February 10, 2022 • 40 mins
On today's episode, Phoebe Judge tells Karen and Georgia the shocking story of Pearl Lusk and Olga Rocco.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's Karen Kilgarriff, and I'm Phoebe Judge and this is Criminal.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, it's so exciting to hear those words and see
your face as they happen.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What a treat. Yes, so exciting. Well, I'm happy that
you asked me to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We've been Criminal fans for a long time, as you know,
and we love the work you do, and so this
is We're very excited. When this idea came to light,
it was it was thrilling, and we're so excited to
see you and to be talking to you. Yeah, it's
kind of like, you know, you have these satellites. It's
out there.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
You know, you have my Favorite Murder and you have Criminal,
and we hit each other sometimes we send signals out
and they bounce off each other. And now we finally
get to be kind of in the same roomy, and
our worlds are going to collide for a second. Yeah, imagine,
and we want to.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Do the most we can to to not explode your
satellite in any I feel like I can't curse too
much in this, you know what I mean, Like there's
certain curse whords I normally use on our podcast that
I'm just not gonna that's not going.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
To fly on Criminal.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
They're not. They're knocking to my back be having our
inaccurate information over on that side of things.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I do in real life do say bad words. Sometimes
it's a little we hide that all, but I have
been known to say something ad uh, and it's always
a little shocking, but it has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Do you think, yeah, could we just get one fuck
out of you just to hear just for the experience.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of it, Like I like, I spill my water all
the time in the studio because I've bottles all around me,
and I'll say like, motherfuck, oh great, yes, great, and
then we immediately take it out so no one actually
has to hear me say anything like that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
That's right, it's not on brand. It's not on brand
with Criminal and what you've built.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
How about you edit those and just send them over
to ask them now on and we'll plug those in
on our podcast, like like we're like Morning DJ isn't
doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I'll give you a whole real yeah, great, no matter
the move, I'll give you a word for it. Great.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, we'd love different tones and different inflections.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's just, you know, let's play with it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Or in the middle of an interview, you're talking to
some old woman about this amazing thing that she done
that she also got arrested for, and then it's like, well,
that's fucking great.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I'm phoebe duged and this is.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Love the I love the like summary of criminal. There's
some amazing woman, she's done incredible things.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But she also got a wrestled for it. Do you
know how it goes? Fuck flack and she fucking got
arrested for.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
All right, So do you want to explain what you're
what you're about to do? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So we have story ideas all the time that we
can't do because we can't find someone to tell it
because it's too old or no one knows about it,
and so we don't get to do it because we
the whole show is built on people who have actual
experience with the event or some historian who knows a
lot about it. And so we've been we have these
(03:52):
collection of stories that we just haven't known what to
do with. And when we started talking about doing something together,
we thought, well, this could be the perfect chance for
me to get to tell you one of these stories
that we've been really obsessed with but just haven't found
anything to do how to make it an episode, And
so we thought that it could be interesting to tell
(04:13):
you the story about two women and what happened to
them in nineteen forty six. This was originally reported in
The New Yorker in nineteen fifty three and then kind
of not talked much about. But it's a really interesting story,
and so that's what we thought we'd do. I'd tell
you about Pearl and Olga and this wild man who
(04:35):
entered their lives and kind of ruined both of them.
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I had never heard this one at all, even though
it is wild, it feels like it should be like
on the level of you know, the Bonnie and Clyde
that gets told over and over again.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
The experience of this, especially as a person who listens
to Criminal, is the podcast listener's dream, which is you're
listening to a podcaster or tell you a story, but
you actually get to say something back. Like there's an
interactive element that we get to have in an episode
of Criminal. Essentially is what's going on right now? And
it's really it's really a thrill. It almost feels like
(05:13):
Mystery Science theater. You know, we're in the front row,
just screaming at the screen.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, please, please, Phoebe Judge, tell us a story. Yes, okay. Well,
in the fall of nineteen forty six, a woman named
Pearl Lusk, she just graduated from high school outside of Philadelphia,
moved to New York City. She got a job in
a department store. She got a room on the Upper
West Side and was kind of living the dream of
(05:40):
moving to New York after graduating from high school in
a small town and seeing it all. And she was
having a ball. She was having a really good time.
Her parents lived in Brooklyn and she was visiting them
on Thanksgiving and was traveling home on the subway and
a man approached her and asked if she wanted to
(06:04):
go out, and she said, I don't go out with men.
I don't know, Thank you very much, and went on
her way. She continued to work. It was ramping up.
It was the holiday season. It was December and New
York City. On Christmas Eve, she was told that she
was going to be laid off because the holiday rush
was over and she wasn't gonna have a job, so
(06:27):
she was a little downtrodden. She thought she'd kind of
made it, and now she's jobless. She goes back to
visit her family the day after Christmas in Brooklyn and
is on that same subway home and sees this man again.
She described him as the most handsome man she'd ever seen.
She kind of thought he must be an actor. He
(06:48):
was so handsome and dressed incredibly well. And he says again,
want to get a drink? And for whatever reason, she
says sure. And they get off at Times Square and
they go to a bar and she orders a whiskey
and seven up, a scotch and seven up. I think
that's called a seven and seven And they're having a
(07:10):
drink and he says his name is Alan LaRue, and
she's totally charmed by the way he looks. And he
tells her that he's a private detective. And she'd been
really into Perry Mason and mysteries and detective stories and
she's intrigued. And they're talking and she says, I've been
laid off and he says, well, would you be interested
(07:33):
in a job And she says, I guess so, and
he said, okay, come and meet me tomorrow morning and
I'll give you a job. So this nineteen year old girl, Prolusk,
meets this man Alan LaRue the next day and he
tells her some more about what he does. He is
a private detective for an insurance company, and the insurance
(07:56):
company looks into insuring jewel and then recovering stolen jewelry,
and Alan LaRue tells Pearl that the job will be
to follow a woman who's working at a hat company
and go to see this woman and see if she's
(08:18):
stealing jewelry from one of their clients. He tells Pearl
that he can't be the one to follow this woman
and see if she's stolen the jewelry because she already
knows his face and she'll catch on and just ditch
the jewelry. So they need someone who this woman named
Olga has never seen before. And he said, you've got
to figure out what she looks like. So I want
(08:39):
you to go to this office, to this crowden hat
company office where she's a secretary, and ask for a
fake woman, Sheila, and they'll say there's no Sheila here,
but you'll be able to get a look at this
woman Olga you'll know what she looks like. She's hiding
the jewelry in her jacket, and so you'll know what
(08:59):
she looks like. And then what you're gonna do is
you're going to follow her. So Pearl says, okay, she
goes to the hat company offices, she gets a good
look at Olga. She meets Alan LaRue again and says,
I know what she looks like. It's clear to me.
And he says, Okay, here's what you're gonna do. We
need proof that she stolen the jewelry. We can't get
(09:21):
the cops involved until we know that she has the jewelry.
So he says that he needs her to take a
photograph of this woman, Olga's coat, where she's hiding the jewelry.
