86. Lyda Southard

In this weeks episode Sarah tells us about Idaho's first female serial killer, Lyda Southard. Was it the Typhoid or the arsenic? 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, I'm t Lisa and I am Sarah. Welcome to
the Shit Show a half. That's true, grand podcast. Did
we have like a one regular intro? I think? Did
that work out? Did I just ruin it? I think? So? Hi? Hello,
how are we? We are doing great? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I don't what's anything new? I totally forgot that I
went and saw that neurosurgeon. That literally just happened, and
I already forgot about it. Back update for me, I
met a new neurosurgeon and they're willing to do their
surgery to release my spinal cord, which is fantastic.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Which is fantastic. It's great news. We love it.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I made it abundantly clear that I needed to get
back in the gym. Like every answer I had is
I can do this right because I really want to
get back in the gym, And technically he said, I
can still go to the gym. Now that I can't,
I can't fuck it up more than I already is.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Oh, so there's that.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
The unfortunate part is I do have to take three
months off from the gym once I have the surgery,
so I'm hoping to do it over a one ter time.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So I just don't have to leave my house. That
would be better. So I'll also take three months off
from the gym by proxy.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I appreciate your support, but yeah, I don't know what
else I like. My life has just been one clusterfuckery
after another. I got a sunburn literally only on my
elbows this weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
How what I know that there are only her elbows
out literally.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Like this, but like, obviously we don't have a video
right now, like two inches above my.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Elbow on both arms. That's so weird. That's well. And
I did get a little bit on the back of
my neck. I got a little oh on my nose
this weekend. I'm like, how the fuck did I sound?
Or get a burn on my elbow? That's a white
part of me. I guess the rest is actually But yeah,
that was That was a wild experience.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
And now every time I take a hot shower, I
get reminded of it because it's still it's like you
can't really see it anywhere.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
It still has like the steam. Oh yeah, that's it
was my eventful weekend. What did I do this weekend?
Nothing was super exciting. Yeah, relax, yeah, yeah, well I
went to like it's called the Woodsman's field Days. Yeah,
trying to read that out loud to Captain because he's
Woodsman's and then he just looked at and he's like, what, yeah, no,

(02:23):
it was. I mean that's more for boys. Yeah, yeah,
I've never I don't again, I don't leave my house.
I don't know. It's not like the regular field days,
like I think the field days in general is more
of this area type of thing. I think so, yeah,
because i'd never heard where I'm from, we didn't do that. Yeah,
but usually the field days is like a little like
local fair type of thing, and I usually put on

(02:45):
like right, yeah, and there's usually like rides and whatever.
This was not that. This was like for lumberjacks. They
do like lumberjack competitions and lumber jill competitions. Do they
throw the big post? I don't know. I think they
had like a greased up pull race. I know I didn't.
We didn't stay to watch that, but I don't know.

(03:08):
It was just different. I've never, yeah, I ever gone.
Their parade was just like logging trucks and big equipment. Fantastic.
So I got a little sunburnt there because I am
very white and it was a thousand degrees and very munny. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
We built new railing for Kenton's parents, like their pull
deck need and new railing, and of course it was
like literally the hottest fucking day ever. That's when I
got the sunburn.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Do things on the hottest days ever? I moved hottest
day ever?

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Do we have other projects that we need to finish
so that we just keep putting off because we keep
blaming the heat?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes? But do we always end up doing a project
on the hottest fucking day? Yes? Yes, But yeah, that
was it was fun, Not really, it was hottest. Fuck.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I did go swimming after, something I don't normally do
because the water is usually too cold for me, but.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
So freaking hot that I could get in pool.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
You know, before I get into my case, I am
going to.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Plug our social media's well we are because I'm lazy
and Sarah. Sarah's gonna do the whole thing this time. Nope,
all right, so you can find us on Facebook at
the Shit Show, a true crime podcast. Why did I
bran now like really lost confidence, Like what's the name
of the show? My mouth just like we don't know
what we're doing anywhere. Okay, if you can find us

