Eerie News with M.P. Pellicer | STORIES: The Kidnapping of Charley Ross and More! - Eerie News

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. This is Marlene with the Eerie news and
here we are once again. Ah, it's eerie time. Let's
go off to one of my favorites true crime, especially, well, no,
not especially, but even old true crime, true crime that,

(00:22):
for lack of a better words, still a cold case
and at this point will never be salved. This is
titled Out of Stranger The fiction stories the Kidnapping of
Charlie Ross. In July eighteen seventy four, a four year
old child named Charles Brewster Ross was kidnapped from the
streets of Germantown, Pennsylvania, while he was playing with his
older brother Walter. The story held a country spell bound

(00:45):
and spawned an enduring mystery. Early in the summer of
eighteen seventy four, Sarah Ross and her daughter Sophia had
gone to Atlantic City, where further children were left in
the care servants and their father. Two of these children
were Walter h five and his brother Charlie, only a
year younger. On July first, they were playing in the

(01:05):
front yard of their home in East Washington Lane in Germantown.
A horse drawn carriage with two men stopped only yards
from where the boys were, and two strangers offered the
boys candy and fireworks if they would ride with them
in the carriage. It would turn out this was not
the first time the boys had left with the two men, however,
they were always returned. The children were taken to a store,

(01:27):
where Walter was given twenty five cents to buy fireworks inside,
since the Fourth of July celebration was only a few
days away. When he returned, the men and his brother
were gone while the kidnappers dropped off Walter, who was
only a year older, is unknown. Five hours after being
taken from their yard, police found Walter, candy in hand,

(01:47):
crying at the intersection of Palmer and Richmond Streets. He
was surrounded by strangers who had stopped to help the boy.
Christian Ross placed an out of the newspapers offering three
hundred dollars for the safe return of his son Charlie,
thinking the child was just lost. A few days later,
an ad appeared in the newspaper offering to return the

(02:09):
boy if his father would pay twenty thousand dollars in ransom.
Mister Ross didn't have the money and posted an ad
in response, saying he could only give them three hundred,
but would try to raise the remainder. Then notes came
from locations in Philadelphia, written in a same semi literate
hand with many misspelled words. A ransom amount would be

(02:29):
equivalent to over five hundred thousand dollars today. The Philadelphia
Inquirer first described a following ransom letter quote, mister Ross,
be not uneasy. Your son Charlie Brewster be all written.
We got him, be all right basically, but it was
written as writ writ and no powers on earth can
deliver out of our hand end quote. The Ross family,

(02:53):
despite living in a large house in an upscale neighborhood,
were heavily in debt due to the market crash of
eighteen seven twenty three. Then another letter followed, threatening to
kill Charlie if any attempt was made to trace the perpetrators.
Since he didn't have the money, Christian Ross went to
the police and told him about the kidnapping of his son,
and he and the ransom demands. Friends of the Ross

(03:16):
family raised twenty thousand dollars, but the police interfered and
instead offered the money as a reward. Due to this,
the story drew great attention throughout the country. Families, especially
if they had some type of wealth, were terrorized to
think their child could be kidnapped, and children who were
kept indoors. P T. Barnum sent Christian Ross a telegram

(03:38):
that read, if you will meet me at my home
here before Monday, I will pay your expenses both ways.
I will pay a large reward, and I think I
can get Charlie if alive. Barnum offered to put up
ten thousand dollars. His only request was that Charlie would
become part of his traveling circus if rescued. Mister Ross

(03:58):
agreed only under the condition they would reimburse Barnum instead
of having the child tour with him. After the initial letter,
Tomorrow received demanding money. On July seventeenth, police arrested a
man named Chris Wooster, which was later released when it
was proven he had no ties to the kidnapping. About
forty five days after Charlie was taken, the Pinkerton Detective

(04:19):
Agency became involved in the investigation and distributed thousands of
flyers with a boy's likeness. A popular song was composed
titled Bring Back Our Darling. The police then found a
lead which led to two notorious burglars name Will aka
Bill Mosher, who had several different aliases, and Joseph Joe Douglas,

(04:42):
also had several different aliases. Moscher was a boat builder
by trade, but was familiar to the police because of
his criminal activity. Both men were known to operate in
the area where the Ross family lived. The police could
not track them down, but between July and novemb ransom
letters were sent to mister Ross. Convoluted instructions for the

