twenty ninth floor of the Drake Towers
building by way of the fire escape, and take a
picture of Samuel's door. And Dan like drew a map
of the area. He told Read where Samuel's garage was.
He said, if you see a Cadillac El Dorado and

(29:25):
a Rolls Royce, that means Samuel is home. Good to know,
very any prospective murderers should probably know if you're there
or not. And they said if he took the picture
and brought it back, they would know that he was
capable of getting in and getting the job done, and
then they would start to wire the money for the
actual job. So they kind of wanted, I guess to

(29:46):
know you can handle that. They totally just gave him
out of nowhere. They wanted to set him. It's the worst. No,
it does make sense. It does make sense. So in
late December, Read flies out Chicago. He gets to Drake
Towers and he thinks to himself, well, this is a
stupid idea. I'm not going to do this, and he

(30:09):
gets back on a plane and he flies home to
Los Angeles. The very next morning, he called his buddy,
Richard Peeler, who's also a co worker, and he tells
him the whole plan. He's like, these guys called me.
They want me to be killed. This guy that sounds crazy,
but a weird hit. Space really need a friend. Together,
Peeler and Reid decide, hey, you know what, let's start

(30:30):
recording all the conversations that you have with Dan and
Eloise will offer to do the job, get as much
money out of them as we can, and then we
won't kill Samuel. And wait, there's more. When they come
to us and say, hey, why isn't Samuel dead. You
didn't hold up your end of the job, we can say, yeah,
well we have all these recorded conversations, so unless you

(30:53):
want us to turn you into the police, you can
fuck off and we'll keep the money. Pretty feisty plan there,
these guys. So Dan and Reid set up another meeting,
and this time Reid and Peeler are secretly recording it,
and Read tells Dan, oh, yeah, I went down there, like,
you know what, Tell her I saw the building. Tell

(31:15):
her I went inside, I checked it out. I didn't
get the picture of the door, but like, I totally
saw this, that and the other. And he starts like
listing all these details to prove that he was there.
But it's also very clear in this recording that he's
inferring by saying, tell her, tell her, don't forget to
mention to her. He's inferring the Eloise is very much

(31:36):
aware of what he's doing, even though she wasn't at
that meeting with them. Yeah, he wanted to make sure
she was implicated even though she wasn't present totally. And
Reid has another phone call with Dan where they talk
about getting a silencer for handgun. They start talking about
arrangements for the cash transferred everything, but Read starts asking
Dan if Eloise is really on the level. He said,

(32:00):
as quote, I'm not sure she'll hold up once she
sees her husband in a casket. But Dan calmed him down.
He told him, look, Eloise has a bunch of diamonds
in a safe deposit box. We can work out some
kind of collateral out right kind of deposit. You don't
have to worry about us being serious. We'll give you
something up front, give you more money after he's dead.

(32:21):
It's going to be totally kosher. So they got off
the phone. They agreed to keep going over the details. Meanwhile,
Reid and Peeler had tape recordings of their conversations, and
after every meeting with Dan they would sit down and
listen to them and make sure they were good. Qualities.
Was like a podcast. It's just like a podcast. Part dude.

(32:43):
I thought it was super cool. How you pushed back
on that really crisp quality. It sounds very good, very good.
Thanks man, Thanks man. Then Dan started to get suspicious
of read probably the only smart thing he does entire time.
He decides, you know what, I'm going to contact somebody else.
I don't trust this guy. Somebody new. We're going to

(33:05):
start over with somebody else. Yeah, So who does he call?
Richard Peeler, the guy who is already conspiring against him, Like,
bad luck. I guess. He's like, I really just don't
know that many criminals, I guess, And there's just two
co workers friends already working together against me. Dan sucks too,

(33:31):
I guess. Richard was like, you know what, totally I'll
help you bring this guy, and Read, of course doesn't.
He doesn't bug him about it. He's not like, hey,
why just stop calling me because he knows the guy
he did Dan, Dan goes Eloise, Yeah, I fired, I
fired Read. It took it really well, you just said okay,
So look, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well,

(33:54):
that's great Eli and Diana, but will any of this
help me spin my salad? Well, don't worry, because have
we got an offer for you. Since you've been here
listening to not just the first part, but also the
second part, we have decided to include part three of
this podcast at no extra chart. Wow, that is a
value savings of up to no dollars. So how do