(04:22):
on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube at the Ship Show TCP.
Send us an email at Shit SHOWTCP at gmail dot com. Please,
I'm so tired of just getting junk emails to that
just it's my little pity party. Please subscribe and review
on Apple Podcasts. We would love all of the reviews.
Be nice though, don't be weird like in comment on Spotify,

(04:42):
because why the fuck not? Yeah? Thanks, okay, thanks bye?
They do it right now? Yeah, all them. No.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I was just thinking about how I text you screenshot
of our Gmail over the weekend and.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Said, please take care of this. It's bothering me because
I was bad and neglected all three of the accounts
that I have on my phone. So in my defense,
the number because I sent a screenshot back of like
the total that I had just hanging out on Read
and Sarah's like that makes me want to throw up.
It was like three hundred something. I've just been ignoring
it and I have three so it's the podcast, the

(05:13):
school one, yeah, and then my personal email and like
there was like four emails in there that I need to.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Save that I figured I'm like I'm gonna go, but
for ours zero. Well, I'm I'm like, I'm just going
to go through an open all of them and then
they're just going to sit there until she doesn't right.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
But instead I just text you and was like, hey,
I don't know what you need from this, but this
number is I need nothing. Yeah, that's You're like if
there's like fifteen in here, And I was like, well,
how about three hundred and something for mine?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, and then you like you sent me screenshot of
like your phone screen, so then it had like numbers
all over the screen, and I'm like, I would just
throw my entire phone away.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I've been busy. I don't. I can't. I don't leave
numbers on my phone, like I don't leave notifications. I can.
I was doing stuff and things. I did something last
night and Captain's like, but yeah, you don't have OCD
at all, and I'm like, I don't know, I don't.
It's a possibility, but okay, anyhow, tell me a story.
Is it sad? That's like the nature of the show.

(06:12):
Is there murder?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, okay, just kidding. People accidentally catch the typhoid and that's.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
How they die. That's the way this is typhoid.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Why is there a nat in here. Okay, have you
ever heard of Laida Southern?

Speaker 1 (06:26):
No, just that you texted me this name the other day.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, So I have looked at this case, it's like
so many times, to the point that I'm like, wait,
did I actually cover this case?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
And that's when I.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Text you and then where we both looked to make
sure that I am not crazy, which I am.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
But which which I am? But that's irrelevant. Yeah, So
I finally said, fuck it, I've looked at this case
a billion times. I'm actually just going to cover it.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
And I think in the past I haven't covered it
because I just thought it wasn't going to be long enough.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Of a case. But now we don't care. I just said.
I finally said, fuck it. I keep looking at this
so I'm just going to do it. Yeah. So here
we are. What Liida? Which is a weird name.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm hope I'm saying it right. It's Lyda Laida. I'm
meant to look it up in surprise.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I didn't like how I just judged a name like
I don't have the weirdest name. You and my husband
both will never have a license plate, No personalized key chains,
never be on a coke bottle. Nope, I wonder if
you could order one, like specifically coke, like with the
maybe I think you used to be able to. Yeah,
you know how like Eminem's you can get with whatever. Right, Yeah,
I wonder I'm sure you could do a coke that way.

(07:29):
We are starting off great. I have said her name once, okay.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Lida Anna May true Blood was born October sixteenth, eighteen
ninety two, in the town of Keidasville, New York.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Or Nope, not yourk Missouri. Why did I say? My
brain just went like, hey, where are you from? You're
not even from New York, I know, all right, Okay,
So yeah, off to cold start about sixty miles north
of Kansas City, Okay, because I know you would want
to know that, you know maps and everything. I've been
to Kansas City, so I can I can picture it,
been through it. That's that I've been to their airport many.