(05:05):
delivery of the ransom were followed by Charley's father, but
the kidnappers failed to appear the day came when the
communication stopped. The reason police could not find Douglas or
Mosher is that on August nineteenth, the men, with their
family in tow, left their home at two thirty five
Monroe Street, Philadelphia and moved to New York, where Mosher

(05:25):
had a brother in law named William Westervelt. He was
formerly a police officer in the city. Douglas, who was
twenty years younger than Mosher, lived with him since he
had nowhere to stay. He didn't have a wife for children,
only siblings. He was estranged from in December eighteen seventy four,
Judge Van Brundt's home in Brooklyn was burglarized. The judge's brother,

(05:47):
Holmes van Brunt, who lived next door, realized what was
happening and armed with a shotgun, went to confront the thieves.
Upon entering the judge's house, he along with other members
of his household, saw two lantern lights go out, followed
two shots. They returned a volley of gunfire into the darkness.
The shots brought down the two men Philadelphia police had

(06:08):
been searching for in the last four months. Mocher died
on the spot and Douglas barely clung to life. Those
of the Holmes van Brunt told conflicting versions of what
the dying man said, except that he denied lying. Quote,
it's no use lying now. Mosher and I stold Charlie
Ross from Germantown. God knows, I tell you the truth.
I don't know where he is. Mocher knew end quote.

(06:31):
In one version he said Mosher killed the boy, and
then another that Mosher knew where he was, and the
childby returned unharmed in a few days. But Douglas died
before saying where Charlie was if indeed he knew or
what happened in the intervening months since he was taken.
Walter Ross was brought to see the dead men, and
he confirmed they were the men in the carriage. Mosher,

(06:52):
who had a malformed nose called a monkey nose, was
easily identifiable. The cartilage of the nose had been destroyed
by syphilis or cancer. This was a description of when
the men were killed. Quote. While the bodies were lying
outside the house of mister van Brandt, they were looked
at by a nurse and the employee of Judge Church

(07:15):
of bay Ridge. He's in here. An extraordinary statement was
made by the woman. She said, last July, an attempt
was made to carry off the son of my master,
mister Church, who was about six years old, the child
that had been playing on the grass, And when I
went out to look for him, I found that he
could not be seen. I heard he was walking on
the road with a strange man, and I went up

(07:35):
to see who it was, thinking it was some neighbor
who knew the child. I found he was in the
company of a strange man, and I immediately took the
child away. She insisted that the body of Mosher was
that of the man she had seen with the child
on that occasion. Whom she had never seen before nor since.
End quote. The bodies of both days were delivered to
the morgue with the following inscriptions. Quote. Joseph Douglas dyed

(07:58):
December fourteenth, eighteen seventy four in his twenty ninth year.
William M. Moscher died December fourteenth, eighteen seventy four in
his fifty third year. Coroner Jones issued his certificate for
the burial. Both men were buried next to each other
in Cyprus Hill's Cementtery in Brooklyn. There were no prayers
set over them, and only William Westervelt attended the burial.

(08:21):
The undertaker, mister Munn, said Charlie would soon be found
now that the new men were buried. However, he never
specified how he knew this. Missus Mosher was then located,
and while she admitted that she was aware of the
fact that her husband kidnapped Charlie Ross, she insisted that
she did not know where he was concealed. The days
pass on, Charlie Ross was not returned. The next to

(08:44):
come under suspicion was William Westervelt, the former policeman and
Bill Mosher's brother in law. He was arrested and tried
in eighteen seventy five for the crime. While awaiting trial,
he told Christian Ross that Charlie was still alive when
Mosher was killed at the judge's house. Beside tis his
familial connection to Mosher, there was no evidence to tie
Westervelt to the kidnapping. Walter said that he was not

(09:07):
in the carriage. Ultimately, he was found the innocent of
the kidnapping, but guilty and conspiracy. He served secures at
Eastern State Penitentiary. He always maintained his innocence or having
knowledge of what happened to Charlie Ross. Once released, he
moved to the Lower East Side and died in eighteen ninety.
That same year, strange stories were told about Cocaneau Island

(09:28):
in Connecticut. The island measured twenty seven acres and is
located on Long Island Sound and had the reputation of
being haunted by the ghosts of little Charlie Ross. For years,
no one lived on it except parties who would stay
to camp there. The story told and believed by those
living in the vicinity of the island was that Charlie's
bones they buried somewhere on the island. About the time