And she's going to do this. Pearl will do this
because Alan is going to give her a disguised camera,
(09:42):
an X ray camera that will take a picture through
her coat and when it gets developed, they'll see that
she's hiding the jewelry in the coat. And so he
hands Pearl this paper colored shoe box covered in kind
of brown parcel paper, and on one end of it
there's a little hole where the camera is supposedly sticking out,
(10:04):
and he tells Pearl where Olga gets on the train,
and he says, you're going to get on the train
with Olga, and you're going to follow her, and when
she gets off the train, you're going to get as
close as possible to her two and a half to
three feet, he was pretty specific, and you're going to
take the picture. And so Olga and Pearl are on
the same train. Pearl follows her, gets off the train,
(10:26):
is supposed to pull this wire under the parcel, this
odd shoe box shaped parcel which apparently has an X
ray camera in it, and she does, and she takes
a picture of this woman, Olga's back of her coat,
and she goes and she delivers the camera with the
supposed film in it to Alan the Rue and he says, okay,
(10:48):
let me try to develop it and I'll let you
know what comes out if we got a good picture.
The little time pass and Alan lets Pearl know that
the picture didn't work. It didn't come out, and so
he says, I'm going to get a new camera and
I'm going to call you in a few days and
tell you when the camera's ready. Pearl says, okay. So
(11:10):
a few days later Alan calls. They meet again, and
Alan delivers Pearl a new box. This time it's wrapped
in Christmas Happy New Year paper and it still has
this hole in one end of it, kind of where
the camera lens might be. It's a lot heavier than
the last box, and it still has this wire underneath
(11:33):
that Pearl is supposed to pull when she wants to
take the camera shot. So again, Pearl gets on the
train with Olga coming from Brooklyn into Manhattan, gets off
at the station, stands right behind Olga two and a
half to three feet, gets ready to take the picture,
(11:53):
pulls the wire on the bottom of this box, and
a gunshot comes out of them. I was afraid you're
gonna say that you knew. And it's New Year's Eve
and they're at the Time Square train station. She pulls
the wire loop, a blast occurs, and this box, which
(12:17):
actually is holding a sawed off shotgun, shoots Olga's left
leg nearly completely off. Oh my god, Pearl is so
close to Olga because Alan LaRue has said you have
to get really close. That Pearl is covered in Olga's
blood and when a gar everyone, I mean Pearl is shocked.
(12:38):
She didn't know that this box had a gun in it.
When the subway guard asks Pearl what happened, she says,
I just took a woman's picture, but somebody shot her.
She didn't even know that she had been the one
to shoot her, because she had no idea. When they
open the box up, they see that it's got a
sawed off shotgun in it, and Pearl is now standing
(13:00):
over Olga, who's laying on the ground almost bleeding to death,
and Pearl is saying, I'm so sorry I shot you
in a state of shocks. She had no idea, She said,
I thought I was taking your picture with an X
ray camera. And Olga, laying there on the ground, looks
up and there's people around, of course, and according to
(13:21):
these people, these witnesses, Olga says, well, he got me
this time. Now he's crippled me, so I can't get away. Oh,
I just no joke. I just got chills. And she's
taken to the hospital, oh where her left leg is
amputated inches above her knee because the damage was so great.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So that's the story, is what what the hell I
didn't know you could put an X ray camera in
a shoe box in nineteen forty forty six, or that
they even had.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
X ray cameras in nineteen forty six. I don't know.
I mean, can can you do that today? I don't
I don't even know if you can do that today. Yeah,
it sounds fake.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I mean that sounds like the thing in the back
of a Richie rich comic where it's like, you know,
X ray camera see through people's clothes. It's like, this
is why you don't talk to people on this subble, right,
That's why this is the rule. Just keep your head down,
no chit chat, no matter how good looking they are.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I just feel like, though a nineteen year old who's
like excited and into Perry Mason and detective stuff, and
there's this hot detective, nicely addressed yeah, sends you on
this cool mission that sounds legit. There's details in it.
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Also the first the first time, and then it just
didn't work. It's like such a it's such a devious,
horrifying setup. It's all I'm going along with this private
detective and this is how stuff like this works, and
I'm just doing what he tells me, and nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
The first time. Why would anything happen the second time?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, And I mean the leap from X ray camera
to sawt off shotgun. I mean I wouldn't. I wouldn't
make that leap if I wrapped in Christmas Happy New
Year paper.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So when the police questioned Pearl, who really is this
rather innocent nineteen year old who just as I was
approached by this man named Alan LaRue? That coupled with
what Olga had said of well he's crippled me now
now he can get me, they start putting two and
two together. Alan LaRue's real name was Alphonse Rocco, and
(15:44):
he and Olga had been married in May of nineteen
forty five. They had met in nineteen forty four at
a dance. She had been obviously charmed by him as well.
They had gotten married in May of nineteen forty five,
and the relationship quickly goes south. Alfonseroco had been a
(16:05):
con man stealing cars, stealing money for years, had a
police history, and the marriage does not work. In nineteen
forty six, all Go decides to leave Alphonse Roco and
go on her own way, and she moves to Brooklyn
and they separate Quickly, she realizes that Alfonse Roco is
(16:30):
not going to leave her alone. Still, whatever he is
with her obsessed with her, and he begins following her.
He starts to follow her on the subway to and
from work. He offers to drive her. He sometimes will
find her and then offer to drive her somewhere, as
she declines a lot of the time. But finally, one day,
(16:50):
for whatever reason, she's tired and she says, viny, I'll
get in the car with you. And when she gets
in the car, her ex husband Alfonse her puts a
knife to her throat and says, don't move or I'll
kill you. And he drives her to Poughkeepsie to a
cabin where he basically helds her hostage for two days
(17:12):
with this knife at her throat. They drive back to
New York. He then buys a gun and starts threatening
her with that. Then he drives her back to Poughkeepsie
to a different cabin where he holds her for five days,
and they drive back to Brooklyn. Finally, he drops Olga
off at her family's house and goes away. We don't
really know why he just said five days of the
(17:33):
enough go back home now, but he's now been threatening
her for weeks. On November first, just a few weeks
before Alan LaRue, Alfonse Roco meets per Lusk. Olga is
standing in the kitchen or the dining room in her
family's home, near an open window, and she's shot through
(17:55):
the thigh, a clean shot. She's just standing there and
a bullet comes in the window and shoots her through
the thigh. She spends ten days in the hospital, and
she says at that point to assistant district attorney, to
a detective with the NYPD, my ex husband is trying
to kill me. He's held me at gunpoint, he's held
me at knife point. He's the one who shot me.
(18:17):
So she is telling anyone she can that this man
is trying to get her. The police, over the next
couple of weeks take some action. They take a lot
of statements. They say that they're going to send someone
to watch her while she's walking to and from the
subway station. Some detectives do show up at some point
(18:38):
to offer her this service, but it doesn't work. And
throughout this whole time, Alphonse Roco Alan LaRue is trying
to get Pearl Lusk to step in and as we
find out get close enough to actually shoot Ooga and
(19:00):
and try to kill her. I mean it's so evil.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It's like it's so the planning and the scheming to
get to get this done is like it's like KGB level.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
M Yeah, that's right. It is kind of like it
is kind of like KGB level and also just really horrible.
