389 - Chill and Withhold

On today’s episode, Georgia covers the kidnapping and murder of Graeme Thorne and Karen tells the story of the NYPD’s first female detective, Isabella Goodwin.

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark,
that's Karen Kilgariff. This is the beginning. We do it
right every time, boom, just like that. Check it out.
Look at the pros year seven year seven, year, seven
and a half. That's almost two high schools of podcasting,

(00:41):
almost two high schools. We've almost graduated high school, both
of us. Yeah, it's great, it is great. I'm happy
for us.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I know, I mean we really stuck in there. We
didn't quit like college, you.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Know, or almost high school in my case.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
And you know, I will say this, compared to high school,
this show, I've done more homework for this show than
I ever once did in high school.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Ever, Yes, one hundred percent. I never did homework in
high school. It's like less drugs and more homework. How
did we sell this to ourselves?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Right? Like, I don't think anybody considered the long term
effects of just starting up a homework show. Yeah, and
then several side businesses all at way.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right, Highly recommend not a podcast that you have to
do homework for. Talking and driving ones are fun, plenty
of other kinds. What's going on with you? What do
you got? I got not much. I do a lot
of the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
But then it makes it kind of fun because then
when I do leave this house and go like meet
a friend for dinner or do something, it's like, literally,
I drive around Los Angeles, I'm like.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Look at that. How long has that been there? You're
like a new baby?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, or like I just moved here from Cleveland or
something like I signed up on TikTok for like, here's
the coolest new rooftop bars on the east Side or
bars on the east Side, and I literally have not
heard of one of them. I have to look them up,
Like where would that be? I don't even recognize the
street it's on.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
No I tak an time as if we're like we're
the kind of people to go to rooftop bars never,
or like I follow this one Instagram account called secret
dot Los Angeles and it's like fun things to do
this weekend that are like this and that, and I'm like,
this looks fun. I don't like crowds, I don't like
leaving the house. I don't like heat the sun. I

(02:42):
don't know what I'm thinking that I'm going to utilize
any of these things, but it's fun to dream.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
It's fun to dream and picture and sometimes I think
I also signed up.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
For Secret Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
That's really funny because was one of the things, like
a vegan festival.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Probably I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
I literally was like looking like that's interesting, and I'm like, Karen,
can I please talk to you for a second.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
You're not going to a VCA. You're a carnivore, Like
that's a and b anti.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
You're a couch based carnivore that resents the slightest difficulty.
It's like, will send me home? What am I talking about?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Parking will be a nightmare? Fucking that weren't the case.
I would be at the beach like every day. I
haven't been at the beach in like three years. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Also, sometimes those accounts, like on TikTok, there'll be clips
of like here's our happy hour or whatever.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, and I'll.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Kind of like the general look of it. But it's
like if I was sitting at a table there, I'd
only be negative and judgmental, like.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
What am I talking about? And I'm also like solidly
twenty five years too old to be at any of
those places, right, Yeah, a lot of them are not
for our age range.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
What about Secret Los Angeles for bitchy fifties something like
around that area.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Like it could be like a gen X Secret Los
Angeles or it's just like, yeah, we know you want
to stay home. You're probably not going to come to this,
but here's a place to go that isn't loud, that
isn't loud, not too loud.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Everyone's kind of like chilled and withholding so you don't
have to like get to end anyone because they.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Don't want to accidentally recognize each other and have to
have awkward small talk when you make eye contact and
go oh.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Or kind of like look and absorb the judgment from
a pure group, right, because that's probably what's happening, right, Okay,
I have a corrections corner. Okay, great that I really appreciate.
This one's from Chanel Renee at Chanel Renee on X.
I'm talking about Twitter. Oh, this is not a porn discussion,

(04:50):
this is not punk rock band, it's not Curious Georgia's signature.
It's Twitter, Chanel Renee wrote, just wanted to share a
aphorism I learned recently. Quote if it's black, fight back,
if it's brown, lie down, if it's white, say good night. Wow,

(05:11):
and then the end says, just a friendly correction Grizzlies
or brown bears. I think in this week's episode you
meant to compare black bears.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes, I did, for sure. Thank you Chanel for knowing
me and supporting the misinformation that I insist upon putting
into the world every week on this podcast. But we
that's why we have Corrections Corner is because we are
open and willing and almost aggressively excited to correct ourselves.

(05:39):
That's right, which is a really great way to be. Yeah,
you know, and some people are threatened by that.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, yeah, Oh, here's what we can talk about. What
the loss of Peewee Herman.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
It's heartbreaking, what a joyous human being that the world
is lost.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
And the amount of clips that are now I'm seeing
on both ex Twitter and TikTok. Like he was an
early Letterman comedy panel guest, which is a very difficult
thing to do. He did stand up on Letterman like
he was going to do a set, and then it
was just like him pulling shit out of a bag and.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Acting like a child, which everyone loved.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
But then he would have to go sit down and
basically do the same thing seated which is really hard.
And every clip I've seen is like funnier than the
last and better than the last. I just loved that guy.
He was such a huge part of my childhood me too.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
And it was great seeing so many people, like a
lot of famous people being like, this is how good
of a friend he was. Oh, and this is like
not even famous people like the place I got my cat,
the Orphan Kitten Club. He was like friends with them,
and he started like showing photos with him that he
like helped save animals and was just like, this good
fucking person. It's unbelievable. That's a legacy you want to

(06:56):
leave behind, you.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Know, entirely, Yeah, like overtly can invested. I should say this.
Paul Rubins died. Pee Wee Herman was a character he played.
I'm just was saying the first thing that came to
my head, and that should be said because he played
lots of other characters that were so hilarious. They keep
showing that thirty Rock clip.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Oh my god, best episode, best episode of thirty Rock,
The Little Hand is that one of the greatest. It's
just epic, epic. Oh man, go watch it if you
haven't seen it and laugh. So good such a loss. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I have a podcast I can just shout out real quick.
It's by my gal who does nothing much happens. Of course,

(07:38):
I love that Go to Sleep podcast. She's now doing
a meditation podcast called First This. She's catching it on
that voice of hers and her writing skills, which is
like good for her, you know. Yeah, but it's just
a ten minute mindfulness meditation podcast by Catherine Nikolai. Ten minutes.
That's like what I need once a day. It's ten minutes,

(07:58):
and I can't fucking do do it. It's impossible for
me to sit down and not concentrate for ten minutes
and do something. Can I make a suggestion, please?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
What if you try to do it like on a walk,
so that you don't feel the sit down part as
a restriction.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
I like that because sometimes that's the it's almost like
stop your whole day and go do this thing that animals.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Will bug you as you do it this.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
I'm like, you can easily list all the reasons it
won't work out. Yeah, but if you're already doing something else,
you can get into the habit of like spending ten
minutes focused.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, that I like that idea. I've never thought of that.
It's like always so restrictive, like you have to do
it this way or you're not doing it right, and
so I don't do it. You know whose voice is that,
Georgia who's talking in that Janet? No, just kidding, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. I don't know. That's my bully voice in
my head. She's real mean.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, yeah, I got one more thing. Okay, I pulled
it off the x feed Erica, who is at gilligal
on x Twitter tells us Mysteries a Bound has a
Patreon where Paul releases new episodes and adds old episodes
onto the end. So our old favorite podcast that we
were talking about last week, Mysteries Abound, does have a patreon.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
We love that podcast. You should love it too. Talk
about a great voice.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah yeah, and great stories, compelling, interesting mystery stuff. And
now you can just directly support him through a Patreon.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
That's great, that's great. I love it. Support your local podcasts.
Rate review subscribe, I can do it.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I think that's the perfect segue right into our highlights,
don't you think.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Hey, speaking of rate review subscribe, let's do exactly right corner.
Do it? Okay, we're really excited to report that Ghosted
by ros Hernandez debuted at the top of Freaking Comedy
podcast charts. You guys, nice, Thank you so much for
following her, for loving her, for reviewing her. She is
a such a talent. The podcast is so incredible and