(34:17):
we do it? Folks? Volume? So let's keep that volume
up and you stay tuned so you can take advantage
of this exclusive offer. We'll be right back, is what
I'm saying here, and welcome back to the show. So
Read and Peeler have been recording their conversations with Dan

(34:40):
and Eloise, and now Dan has decided to give up
on Read and go with Peeler instead, which is pointless
because both these guys are the ones scheming on him.
It's really an amazing situation. I need this movie Aboutely
just amazing. So on January three, Read decides to call

(35:02):
Samuel and tell him about this plot that Eloise and
Dan are cooking up and how they planned to extort
them for it. Why we did that, why they did this,
I do not know, and we can only go into
speculation station about it. Yeah, why would be the purpose
of calling him up? And I don't really, Hey, buddy,

(35:24):
I'm running a scam on your ex wife. She's trying
to kill you, but I'm going to cheat her out
of all her money, like, and he's just gonna be like, oh, good,
hope it works out, thanks for letting me, knows. He
just like, hey, man, listen, I'm can you pretend to
kill you? But like I needed to lay low for
a cop, saying afterwards so that I get my payment.
Maybe he forgets that they kind of need a death
certificate to get all the money. Now. There is another

(35:46):
little speculation station inside this Carnegie Museum article online. Uh.
They say that the director of the Warhol Museum has
had this whole exhibit about gadgetry in the fifties, and um,
he suggested in his version of the story that Samuel

(36:07):
had actually hired these guys first to take out a
hit on Eloise, and that Eloise actually outbid them and
send them back against Samuel. Bad scene in the movie
would be so good because she just like sit back,
light a cigarette and go, so, how much is it
gonna give you? I'll double it? Right? What if I
double it to kill him? Now, there's really no evidence

(36:31):
to support that, and even this guy himself says that,
like a lot of the history kind of gets lost
between the lines of the reality and this story. So
it's fun, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Also,
Samuel had so much more money than Eloise, so I
don't know how she got about bid him. Honestly, she
just lied about it, or if it was just like
a game of thrones, like, well, pick who you think

(36:51):
is gonna win, because they'll have the money in the
long run. But ultimately I think it's a big old
stop at speculation station and uh, and probably not true.
Whatever happened later that very same day that Read called Samuel,
the Long Beach police gave Read a phone call and
they were like, hey, uh, what's up to over there?

(37:14):
We heard that here's you're planning a little assassination. They're
gonna gonna blackmail some people for it. A lot of crimes,
a lot of criminal activity. Sounds sounds like something we
should know about, and uh, my wheelhouse. So they end

(37:35):
up getting involved because they're like, well, if you're working
with someone who hired you to kill someone, let's let's
go ahead and take this to the next level. And
uh oh, oh, you've been recording conversations. That's cute. We're
going to come in and record the conversations from now on.
So now it's early January and Peeler is having meetings
with Dan, and now Eloise is getting involved, and they

(37:57):
talk openly about getting a key to the apartment building
on and and how they've got to make sure that
the daughters aren't going to be home when he's there,
because she and Samuel have those two daughters together that
are living out in Chicago, and that, you know, he's
got to make sure the cleaning staff won't be there.
She tells him it'll be really easy to get into

(38:18):
the apartment and shoot Samuel in his sleep. But later
Dan met with Peeler separately and told him, you know,
it might be better to poison him rather than shoot him,
because you know that kind of draw a lot of attention,
not a question. And he gave Peeler a bottle with
a white powder in it with the name Eloise Pope

(38:40):
peel on the label. Now, Dan, I need you to
put a dunce cap on, right, just not good at
this is this is shabby. In one of the last
recorded meetings, now with the police officially taking these recordings
instead of reading Peeler, Eloise told Paler that if the
poison didn't work, he should, quote, just blow off his

(39:04):
head and forget it. D just forget it, blow his
head off and walk away. Peelers in therapy like and
then you told me to just forget it, and I've
never been able to forget it. She said she just
wanted him dead by any means necessary, and that if
it was necessary, Peeler should just kill the maid too