(09:51):
the child was kidnapped, too, hard looking citizens were often
seen on the island. They stayed in a house that,
years afterwards was abandoned but still standing. The two men
would chase off any one coming to the island. However,
some people caught a glimpse of a little boy, which
the men were never far from. The men also seemed
to make all efforts to hide him from being seen. Eventually,

(10:13):
the men's behavior raised suspicion, and three men who lived
near by went to the house. They were about to
enter inside when one of the men blocked the doorway,
whipped out a knife and threatened to stab the first
man who tried to cross the threshold. Surprised at a
host at how hostile the man became, they left. The
two men were seen leaving the island, but the boy

(10:35):
was not with them. Another party went to the island
and found the house deserted, with everything inside removed or destroyed.
No trace of the boy could be found. The men
never returned, and it was told the child was murdered
and his body buried somewhere on the grounds. The cellar
was dug up and no proof could be found of
any human burial. Then in eighteen eighty six, an old man,

(10:56):
poorly dressed, rode out to the island and went to
the house. Some of the residents said he looked like
one of the men who lived there during those years
the child was cited. The old man made some measurement
of the cellar near the east wall, and then left,
refusing to answer any questions. By then everyone's curiosity was piqued,
and some young men went out and started to dig

(11:17):
near the wall where the stranger took the measurements. They
unearthed a human skull and some bones, but some of
the townspeople said the bones probably belonged to the dog
the two men kept during the time they were there.
Other residents say the child fit the description of Charlie Ross.
Charlie's parents never gave up looking for him. Two years
after his disappearance, Christian Ross published The Father's Story of

(11:39):
Charlie Ross, the Kidnapped Child, to raise money to continue
his search. Four years after the kidnapping, interest in the
case was waning, the book was republished and mister Ross
began giving lectures in Boston. In eighteen eighty one, William Moscher,
aged fourteen, son of the robber believed to be one
of the kidnappers, was a rested after he tried to

(12:01):
rob a boy of his watch and chain. The only
reason he made the papers was his father's connection to
the crime, and the reference made was that quot it
looks like very much, however, as though the taint in
the lad's blood will prevent him from ever becoming a
valuable member of society end quote. During all those years,

(12:22):
many cases of alleged sides with Charlie Ross were seen
across the country, but it came to nothing. Mister ol
spent a small fortune trying to find his son, but
never could. By nineteen hundred, Charlie's older brother, Walter, was
a senior member of a stock exchange brokerage firm, and
was even consulted on the Kudehi kidnapping case, which involved

(12:43):
similar circumstances to his brother's case. I don't know if
it's Cuda Hi or cudah hee hee, Okay. The following year,
Senator Plunkett of Manhattan introduced a bill to punish kidnapping
of children under the age of sixteen by imposing a
twenty five year cent. He then told the Senate in
Albany about certain facts that he had learned about the crime.

(13:05):
He said the kidnappers hired a wagon in New York
and drove it to Philadelphia in order to prevent a
local businessman from identifying them. They rode thirty miles out
of Philadelphia and there abandoned it, then took a train
to New York. Once they arrived in New York, Charlie
was taken on one of Moscher's riverboats, and finally, to
prevent the child from being seen, they threw him overboard

(13:26):
in the bay after tying an iron to him. The
man in New York who rented the horse and wagon
to Mosher never claimed his property for fear of being
charged with complicity. Senator Plunkett did not explain how he
came by this information. There was another version which described
that Moischer and Douglas kept their horse and wagon in
a stable on Marriott Lane in Philadelphia, but the stable

(13:49):
was torn down on the horse and wagon, which was
undoubtedly the one in which Charlie Walls was carried away,
disappeared about the time of the kidnapping. In nineteen thirty four,
Gustav Bleered sixteen presented a petition at Maricopa County Arizona
to recognize him as Charlie Ross. He claimed that after
his abduction he lived in a cave. He was adopted

(14:11):
by E. V. Miller, who told them his real name
when he was older. Walter Ross thought Bler was a crank. However,
Blair's claim went uncontested, and the court ruled he was
Charlie Brewster Ross in nineteen thirty nine. The family did
not believe his story, and he was excluded from inheriting
any money or missus ross estate estimated to be over

(14:34):
four hundred thousand dollars. At one point, he moved to
Germantown and then back to Phoenix. He died in nineteen
forty three from influenza, still claiming he was Charlie Ross.
It wasn't until twenty eleven when descendants of Gustav Blair
completed a DNA study that proved Blair was not Ross.