(09:59):
we're so proud to have it on exactly right, So
thank you guys for supporting. And this week, Ross's guest
is none either than comedian and friend of the network
Patton Oswalt.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
That's gonna be a great episode. What are his ghost stories?
I've known him forever, I've never heard ghost story? All right,
Another reminder that Adulting with Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos
is back after a summer break, and now this podcast
is weekly and there this week joined by comedian Mike Yard,

(10:29):
So make sure you're following that show, and then you
don't miss the brand new episodes that come out every Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
And on this podcast will kill You. Aaron and Aaron
discuss all things asthma. How brilliant is that? Like, I
don't know anything about asthma.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
I do, I'd be really bad asthma growing up, really
uh huh.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
We'll find out why by listening to this podcast will
kill you.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm going to call in and argue with them with
the science explainers. Also, just a quick reminder, the MFM
store is stocked with new merch bundles for puzzle renos,
BFFs and those of you who might be new listeners.
So just go over to my favorite murder dot com
and check out our merch store.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, do it. Thanks? Hey, thanks so much. Hey, Hi,
I'm first this week, right you are okay? This story
is sad and a bummer and not good because it's
the story of a kidnapping of a child, so it's

(11:31):
a hard one. The reason I'm covering it is because
it's Australia's first ever kidnapping for ransom case. Oh and
it completely changed the forensic investigation field there and everywhere,
and it changed laws. It changed the whole mindset of
how cases are solved in Australia and all over the world,

(11:54):
so it's important. My main source for today is an
episode of an Australian show called I'm Investigation in Australia,
which introduced many of the original investigators in the case.
This is from the nineteen sixties, so they're all old
timers now and the way they solved this is so incredible.
So it's a really great episode And the rest of
my sources can be found in our show notes. The

(12:15):
story begins with the construction of the Sydney Opera House.
Oh where none other than were you and I did
a fucking show once.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
We did a show at the Sydney Opera House that
was so intimidating, like we were driven underground into the
parking structure.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
We were walked to the area and.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Then we got on that stage and it was just like,
what is how did we get here?

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Hollowed ground? Crazy? I thought it was like at last
minute they were like just kidding, You're at the chuckle
Club or something like that. It was so crazy. So
it's Construction begins on the now iconic design in nineteen
fifty seven. At the time, the project is supposed to
be completed in nineteen sixty three at a cost of
three million pounds, which is about seventy six million in

(12:59):
today dollars. In reality, the Opera House isn't completed until
nineteen seventy three, ten years later, and the cost ends
up being seven hundred and nine million dollars in today's money. Oh,
that's way over budget, way over budget. Yeah, and actually,
in the time it took to build the Opera House,
Australia had changed its currencies from pounds to dollars, so

(13:21):
like the fucking money isn't even the goddamn sam anymore, you.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Know, it's like time is truly passing when the money
changes exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
So the people who were building it had this brilliant
idea to cover what ultimately became a one three hundred
and fifty seven percent increase in the budget. The new
South Wales government began to hold lotteries. So basically you'd
go pay for a lottery ticket, the money for the
lottery tickets went to the Opera House to build it,

(13:51):
and people would win money, like they would choose a
lottery winner. Basically how lotteries were. Yeah, the lottery. Sure,
the great idea, you know, but it's like usually go
to the state, right or like it's a great idea
to be like this is how we're going to build stuff. Well, yeah,
because you buy a ticket and then you're just like
see that building over there, I paid for part of bates,

(14:11):
I paid my piece. Yeah, it's almost like you're doing
a raffle at a school, you know, fundraiser. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Recently the power ball in California was I think it
was over a billion oh, and I was like, shouldn't
we do a little provision where once it goes over
a certain amount, we go ahead and give that also
to the schools. The schools need it really bad. My
sister hasn't had air conditioning her entire career.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, in her classrooms. They're just getting it this summer. Yeah,
it should go.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Back to the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Anyway, Yeah, that's for the other podcast about schools.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
So great idea. Right. So on June first, nineteen sixty,
a man named Basil Thorn. It was the tenth drawing
of the lottery, and he wins first place. He's just
a normal family man and he wins one hundred thousand pounds,
which in today's money would be somewhere around two and

(15:06):
a half to three million dollars. Oh wow, So he
becomes wealthy overnight. Disney already sound wealthy with a name
like Basil Thorn. Basil Thorn, Yeah, I feel like when
you have a Z in your name, you're just immediately
like the upper echelon to see if a Z is
a basil with a Z basle with a Z. Wow, Okay,
I know very Australian. This is a huge windfall for

(15:29):
the Thorn family. Basil makes a modest income as a
traveling salesman. And just so you know how substantial that
amount is, Like you think nowadays three million dollars, like
you could maybe buy a house in la right, but
back then you could buy a home in a Sydney suburb,
like a normal home for around eight thousand pounds. Oh,

(15:50):
so the rest of that money is just like goes
to whatever the fuck you wanted to. So it's a
lot of money and you don't have to waste it
all on.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
A house, like yeah, Jesus Christ, you could buy several
neighborhoods if.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
You wanted to exactly. So, of course, when he wins
the lottery, it's this huge, you know, publicity thing. They
show his name, they put his face in the paper
with his check, there's a photo of it. At the time,
no effort is made to protect lottery winner's privacy because
it's pr and everyone's like, you know, they're happy about
it. It's nineteen sixty everyone's innocent, right, Yeah, not like the

(16:23):
guy who put on a screen mask when you want
their lottery recently for his photos.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
My hero so smart, the most genius person of all time,
where he's like, sure, I'll go down there and take
this photo up wearing a scream mask. Also, wait, sorry,
really quick, but did you also see the lady who
went in? They found out first what the location was
and had this little like convenience store downtown, and so

(16:48):
all the news cameras showed up there, and this lady
walked in and pretended she was the winner and did
a whole loop around the store, pretending to be crying
and going thank you and doing this whole thing. And
she came in and went right back out, and she
wasn't the winner.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
She just did it like for fun. What the fuck?
I love her so much. Okay I'm the main character.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yes, she's like, I will have my main character day.
Oh my god, it's not hilarious.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Since and I like to play the lottery every once
in a while, you know, when it's like the big one.
But a lot of the times I'll buy a lottery
ticket based on how the liquor store looks like the
ones that win are a little run down. They're a
mom and pop place that I've been there forever. Yeah,
Like those are the ones you see in the paper
of like this place in Alhambra, like one a billion dollars.