(08:04):
I almost had many a time. I mean, you have
been there many a time. So what a weird thing
to say. I'm a hundred I'm not at all. Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
So Lida was the second or third of eleven children,
and her.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Family my Lanta.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, and that's so many children. One article that I saw,
like when I was finishing this zof said seven kids. Again,
it was eighteen hundreds, so like it could have been seven,
it could have been eleven, it could have been twenty five,
because that's all they did back then is grow crops
and fuck.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I think it's a grow crops and children. But okay,
I mean that's how they're made.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
But her family were varied about church goers oh as well,
it's really weird to say after what I just said. Yeah,
Lda was a charming, petite redhead with blue eyes, so
it should come as no surprise that Leida's good looks
attracted the boat the boys quote like flies to a honeypot.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't like that. I don't either, but it was
in a couple of the articles. I'm like, okay, fine,
I guess I'll put it. Because I guess, okay, fine,
twists my eye.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I will share the gross quote from the late eighteen hundreds.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
That's that's what this podcast is. Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
So a teen around the same age as Leida, named
Robert Dooley Fell had over.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Heals for Lida.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Okay, But when Leida was I think in her late teens,
her extremely large family moved to Twin Falls in southern Idaho.
So we moved from Missouri to Idaho, Okay, and there
they bought a large track of plan to grow crops.
Not long after that, Robert, along with his brother Ed,
also moved to Twin Falls. So I don't know if

(09:42):
I don't, I didn't look up how close the two
places were because it feels far away, and it feels
far away in my brain as well, But like it
seems like a bunch of people from where she was
at Missouri, La.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
What was the town in Missouri? It was a weird
name k E hy t es v I ll E.
And then it was Twin Falls. That's an nineteen hour
drive in a today's vehicle. I thought those Wait, I
told you it felt far away in my brain. Await

(10:15):
from here? No, from Keatsville or whatever it was called
to Twin Falls, Idaho is a today's nineteen hour drive.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
That was a fucking they So it took them a
month to move eleven children across the fucking country.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Basically, I almost said, it's like the Donner Party, but
but they survived. Are you gonna do that? Is it?
I'm not I'm not excited I don't. I'm not I could.
I could talk about the Donner Party.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I need you to talk about the Donner Party, like
next day.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
You want me to do it right now, I'm right
nineteen hours. I feel like I'm glad you looked that up.
I should have. I should have looked at a map.
I'm not a strong enough man to drive nineteen hours today,
like right now.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
That's sanity. Yeah, I don't even what you driving? You
a we she was born in eighteen ninety two. We
are now entering obviously the early nineteen huns.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
So they've driven a car, right either way, the car
still went like five miles per hour then, right, so
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
How fast cars went obviously, but yeah, that's still I
would still assume like the major mode of transport transportation
for people would probably be horse and buggy, probably for
most people.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
I don't know. Hey, send us an email us. No. Yeah,
if you are more history, are you an expert in
are you a history buff modes of transportation from the
early nineteen hundreds? Let me know, right, I'm like begging
for an email. Just email me anything but the spam emails. Please,
thank you very Where was I so?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Her family bought property there. Her boyfriend followed her crops.
Boyfriend followed brought brother with him. We are all now in.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Twin Falls, so not much I said about how.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Long Robbert and Lida like dated before they got married,
but it seemed like it was pretty quickly after. So
in March of nineteen twelve, Laida, at the age of nineteen,
married Robert.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
And it's not icky because they were both teens. That's true,
so we will say. I can't judge the nineteen year old.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
So they got married nineteen, all right. So after that,
Leida moved on to a ranch there in Twin Falls
with Robert and his brother.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Ed. The brother was there to like help. I think
it's weird run the farm. I wouldn't like it, that's all. Yeah.
Can you go live somewhere else and come work on the.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right When she go live with my family, they love
all the people, all of the people, so they won't
even notice. Sure they are honestly, they just blending with
the other eleven children. I wouldn't wait, is it his
older brother or like a kid brother?