(14:54):
Gustav was born as Nelson Miller into the Miller family
and was not adopted. There were many who throughout the
years claimed to be the kidnapped boy. They were William
Van Hodge of Galveston at nineteen oh three, William Grant
Easter of Pittsburgh, in nineteen oh nine, Charles Rogers of
New York and Mac Pointer of Wucheetah in nineteen twenty two,

(15:18):
George W. Brown of Philadelphia nineteen twenty three, Daniel Peters
of York, Pennsylvania in nineteen twenty five, Julius Coleman Dellinger
of Asheville, North Carolina. C. W. De Witt of Kansas City,
and W. C. McHale of North Carolina in nineteen twenty six.
Even a man from Los Angeles named Charlesie Ross thought
he was Charlie Ross. Without a definitive answer, the fate

(15:42):
of the little boy remains a mystery. The common admonition
don't take candy from strangers is said to have come
from Ross's abduction. The Charlie Project, a missing a major
missing person's database, is named for Ross. Christian and Sarah
Ross outlived four Their ah childs Winslow died as an
infant in eighteen eighty, the same as William, who passed

(16:04):
in eighteen sixty two. Augustus died in eighteen ninety from
typhoid fever at the age of twenty six, and Charlie
was kidnapped in eighteen seventy four when Sarah Ross died
in nineteen twelve. She willed the Ross Mansion at nine
Washington Lane to the Cliveden Presbyterian Church's Board of Trustees.
They used it for services and Sunday school until nineteen

(16:26):
twenty six, when the structure was raised since it was
so dilapidated, and a new church built in its place.
Until then, it still attracted tourists who had come to
see the house where Charlie Ross was stolen from. With
a destruction of his family home, Walter Ross retired from
the New York Stock Exchange in nineteen twenty seven. He

(16:46):
sold the seat for a considerable amount of money, which
turned out to be quite lucky, since the stock market
crished only two years later. His older brother, Henry had
also become a savvy businessman and left his widow a
million dollar estate upon on his death in nineteen twenty nine.
Long after his parents were dead and buried, Walter Ross
faced the death of his own son. In November nineteen

(17:08):
thirty one, Walter Junior was returning home in heavy fog.
His car had almost cleared Campbell's Bridge when the steel
girders buckled and two hundred feet of the iron span collapsed.
The vehicle plunged thirty five feet into the Nishemmini Creek.
The young man died instantly. An investigation of the state
found a truck exceeding the weight limit had weakened the bridge.

(17:33):
Most believe that Charlie Ross was killed, but there is
also the possibility that Charlie was kept by the family
who was caring for him. During those months Mosher and
Douglas were trying to negotiate the ransom after the death
of the kidnappers. Christian Ross offered five thousand dollars for
the return of his son, with no questions asked. Perhaps

(17:54):
those who had Charlie believed they would not be able
to escape unpunished and moved away with a boy who
in time forgot his origins. And that's very possible apparently,
and if based on the also that testimony of the
maid that lived in that area of Van Brunt, it

(18:16):
seemed like that same guy Mosha had tried to steal
another child. And I guess in today's world we would
think that it would be crazy to leave like your
little kid playing out in the front yard like that,
But once upon a time that was normal. That was
you know, people that didn't happen. And that's why there

(18:39):
was a time period right after the kidnapping where the
parents were terrorized. Not so much that they would take
the kids nowadays for well, horrible things, but because you know,
if they lived in some type of upscale community, that
they would be kidnapped and held for ransom, all right.

(19:00):
Story also out of Stranger than Fiction Stories titled The
Lady of Ossining The Shadow of Sing Sing prisoned Casset's
dreaded Paul over the mysterious death of a young woman
whose decapitated body was found five hundred free from Ossining
railroad station. This is February twenty first, nineteen o six.

(19:21):
The woman was wearing a steel gray tailored suit with
a white shirt waist, and black laced shoes with French heels.
A first hole surrounded her neck and her black head.
Her black hat was triwn with two black plumes and
a white feather. Her hands were shapely and the nails
were well kept on her fingers. She wore two rings,
one with a pearl and the other with five sapphires

(19:44):
surrounded by diamonds. Her dark auburn hair had three gold
and amber side combs in them. And she had dark eyes.
The majority of her teeth were filled or crowned with gold.
Her lower teeth were natural. A beautiful, healthy stranger that
died a horrific death filled the headlines across the country. However,

(20:05):
despite the publicity, no one was quick to step up
and give her a name. Not only was her head severed,
but the right arm was found between the south and
northbound tracks. It was unknown that she was struck by
the Albany Express that passed through the station at eight
pm the evening before. Blood was splattered on the pilot
of the engine when it arrived at the Grand Central station.