(17:36):
It's always that one. So you got to buy from them.
Don't buy from the brand new you know, fucking quickie mart.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I've never seen like the machine that's in the grocery store, right,
I've never seen it.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Be like, here's the machine that sold it. That never happened.
That's true, Okay, So all his info goes into the papers,
of course. The Thorn family lives in a rented apartment
in Bondai, which is a suburb of australia most famous beach,
Bondai Beach. Basil and his wife Frida have three children,

(18:06):
Cheryl and they have a son named Graham who's eight,
and a little daughter named Belinda who's three. On July
seventh and nineteen sixty, exactly five weeks after Basil Thorn
wins the lottery, which is also posted in the paper
that he'll get the money five weeks after the lotter,
like they tell you everything. So exactly five weeks later,

(18:27):
little Graham, eight years old, Graham. He leaves the house
to go to school, following his typical daily routine. He's
this cutie pie with his little school uniform on with
a tie, the little cap and the like knee high
socks and everything like just picture perfect.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Can he looked like Angus Young exactly from Macy DC.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Oh No, he looked exactly like angs Young cutie pie.
Every day. He leaves the house at eight thirty am,
walks about two blocks and waits on a corner for
a family friend named Phillis Smith to pick him up.
Because Graham goes to school with Phyllis's two sons, so
it's like his normal carpool. A witness, another one of

(19:06):
Braham's classmates, will later tell police that he saw Graham
walking his typical route, but when Phyllis a few minutes
later arrives to pick him up, Graham isn't there. And
I feel like, normally in these stories you hear that
the person just assumes that they're sick and drives to
school and the parents don't find out until after school
or later that the kid is missing. But this woman,

(19:27):
bless her heart, went straight to the Thorn House and
was like, why isn't your son on the corner, like
she knew that wasn't okay. Yeah, So Freda, the mother
calls the school to see if he's there. He's not,
and then so she immediately calls the police. So an
officer named Larry O'Shea arrives at the Thorn house and
not long after that the phone rings. Frida picks it

(19:49):
up and quickly hands the phone to the officer O'shay,
and on the line is a man with a European accent.
He says he has Graham and that the family must
pay twenty five pounds by five pm that evening or
else he will quote feed him to the sharks, which
comes like the headline on all the papers. So Oshae

(20:11):
pretends to be the dad Basil and says that they
might not be able to get that much money together
in such a short time, and so the caller says
he'll call back at five pm. I don't think that
at that point that the officer knew that they were
the lottery winners and they could pay the ransom. So
at the time, kidnappings are unheard of in Australia. There
is not even a law against kidnapping children in Australia

(20:33):
because it just has never happened, really never happens. The
last thing I've been heard about was like the Lindberg case,
the Limburg baby kidnapping, and that'd been like thirty years earlier,
not in Australia, but like it wasn't on people's radar.
I will say that they did kidnap Aboriginal children in Australia,
and so yes, that's right, that is something we have

(20:54):
to acknowledge and be aware of. When this story is told,
which you don't see a lot. So the huge police
activity outside the Thornhouse catches the attention of the press immediately,
and by that afternoon, news of the kidnapping is in
the late edition of the papers, with the headline quoting
about the sharks. His mother sees that headline and is

(21:16):
just I can't even fathom what she's going through. So
Basil had been away on business. He's a traveling salesman.
He lands in the Sydney airport on the evening of
July seventh, and that's when he learns that his son
had been kidnapped. That evening he goes on the nightly
news and there's a clip of this in that episode
of Crime Investigation Australia of him, you know, in black

(21:36):
and white, sitting in front of all these cameras and microphones,
trying to plead with the kidnapper, but he is so
busted up that he can barely speak. He says, quote, well,
all I can say is if the person that's got
him is a father and has children of his own, well,
for God's sake, send him back in one piece. And
then he just breaks down and can't say anything else.

(21:57):
It's fucking devastating.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
The idea that he had to do that the day
he found out, Like what a horrible series of finding
out in such a shocking way and then having to
be the one that goes and is the phase of it.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
That's horrible. It's really awful. The kidnapper does call again
that same evening, but not until almost ten pm, five
hours after he said he was going to call, and
this time another officer picks up the phone and also
pretends to be Basil. They try to trace the call.
The calls long enough because the kidnapper gives instructions to
put money in two paper bags, but then he hangs

(22:29):
up abruptly, giving no further information. So maybe he noticed
that the two voices of the person who claimed to
be Basil wasn't correct and knew something was up. But
I'm sure he saw the papers as well that it
was like being covered. The search for Graham consumes Sydney.
It shocks this peaceful, safe suburb as well as Greater Australia.
The search, which becomes the biggest man hunt in Australian history,

(22:52):
also consumes the police. All police leave across the state
of Sydney is completely canceled. A reward of five thousand
pounds is offered by the police and another award of
fifteen thousand pounds is put up by two different newspapers.
Police conduct an extensive search through Sydney, and they even
enlist the help of known criminals, which is wild. Sydney's

(23:15):
organized crime groups assign their foot soldiers to assist. I know,
it's almost like they're asking around, being like, any of
your cohorts are they behind this? These are these gangster
types and the kidnapping of a little schoolboy is like
against their code, So they're ready to fucking like crack
some skulls if they find out who did this.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
You know, that's kind of a nice little bit of
a human element to a horrible story totally.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
So during the search, a few clues start to emerge.
Frieda tells the police that three weeks before the kidnapping
and then had come to her house claiming to be
a private investigator, but it was like kind of weird
and shady. He asked to confirm the family's phone number,
which was weird because they had just gotten a telephone
for the first time, so it's like, why would he
know that information and witnesses report seeing a stocky man

(24:01):
sitting on a park bench that faces the Thorn home
several times in the days leading up to Graham's kidnapping.
The day after the kidnapping, Graham's school briefcase, which has
his name on it, is found on the opposite side
of Sydney Harbor in an overgrown area. Some kids just
stumble upon it. It still has his apple inside that

(24:22):
his mom had peeled for him and then wrapped back
up in the peel, so the wooden turned brown, which
I think is like a little detail that some of
the investigators who had young children, it just kind of
hit them really hard. Yeah, like such a small detail
of like the love of your parents you know, right right.
Another witness reports that on the day of the abduction,
he had seen a nineteen fifty five Ford Custom Line

(24:46):
painted in iridescent blue, so really specific, parked near the
Thorn home and he said he noticed it because it
was parked oddly blocking the crosswalk, and police realized that
the car is blocking the crosswalk that Gray would have
used to go to his usual corner. The police are
kind of suspicious of this guy because they're like, how
do you know like the year of this car and

(25:07):
how specific it is, And so they drove him around
town and they were like pointing out cars, and he
knew everything about them. So he just fucking knew a
lot about cars, which is very, very lucky because the
Ford Custom Line was Ford's mid range model produced in
Australia only between nineteen fifty two and nineteen fifty nine,
and the specific fifty five model that the witness saw

(25:28):
had undergone a redesigned so I had a distinct look.
So the police go directly to basically their DMV and
start pulling records of any blue Ford Customer in the area.
Ends up being about five thousand cars. There's no computerized
fucking system. These are cards that people have to go through,
and they go through over three hundred thousand oh cards

(25:50):
justifying this. Wow car, Yeah, of course people are fucking horrible.
So there are a few tips that don't pan out,
as well as some fucking hope of people calling oh
every trying to get that fucking money. It's just what
the fuck. So on August sixteenth, about five weeks after
the kidnapping, a group of children are playing on a

(26:13):
vacant land around a mile away from where Graham's school
briefcase was found, and they notice a blanket wrapped around
something that they immediately surmise to be a body, and
so they don't touch it. They run straight home and
tell their moms. The moms are like, wait for your
dad to come home, and so that evening, when the
children's fathers get back from work, they take a closer look,

(26:35):
and they do determine and discover that Graham's body is
inside the blanket. Oh no, I know. His body has
been wrapped tightly in a wool picnic blanket and it
had been placed at the base of a rock outcropping,
so kind of hidden from plane view. Graham is found
with a scarf around his neck, which police believe had

(26:55):
been used as a gag and the autopsy determines that
Graham's skull had been fracked, having been struck forcefully by
a blunt object, and they believe that this is the
cause of death or is a combined cause with exphyxiation
from the scarf. So based on the condition of his body,
investigators can tell that Graham died on the day of,
or very shortly after he was abducted. He's still in

(27:18):
his school uniform and he still has the two handkerchiefs
his mom had put in his pocket, folded and ironed.
His like tie is still on and so then this
is where like all the forensics starts to come in,
because the School of Agriculture at the University of Sydney
tests the mold that had grown on the bottom of