I mean it's like gone from just terrible violent abuse
to roping in other people and trying to be creative
in the way that you can be the you know,
the ultimate abuse of killing her. Yeah. Yeah, So Pearl,
(19:41):
you know, is complicit in going along with this X
ray camera, and Olga is actually terrified every time she
leaves the house that she's going to see that she's
going to get shot again, or that she's going to
see her ex husband, or that he's gonna you know,
shoot her silently without seeing. I mean, he's done this before,
he was able to do it, and she's convinced that
(20:04):
it was him. And finally, you know, as she says,
he got me this time, I can't run away. So
after this happens, Alphonse Roco knows that this is all
going to come out, and he steals a car and
(20:24):
drives to the cat Skills and you know, basically a
gunpoint threatens people to give them their house for the night,
and he's on the run. On January fifth or six,
it's that's six days from the shooting, police find him
in the Cat's Skills. He's sleeping in a sleeping bag
in ten inches of snow under a tree, and the
(20:47):
police fire a warning shot to get him to surrender.
He fires back at them, and the police return fire
and kills him. And when they went up to the body,
they find on him a picture of him and Olga
in his pocket. And that's the end of Alphonse Roco.
(21:11):
Pearl and Olga actually kind of became friends, even though
I think Pearl's life ended up a little happier than Oga.
Oga loses her leg, her family basically bankrupts themselves paying
for her doctor's bills. She starts selling costume jewelry to
make ends meet. She ends up trying to sue the
(21:35):
City of New York for two hundred thousand dollars, claiming
that the police were negligent because she had made so many,
so many attempts to get them to pay attention to
this very dangerous abuse of man and they hadn't done it,
they hadn't been successful. The argument on the other side
is that the case is dismissed after five days because
(21:56):
the judge says, well, while you might have a little
bit of a valid point that we were supposed to
protect you from this man, it wasn't this man who
actually shot you. It was Pearl Lusk who shot you,
and so we can't We're not going to give you
any money.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's kind of this legal detail that made them dismiss
the case. And Pearl goes on to have a pretty
happy life. She has a family, and I think Olga
spends the rest of her life, you know, really struggling.
She was twenty eight. Olga was twenty eight when this happened,
when she was shot and her leg was taken by
(22:39):
Pearl Lusk.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I mean, that's such a that's such a hideous technicality, right,
because there's Pearl Lusk wouldn't have been doing any of
it if it wasn't for the man who asked her
to do it. It's almost illogical in that they're just
getting her on this technicality of well, we shouldn't have
to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
When Pearl was.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Duped you know, duped into this plan, which she didn't
think she was doing anything, trying to do harm.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I mean, that's just horrifying.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And also why did he Why would he plan all
of that to such insane detail, and then there's no
escape plan and his plan as I just drive north
and then sleep in the snow, like there's just he
was clearly it was just his obsession is what he
was dedicated to.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You know, I've thought about this story over the years
so much. You know, it's such a strange, sad, sad story.
And when the police interviewed Olga, she said that she
had seen Pearl on the train that morning because she
had seen this young, pretty woman holding this big box
(23:51):
that was wrapped in New Year's paper and had a
hole in it. And so you can just imagine these
two women riding in to the city looking at each
other across the car, both knowing that there's something odd.
You know, Olga saying, why is this woman carrying this
big present with a hole in it? And you know
(24:14):
Pearl saying, well, there she is. I'm just going to
get my shot and then I'll be the next Perry Mason.
So they spent time in that subway car together looking
at each other. I just I wonder what that was
like if you could have just been a fly on
the wall and in that subway car watching Pearl holding
that box, Pearl having no idea that what was inside
(24:35):
was a sawt off shotgun.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, and why would old I mean, I think most
people would would see that hole and not think, especially
back then, you know, have any idea of what it
was or that it was if they kind of were
sketchy about it, that it was meant for them in
any way like.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, also because Pearl wouldn't have been giving anything away.
She's innocent, so she's staring, she's probably staring around. There's
no she's not giving off weird vibes of oh my god,
I have to get the shotgun in the right. There's
nothing like that, So she's not going to portray anything.
It's it's, you know, sorry to give credit, but that
it is kind of the perfect plan in how horrifyingly
(25:18):
evil it is in that way, what a cover.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Well, and that he was able to say to Pearl,
you've got to get close because the camera has got
to get a shot. So you've really got to be
within two feet or the camera won't pick up the jewelry,
you know, knowing that you've got to be kind of
close with a shotgun, the sowd off shotgun. And when
there's a picture of the actual box Pearl was carrying,
(25:41):
and you know he's rigged up this shotgun with some
twine on top of a kind of a plywood box
with the shotgun just rigged up on top with twine
and a wire around the trigger and then around it.
You see all of the wrapping paper. You know, it's
it's yeah, quite a sight.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
She could have shot anybody on that subway accident. I mean,
anything could have happened. Yeah, anything could have happened.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And you know then would if she had shot someone else,
would two and two have ever been put together of
who this guy really was? You know, right, it's so
sad too with the ol guy.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know, now we probably would know that she had
PTSD after this experience of being stocked for you know,
who knows how long that lasted, and you know, and
being targeted in such a horrible way.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I mean imagine those those weeks up, you know,
November first she shot, and then December thirtieth, the day
before she shot, again. She goes to police headquarters and
basically begs for help, you know'. She says, she's so afraid,
she doesn't know what to do, and the detective she
speaks to is so concerned by the story that he
(26:57):
calls another lieutenant and says, hey, you know, we're gonna
have a homicide on our hands if we don't do something.
I mean, and this is just the day before, but
she knows she's got to get up the next morning,
and she knows she has to go to work and
get on the subway or she's going to lose her job,
you know, And what's she going to do? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, we've never we've never been able to find anyone
to tell that story. But I it's just it's one
of the wildest stories I've ever heard, and no one
really knows it totally. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. That's insane.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And it would like if that was in a movie,
you would be like, oh, this is this is a
little corny and I wouldn't buy it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah, or it sounds like a Hitchcock movie. It's like
it's totally diabolical, you know, it's like amazing, amazing. Phoebe judge,
you've done it again.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, I you know, I I'm glad to bring some
light to these two women and an X ray camera
in nineteen forty six. I mean, of all the things
he could have said, to come up with an X
ray camera because she's hiding the jewelry in her coat,
I mean that right there is that's a lot of
thinking ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the night you know, if she
hadn't met the exact right woman for the job, you know, unfortunately,
not that she had anything to do with it, but she,
you know, she was naive and fell for it. And
I think a lot of us would have, especially at.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Nineteen, I mean yeah, nineteen and someone that's very like
so good looking that they seem like a movie star
where everything seems a little more believable and biable out
of like a hot person's mouth.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm exciting. Yes, And you know, she had Pearl, had
arrived in New York and it was all working. You know,
she had that Upper West Side room. In the New
York article they talk about how she is starting to
change her hairdo that she had gotten rid of her bangs,
and so she was you know, had that a lot
of friends and she was out on the town and
it's having a great time. This is life. Finally I
got out of high school and living life. And then
(29:07):
you're you're fired, and so this reality has just been
ripped away from you. And so sure, this handsome guy says,
I want to buy you a drink, and you say,
what have I got to lose you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, that's kind of part of the dream, Like, right,
isn't that a little bit the next step when you're like,
I'm going to move into the big city and that's
where people look like movie stars usually live and I'm
going to be in the mix and I'm going to
be metropolitan and exciting things are going to happen, and
instead it's a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I mean amazing.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Anytime you have these these stories that you can't want
everybody's come back anytime.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Anytime.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We have a lot of them, and I would love
to because it's this is fun to be able to
just to be able to tell it. And you know,
there's so many there's so many odd things out there.