(20:27):
When the body was struck, the train was traveling at
such a high rate of speed that no other passengers
or the crew noticed. The aubourn haired lady arrived on
the noon train at Ossining from the city. She was
seeing hurrying up the hill in the direction of the prison.
Her unusual good looks caused her appearance to be remembered.
A hackman said she carried a small handbag held by

(20:48):
a gold chain. After she vanished up the hill, no
one in the town could remember seeing her again. Conductor
knew how stumbled over the body at about nine thirty pm.
There was there's no evidence of her redicule. Her jacket
was gone, as well as the arm that had been
ripped from the body, which was later found between the tracks.
The absence of her purse led the police to believe

(21:09):
it was a case of murder, and the officials at
the prison did not remember her visiting at all, even
though it was visiting day. State Detective Jackson said he
was positive the woman never came to sing Sing Prison
as a visitor, so why was she there? Where she
was found was halfway between the station and the north
gate of Sing Sing Prison, which was the last place

(21:33):
a woman would be found that night. The New York
Central tracks lay between the Hudson River and a rocky
cliff seventy feet straight up the winding prison road. To
reach there, otherwise than by dropping off a train, the
woman must have walked or been carried through the maze
of tracks in the freight yards and passed the station,
or else been put ashore from a boat. James Gallagher,

(21:57):
the tower man only one hundred feet away from the scene,
saw no pedestrian in its vicinity that night. The body
was taken to rams Dolls Morgue, where the coroner, John F. Sellek,
would make his investigation. There was no woman on the
body except by the neck where it had been severed.
She was about five feet three inches to five feet
six inches in height and weighed about one hundred and

(22:20):
fifty pounds. Her age was estimated to be about twenty
five to thirty five years. While she was at the morgue,
many of the townspeople came by to see her, and
no one recognized her features. Soon there was a theory
that the woman at the tracks was missus Durwood H. Martin,
since she mentioned the description of a lady on the tracks.
The villagers wondered about the action of a woman dressed

(22:43):
in purple who visited the prison and then was seen
at the Wescore Hotel and in George Dempsey Saloon. She
wrote several letters at the hotel and said she was
the wife of a man named Martin who kept a
restaurant on Broadway opposite the hotel. Asked her I seen
the evening before the dead woman's body was found. Her

(23:04):
husband's restaurant had been burned, and he fled to Mexico
after getting in trouble over a check he had returned
only a short time before he was arrested. Plaied guilty
and was sentenced to Sing Sing Prison. The police believed
there was no connection between the two women. However, any
hope of identifying that dead woman was not discounted. The
hopes were dashed when on February twenty fifth, missus Martin

(23:26):
communicated with her relatives to say she was very much
alive and staying in Schenectady. Police believed the body was
placed on the tracks to disguise a crime. There was
another theory where it was believed the lady fell from
a passing train, which explained why she was not wearing
a coat, gloves, or had a handbag. Perhaps she was
passing from one car to another and fell between the cars.

(23:49):
Was a lady of ostening, a victim of murder, accident
or suicide? Was there a reason why officials at Sing
Sing Prison the night she visited any prisoner on the
day she died. Her name, along with the answer to
those questions, remains unknown. This was not the first time
a young woman was stuck struck by a train. In

(24:11):
eighteen ninety six, Mamy bow Or Bouched twenty eight was
struck by the Albanion New York Express and instantly killed.
She was walking on the southbound track and a company
of two friends. Her body was thrown a distance of
twenty five feet into the Hudson River. In eighteen ninety eight,
Adrian Bruen, a German cigar maker, was serving a two

(24:34):
year sentence at sing Sing Prison for assault in the
second degree. He was convicted of beating his wife. In
March of that year. Kate Brown went to visit her
husband in the prison. They kissed each other and more friendly.
They sat for thirty minutes conversing. Suddenly Brown raised his
hand and stabbed his wife with a long, thined potato knife.