(27:38):
his shoes and they determined from the mold growth that
he hadn't walked on the shoes for some time. So
that's part of the reason they were able to place
the timeline of his death. Okay, So while the Thorn
family is joined by the entire country and mourning of
the loss of their son, the police and some of
Australia's best scientists come together to launch the country first

(28:00):
major forensics investigation. Sydney's police scientific team examines the blanket
and retrios, hair fibers, seeds, and other kinds of debris.
The hairs are sent to a top biologist who determine
that summer human and then he says that some of
them have come from a very specific dog. Not just
a dog, but a fucking Pekinese. Oh. And actually the

(28:23):
investigators are kind of upset by this specificity because it
really narrows down their pool of suspects. You know, if
they find someone that they think is very good looking
for the part and doesn't have a Pekinese or just
has some kind of other dog and ends up being
wrong about this, it's like, can you just say this
kind of dog? But he's like, nope, it's a Pekinese. Yeah.
So traces of soil and plants are also examined by

(28:45):
geologists and botanists, and the botanists find traces of two
varieties of cypress trees, and they say that the plants
themselves aren't super rare, but to have the two different
cypress trees in the same area in the same yard
is very So they need to look specifically for that.
The geologists also finds traces of Pink Builders mortar in

(29:06):
the soil on the clothing and scarf that Graham was wearing.
What this tells them is that the boy had probably
been near or under a brick building at some point.
Because of the components, the building had probably been a
house m so like they were able to get very
very specific.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
So it's a brick house with two different cypress trees
somewhere nearby, and perhaps a Pekinese dog inside.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Right, right, And the fact that the mom had, you know,
finger pointed the stranger who came to the door, who
had a European accent, who was kind of a big dude,
and there was a couple other witnesses. They're able to
get very specific, right, So all of these scientific findings,
of course, takes some time, but by early October, about
six weeks after the discovery of Graham's body, police are

(29:53):
canvassing the area carrying pictures of the types of cypress
trees they are looking for. They talked to a postman
who's says that he knows of one house made with
Pink Builders mortar with trees that look like the ones
in the pictures.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
That is such a good idea to ask the mailman.
They see everything all day.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
He's already canvassing the fucking neighborhood. That's right. Yeah, But
the postman says the family living in the house had
already moved out. But it turns out that the police
have already interviewed the owner of the house because he
was an owner of an iridescent blue Ford custom line. Oh.
His name is Stephen Bradley. He's thirty four years old.
He is married, has three young children and a blended

(30:33):
family with his second wife, Magda. Stephen Bradley was born
in Hungary and immigrated to Australia, where he changed his
name from Ista van Barnier to Stephen Bradley. Bradley's neighbors
first went to the police themselves in August, three days
after Graham's body was found, telling them that Bradley drove
the kind of car they had been looking for. So

(30:55):
that's why they already knew had him on the radar,
which is like, fuck yeah, be a nosy neighbor, be
a nosy postman.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
I mean, you know, when it comes to missing children,
do what you gotta do.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Fuck yeah. When questioned by police, Bradley had said he
had been moving out of his house on the day
Graham disappeared, and that he and his car had both
been at his house all day. He added that he
sold his car three days after Graham's disappearance, which we
all know is suspicious. But on October third, when the
postman's tip leads them back to Stephen Bradley, they discover

(31:26):
two things. One is that he and his family have
left the country a week prior. They had boarded an
ocean liner headed for London to move. The other clue
is that before they left, they brought their dog to
a Vets office with the instructions to send it along
to London once the Bradley family had gotten there. The

(31:46):
dog was a Peginnees. Yeah, yeah, how wild is that?
He was fucking right? He was right into the breede, yes,
and his firm matches the fur from the picnic blanket well, and.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
The idea that it wasn't like you always have to
think and this is obviously always a consideration right where
it's like, what if your best friend's dog was a
Pekinese and they came to that one picnic with you
or whatever, where it doesn't always mean the firm exact thing,
you know, it's just potential evidence, but who knows questionable
until you can prove it. So and that makes sense

(32:21):
that they're just like, if you're telling us this exact dog,
we could easily go be led astray by that idea.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
So I feel like this case had all the workings
of becoming a cold case. And the fact that within
a year they had caught this guy, I mean less
than a year, it's unbelievable, right, It just seems like
they did so much hard work and you know, and
also worked together with a lot of different agencies to
get clues.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I think that postman move was crucial, asked the postman.
That's so genius. Yeah, I call him the male man,
but the Australians call him.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
A postman, male person, male carrier, male care get with it. Yeah.
While police make a plan to intercept Bradley, who's still
on the ocean Liner, they also investigate his old house
more thoroughly. They find the pink mortar, and in the garage,
which is a brick garage, they find a tassel belonging

(33:17):
to the same picnic blanket that Graham had been wrapped
in and they also tracked down the PODE number that
was on the blanket. They like flew to the place
where it had been manufactured. They found out who bought it,
and that person admitted to having given that blanket to
Stephen's wife as a present, so like thorough as fuck,
yeah right. They also visit the apartment the family had

(33:38):
briefly moved to, and in the garden like having been
thrown out a window, they find some old photo negatives
that were just like strewn like trash. So they bring
the negatives back to the lab and they're able to
try to see what's on them, and on them is
the Bradley family sitting on that same picnic blanket out
and about for a picnic. Oh wow. Police find a

(34:00):
vacuum cleaner that Bradley had sold, which contains more of
the Pekinese hair as well as human hair that matches
samples from the blanket. They find the blue Ford custom
line that Bradley had sold, and in the trunk of
the car they find again hair that is a match
for what was on his school uniform and blanket, but
also a match for Graham's hair, which we now know

(34:23):
it's like bunk science maybe, but I feel like it's
hair fibers. Yeah, I feel like it's still circumstantial enough
to be used as part of the evidence. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
I mean, I think they can say we believe that
these things match, but that can't be the thing. No
case can hinge on it. Right, you would need like
way more stuff in addition to right. That's from what
I understand. Yeah, that makes sense from my last case
that I tried. So a week after police discover that
Bradley is their man, his ship docks in Columbo, Sri Lanka,

(34:58):
although at the time the country is still called Ceylon.
Australian police have made contact with the ship's captain and
he's like, fucking on it. Keeps an eye on Bradley,
you know that the most exciting thing that's happened in
his career probably, Yeah, aside from like shuffle board and stuff.
He's like, I'll absolutely track a potential murderer, I wrote,

(35:18):
I'd love to.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
So he alerts the local authorities and they arrest Bradley.
But Ceylon has only recently become independent and has no
extradition treaty with Australia, so it takes about ten days
of back and forth, and finally Australian authorities are permitted
to fly to Colombo and bring Bradley back to Sydney. Meanwhile,
Bradley had like sent his family on to London, so

(35:42):
Frieda confirms that Bradley is the same man who came
to the house posing as a private investigator before Graham
had been kidnapped. Bradley later confesses He says he had
come up with a plan to kidnap Graham for ransom
money after seeing the Thorn family written up in the newspaper.
Or he admits that he studied their routine. He admits

(36:04):
to everything, basically saying that he told Graham when he
picked him up on the corner that the woman who
usually drove him was sick and that he was driving
him that day, and Graham trusting, you know, there's no
such thing as stranger danger at the time, and it's
like your mom sent me to pick you up. Of course,
he gets in the car. Yes. Absolutely. During his trial though,

(36:25):
he pleads not guilty to murder, saying that it wasn't
his intention to kill Graham and that he had left
him in the fucking trunk of the car. Comes back
later and he's dead, which is like, it doesn't add
up with what the autopsy showed at all, right. Prosecutors,
of course, dispute this claim, citing forensic tests that proved
it would be impossible for Graham to breathe and still

(36:46):
be alive in the trunk. After a nine day trial,
Bradley is found guilty and at this point, the entirety
of Sydney this is the trial of the century. There, like,
people are pushing and shoving outside the courthouse to try
to get a seat in there, like it is front
page news on every paper for months and months. It's
a big fucking deal. So when it's announced that Bradley

(37:07):
is found guilty, the crowd inside and outside the courthouse
breaks out and cheers. Normally the judge would not have
allowed this, you know, order and all that, but he,
i think, is aware that so many members of the
public had become so invested in poor little Graham and
his murder that he allowed it. So people are just cheering.