It surprises me every day the stuff that we all
find and just look at each others that could that
actually have happened? You know? This isn't real life is
(30:14):
better than what they write in the movies. I mean
that is just true. And the stuff you find in
this world, in this crime world, I mean, you can't
write it right. And you couldn't write this as you say,
this Pearl and Old story. You couldn't. It's too much.
It's almost it's too over the top. It has to
be real because it's too wild to not be real totally.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, when you do these stories, is it do people
reach out to you with their stories or is it
mostly you guys tracking people down? How hard is it
when you need to track them down?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Well, we people do write in with their stories, and
we love when people write in, But a lot of
the time it's just us looking constantly searching for interesting
stories and stories that feel like it they would be
good on criminal on this show. You know, not every
story works for us. But I think we've been doing
(31:07):
it now for seven years and so we kind of
when we see it, we kind of know. We don't
even have to say much. Someone will send a link
or you know, I'll look at Lauren Sporrer, who you know,
co creator of the show, and it's like, oh, perfect,
you know, perfect in the sense of this we have
to follow up on this, but you know, some of
(31:27):
my favorite stories people have written in about So it's
this odd mix of you know, and because those little odd,
strange stories oftentimes don't get written about or there's no
article to find, you have to rely on someone saying, Hey,
I heard about this odd thing. I thought you might
be interested.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Or like the episode you guys had recently when you
talked to the man who I believe is almost one
hundred or really close and he was the lawyer at
the Nuremberg trial.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
That it is the most unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But then his audio and you interviewing him were Phoebe
would get on the phone with him and be like,
all right, let's move this along. Like it's the kind
of thing that if it were an article or a magazine,
a magazine or something, you wouldn't get the real sense
because his accomplishments and who he was in this incredibly
historically unbelievable time, you wouldn't ever think that's what he's like.
(32:26):
And he you know, the way that whole episode rolled
out where you it's like you knew him. By the
end of that episode, you knew that man and what
he had accomplished, and it wasn't you know, he wasn't
self serious, and he wasn't self congratulatory, and he wasn't
there to teach every It was like he was telling
you his morning exercise routine. And then at the end
(32:47):
he was like, all right, I don't have time to
keep on talking.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I have other stuff to do.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like it was the funniest, most beautiful kind of profile that,
like the audio is everything for that A story like.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
That, Yeah, and that he had no time for me,
and I knew that I loved that he loved it.
It was so funny. Yeah, the minute I walked into
his house, I thought, well, this man is seven times
as busy as I am on my what I think,
busiest day, and phoebe just be ready when he kicks
you out of you. But but the thing about there's
(33:21):
a there's a moment in that interview. It's why I
like this, I like sound so much. And he's talking
about an absolutely horrendous scene that happened in a concentration
camp that he saw, and you can tell it's painful
for him to be telling me, I mean horrible, horrible
stuff and he tells me and then very seriously, he says,
(33:47):
next question, Yep, I'm done, yep, move on, And and
that hearing him say that like that to me was
all seven paragraphs of writing about how he felt about
what he saw or you know what it took to
get over that wouldn't have done what he did by
(34:08):
telling me next question. And I think that can be
so powerful in this all. And it feels really lucky
to get talk to people and hear their stories. And
we always say on this show is the best episodes
of Criminal are the ones where you hear me the least,
because the person's story is just so compelling that you
(34:31):
don't need me summing it up because they're doing it.
They're doing it with their voice and the words they
choose and what they're putting in and what they're leaving
out but not leaving out because they're trying to omit something,
but just because it's you can tell what they're saying
or not saying. It's it makes doing this, for as
(34:52):
long as we've been doing it just still still fun
and feel important. Some days. Yeah it is. It's beautiful, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
And you are you are so skilled, you have that
that that little you know knowing when and what to ask,
and so when you're listening, you're like, wait, what was that?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I want to know more?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And then immediately you have you do you come out
and say that you have this sixth sense when you're
interviewing someone about it important And these are such delicate
topics obviously that you talk to people about and they
open up to you in a way that I feel
like it's because you have this.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know, energy and skill. It's amazing to watch. Well,
I think you both have a lot more fun. Little
bit I kind of I'm jealous. I'm jealous of of
of what you get to do and and these fans
of yours who are so wildly devoted to you and
(35:56):
uh and and love to hear you and love to
hear what you have to say and the way that
you tell stories and such. You know, that's that's an
accomplishment to create a tribe of people who you know,
that feels like a real thing to have done. Thank you, Yeah,
thank you, it's we love to be genuine. Yeah, But
(36:17):
you know you can't that doesn't just you don't pay
for that, you know, you don't pay for people's allegiance
and their loyalty. People can sniff stuff out quick, especially
in audio. It's like the abs, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It's that authenticity in interviews or in when people are
you know, speaking about themselves for themselves, you know, when
someone's just giving you, like the party line. The other
thing that I really love is that, you know, I
came up doing stand up comedy, which is one of
the most competitive, cut throat things you could do with
(36:51):
your time. The idea that podcasting, because people can listen
to twenty nine podcasts a day, it's we're not competing
with each other. It's the content like needs to keep
on coming. It's so it's the opposite of that. It's
we all get to be supporting each other and and
pointing to each other and going you have to listen
(37:13):
to this, and you have to listen to that.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
To me, that's one of the.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Most satisfying parts of this where we all we all
are fans of this, you know, specific kind of media,
and then we get to be like, if you like this,
you'll love this, or you know, I mean like to me,
that's the that's the best part and the idea that
we get to sit here and talk to you when
we're such fans of what you do is just a dream.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It really is. Well, that's you're You've been both have
been so nice to us in our little show. And
you know, anytime sometimes people say, well, they did your
voice Phoebe, you know, and uh and so and and
I hear about it, and I'm so happy. I said, well,
(37:59):
isn't that nice? Respect full respect? No, I mean that's
the nice that's the nicest thing to to have you
talk about the show and and and be Phoebe for
a minute, you know. No, I mean most people are
waiting for me to for it to my voice to
(38:21):
you know, they kind of meet me sometimes and they'll say, oh,
it's your real voice. It's not an act. It's a
really talks. Well, thank you so much. This was awesome.
Can we can we please do it again? It would
any time, I would be. We will. We will start
getting our list ready of stories that I can tell
(38:44):
you about, because I think that would be the best thing.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yes, we're honored. We are huge fans, and we appreciate
so much coming on and sharing that incredible story.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yeah, that was so great. Watch out for X ray cameras.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
That's absolutely that's our new that's our new tagline for.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This, for this crossover, Let's get a T shirt man.