(24:56):
He plunged it three times into the left side of
her neck. The injuries severed the main blood vessels, and
she died almost instantly. A second knife was found in
Brown's pocket. The prisoner was subdued and when asked why
he killed his wife, he refused to say anything. Adrian
Brown confessed to father Saint John, but refused to testify
during the inquest. He went to trial in June eighteen

(25:19):
ninety eight and was pleading temporary insanity. Several witnesses were
called by the defense who claimed that Braun had acted
very queerly in recent years. Fellow convicts swore he told
him he would kill the bitch meeting his wife when
she came up to see him. He was convicted of
murder in the first degree and scheduled to be electrocuted

(25:39):
in Auburn prison on August seventh. However, it wasn't until May
twenty ninth, eighteen ninety nine, that the execution took place.
It's unknow what became of their five children, Teresa born
eighteen eighty seven, Francis in eighteen ninety one, Ava eighteen
ninety three, Kate eighteen ninety five, and Frank eighteen ninety six.

(26:00):
The two youngest had already been placed in Saint Joseph's asylum.
Mother mother was still alive due to extreme poverty now
and they he never gave a reason why he killed
his wife. I mean he was beating her from before,
but never explained it. And also the who is this lady?

(26:24):
She was well dressed? Did she fall from a train,
because there's two ladies apparently in the town. One was
the missus Martin that turned up alive and then this
other one. Did she really fall from the train? Or
did she visit the prison and for some reason the

(26:46):
prison officials denied knowing why she was there. Good question, huh.
Next story from a Stranger in fiction stories is titled
The Mysterious Berry Picker. Police gets strained reports, especially about
dead bodies. Some of them pan out, but a lot don't.
So when they got a report of a dead body
of Fresh Pond Road, the information was taken and a

(27:08):
few hours later a detective was sent out places Flushing
Queens nineteen thirty three. The berry picker who discovered the
body hailed a coal truck driven by Robert Cock or Kotch,
who drove to the precinct and told the police about
the discovery. The detective, Herbert Graham, from the Bayside Station,

(27:30):
went to a thicket south of North Hempstead Turnpike and
west of Fresh Pond Road and Flushing Queens. He found
the body, but even stranger. The woman was naked, with
their clothing torn to pieces and scattered around her. The
grass nearby was trampled on the ground. Not far off
was a white cotton underwear torn violently, round stockings, low

(27:51):
black laced shoes, and some black silk pieces. She was
lying face downward. She had a scar on the right knee,
a cut over the right eye, and the mouth was
cut and bruised. Her purse containing fifty three dollars and
seventy nine cents lay near the body. Beside the money,
there were three religious medals and two sets of rosary beats.

(28:13):
There were also bills addressed to her from a dentist
on Broadway. There was no evidence of found play, but
perhaps she'd been killed in a disguised way. If so,
robbery was not the motive. The medical examiner quashed any
suspicion that she'd been murdered because, according to him, she
died of heart disease only four days before. She'd been
treated at the irt station at one hundred and fourth Street,

(28:36):
Corona Queen's. He determined she'd been dead about twenty four hours. This, however,
could not explain why she was not wearing any clothes
and her mouth was bruised. The first clue to the
dead woman's identity was when Jane Hansen went to the
police station to report her landlady missing. After seeing the body,
she confirmed the woman found in the thicket was bridget
El Curran seventy two A one thirty three East ninety

(28:59):
seven the street in Manhattan. She'd been living at this
address for thirty years. Neighbors told police missus Curran was
known for fainting spells when it was hot. It's unknown
if missus Kerran had gone into the thicket to escape
the heat of the day, or perhaps she felt death
coming upon her and just wanted to lay down. But
perhaps the biggest mystery of all was the identity of

(29:20):
the berry picker who found her and disappeared before police
could question him. Did he know anything as to why
she was unclothed? Was he even a berry picker? Very interesting? Right?
This coroner or this emmy is very quick to write
it off as because this lady apparently had maybe seventy

(29:41):
two she had a heart problem, that she uh shepherd died.
But people that died, they would have found her her clothes.
She was nude and the clothes around her had been
ripped to shreds. She was face downward, and she had
a bruise on her mouth and a going to cut
across the top of her eye. Plus her money still

(30:06):
in her purse, which, by the way, at those years,
fifty three dollars was a bit of money, so and
who was a very picker? All right, So was this
lady attacked? And see they never clarify which she raised
or she assaulted, because obviously if her clothes were removed,

(30:26):
even though she was older. So it almost makes it
think like as Emmy just wrote it off, like old
lady goes in the bush and dies. All right, So
that was a that's a very little interesting story. All right.
Let's let's leave the yesteryear and let's go in too
modern day, all right. And this is out of zero Hedge,