(39:28):
and put their bodies in bed together. That is low,
that insult to injury, I mean, especially for this maid.
What does she ever do? Like imagine her family had
been like she was sucking Samuel. She's a lesbian. Would
not be funny, no, but not at all. So at

(39:50):
this point the police are like, Okay, I think we've
got enough here. She literally said the words just blow
his hat off and forget it, and also, why not
knock off the maid while you're there? Right, this lady's crazy.
We're good here, let's go. They had four taped conversations
from Peeler and Read, and then the cops had done

(40:13):
an additional three recordings, so they had a lot. They
had stax of tapes, and on January four, they had
one last meeting with Peeler, where Eloise offered up a
deposit for the job. As they had discussed, it was
two diamond broches, a set of diamond earrings, and a
handful of jeweled rings. And like I guess, as soon

(40:37):
as their hand opened up and all this beautiful jewelry
like collapse fell into his palm, the police busted in
and Eloise and Dan were arrested. Now the trial wasn't
really actually as cut and dry as you'd expect, because
I mean, this seems this themes like you know we
will be home by dinner, cut print, right, But actually

(40:58):
the so the tapes that Read and Peeler took we're
not able to be submitted as evidence due to some
legally stuff that I was reading in the court documents
that I don't fully understand, but it sounded like basically
the fact that they only recorded these tapes as a
means to commit their own felony, that being blackmail. That
it's like these weren't official documents. Um, you know, the

(41:20):
police didn't take these recordings. There was some kind of
humboes on bo there where they weren't able to submit them.
And the defense had fought hard against the inclusion of
a lot of this evidence. They cited government snooping, improper
use of information, and quote a lack of reasonable check
on the accuracy of existing records. Eloise leaned hard on

(41:41):
her defense that Samuel was treating her so badly that
she was driven to this behavior, the stocky, stocky stuff
for over, you know, for ten years. Yeah, yeah, which
you know, can definitely try somebody to do some crazy things.
You really want to feel like you need to defend
yourself in that situation. And when it came time for
her verdict, the jury decided that on count one, conspiracy

(42:04):
to commit murder, she was not guilty. On count two
information alleging solicitation of Donald Reid to commit murder. She
was not guilty. Count three, solicitation of Robert Peeler to
commit murder, she was guilty. I think that's because the
only tapes of her asking Read to do the to

(42:26):
do the murder were the ones they couldn't submit as evidence,
So they had her on tape asking Peeler to do it.
So she was guilty for soliciting Peeler to commit murder,
but they didn't get her for Read. I think it's
funny that that doesn't make her guilty of conspiracy to
commit murder. I thought the same thing. But that is
a good lawyer. I mean, I guess so oh to

(42:49):
have a good lawyer, right. The d A side note
to the d A had like said in his closing
arguments that his opinion was that she was guilty and
of all three counts, and her team argued back that
an official can't use their opinion to weigh the jury
in one favor or another, like they can only use

(43:10):
the evidence. And the judge actually put that down, but
they resubmitted it against. There was a lot there about
like they were they were using every trick in the book. Yeah,
legalship is weird, though, I mean some of that it
sounds so crazy on its face, and then when you
look in the law, yeah, you're like, oh, I see
there's a strategy behind this, but it sounds horrible, you

(43:31):
know from just a lay person's right. You know, you're
just like, what, how is that possible? And you kind
of looking like, Okay, there's like some statute or it's
put in place for protection of whatever whatever. But you
you know, and you're like, I get it. But sometimes
it's just like, well, because if you could just look
at it and it seems cut and dry and then
you say guilty, then a lot of people who didn't

(43:51):
you know, who you can prove innocent in the minutia
are going to get convicted. Yeah, so I get it,
But it still does leave a lot of room for loopholes.
It seems like sure does, doesn't it. So Dan and
Eloise were each sentenced to one to five years in
prison for this charge, and for Dan appealer and read

(44:12):
that's kind of where the story drops off. But for Eloise,
she ended up staying in prison for nineteen months and
was released on June one, nine six. Once she was out,
she finally got her divorce pretty nice, like welcome to
the welcome to the outside, You got a cograts, you
got out of prison. Here's your divorce. Finally got after