No matter what episode, watch out for X air cameras. Yeah,
thank you both very much, Thank you, thank you. I'm
Phoebe Judge. This is criminal, motherfucker, Elvis, do you want
to cookie? This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Our associate producer is Alejandra Kec.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Engineered and nixed by Andrew Even.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Send us your hometowns at my Favorite Murder at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch or
to join the fan cult, go to my Favorite Murder
dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And please rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Come on
Hello, Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's Karen Kilgarriff, and I'm Phoebe Judge and this is Criminal.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, it's so exciting to hear those words and see
your face as they happen.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What a treat. Yes, so exciting. Well, I'm happy that
you asked me to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We've been Criminal fans for a long time, as you know,
and we love the work you do, and so this
is We're very excited. When this idea came to light,
it was it was thrilling, and we're so excited to
see you and to be talking to you. Yeah, it's
kind of like, you know, you have these satellites. It's
out there.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
You know, you have my Favorite Murder and you have Criminal,
and we hit each other sometimes we send signals out
and they bounce off each other. And now we finally
get to be kind of in the same roomy, and
our worlds are going to collide for a second. Yeah, imagine,
and we want to.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Do the most we can to to not explode your
satellite in any I feel like I can't curse too
much in this, you know what I mean, Like there's
certain curse whords I normally use on our podcast that
I'm just not gonna that's not going.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
To fly on Criminal.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
They're not. They're knocking to my back be having our
inaccurate information over on that side of things.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I do in real life do say bad words. Sometimes
it's a little we hide that all, but I have
been known to say something ad uh, and it's always
a little shocking, but it has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Do you think, yeah, could we just get one fuck
out of you just to hear just for the experience.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of it, Like I like, I spill my water all
the time in the studio because I've bottles all around me,
and I'll say like, motherfuck, oh great, yes, great, and
then we immediately take it out so no one actually
has to hear me say anything like that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
That's right, it's not on brand. It's not on brand
with Criminal and what you've built.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
How about you edit those and just send them over
to ask them now on and we'll plug those in
on our podcast, like like we're like Morning DJ isn't
doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I'll give you a whole real yeah, great, no matter
the move, I'll give you a word for it. Great.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, we'd love different tones and different inflections.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's just, you know, let's play with it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Or in the middle of an interview, you're talking to
some old woman about this amazing thing that she done
that she also got arrested for, and then it's like, well,
that's fucking great.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I'm phoebe duged and this is.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Love the I love the like summary of criminal. There's
some amazing woman, she's done incredible things.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But she also got a wrestled for it. Do you
know how it goes? Fuck flack and she fucking got
arrested for.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
All right, So do you want to explain what you're
what you're about to do? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So we have story ideas all the time that we
can't do because we can't find someone to tell it
because it's too old or no one knows about it,
and so we don't get to do it because we
the whole show is built on people who have actual
experience with the event or some historian who knows a
lot about it. And so we've been we have these
(03:52):
collection of stories that we just haven't known what to
do with. And when we started talking about doing something together,
we thought, well, this could be the perfect chance for
me to get to tell you one of these stories
that we've been really obsessed with but just haven't found
anything to do how to make it an episode, And
so we thought that it could be interesting to tell
(04:13):
you the story about two women and what happened to
them in nineteen forty six. This was originally reported in
The New Yorker in nineteen fifty three and then kind
of not talked much about. But it's a really interesting story,
and so that's what we thought we'd do. I'd tell
you about Pearl and Olga and this wild man who
(04:35):
entered their lives and kind of ruined both of them.
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I had never heard this one at all, even though
it is wild, it feels like it should be like
on the level of you know, the Bonnie and Clyde
that gets told over and over again.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
The experience of this, especially as a person who listens
to Criminal, is the podcast listener's dream, which is you're
listening to a podcaster or tell you a story, but
you actually get to say something back. Like there's an
interactive element that we get to have in an episode
of Criminal. Essentially is what's going on right now? And
it's really it's really a thrill. It almost feels like
(05:13):
Mystery Science theater. You know, we're in the front row,
just screaming at the screen.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, please, please, Phoebe Judge, tell us a story. Yes, okay. Well,
in the fall of nineteen forty six, a woman named
Pearl Lusk, she just graduated from high school outside of Philadelphia,
moved to New York City. She got a job in
a department store. She got a room on the Upper
West Side and was kind of living the dream of
(05:40):
moving to New York after graduating from high school in
a small town and seeing it all. And she was
having a ball. She was having a really good time.
Her parents lived in Brooklyn and she was visiting them
on Thanksgiving and was traveling home on the subway and
a man approached her and asked if she wanted to
(06:04):
go out, and she said, I don't go out with men.
I don't know, Thank you very much, and went on
her way. She continued to work. It was ramping up.
It was the holiday season. It was December and New
York City. On Christmas Eve, she was told that she
was going to be laid off because the holiday rush
was over and she wasn't gonna have a job, so
(06:27):
she was a little downtrodden. She thought she'd kind of
made it, and now she's jobless. She goes back to
visit her family the day after Christmas in Brooklyn and
is on that same subway home and sees this man again.
She described him as the most handsome man she'd ever seen.
She kind of thought he must be an actor. He
(06:48):
was so handsome and dressed incredibly well. And he says again,
want to get a drink? And for whatever reason, she
says sure. And they get off at Times Square and
they go to a bar and she orders a whiskey
and seven up, a scotch and seven up. I think
that's called a seven and seven And they're having a
(07:10):
drink and he says his name is Alan LaRue, and
she's totally charmed by the way he looks. And he
tells her that he's a private detective. And she'd been
really into Perry Mason and mysteries and detective stories and
she's intrigued. And they're talking and she says, I've been
laid off and he says, well, would you be interested
(07:33):
in a job And she says, I guess so, and
he said, okay, come and meet me tomorrow morning and
I'll give you a job. So this nineteen year old girl, Prolusk,
meets this man Alan LaRue the next day and he
tells her some more about what he does. He is
a private detective for an insurance company, and the insurance
(07:56):
company looks into insuring jewel and then recovering stolen jewelry,
and Alan LaRue tells Pearl that the job will be
to follow a woman who's working at a hat company
and go to see this woman and see if she's
(08:18):
stealing jewelry from one of their clients. He tells Pearl
that he can't be the one to follow this woman
and see if she's stolen the jewelry because she already
knows his face and she'll catch on and just ditch
the jewelry. So they need someone who this woman named
Olga has never seen before. And he said, you've got
to figure out what she looks like. So I want
(08:39):
you to go to this office, to this crowden hat
company office where she's a secretary, and ask for a
fake woman, Sheila, and they'll say there's no Sheila here,
but you'll be able to get a look at this
woman Olga you'll know what she looks like. She's hiding
the jewelry in her jacket, and so you'll know what
(08:59):
she looks like. And then what you're gonna do is
you're going to follow her. So Pearl says, okay, she
goes to the hat company offices, she gets a good
look at Olga. She meets Alan LaRue again and says,
I know what she looks like. It's clear to me.
And he says, Okay, here's what you're gonna do. We
need proof that she stolen the jewelry. We can't get
(09:21):
the cops involved until we know that she has the jewelry.
So he says that he needs her to take a
photograph of this woman, Olga's coat, where she's hiding the jewelry.