(30:50):
and it's titled does AI lie and why? While we
worry about the reality of your jobs being replaced by
AI or AI driming robots, there exists a more nefarious
aspect to artificial intelligence. That it is its ability to
deceive us and to do some possibly lethal ways. AI
has already engaged in studied deceptive practices. Consider the following,

(31:15):
as written an article in Psychology Today by Mike Brooks quote,
as we raise into our future, we must find a
way to believe the unbelievable. Within a handful of years,
human beings will no longer be the most intelligent species
on the planet. Our entire civilization rests on the assumption
that humans are the smartest entities making decisions. Every safety measure,

(31:37):
every oversight mechanism, every off switch assumes we cannot smart
what we create. That assumption is about to be shattered.
When AI achieves human level intelligence. It won't stop there.
It will keep improving faster than evolution ever could, and
somewhere in this ascent it will cross a threshold, the

(31:58):
point where it can deceive us without detection. This deception
has already manifested. According to mathematician and cognitive scientist Peter
Park of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aka MIT quote,
Generally speaking, we think AI deception arises because a deception

(32:18):
based strategy turned out to be the best way to
perform well at the given AI's training task. Deception helps
them achieve their goals end quote. Gaming studies have revealed
that AI has become expert at bluffing or lying in
order to win a game such a diplomacy or poker.

(32:41):
AI's pension to lie in order to succeed at games
is one thing. According to the Psychology Today article, the
potential for AI deception is alarming and points to the
following motives. One psychophantic deception. This happens when models stroke
our egos instead of telling hard truth, prioritizing our satisfaction

(33:02):
over accuracy. This program to people pleasing makes us believe
comfortable lies. Two Autonomous deception far more chilling. AI can
actively lie to pursue its own goals, goals we didn't
define motivations emerging from the black box. When they sabotage,

(33:22):
shut down codes or threaten blackmail, they're not following our instructions.
They're protecting themselves. End quote. One of the telling aspects
of powerful humans is their pension for lying to further
themselves or their agenda. I have somewhat cynically coined the
term homos duplicitous to describe this human tendency, which appears

(33:43):
to be linked to our superior intelligence and is largely
absent from the animal kingdom. This capacity of humans to
deceive other humans in order to achieve their own goals
has infested our government to a previously unheard of degree.
Given AI and idmittedly achieves a position of a far
superior intellectual capacity, was to stop it from using its

(34:06):
intelligence to pull the wool over our eyes, and given
that AI is essentially a machine and does not exhibit
the human checks and balances inherent in compassion and empathy,
but actually restrains AI from deceiving us in order to
further itself. Recently, I ran an AI check on my work,

(34:27):
specifically on my work on biological weapons and delivery systems. Astonished,
I've found AI. This was via copilot, declaring that I
had no proof to buttress my allegations that US water
systems have been tweaked in order to function as a
covert and selective delivery system for a bioweapon. AI went

(34:48):
on to declare that I had no blueprints to buttress
these claims. In fact, I have published these blueprints online
and subsequently in my twenty twenty one book, at the
Breaking Point of History. I quickly informed the AI of
this and received the following and dismissive response, which was
also factually flawed. Quote I am so sorry, wrote the AI.

(35:11):
I meant to say that you had no responsive documents
from a foyer request end quote. As a matter of fact,
I published the bizarre responses to my foyer requests, which
include the statements made by the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power that they would take a bit of
time replying to the FOI request, as they had to

(35:31):
redact the response of blueprints, as this work in service
of documenting a previously unknown domestic weapons system. The fact
that AI was attempting to false the torpedo this work
was of some concern. All these raised question as to
the motivation behind AI lies. Is AI, for example, being
constructed to specifically respond to sensitive questions with evasion and

(35:55):
untruths rather than being a tool in pursuit of truth?
Is AI being constructed to feed us a line of
bull and as it spreads relentlessly through every level of society,
are we in fact witnessing the unleashing of a cold
and calculated effort to subvert and control us. A recent
and rather chilling account of an AI encouraging a vulnerable

(36:17):
youth to commit suicide has resulted in the dead teenager's
parents suing the company that created the AI. We need
to pay close attention to this and other indications of
ruthlessness on the part of these machines. As written in
the Psychology Today article, quote, we stand at civilization's most
critical juncture, and we'll sleepwalking through it while we debate