Speaker 1 (12:46):
What are we talking? I don't know, he's nineteen.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm not sure how old the brother was never I
didn't see any mentioned I a little kid brother.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
That's different. I was picturing like a thirty year old. No,
I would assume around the same ages.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Okay, Robert, late teens, early twenties, maybe somewhere in there.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
It was unclear who was the older.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Brother, and I didn't even think to look to see
who it was the older brothers. Anyhow, the couple seemed
to be in wedded bliss. In A year or two later,
in nineteen fourteen or fifteen, the couple welcomed a little
girl they named Lorraine, which like my name. How have
you ever looked at a child and been like, oh, yeah,
that's a Lorraine?

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Oh my god? On my TikTok yesterday or the day before,
I don't know, there was this guy and he was
like crashing out and he was like, I just met
a baby named fucking Craig Ken. And I had had
this even name a baby Craig. That seems like a crime.
One of his friend's names is Craig. Like, how do
you look at a baby, say, naming this tiny, precious

(13:45):
little thing Craig. Yeah, Craig smokes two packs of cigarettes
a week. Yes, Like he went on this whole thing.
It was so funny. Yeah, I don't think I don't
think that's allowed to name your child Craig. It's just
sorry for anybody. Somebody out there is like a whole
their newborn baby they just named Craig. I was trying
to think of the female version of that. Lorraine is

(14:05):
up there for me. I like, well, I like the
old lady names are like, although I mean I have
a kid named Russell. I heard another name recently that
I fuck.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
I'm off on a little tangent, I know, but it
was also the same thing, like how can you look
at this newborn baby and think that is the correct name?

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Okay, all right, So, as I said again.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
It was a little iffy on which year Lorraine was born,
but she was either born in nineteen fourteen or nineteen fifteen.
But sadly, the bliss wouldn't last long for light and Rubbert,
quick little trigger warning, let's give ahead.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
I'm not going into detail obviously, it's nothing, you know, crazy,
but a child this day. So okay, in nineteen so
she had been born in nineteen fourteen. I should have
put my words together better. So in nineteen fifteen, baby
Lorraine sadly passed away after she drank water from a
contaminated well. Ring tolda So, she said, it's one of these,
Yes it is. So there was a contaminated well.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
The water obviously back then lake there's a discacy. I
might even talk about that here in a minute. Maybe
not dysentery cholera.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I don't think I mentioned that, but either way, old
timey continuated ship.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
It was a baby, so obviously her body's going to
be more susceptible to that then other than an adult
would be right.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
So the hits for the young.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Couple sadly did not stop there, because in August of
that very same year, Ed, Robert's brother also became sick
with I am for sure going to butcher. How this
is said, I do not want to hear any laughter closing.
So Ed became sick from the tomaine poisoning ptomain.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
It's spelled P T O M A I N E. Okay,
it's just a really outdated way of saying food poisoning.
I got food poisoning, okay, but they called it some
weird in the literal sense or in the bacteria sense.
Did he get food poisoning in the rough front rats?

Speaker 2 (16:08):
No, so it was said that I'd most likely got
the food poisoning from tainted meat products, which again from
the black market meat. Yeah, maybe he got some black
market meat from.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
The fact that there's no refrigeration, right exactly.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So again it's very unfortunate for them, and you know,
the d passed from it, but it's very of the time,
like people died from very simple things that people don't
die from anymore because technology has advanced.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Obviously, thank God for the robots.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
So, like I said, unfortunately he did not survive from
that from the food poisoning.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Okay, have you ever had food poisoning? I wanted to
die from it. I literally yes, I've so quick tangent.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
I missed my first day of work at McDonald's because
I got food poisoning.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I was staying at my dad's. Everybody had gone to bed.
I was kind of hungry, so I went to the fridge,
got out some chicken and noodles. Eat some chicken and noodles,
Like within thirty minutes, I was like throwing up. It
makes you not everyone have chicken and noodles again.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
It took years, and that was one of others. It's
staple during like holidays. See then like in socially my
dad's chickenos. And then the next morning I'm like throwing
my gus up and he's like, are you sick? And
I'm like, yeah, I think I ate something bad. And
then he's like, well would you eat? And like the
chicken and noodles out of the fridge, He's like those
need to be thrown away.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh my god, we just hadn't tossed them yet. And
then like, sir, I'm fucking dying from it. So yeah,
that's my first day of work at mcdonald'sday messed because
I had food poisoning. Don't leave bad food in your
fridge and not tell people the moral of that story.
An you know, Leida and Robert split the two thousand
dollars and life insurance policies that they got from Ed's
passing and today's moneies. That is close to sixty four