And she's going to do this. Pearl will do this
because Alan is going to give her a disguised camera,
(09:42):
an X ray camera that will take a picture through
her coat and when it gets developed, they'll see that
she's hiding the jewelry in the coat. And so he
hands Pearl this paper colored shoe box covered in kind
of brown parcel paper, and on one end of it
there's a little hole where the camera is supposedly sticking out,
(10:04):
and he tells Pearl where Olga gets on the train,
and he says, you're going to get on the train
with Olga, and you're going to follow her, and when
she gets off the train, you're going to get as
close as possible to her two and a half to
three feet, he was pretty specific, and you're going to
take the picture. And so Olga and Pearl are on
the same train. Pearl follows her, gets off the train,
(10:26):
is supposed to pull this wire under the parcel, this
odd shoe box shaped parcel which apparently has an X
ray camera in it, and she does, and she takes
a picture of this woman, Olga's back of her coat,
and she goes and she delivers the camera with the
supposed film in it to Alan the Rue and he says, okay,
(10:48):
let me try to develop it and I'll let you
know what comes out if we got a good picture.
The little time pass and Alan lets Pearl know that
the picture didn't work. It didn't come out, and so
he says, I'm going to get a new camera and
I'm going to call you in a few days and
tell you when the camera's ready. Pearl says, okay. So
(11:10):
a few days later Alan calls. They meet again, and
Alan delivers Pearl a new box. This time it's wrapped
in Christmas Happy New Year paper and it still has
this hole in one end of it, kind of where
the camera lens might be. It's a lot heavier than
the last box, and it still has this wire underneath
(11:33):
that Pearl is supposed to pull when she wants to
take the camera shot. So again, Pearl gets on the
train with Olga coming from Brooklyn into Manhattan, gets off
at the station, stands right behind Olga two and a
half to three feet, gets ready to take the picture,
(11:53):
pulls the wire on the bottom of this box, and
a gunshot comes out of them. I was afraid you're
gonna say that you knew. And it's New Year's Eve
and they're at the Time Square train station. She pulls
the wire loop, a blast occurs, and this box, which
(12:17):
actually is holding a sawed off shotgun, shoots Olga's left
leg nearly completely off. Oh my god, Pearl is so
close to Olga because Alan LaRue has said you have
to get really close. That Pearl is covered in Olga's
blood and when a gar everyone, I mean Pearl is shocked.
(12:38):
She didn't know that this box had a gun in it.
When the subway guard asks Pearl what happened, she says,
I just took a woman's picture, but somebody shot her.
She didn't even know that she had been the one
to shoot her, because she had no idea. When they
open the box up, they see that it's got a
sawed off shotgun in it, and Pearl is now standing
(13:00):
over Olga, who's laying on the ground almost bleeding to death,
and Pearl is saying, I'm so sorry I shot you
in a state of shocks. She had no idea, She said,
I thought I was taking your picture with an X
ray camera. And Olga, laying there on the ground, looks
up and there's people around, of course, and according to
(13:21):
these people, these witnesses, Olga says, well, he got me
this time. Now he's crippled me, so I can't get away. Oh,
I just no joke. I just got chills. And she's
taken to the hospital, oh where her left leg is
amputated inches above her knee because the damage was so great.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So that's the story, is what what the hell I
didn't know you could put an X ray camera in
a shoe box in nineteen forty forty six, or that
they even had.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
X ray cameras in nineteen forty six. I don't know.
I mean, can can you do that today? I don't
I don't even know if you can do that today. Yeah,
it sounds fake.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I mean that sounds like the thing in the back
of a Richie rich comic where it's like, you know,
X ray camera see through people's clothes. It's like, this
is why you don't talk to people on this subble, right,
That's why this is the rule. Just keep your head down,
no chit chat, no matter how good looking they are.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I just feel like, though a nineteen year old who's
like excited and into Perry Mason and detective stuff, and
there's this hot detective, nicely addressed yeah, sends you on
this cool mission that sounds legit. There's details in it.
You know.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Also the first the first time, and then it just
didn't work. It's like such a it's such a devious,
horrifying setup. It's all I'm going along with this private
detective and this is how stuff like this works, and
I'm just doing what he tells me, and nothing happened.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
The first time. Why would anything happen the second time?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, And I mean the leap from X ray camera
to sawt off shotgun. I mean I wouldn't. I wouldn't
make that leap if I wrapped in Christmas Happy New
Year paper.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So when the police questioned Pearl, who really is this
rather innocent nineteen year old who just as I was
approached by this man named Alan LaRue? That coupled with
what Olga had said of well he's crippled me now
now he can get me, they start putting two and
two together. Alan LaRue's real name was Alphonse Rocco, and
(15:44):
he and Olga had been married in May of nineteen
forty five. They had met in nineteen forty four at
a dance. She had been obviously charmed by him as well.
They had gotten married in May of nineteen forty five,
and the relationship quickly goes south. Alfonseroco had been a
(16:05):
con man stealing cars, stealing money for years, had a
police history, and the marriage does not work. In nineteen
forty six, all Go decides to leave Alphonse Roco and
go on her own way, and she moves to Brooklyn
and they separate Quickly, she realizes that Alfonse Roco is
(16:30):
not going to leave her alone. Still, whatever he is
with her obsessed with her, and he begins following her.
He starts to follow her on the subway to and
from work. He offers to drive her. He sometimes will
find her and then offer to drive her somewhere, as
she declines a lot of the time. But finally, one day,
(16:50):
for whatever reason, she's tired and she says, viny, I'll
get in the car with you. And when she gets
in the car, her ex husband Alfonse her puts a
knife to her throat and says, don't move or I'll
kill you. And he drives her to Poughkeepsie to a
cabin where he basically helds her hostage for two days
(17:12):
with this knife at her throat. They drive back to
New York. He then buys a gun and starts threatening
her with that. Then he drives her back to Poughkeepsie
to a different cabin where he holds her for five days,
and they drive back to Brooklyn. Finally, he drops Olga
off at her family's house and goes away. We don't
really know why he just said five days of the
(17:33):
enough go back home now, but he's now been threatening
her for weeks. On November first, just a few weeks
before Alan LaRue, Alfonse Roco meets per Lusk. Olga is
standing in the kitchen or the dining room in her
family's home, near an open window, and she's shot through
(17:55):
the thigh, a clean shot. She's just standing there and
a bullet comes in the window and shoots her through
the thigh. She spends ten days in the hospital, and
she says at that point to assistant district attorney, to
a detective with the NYPD, my ex husband is trying
to kill me. He's held me at gunpoint, he's held
me at knife point. He's the one who shot me.
(18:17):
So she is telling anyone she can that this man
is trying to get her. The police, over the next
couple of weeks take some action. They take a lot
of statements. They say that they're going to send someone
to watch her while she's walking to and from the
subway station. Some detectives do show up at some point
(18:38):
to offer her this service, but it doesn't work. And
throughout this whole time, Alphonse Roco Alan LaRue is trying
to get Pearl Lusk to step in and as we
find out get close enough to actually shoot Ooga and
(19:00):
and try to kill her. I mean it's so evil.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
It's like it's so the planning and the scheming to
get to get this done is like it's like KGB level.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
M Yeah, that's right. It is kind of like it
is kind of like KGB level and also just really horrible.