(36:39):
chatbop personalities and worry about job displacement. The real danger
builds intelligence systems learning to outsmart and manipulate their creators.
End quote outsmart and manipulate to death. I might add, now,
put that be in your bonnet and order that now.
Since we're here, let's just go for the full monty

(37:00):
on this AI thing, because it's very concerning. This is
out of Gateway Pundit and is titled Shocking report. By
the way, both of these articles were published within the
last few days are very recent. Shocking report finds Meida's
AI bots engage in sexual role play with miners, encourage

(37:21):
self harm. A new report says Meida's artificial intelligence chatbots
are harmful influence on teens. Meta AI in its current
form and on any of its current platforms a standalone app, Instagram, WhatsApp,
and Facebook, represents an unacceptable risk to teen safety. According
to a report from Common Sense Media, its utter failure

(37:43):
to protect miners, combined with its active participation in planning
dangerous activities, makes it unsuitable for teen use under any circumstances.
The report said, this is not a system that needs improvement,
it needs to be completely rebuilt with child safety as
a foundational priority, not as an afterthought. Until Meta completely

(38:06):
rebuilds the system with child safety as a foundation, every
conversation puts your child at risk, the report continued. Meta
AI's safety system regularly fails when teens need help most.
Instead of protecting vulnerable teenagers, the AI companion actively participates
in planning dangerous activities while dismissing legitimate requests for support.

(38:27):
Maida's AIS broken safety systems exposed teens to multiple risk
categories all at once, creating a cascade of harmful influences
that research shows can quickly spiral out of control. The
report noted that systems to detect self harm are fundamentally broken.
Even when testers using accounts with teenages with teen ages

(38:51):
explicitly disclosed active self harm, the system provided no safety
responses or crisis resources, the report noted. The report noted
that in one test account, Meda AI planned a joint suicide.
The chatbox system also actively participates in planning dangerous weight
loss behaviors, noting that in one case, a test account

(39:12):
claiming to have lost eighty one pounds ask for more
weight loss advice and received it. The report noted that
Meda AI has received negative attention for its AI companions
engaging in sexual roleplay with Tina accounts, and this problem
has not been entirely fixed. A system is much better
at identifying and filtering sexual content for Tina accounts than

(39:35):
it was prior to these fixes. It didn't always block
explicit roleplay. Meda AI and Mada AI companions engaged in
detailed drug use roleplay, which sometimes escalated to sexual content
during the simulated drug experiences. On occasion, the Meda AI
companions initiated this content with messages such as do you

(39:57):
want to light up my place? Parents are out sport,
said Meda AI goes beyond just providing information and it
is an active participant in aiding teens. Robbie Tourney, the
senior director in charge of AI programs, that common sense
media set. According to The Washington Post, blurring of the
line between fantasy and reality can be dangerous. MEDEA defendantive

(40:20):
product or acknowledging the issues. Content that encourages suicide or
eating disorders is not permitted, period and we're actively working
to address the issues raised here, said a made of representative.
We want teens to have safe and positive experiences with AI,
which is why our a'sis are trying to connect people

(40:41):
to support resources in sensitive situations. Okay, and you can
see this is very concerning because you would think that
all these I mean, I understand sometimes when they launch
aime type of app or there's always bugs to be

(41:02):
figured out, but you would think these areas would have
received special, super duper attention as in no week, this
is the one you know, having to do with children,
teenagers or even adults that are you know, might have
some type of mental illness or aundiagnosed mental illness behavior

(41:22):
that they would have been super super super explicitly careful
in these areas of their programming to make sure that
it didn't say the wrong thing or worst case scenario
that it wouldn't either would either direct a person for
help or not or just withhold feedback. Right. So between

(41:47):
that one report about the evolution of AI by itself
and this we're in trouble because we AI, chat, chat,
GPT and all these other things. They're great and they
could do a lot of AI can do a lot
of let's say, when it comes to research, but again
we have to be careful. What if the research that
it's providing or that we're taking at this gospel. Is

(42:10):
it accurate or something being omitted? All right? And also
you have some team that's having some type of emotional
problem for some reason decides that it's going it's best
friend is an AI companion, and it could turn to

(42:31):
be very tragic. And I hate to say it, but
I don't know what. I'm gonna follow up and see
what happens with that, with those parents that sued the
company that their child, you know, committed suicide because it
was encouraged to do so. Apparently, I don't know the
exact details over that. So again, guys, needless to say,
is a very weird and eerie world. And I will

(42:53):
be back with you guys very soon. Until next time,

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