(17:47):
thousand dollars, so a decent chunk of money each. Or
that's what they split.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
They split that, which is weird to me because they
were married to like whatever, yeah, I said that they split.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
She just got her own.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Maybe she was like I had to put up with
him living here, so which is really sad because he died.
But but the heartache didn't stop there for Lida, because
in October of the very same year, Robert came down
with the same symptoms as Ed previously had.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Stop you can't stop tainting that meat, so I need
step thing taint he cut that. Nope, did not happened.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
So he had the nausea, of the cramping, the diarrhea, weakness,
all of the things. Sadly, Robert passed on October twelfth,
nineteen fifteen, of typhoid fever. Okay, I've heard about that
Solida lost her daughter, husband, and brother in law all
in the same year.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's really sad.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Homegirl helled the world's worst luck. Yeah, but Leida didn't
let her woes hold her back. One article even said
Leida never seemed to have a problem with moving on.
It went on to say she exerted a mesmerizing force
over the people around her, attracting men from and deport
and even feral animals to herself.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
What did she have a raccoon? I don't know, but
I have more questions about the feral animals. That's what
I'm saying. That's the only reason I included this from
the article on the feral animals. I know, like feral cats.
I don't know raccoons. Squirrels are just hanging out. I
bought a squirrel call at the Woodsman's Real Ding because

(19:23):
lady was like, well, I got it for Tim. I
want to give it to Tim. But it was like
the most random thing. And then the person I was
there with was like, are you we hold I like
took out money to buy it. They're like, what are
you doing? You need a squirrel hall? Like what the hell?
And I was like, yeah, for my buddy Tim. Yeah.
And also and it's hilarious. But it looks kind of

(19:45):
like a buck and the deal. Honestly, you know what
it looks like? A squirrel call? Yeah, yeah, I've used
them before. Have you never done squirrel hunting? No? I have. Hi,
I'm from the Midwest, the high great normal thing, okay,
And I thought this was normal thing. No. I thought
it was hilarious. And then it was in my purse.
In my purse was like getting full because I got
the book. I had someone sunglasses like like random stuff

(20:11):
and I was just like cramling. And then that's the
last thing they got put in there, and I opened
up my purse to pay for something else, and there's
just like looks in my purse. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
I actually bought Connor one when he was like five,
and then I decided against.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
It because because it's annoying. Yes, anyway, but yeah, that's
that's funny. Sorry, I don't know what I read last
you read animals. I really wish there was more, Like,
tell me more, do wish she hanging out with chipmunks?
Like she like a witch or a Disney friends prince?
I love you? Is she friends? Okay? All right?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Anyways, moving on from the Farrell Okay, So nevertheless, two
years later, Lyda met William mc halfle okay, and in
June of nineteen seventeen, Ida married William. But tragedy was
again right around the corner corner for Lida. Not long
after the couple married, William's three year old daughter passed

(21:09):
away unexpectedly. So in search of a fresh start and
with the life insurance monies and sale of the ranch
that Robert and his brother previously owned, Lida and William
moved to Montana, okay, But again Beth would haunt Lida.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
When William caught the.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Influenza and diphtheria during the peak of the nineteen eighteen
global Splanish Splanish Spanish flu pandemic and late or in
Lee September is when he caught it of that year,
so nineteen eighteen September he got the influenza. So he