(37:29):
Bradley is sentenced to life in prison. He dies in
prison in nineteen sixty eight of a heart attack at
the age of forty two. Oh wow, which is like
a bummer that he couldn't rotten there for longer.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
You know, Well, maybe he rotted the most he could
and then his heart stopped because he was rotting so hard.
I mean, like, aside from a plan to get money,
why in God's name would you endanger a child or
even involve a child.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, and he had young children of his own.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
But do you know what I mean? Like, was he
a pedophile that was covering his tracks?

Speaker 1 (38:01):
It doesn't seem like it. It seems like he really
was just greedy and had lost his job and needed
money and lived a certain lifestyle and wanted to keep
it up. That way, It's possible he didn't plan on
killing Graham, even though it's clear he did. It's not known.
It might have just been a ransom thing for him

(38:21):
and it just went south.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah. I just such a wide gap in my mind
between needing money and doing something out of desperation for money,
which happens all the time and is horrible to killing
a child that's sitting in front of you. That's just
like I don't.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Know, no, no, absolutely. The Thorn case is seen as
a turning point in Australia and it kind of marks
the end of innocence. It's the whole Like, people didn't
lock their doors, kids walk to school by themselves, played
outside by themselves, No big deal. And of course that
completely changes. And as I said, kidnapping a child wasn't
even listed as a crime at the time. Course that

(39:00):
quickly changes. People didn't even believe these kinds of kidnappings
could happen, and they didn't have stranger danger, and that
just changed everything. It also marked a turning point in
forensic investigation in Australia. It demonstrates the power of science
and narrowing down these huge, wide suspect pools as well
as putting together the necessary evidence to prove a case.

(39:22):
So that was complete sea change. Then, of course Australia's
lotteries stopped publicizing information about the winners. Good. Yeah, they
let people choose if they want to be public or not.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Well, I mean it is kind of like you're saying,
it's a very sweet reality that they were living in beforehand,
where it's like this can be trusted public information, right,
and they had no reason to believe otherwise.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah. The Thorign family moved to a different suburb and
Basil died in nineteen seventy eight at fifty six years old.
Frida died in twenty twelve. She lived to be eighty
six years old. And of course their lives were reported.
They never do the same obviously, And that is the
sad story of Graham Thorne, the victim of the first

(40:06):
known ransom kidnapping in Australia. Wow. And there's a book
written by the former New South Wales Senior Crown prosecutor
Mark Tedesky. His book about it is called Kidnapped. He's
also best known as the prosecutor of Ivan Malott. Oh wow, yeah,
so you know he's seen some shits. Oh, the horrifying story. Right.

(40:29):
So that's book's called Kidnapped by Mark Tedesky. If you
want to hear more, amazing, great job, thank you, and
yeah it's just heartbreaking, yeah, horrible.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Also, just as a smaller tag on Georgia's story, if
you want to hear more about what we were talking
about with Aboriginal children being kidnapped by the government in Australia.
There are tons of great Australian podcasts where Aboriginal people
tell their own stories and talk about what that experience
was like of basically being shipped into servitude. Yeah, let

(41:04):
them tell you about it, because I've just listened to them.
I'm just repeating part of what I've learned. But it's
pretty compelling, an amazing story that people should.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Be aware of. Right, Okay, well, we're going to take
a left turn.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Are you ready please, We're gonna We're going to change
the subject entirely. We're going to come back to America.
We're gonna go to nineteen twelve. Okay, this is the
cold open open on. It's February fifteenth, nineteen twelve, the
day after Valentine's Day.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
But it's nineteen twelve, so everybody got a little piece
of coal.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
So it's a cold winter day in Lower Manhattan and
two young clerks working for the East River National Bank
throw on their coats step outside. They've just picked up
twenty five thousand dollars for routine money transfer, and that
is over eight hundred thousand dollars in today's money.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Shit.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
So one of the clerks is lugging a heavy brea
briefcase with the cash in it. The other one walks
ahead to open the door of a waiting taxi cab.
And this cabby has been contracted by the bank to
drive these clerks around as they make these transfers and
deposits around the city. The men climb into the cab.
They throw the heavy briefcase on the floor. The driver
pulls out into traffic. They're headed to their next location.

(42:19):
It's business as usual until a man in a long
black overcoat starts walking alongside the slow moving taxi. He's
walking very close, but it doesn't really raise an alarm
to anybody. It's New York City. It's all pedestrians and traffic,
so no one's really noticing anything. Until a second man
starts walking alongside on the other side of the taxi,

(42:40):
and suddenly these two men at the same time open
the taxis back doors. They jump inside the back seat
and begin violently beating the young clerks that are sitting
back there. Once these two men are back there, a
third man runs up, jumps into the front seat, holds
a gun to the cabby's head, and tells the cabby
to drive them to a nearby train station. And they
get there, they tell the driver to stop. They grab

(43:02):
that briefcase with all the money in it, jump out,
and they disappeared down into the subway station.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
So the Cabby is.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Unharmed, but the two bank clerks are bloodied and bruised,
and that money's long gone. And the next morning this
heist is headline news. New Yorkers are stunned by the
thieves brutality and boldness and the huge amount of money
that they got away with. Meanwhile, NYPD Deputy Commissioner George S.
Doherty knows that he has to close this case as

(43:30):
soon as possible, because it turns out at this time,
the NYPD is trying to rehab its dismal reputation. They've
been accused of being corrupt and ineffective. Officers are known
for taking bribes and demanding payouts from illicit businesses like
gambling halls and brothels. Doherty knows that they can't afford

(43:51):
yet one more ding on their reputation, so they assigned
sixty detectives to this case.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yike yes.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Thanks to multiple I witnesses, they quickly learned who the
three thieves are. But days go by and the suspects
are not apprehended or charged, and New Yorkers are having
a field day with one more example of the nypds
and competence. One newspaper even describes the department as quote
the subject of just and cartoon from coast.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
To coast end quote. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
But then a seemingly innocuous tip rolls in, saying that
one of the suspects girlfriends is renting a room at
a CD Downtown boarding house, and a light bulb goes
off in Doherty's mind. He thinks this girlfriend might be
a way to catch these robbers. But cozying up to
a violent criminal's girlfriend would require a dangerous undercover operation.

(44:45):
The assigned detective is going to need brains, courage, and
creativity to avoid blowing their cover, and that's something the
NYPD's detectives can't really be trusted to do right now.
So the Deputy Commissioner decides to sign an unlikely person
to this case, a woman.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
What's she gonna do?