I mean it's like gone from just terrible violent abuse
to roping in other people and trying to be creative
in the way that you can be the you know,
the ultimate abuse of killing her. Yeah. Yeah, So Pearl,
(19:41):
you know, is complicit in going along with this X
ray camera, and Olga is actually terrified every time she
leaves the house that she's going to see that she's
going to get shot again, or that she's going to
see her ex husband, or that he's gonna you know,
shoot her silently without seeing. I mean, he's done this before,
he was able to do it, and she's convinced that
(20:04):
it was him. And finally, you know, as she says,
he got me this time, I can't run away. So
after this happens, Alphonse Roco knows that this is all
going to come out, and he steals a car and
(20:24):
drives to the cat Skills and you know, basically a
gunpoint threatens people to give them their house for the night,
and he's on the run. On January fifth or six,
it's that's six days from the shooting, police find him
in the Cat's Skills. He's sleeping in a sleeping bag
in ten inches of snow under a tree, and the
(20:47):
police fire a warning shot to get him to surrender.
He fires back at them, and the police return fire
and kills him. And when they went up to the body,
they find on him a picture of him and Olga
in his pocket. And that's the end of Alphonse Roco.
(21:11):
Pearl and Olga actually kind of became friends, even though
I think Pearl's life ended up a little happier than Oga.
Oga loses her leg, her family basically bankrupts themselves paying
for her doctor's bills. She starts selling costume jewelry to
make ends meet. She ends up trying to sue the
(21:35):
City of New York for two hundred thousand dollars, claiming
that the police were negligent because she had made so many,
so many attempts to get them to pay attention to
this very dangerous abuse of man and they hadn't done it,
they hadn't been successful. The argument on the other side
is that the case is dismissed after five days because
(21:56):
the judge says, well, while you might have a little
bit of a valid point that we were supposed to
protect you from this man, it wasn't this man who
actually shot you. It was Pearl Lusk who shot you,
and so we can't We're not going to give you
any money.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's kind of this legal detail that made them dismiss
the case. And Pearl goes on to have a pretty
happy life. She has a family, and I think Olga
spends the rest of her life, you know, really struggling.
She was twenty eight. Olga was twenty eight when this happened,
when she was shot and her leg was taken by
(22:39):
Pearl Lusk.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I mean, that's such a that's such a hideous technicality, right,
because there's Pearl Lusk wouldn't have been doing any of
it if it wasn't for the man who asked her
to do it. It's almost illogical in that they're just
getting her on this technicality of well, we shouldn't have
to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
When Pearl was.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Duped you know, duped into this plan, which she didn't
think she was doing anything, trying to do harm.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I mean, that's just horrifying.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And also why did he Why would he plan all
of that to such insane detail, and then there's no
escape plan and his plan as I just drive north
and then sleep in the snow, like there's just he
was clearly it was just his obsession is what he
was dedicated to.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You know, I've thought about this story over the years
so much. You know, it's such a strange, sad, sad story.
And when the police interviewed Olga, she said that she
had seen Pearl on the train that morning because she
had seen this young, pretty woman holding this big box
(23:51):
that was wrapped in New Year's paper and had a
hole in it. And so you can just imagine these
two women riding in to the city looking at each
other across the car, both knowing that there's something odd.
You know, Olga saying, why is this woman carrying this
big present with a hole in it? And you know
(24:14):
Pearl saying, well, there she is. I'm just going to
get my shot and then I'll be the next Perry Mason.
So they spent time in that subway car together looking
at each other. I just I wonder what that was
like if you could have just been a fly on
the wall and in that subway car watching Pearl holding
that box, Pearl having no idea that what was inside
(24:35):
was a sawt off shotgun.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, and why would old I mean, I think most
people would would see that hole and not think, especially
back then, you know, have any idea of what it
was or that it was if they kind of were
sketchy about it, that it was meant for them in
any way like.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, also because Pearl wouldn't have been giving anything away.
She's innocent, so she's staring, she's probably staring around. There's
no she's not giving off weird vibes of oh my god,
I have to get the shotgun in the right. There's
nothing like that, So she's not going to portray anything.
It's it's, you know, sorry to give credit, but that
it is kind of the perfect plan in how horrifyingly
(25:18):
evil it is in that way, what a cover.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Well, and that he was able to say to Pearl,
you've got to get close because the camera has got
to get a shot. So you've really got to be
within two feet or the camera won't pick up the jewelry,
you know, knowing that you've got to be kind of
close with a shotgun, the sowd off shotgun. And when
there's a picture of the actual box Pearl was carrying,
(25:41):
and you know he's rigged up this shotgun with some
twine on top of a kind of a plywood box
with the shotgun just rigged up on top with twine
and a wire around the trigger and then around it.
You see all of the wrapping paper. You know, it's
it's yeah, quite a sight.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
She could have shot anybody on that subway accident. I mean,
anything could have happened. Yeah, anything could have happened.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
And you know then would if she had shot someone else,
would two and two have ever been put together of
who this guy really was? You know, right, it's so
sad too with the ol guy.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know, now we probably would know that she had
PTSD after this experience of being stocked for you know,
who knows how long that lasted, and you know, and
being targeted in such a horrible way.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I mean imagine those those weeks up, you know,
November first she shot, and then December thirtieth, the day
before she shot, again. She goes to police headquarters and
basically begs for help, you know'. She says, she's so afraid,
she doesn't know what to do, and the detective she
speaks to is so concerned by the story that he
(26:57):
calls another lieutenant and says, hey, you know, we're gonna
have a homicide on our hands if we don't do something.
I mean, and this is just the day before, but
she knows she's got to get up the next morning,
and she knows she has to go to work and
get on the subway or she's going to lose her job,
you know, And what's she going to do? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, we've never we've never been able to find anyone
to tell that story. But I it's just it's one
of the wildest stories I've ever heard, and no one
really knows it totally. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. That's insane.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And it would like if that was in a movie,
you would be like, oh, this is this is a
little corny and I wouldn't buy it.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah, or it sounds like a Hitchcock movie. It's like
it's totally diabolical, you know, it's like amazing, amazing. Phoebe judge,
you've done it again.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, I you know, I I'm glad to bring some
light to these two women and an X ray camera
in nineteen forty six. I mean, of all the things
he could have said, to come up with an X
ray camera because she's hiding the jewelry in her coat,
I mean that right there is that's a lot of
thinking ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the night you know, if she
hadn't met the exact right woman for the job, you know, unfortunately,
not that she had anything to do with it, but she,
you know, she was naive and fell for it. And
I think a lot of us would have, especially at.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Nineteen, I mean yeah, nineteen and someone that's very like
so good looking that they seem like a movie star
where everything seems a little more believable and biable out
of like a hot person's mouth.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm exciting. Yes, And you know, she had Pearl, had
arrived in New York and it was all working. You know,
she had that Upper West Side room. In the New
York article they talk about how she is starting to
change her hairdo that she had gotten rid of her bangs,
and so she was you know, had that a lot
of friends and she was out on the town and
it's having a great time. This is life. Finally I
got out of high school and living life. And then
(29:07):
you're you're fired, and so this reality has just been
ripped away from you. And so sure, this handsome guy says,
I want to buy you a drink, and you say,
what have I got to lose you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, that's kind of part of the dream, Like, right,
isn't that a little bit the next step when you're like,
I'm going to move into the big city and that's
where people look like movie stars usually live and I'm
going to be in the mix and I'm going to
be metropolitan and exciting things are going to happen, and
instead it's a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I mean amazing.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Anytime you have these these stories that you can't want
everybody's come back anytime.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Anytime.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We have a lot of them, and I would love
to because it's this is fun to be able to
just to be able to tell it. And you know,
there's so many there's so many odd things out there.