(44:37):
all this time years. I'm glad she got it because
she needed to get away from that guy for real.
And I mean, I guess Samuel also was like, wow,
she was really planning to kill me, So I guess
I was divorced um, and they agreed on a settlement.
They finalized their divorce for Eloise to receive two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars but no alimony, and Samuel would

(45:01):
also pay child support and all of her legal fees.
That's kind of small for a hundred million dollar fortune,
but a right. I mean, I guess she's like, whatever,
just give me something. But wait, there's more. Later that
same year, Samuel and Eloise remarried and they stayed married

(45:24):
after all that. I'm sorry, after all that, can we
just imagine the date where he asks her, you know what, honey,
we've bet he's Chicago. You know what, honey, We've been
through a lot, we've seen a lot of things together,
and uh, you know, you tried to kill me. I

(45:46):
stalked you for a decade. We both we both did
each other dirties. Yea, So how about we leave it
all in the past but go in the future together.
How about you marry me, sweetheart? Oh? Sure, why not?
I ran through that two d K pretty quick. But yeah,

(46:10):
they did stay married. Samuel suffered a severe heart attack
just two years later in ninety eight, but he survived.
I wonder if like Uncle Nathan, he bound out of
bed the next year. He sold off his company to
some millionaire in Milwaukee, and Eloise stayed by his side,
nursed him through his illness in his final years, and

(46:33):
he died in nine eighty four at sixty nine years old,
and Eloise lived until and died at five. She got
fifteen years with that, and they're still all right. She
was like, Oh, I just said a way for him
to die. Weird. I mean, it's again going back to

(46:54):
Burt and Linde. This definitely is the closest to that episode,
because I mean he threw asid it in her face
and went to jail, and then they got married after
he got out. So slightly less intense version of that
story in a weird way, but equally bonkers. Well, this
is why another reason why it just sounds like a

(47:14):
really amazing comedy like crime comedy type movie because it's
just like so fumbily and like hilarious, like Three Stooges
murder plot or something, and then in the end they're like,
forget it, forget it. I love you, honey, you know
what I mean? Oh man, let's uh, it's not speculation station.

(47:35):
What is it when we're going to cast a movie.
Let's yes, let's go to the casting couch and see
if we can cast this movie that we're okay, okay,
casting couch the name of our segment for this sure, uh,
because I feel like, um, I feel like Read and

(47:58):
Peeler could be like, well back, like, okay, let's say
we're making this movie. I think it's uh Kiana Reeves
and River Phoenix absolutely. Oh. But today I'm gonna say,
I don't know what do you think? Like who's hot?
Who's hot? Are you thinking? No? No, No, I just

(48:19):
mean like, who's who's castable's uh? But maybe it's not that.
Maybe it's like some some sitcom stars, like um, maybe
like Adam Pally, he's that guy from The Happy Endings
and everything like that. I don't know he'd be funny.
What about the guy from workaholics with the curly hair.
Oh my god, Yes, he would be a good one

(48:40):
for one of those. It could be any two of
the WORKHOLI maybe we need to make it three guys.
Maybe Dan is one of the work is also cast right,
one of the workaholics, so when they're all fumbling idiocy,
they would definitely play it well. Yes, Dan's like, here's
a bottle, This is Elmie's popio. So those three are

(49:02):
cast It's perfect. And then I'd love to have like
a taller woman be Eloise, so that she can nestle
Adam to her bosom and he can be like you
deserve so much better. Oh my god, Cecily Strong. I
was gonna say, Cecily, she would be good. I think
she'd be really funny, especially with him, Like the two
of them together would be hilarious to me. So who's Samuel?

(49:24):
Who's Samuel popeel Oh man, it's got to be. I
don't know if we can afford him, but like what
if we got jill In Hall? Oh my god, because
he could play that eccentric kuk you know, and I
think you know when Jake Jillen Hall cuts loose and
wants to be funny. He's very funny. He's hilarious. I
think we could do it. I'm gonna start making some calls.

(49:46):
I don't know unless you get something better. Alright, so
back back to the show. Jeez, what are you doing?
Is so distracting? So Ron Poppel of course went on
to be Ron Pope Peel. He's the infomercial legend behind
of course Ronco, like we mentioned, that's still around today.
They made the Pope Peel Pocket Fisherman, which is one

(50:07):
of the most top selling items of all time. Then
they had the Vegematic, which was the one where you
could slice it tomatoes so thin that it only has
one side, and everyone was like, why what is the purpose?
Oh good, finally I cannot know the tomatoes are there
but still have them. I'm like everybody like it's called
a beefsteak tomato, Like, I want tom freaking tomato. Bro.