Speaker 2 (45:07):
What's she gonna do? Nag the case until it solves itself. No,
quite the opposite. I'm about to tell you the story
of the police matron turned detective who helped crack one
of New York's most gripping armed robbery cases when no
man could and made.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
History in the process.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
This is the story of the NYPD's first female detective
Isabella Goodwin.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Fuck yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
So the main sources used in today's story are the
book The Fearless Missus Goodwin by Elizabeth Mitchell, a New
York Times article by writer Corey kilgannon I love all
these last names that I've been dealing with lately, and
the article is called Overlooked No More Isabella Goodwin, new
York City's first female police detective. And the book Women

(45:55):
in Blue sixteen Brave Officers, Forensics Experts, police Chiefs and
More by Cheryl Mullenbach. And the rest of the sources
are in our show notes. So we're going to start
in February of eighteen sixty five. That's the year Isabella
is born in New York's Greenwich Village. Her parents, Anna
and James Loggery own a successful hotel and restaurant in

(46:16):
the area. The family is comfortable and happy, and Isabella
is a child filled with ambition and self confidence. She
dreams of one day becoming a famous opera singer, and
she's said to have quote an indomitable and fearless quality
that was something like a shining armor end quote. As
Isabella grows older, she maintains her passion for opera as

(46:38):
well as her individual spark. But Isabella's coming of age
in the mid nineteenth century, so she can't escape the
expectations placed on women of that era. In eighteen eighty four,
at just nineteen years old, she does what many women do.
She gets married and she starts a family, and her husband,
John W. Goodwin, is a policeman himself with the NYPD,

(47:00):
while Isabella's left to raise the couple's four children by
yourself in the Goodwe's tiny apartment. In the mid eighteen eighties,
it becomes clear that John's job is simply not paying
enough to sustain their family, so the couple decides to
follow in Isabella's parents' footsteps and open a restaurant in Chelsea.
But within the first five years, the restaurant burns to

(47:23):
the ground in a three alarm fire, and worse than that,
it wasn't insured.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Oh, so it's a complete loss. Fuck.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Things only get worse from there. In eighteen eighty nine,
after serving more than seven years with the NYPD, John
has witnessed some serious corruption in his precinct, and he
tells Isabella that he has threatened to expose it. One
of his allegations is that the police officers were bringing
sex workers right into the station while on the job.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
So, in response to John's whistle blowing, his superiors try
to punish and threaten him into staying silent. Isabella knows
that John's job is all they have and it's already
not enough, so they're in real crisis. And then if
things couldn't get worse, one afternoon, as John is driving
their carriage and a pregnant Isabella sits by his side,

(48:14):
they get into an accident. The carriage is flipped onto
its side and Isabella is thrown to the ground, and
then the carriage comes down on top of her. She's
severely injured and when the police show up, she's taken
to the hospital. But John's arrested by his own colleagues,
accusing him of drunk carriage driving. John fiercely denies this.

(48:37):
He's thrown into a jail cell. He doesn't know if
his wife is alive or dead at this point, and
his fellow officers tell John that the only way he's
getting out of there is if he signs a resignation letter.
Oh so he signs it, but underneath his signature he
writes the phrase in protest damn. So for the next

(48:57):
seven weeks, Isabella's condition ain'ts critical. Four kids at home
and she's in the hospital. She loses her unborn child,
but eventually she makes a full recovery. She's finally released
from the hospital. But now John is waging war against
the NYPD over his wrongful termination. And as he's fighting
a contentious courtroom battle and one that Isabella actually testifies

(49:22):
at on his behalf, many newspapers start calling him a
hero cop who's willing to take down the city's corrupt
police department. And this case ends up going all the
way to the State Supreme Court. Wow, so it's a
really big deal. For a moment in January of eighteen
ninety five, the Goodwin's luck seems to finally be turning
around because John wins this case. Nice he's given his

(49:45):
old job back. This is very echoes of Cerproco, where
it's like, sorry, how is he supposed to still work
there when he's now like the whistleblower right. And the
other problem is that the stress of the past almost
deca really altogether have taken a terrible toll. His mental
health is deteriorated, and he's really started drinking quite a lot.

(50:08):
He's become a serious alcoholic. By the end of that year,
he sent to Bellevue Hospital for treatment, and future President
Theodore Roosevelt, who has recently started his tenure as the
city's police commissioner, actually goes so far as to tell
The New York Times that the hero cop John Goodwin
is now clinically insane.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Oh no, yeah, so it's pretty ugly.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
John will struggle with his medical and mental illness issues
until August eleventh, eighteen ninety six, when he dies from
the side effects of alcoholism.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Yeah so.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Now Isabella is a grieving single mother of four with
no source of income. At the time, the NYPD offers
some financial assistance to officers widows. It's not very much
money at all, certainly not enough to support a family
of five. As an additional form of compensation, they let
Isabella know there's a job opening for women, so she

(51:06):
has almost no other options. So Isabel is actually forced
to seek employment from the same institution that arguably killed
her husband, I mean, in the most extreme interpretation of
what happened, but still not great. So this one job
a woman can apply for is police matron, and this
involves stepping in for male officers in situations that involve women,

(51:30):
so frisking female arrestees, bringing food and water to their cells,
monitoring them during their incarceration. But in the eighteen nineties,
as women's groups advocate for more meaningful representation in American institutions,
Commissioner Roosevelt expands the job description, so now matrons are
broadly responsible for the welfare of any woman or child

(51:52):
that enters a New York City police station. According to
writer Cheryl Mullenbach, these matrons are effectively seen as social workers.
So even though the NYPD has kind of offered Isabella
this job, she still has to make the cut. Over
two hundred women have applied for it and only ten
positions are available, so to weed out the applicants, the

(52:15):
women must pass multiple exams, and the tests are tough.
There's a math and written component which right there by
really fail. There's got to be a bakery around her somewhere.
I can work at a section on investigative and policing
principles and a physical exam double by. In one section,

(52:35):
Isabella has to decipher nearly illegible handwriting. In another, she
has to explain how she'd help if a woman suddenly
went into labor under her watch. But Isabella does a
great job, and she also submits twenty letters of recommendation
from her most well respected friends and acquaintances. Wow, And
in the end, thirty one year old, five foot tall

(52:58):
Isabella good One gets the job.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
She's a little lady.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
She's offered a salary of one thousand dollars a year,
which is thirty six thousand dollars in today's money.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
And this is one there, Yeah right, it's echoes of
the gap, Echoes of my twenties.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
This is one of the lowest salaries in the entire
New York Police Department, much much lower pay, of course,
than the lowest ranking mail officer gets. But Isabella is
fine with it. She finally has a way to feed
her children and keep a roof over their heads. So
after she is appointed at this job, Theodore Roosevelt himself
shakes her hand and welcomes her to the police force,

(53:37):
even though very recently he said it horrible fucking thing
about her husband. So all of this must have been
incredibly difficult just to swallow, having to go back into
basically this totally rat's nest for her, on top of
which her workday starts at six am. She says goodbye
to her children, who are left with her mother their grandma,

(54:00):
and she reports to a downtown police station. Of course,
there's nothing glamorous about this turn of the century police station.
Writer Elizabeth Mitchell describes it like this quote. The stanch
alone was overwhelming, the closed windows trapped the perfume of
fetied socks. Cops worked thirteen hours at a stretch without
a moment home, So laundry got done at the station,

(54:23):
drying uniforms not quite purged of their sweat.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Hung out to dry so gross.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
The air hung heavy with pipe smoke, cigar smoke, and
on cold days the belch of pot bellied stoves that
stained the walls a demonic black.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Oh mind a quote, god enjoy, I bet it smells
so bad.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
To protect and serve, just hideous, so filthy. So basically,
Isabella is now has a job in a smelly, vicious
boys club, and she actually is the only woman working
in that entire station at the time.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
But Isabella doesn't give a shit.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Essentially, she has no time for her male colleagues's rudeness,
their judgment, or their underestimation. As Elizabeth Mitchell writes, quote,
Isabella was fearless and had been since childhood. She would
not shy from wariness or prejudice end quote. So all
those wonderful childhood descriptions, she carried.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
That throughout her whole life. That was who she was. Nice.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
So she clocks in for a twelve hour shift, She
goes home for twelve hours, and wakes up the next
day does it all over again. Sometimes she has to
pull a twenty four hour shift depending on what's happening,
And she's also required to be on call any time
she's not there, so she has to go in whenever
they need her, including the seven days a year she's

(55:41):
allowed to take off. Yeah, the forty hour work week
that labor unions won us had clearly not gone into
effect yet. Thankfully, Isabella has her mother to look after
her children, but between her job at the precinct and
her role as a single mother of four young kids,
she barely has time to rest. And still, Isabella genuinely

(56:03):
finds joy in her work, and she seems committed to
serving others at the station. She tends to the women
and children as if they were her own house guests.
Many of the people under her care are despised by society,
from accused murderers to highly stigmatized sex workers, and many
are going through traumatic experiences themselves. That's why they're there.