It surprises me every day the stuff that we all
find and just look at each others that could that
actually have happened? You know? This isn't real life is
(30:14):
better than what they write in the movies. I mean
that is just true. And the stuff you find in
this world, in this crime world, I mean, you can't
write it right. And you couldn't write this as you say,
this Pearl and Old story. You couldn't. It's too much.
It's almost it's too over the top. It has to
be real because it's too wild to not be real totally.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, when you do these stories, is it do people
reach out to you with their stories or is it
mostly you guys tracking people down? How hard is it
when you need to track them down?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Well, we people do write in with their stories, and
we love when people write in, But a lot of
the time it's just us looking constantly searching for interesting
stories and stories that feel like it they would be
good on criminal on this show. You know, not every
story works for us. But I think we've been doing
(31:07):
it now for seven years and so we kind of
when we see it, we kind of know. We don't
even have to say much. Someone will send a link
or you know, I'll look at Lauren Sporrer, who you know,
co creator of the show, and it's like, oh, perfect,
you know, perfect in the sense of this we have
to follow up on this, but you know, some of
(31:27):
my favorite stories people have written in about So it's
this odd mix of you know, and because those little odd,
strange stories oftentimes don't get written about or there's no
article to find, you have to rely on someone saying, Hey,
I heard about this odd thing. I thought you might
be interested.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Or like the episode you guys had recently when you
talked to the man who I believe is almost one
hundred or really close and he was the lawyer at
the Nuremberg trial.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
That it is the most unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But then his audio and you interviewing him were Phoebe
would get on the phone with him and be like,
all right, let's move this along. Like it's the kind
of thing that if it were an article or a magazine,
a magazine or something, you wouldn't get the real sense
because his accomplishments and who he was in this incredibly
historically unbelievable time, you wouldn't ever think that's what he's like.
(32:26):
And he you know, the way that whole episode rolled
out where you it's like you knew him. By the
end of that episode, you knew that man and what
he had accomplished, and it wasn't you know, he wasn't
self serious, and he wasn't self congratulatory, and he wasn't
there to teach every It was like he was telling
you his morning exercise routine. And then at the end
(32:47):
he was like, all right, I don't have time to
keep on talking.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I have other stuff to do.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like it was the funniest, most beautiful kind of profile that,
like the audio is everything for that A story like.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
That, Yeah, and that he had no time for me,
and I knew that I loved that he loved it.
It was so funny. Yeah, the minute I walked into
his house, I thought, well, this man is seven times
as busy as I am on my what I think,
busiest day, and phoebe just be ready when he kicks
you out of you. But but the thing about there's
(33:21):
a there's a moment in that interview. It's why I
like this, I like sound so much. And he's talking
about an absolutely horrendous scene that happened in a concentration
camp that he saw, and you can tell it's painful
for him to be telling me, I mean horrible, horrible
stuff and he tells me and then very seriously, he says,
(33:47):
next question, Yep, I'm done, yep, move on, And and
that hearing him say that like that to me was
all seven paragraphs of writing about how he felt about
what he saw or you know what it took to
get over that wouldn't have done what he did by
(34:08):
telling me next question. And I think that can be
so powerful in this all. And it feels really lucky
to get talk to people and hear their stories. And
we always say on this show is the best episodes
of Criminal are the ones where you hear me the least,
because the person's story is just so compelling that you
(34:31):
don't need me summing it up because they're doing it.
They're doing it with their voice and the words they
choose and what they're putting in and what they're leaving
out but not leaving out because they're trying to omit something,
but just because it's you can tell what they're saying
or not saying. It's it makes doing this, for as
(34:52):
long as we've been doing it just still still fun
and feel important. Some days. Yeah it is. It's beautiful, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
And you are you are so skilled, you have that
that that little you know knowing when and what to ask,
and so when you're listening, you're like, wait, what was that?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I want to know more?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And then immediately you have you do you come out
and say that you have this sixth sense when you're
interviewing someone about it important And these are such delicate
topics obviously that you talk to people about and they
open up to you in a way that I feel
like it's because you have this.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know, energy and skill. It's amazing to watch. Well,
I think you both have a lot more fun. Little
bit I kind of I'm jealous. I'm jealous of of
of what you get to do and and these fans
of yours who are so wildly devoted to you and
(35:56):
uh and and love to hear you and love to
hear what you have to say and the way that
you tell stories and such. You know, that's that's an
accomplishment to create a tribe of people who you know,
that feels like a real thing to have done. Thank you, Yeah,
thank you, it's we love to be genuine. Yeah, But
(36:17):
you know you can't that doesn't just you don't pay
for that, you know, you don't pay for people's allegiance
and their loyalty. People can sniff stuff out quick, especially
in audio. It's like the abs, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It's that authenticity in interviews or in when people are
you know, speaking about themselves for themselves, you know, when
someone's just giving you, like the party line. The other
thing that I really love is that, you know, I
came up doing stand up comedy, which is one of
the most competitive, cut throat things you could do with
(36:51):
your time. The idea that podcasting, because people can listen
to twenty nine podcasts a day, it's we're not competing
with each other. It's the content like needs to keep
on coming. It's so it's the opposite of that. It's
we all get to be supporting each other and and
pointing to each other and going you have to listen
(37:13):
to this, and you have to listen to that.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
To me, that's one of the.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Most satisfying parts of this where we all we all
are fans of this, you know, specific kind of media,
and then we get to be like, if you like this,
you'll love this, or you know, I mean like to me,
that's the that's the best part and the idea that
we get to sit here and talk to you when
we're such fans of what you do is just a dream.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
It really is. Well, that's you're You've been both have
been so nice to us in our little show. And
you know, anytime sometimes people say, well, they did your
voice Phoebe, you know, and uh and so and and
I hear about it, and I'm so happy. I said, well,
(37:59):
isn't that nice? Respect full respect? No, I mean that's
the nice that's the nicest thing to to have you
talk about the show and and and be Phoebe for
a minute, you know. No, I mean most people are
waiting for me to for it to my voice to
(38:21):
you know, they kind of meet me sometimes and they'll say, oh,
it's your real voice. It's not an act. It's a
really talks. Well, thank you so much. This was awesome.
Can we can we please do it again? It would
any time, I would be. We will. We will start
getting our list ready of stories that I can tell
(38:44):
you about, because I think that would be the best thing.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yes, we're honored. We are huge fans, and we appreciate
so much coming on and sharing that incredible story.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yeah, that was so great. Watch out for X ray cameras.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
That's absolutely that's our new that's our new tagline for.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
This, for this crossover, Let's get a T shirt man.
No matter what episode, watch out for X air cameras. Yeah,
thank you both very much, Thank you, thank you. I'm
Phoebe Judge. This is criminal, motherfucker, Elvis, do you want
to cookie? This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Our associate producer is Alejandra Kec.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Engineered and nixed by Andrew Even.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Send us your hometowns at my Favorite Murder at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
For more information about the podcast, live shows, merch or
to join the fan cult, go to my Favorite Murder
dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And please rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Come on
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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