(50:30):
They also developed a smokeless ash tray, which is okay.
It's a little ash tray that's got a fan in
the bottom that sucks smoke down from cigarettes that are
resting in it into like a carbon filter. Great, all
your ashtray smoke has gone. But I'm like, but you're
still smoking, pull the smoke out of your lungs or
the air that shows these people sitting around a dinner

(50:54):
table because it's the eighties and they're all smoking, and
it's like wow, the ashtray pulls the smoke away, and
I'm like, cool, great, thanks for the clean air. What
a difference on ashtray making so inour Shortly after Samuel's death,
weird Al Yankovic released a fantastic song called Mr. Pope Peel,
which was a love letter to the Pope Peel family.

(51:16):
One of his best albums in three D. By the way,
it's just cool, like B fifty two style song. It
sounds a lot like rock lobster. And Yankovic was in
touch with the family when he was writing this song,
and he found out that one of Samuel and Eloise's daughters, Lisa,
is a singer and a vocal coach, and so he
hired her to be the backing vocalist on the track. Yeah,

(51:38):
she's singing along with him. It's she's doing the B
fifty twos thing. It's great, Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. And
then she went on to be a background singer on
a lot of weird Al's songs, including I think the
last one was in sixteen she sang on tacky is
the Ferrell Williams Happy parody? Of course yep. And she
also ended up giving him singing lessons as well. Imagine
giving weird singing sec who am I now? Ron passed

(52:03):
away just this year in in July. Um Lisa who
we mentioned is now sixty and she just toured with
Weird Out. Oh cool. Y'all know the the legacy of
the Vegematic and the Chopper Mattic. I mean, the Ohmatic
thing is just endless parody. Snl Dan Ackroyd and the

(52:24):
Bassmatic among the grossest sketches they've ever done, where Dan
eck Royd puts a fish in the blender and drinks it.
Um Gallagher's sledge Matic? Am I dating myself here? Anybody?
Any Gallagher fans out there? You know he hits the
watermelon with a sledgehammer. Hilarious. Man, When I was six

(52:46):
on the floor rolling every time you hit that watermelon? Nice,
such good stuff. Nice? If only it was that easy?
Well jeez, I mean yeah, Samuel and Eloise Popel quite
uh quite a I mean, what else can you say
besides quite a ridiculous relationship, very true. I just really

(53:07):
want to know it brought him back together. I guess
they really just were like, you know, that was stupid.
We were being dumb like or something. Maybe it's just
the money. I don't know. I mean it was sent
for him a wife, I guess, wife, someone to control.
I don't know. Well, you know, it's like it's like Burt,
you know, he he's he had already made up his

(53:30):
mind that's my wife, right, that's true. So when it
came the opportunity came to get her back, yeah, then
he never he didn't have to to lose. When some
people's love is twisted, you know, like like birds, he's like,
I truly loved this woman, and that's why I'm doing
all these horrible things. You know. So it could be
also the case here where they both kind of have

(53:52):
a bit of a twisted love for the other or something.
They didn't commit any human sacrifices. Hey, pretty low these days. Well,
thank you all so much for tuning in for this
wacky one. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed. Yeah that's what
you thought. Yeah, I always love hearing from you. Um
Our email address is romance at I heeart media dot com.

(54:14):
But wait, there's more. You can also find us on
social media and I am at oh great, It's Eli
on Twitter and Instagram, I'm at dianamite Boom and you
can find the show at ridic Romance. We're also on YouTube.
Just search Ridiculous Romance and we're up there. And uh,
we would love to get your views up on Apple podcast.
You're back from you anytime, you know, stop by, give

(54:37):
us a call, send the Castle role, whatever you want
to do. Don't don't call me an yea uh, and
we will see you this Friday with the final recrupulous Romance,
just in time for Halloween. It's going to be hard
to top the rutas well. We will see you on Friday.

(54:57):
Thanks for tuning in. I love you BA so long. Friends,
it's time to go. Thanks for listening to our show.
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