(56:24):
Isabella watches over runaways, women who are homeless, people who
are escaping abusive domestic situations, who in that era, they
would get themselves arrested so they could go to jail,
so they would be protected from their abusive husbands.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Regardless of their backgrounds, Isabella make sure that they're all
comfortable and cared for. She brushes their hair, she asks
them about their lives, and even though she hardly gets
to see her own kids, she joyfully takes care of
any children who end up at a police station. So
it's a lovely idea that female energy that's so needed
in those horrible times she was there provides it. She's

(57:01):
extremely good at her job. She's intuitive, she's considerate, she's patient,
she's very thorough, and because of all that, she slowly
starts to accumulate more responsibilities. In nineteen oh four, she's
handed her first big opportunity. That year, Isabella's police captain,
a man named John Cottrell, gets a tip about a
female only gambling house that's operating nearby.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Just like, wait me up, did we or did we
not have rights? Because that sounds read we had fun.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Katrell knows that this would not be a job for
male detectives, obviously, but the concept of a female detective
does not yet exist in the NYPD, So Katrell calls
on Isabella for help. He orders her to find out
where the gambling house is, how to get inside and
gather any evidence of a legal activity, and she is stoked.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
She's like, I will absolutely do that.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I would love to because it allows her to be
both creative and strategic. So she carefully puts together this plan,
and knowing that she has to build trust with the
downtown gambling crowd, Isabella starts making daily appearances in CD
parts of town fun, which is, yes, a great way
to kind of get out of work.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yeah, get in the CD parts of town where the
fund's at.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
So what she starts doing is carrying an issue of
the Daily Racing Form under her arm, the national tabloid
newspaper that covers horse racing. I talked about it when
I covered the paper Bag Killer. Oh yeah, if you
know you know, but if you've never heard of it,
you're like, really, this is just something people that bet
on the Ponies know about. So Isabella knew, and so

(58:34):
she throws one under her arm. This tactic pays off
within a few days. A woman approaches her asking if
she'd be interested in visiting a lady's only bedding club,
and Isabella says yes, and she's escorted into this very
discreete looking building. You would never know that that's what's
going on inside. Inside, Isabella witnesses all sorts of the

(58:55):
legal activity taking place, and she reports everything she sees
back to Captain Contryll, who arranges a raid and fifteen
people are arrested, and to make sure her cover isn't blown,
Isabella gets arrested alongside them. She does this without any
guidance from her boss or any other officers. She knows
it's in her best interest and it's important for the

(59:16):
safety of her children. And in the New York Times
coverage of this bust, Isabella is reported to be a
pivotal part of the investigation. Of course, once people read that,
there's a ton of interest around the fact that a
police matron, not a detective, was the key to making
this bust.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Can we just get it out of the way and say, Mark.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
I mean, yeah, can't people just bet on some horses
in the company of their fellow ladies? She has to
be said, But yeah, it has to be said. I mean,
this is a story about a cop, so we're talking narks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Isabella is very relieved that the Times don't include a
sketch of her face, and she's even more excited that
she's being validated by the New York Times. She thinks,
if they're reporting on her excellent work, then there's hope
that she might get more undercover assignments in the future.
And she's right. That's exactly what happens. Isabella's regularly asked

(01:00:07):
to go undercover in cases that involve accessing female dominated spaces,
and she gets really into it. She's known for her
willingness to wear disguises to learn new accents, and her
chameleon li likeability to blend in with any kind of crowd.
She can pull off a high society look just as
easily as she can blend in with the ladies who frequent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Saloons and pool halls.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
I mean, and this is the time where like the
difference is so vast, where the high society ladies have
their big bustles and their crazy outfits and they're all
about how you present and all that kind of thing.
So clearly Isabella in her dreams of the opera.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
She was an actress. It's gorilla theater. Essentially.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
On top of all that, Elizabeth Mitchell writes that quote
Goodwin had the qualities of a great detective, a good mixer,
the ability to blend well with people of different classes, courage,
self control, and one of the hardest traits to develop
correctly patients.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
So she was a great improv player, Yes, that's what
he was saying.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Yeap, and chess, it seems like. So before long, Isabella
has established a beat for herself. Instead of going after
the gamblers just looking for a good time, she starts
busting the charlatans and the fraudsters. She ups her game
from just the average narc to let's get the people
responsible for this as opposed to just the people standing around.

(01:01:32):
And this includes phony doctors, religious snake oil salesman, and
the many predatory psychics and mediums that were popular back
in that day. Okay, so, despite doing difficult and often
dangerous field work. Isabella is still technically a matron, but
she is becoming the talk of the town. She doesn't
have an uniform, she isn't authorized to carry a gun,

(01:01:55):
she can't arrest anyone, and every time she's assigned to
a new case, she is put into risky situations alone
with no way of protecting herself. After a while, her
picture does get into the papers and her risk is
even greater, and she does have a few close calls.
In one case, she's trying to bust a phony surgeon,
and I think that means like they weren't licensed and

(01:02:17):
they were just kind of like, yeah, if you give
me the money, I can do that surgery for you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
I mean, look at Brazilian butt lifts, Like people still
fucking get that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I mean, we've always had problems with the medical profession.
So basically what she does Isabella goes through the consultation process,
she gets an appointment, and she shows up as scheduled.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
For an operation.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Wow, she stays undercover long enough to actually be laid
out on a table with the fake doctor and his
surgical knife above her. And basically, once she knows that
he is going through with the surgery, she has enough
for the police to arrest this fake surgeon, so she
bolts out of the room with seconds to spare, Oh
my goodness, and also alone, it's not like they're waiting

(01:03:02):
right outside the door. She has to run back to
the fucking station and then report what happened. During another investigation,
she goes undercover to visit a swindling fortune teller. But
at this point it's well known that New York's favorite
undercover lady Cop, Isabella Goodwin, goes after psychics and mediums.
So when she goes to the session the fortune teller,

(01:03:23):
who has no idea that she's talking to Isabella, but
she does have a picture cut out of the newspaper
of her long ago enough that it's an illustration. And
this fortune teller says to Isabella, if this woman ever
sets foot in my establishment, she will never go out
looking the same way she came in.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
So I bet she got busted too, because that's quite
a threat.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
But also then I was thinking, well, maybe that fortune
teller actually did have psychic powers, if she was taking
the time to threaten Isabella to her face.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Maybe yeah, it's a warning.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
So despite her incredible work and her glowing reputation. Isabella
is of course, never considered to be on the same
level as her male colleagues. This finally changes, though, in
February of nineteen twelve, after the taxi bank heist that
I told you about at the top of the story.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
So the three suspects that robbed those.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Bank clerks in that cab are known criminals. It's Jean
the Parrot's Plain, It's Billy Dutch Killer, and it's Eddie
the boob Kinsman.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
These nicknames are top notch the best.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
The Boob will wind up being in a particularly important suspect,
and that's because the NYPD gets word that his girlfriend,
a woman named Annie Hull, is living in a downtown
boarding house. So Deputy Commissioner Doherty turned to the forces
tried and true matron Isabella good One to break this case.
Doherty asks Isabella to infiltrate this boarding house, get evidence

(01:04:54):
linking the Boob to the stolen twenty five thousand dollars,
and of course an outright statement from Annie about his
guilt would be ideal, but basically any indication that he
has recently come into some money that would at least
help them be able to start getting closer to him.
So Isabella immediately starts scheming, and she comes up with

(01:05:15):
this plan to gain access to the boarding house without
raising any suspicion. She goes and tries to find a
job there. She tracks down the landlord asks if he's
looking for a housekeeper, and luckily he is. He offers
her a live in cleaning job for six dollars a week.
So Isabella moves in and she gets straight to work.

(01:05:35):
According to The New York Times, Isabella quote, don's a
ragged outfit affected an Irish brogue and begins snooping between
scrubbing floors and cooking meals.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
So one day Annie Hall shows up to the boarding
house wearing a beautiful and extremely expensive new suit, and
while Eve's dropping on some residents, Isabella hears Annie say
that quote Eddie the boob turned a trick out right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
End quotes could she be drunk? And Eddie check allay,
thank you, You're welcome. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
So Isabella feels like she's close to linking Eddie to
over the top spending, but she doesn't quite have everything
she needs, so she starts watching Annie closely, and so
one afternoon, Annie leaves the boarding house, Isabella slips into
her room, checks the tag on that new suit, identifies
where the suit was purchased, passes that information along. The

(01:06:31):
cops visit the shop. They confirm that Eddie was the buyer.
The shop owner adds that Eddie was quote shedding money
like a canary does feathers in the molting season.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
End quote just say he had a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
I mean they can't. Back then, they couldn't. Everything was
a metaphor in assimile. Yeah, So Captain Coatrell now has
probable cause. He just needs to find Eddie, and again
he turns to Isabella. So one night she presses her
ear against the keyhole on Earnie's door, And here's Annie
telling a friend about a trip she and Eddie are
taking to San Francisco. Isabella gets so much information from

(01:07:08):
this one eavesdropping session that when the couple eventually arrive
at Grand Central Station to buy their train tickets to
go on this trip, they're arrested by several NYPD officers.
The boob immediately rats on his accomplices. Author Cheryl Mullenbach writes, quote,
there was little honor among thieves, and each ratted on

(01:07:28):
the other others were also implicated, including the Cabby. So
in that bake heice, the fucking Cabby was in on
it back.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Why didn't he get hit in the head like everybody
else did? Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
So everyone that's linked to the notorious taxicab bank robbery
is eventually brought to court and convicted, giving the NYPD
the win they so badly needed, And it couldn't have
been done without Isabella Goodwin. Finally, after years of hard work,
she's promoted to detective Yay, making her the very first
female detective in the history of the New York Police Department.

(01:08:04):
Along with this job title, her salary goes up from
one thousand dollars a year to two two hundred and
fifty dollars a year, which is basically seventy grand in
today's money. Nice yeah, And meanwhile, Isabella continues to be
a media darling across the United States. Stories about New
York's very first female detective run in all the newspapers.

(01:08:25):
The New York Herald even reports quote, there is many
a six foot detective with a gun on his hip
who does less valuable work for his three three hundred
dollars a year than missus Goodwin, a slight, quick moving
little woman whose brain more than keeps.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Pace with her body. End quote. Yeah, the New York Herald,
Really that's a nice review. Yeah, they dug her, They
dug her in.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
They kind of were like, and look at these fucking
slatches over here, like she's busting ass.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
It's the least you could do anyway. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Here's a final quote from Isabella. She said quote, I
do not care for the distinction of being the first
woman to become a member of the detective Force, but
I hope my work will be so successful that I
will be known as one of the cleverest detectives in
the department. I love the excitement, and I want to
show just what a woman can do when the chance
comes her way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Over the next few years, and following in Isabella's footsteps,
more and more women join the MIYPD ranks, and then,
in nineteen twenty one, Isabella Goodwin, now fifty six years old,
is told that she'll be co creating the NYPD's very
first women's precinct.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Fortunately, this experimental precinct is the complete opposite of the
station where Isabella has been.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Working all these years. Fucking bed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
The building housing the women's precinct is described in the
following way quote a bright, cheerful place in Chelsea, with
a piano in the reception room, window boxes and why
coverlets on the beds in the detainees dormitory in reception
room with a Parisian rug and a snow white desk
topped with a vase of roses. The top officials from

(01:10:07):
the police department lauded the team of female officers as
valiant members of the force, ready not just to stop crime,
but to prevent wrongdoing. The male police choir serenaded them
with a song called Dear Old pal Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
I would never have thought that there would be like
a whole precinct of women that early on, you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Know, and just to let you down. It only existed
for two years, and then in nineteen twenty three, NYPD
quietly closed the women's Precinct and gave no official reason
for its closure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Because they were being embarrassed. That's how shitty they were,
and how easily and wonderfully the women ran the show.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
I mean, this is the poor man's copyright, the Women's Precinct,
The detective story of all the badasses that were in
the women's precinct. Kicking ass and solving crimes is a
movie or TV show doesn't exist, so this is it's
not breaking strike rules to talk about it, but I mean,
how awesome would that be? Where it's like, yeah, they

(01:11:11):
shut it down because it was too good, right right.
Nineteen twenty one marks a significant year for Isabella in
more ways than one. It's also the year that she
marries a professional vocalist named Oscar Seaholm, who shares her
love of opera and get this, Oscar's thirty years younger
than Isabella.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
It get it, get yours. That's me marrying my twenty
two year old and extremely.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
The rest of that line is an extremely unusual age
gap for the early twenties, where it's like girl for
the early any times, I mean fucking kiddy hits at
this point because they can't be much younger than him.
They're probably like, hey, do your chores. No, I think
they're completely grown. I think he's definitely younger than them.
All of this is completely out of step with the

(01:12:03):
expectations of women at the time, but that's Isabella Goodwin.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
That's how she did it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
A few years later, after a long career and one
last bust involving a phony doctor, Isabella finally decides to
hang up her detective hat for good. She's ready for
a much deserved retirement where she can spend as much
time as she wants with her family, and that's exactly
what she does right up until nineteen forty three, when
she passes away from colon cancer at seventy eight years old.

(01:12:31):
And here's one last quote from her. I threw myself,
body and soul into the work. I think I was
born for just such work. The excitement always keeps one's
interest at the fever point. It's not a career that
I would recommend to every woman, but it is a
lot better than those of the majority of women I know.
And there's the added incentive of knowing that you're doing

(01:12:51):
something really worthwhile. And that is the story of the
NYPD's first female detective, Isabella.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Goodwe yes, good one, good one, good win, good one,
good win. She did it. Wow, she really did really
did alone with no gun. Yeah. Try that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Also, it feels to me like the work she was
doing at that precinct and kind of you know, before
she got really into like straight up undercover work. She
was doing the work that they're trying to test out
now of like call this number and these people will
come and help instead of the police.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
Rights. Right, Yeah, that was a great one. That was
quite a twisty turney episode. The Cabby was in on it.
The Cabby was in on it. Of course he was,
of course he was. Also I'm picturing like a yellow cab.
But now that I'm thinking about it, it's like it
wasn't in the twenties. Yeah, I wonder, Oh was it
a carriage? Yeah, it was like a old timey carriage

(01:13:53):
or like Ford fucking Edsel. All right, well we didn't
did it again. It's k Thanks so much for listening
once again. Thanks for being here with us, you know,
hanging out doing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Whatever, doing some podcast stuff. Yeah, let's meet again next week,
same time. Hey, great, idea perfect stay sexy and don't
get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Gaybye, Elvis, do you want to cookie? This has been
an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our editor is Aristotle Aceveto.

(01:14:35):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scualacci. Our researchers are Mareon, mcclashan,
and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my favor Murder. Bye Bye,