(21:48):
too suffered from symptoms like crampsteria, fatigue, all of the
things you have with the flu.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
And diarrhea with just the regular flu. I think some
people do.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
I think like when like some people like when they
get viewers and stuff, like your stomach gets all.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Fucked send us an email us now. Oh seriously, I'm
not opening any emails. I don't.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, this is why I don't owpen emails, because I
don't want to know about your shit. So William, unfortunately
did not survive the illness and passed away on October
first of that year, just four months after the pair headwed.
Lida was again left a widow for the second time.
She was able to collect a five hundred dollars life
insurance policy after William passed, though, which is still a

(22:30):
decent amount of money in today's money's at around eleven
thousand dollars, and Lighta didn't waste any time moving on
this time around, either, who is time to grieve a
husband you've known probably less than a year, you know, Like.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, they say when you break up, you get like
what a month of grieving the relationship per year?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I mean, yeah, did she really even have time to
get to know this husband? Because okay, they literally got
married and then he died four months later.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Would be sad if it wasn't rough on rats rough
on husbands. I don't know what you're talking about. So far,
we've had everybody listening knows what rough on rats rough
on husbands mean've had We've had contaminated water, we've had
food poisoning, typhoid.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Now it's Spanish influenza. Well that was a pandemic, yes, so,
and he caught it in the peak of that pandemic.
Her next husband's about to die from the Great Molasses
Flood when she moves to Boston.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
That's the next year. What else can happen? Anyhow?

Speaker 2 (23:27):
In March of nineteen nineteen, Leida married a car salesman
from Billings, Montana. His name was Harlan Lewis Harlan, just
five months after William had passed.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Okay, so husband number three, oh wait, married married just
five months after what he's a red flag.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Her getting remarried immediately after all of her husband's dying, well,
I mean she didn't have time to know.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
That was also a red flag, is what I mean.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
I agree, But he probably had maybe he had a
kid that needed to be taken care of, so he's
you know what I mean, Like, I feel like it's
that time fra him the like and also everybody's dying
from all of the different wild illnesses that you can contract.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
So like, you might as well get married asap, just
in case that happens. Well, I mean in her outlook
in life. Yeah, okay, So, as I said, just five
months after william And died, she met and married Harlan.
I like that name.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
I don't dislike it. But death, the thief of all joy,
wasn't done with Leida yet. Unfortunately, just four months after
wedding Harlan, he fell ill with the same symptoms of
abdominal pain, weakness, and diarrhea. Sadly, Harlan too did not
survive his run end with sickness. His death was listed
as gastro enteritis AKA and infection in the gastro intestinal track,

(24:39):
which again also a very common.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Illness of that time.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Thankfully, though, LTA was able to collect a five thousand
dollars life insurance policy for Harlan. And that's just shy
of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, okay in today's moneies.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Why did he have so much life insurance?

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Maybe maybe because he's car salesman, so you could afford
more or different life insurance. I don't know how those
policies worked back in that time. I just know that
they were very easy to take out on people and
easy to collect on That's all I know about.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
I wonder if any of these people knew that they
had them taken out on themselves. I do believe that
they were aware.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
So after losing her third husband, Lida decided to pack
it up and move back to Idaho.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
So the same area. No, so she was current. She
met Harlan and Billings, Montana. Yeah, but she's going back
to the same area. Oh yeah, sorry, yes, so she's
going back the death started.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Well, this is where her family is, her eleven billion
siblings and.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Every everyone fucking watch out. Oh I just said that.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
So there, Leida started going by Anna Mae Mhalfel, which
was the third husband's last name and where it was
her middle names, because multiple middle names. Why she decided
to drop Lena, I don't know, type of cartoon.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
It took me too long to understand that one. I
should stand.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
I can't decide if it's just how I say it
or I don't know. Okay, okay, so I'm still going.
She started going by anime, but I'm all, I'm just
gonna stick with Lda because I'm not going to confuse myself.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
We all know that will happen. So anyho.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
After moving back home, Lida met and married ranch foreman
Edward Meyer.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
So again, just okay, quickly, but yeah, you have to again. Yeah,
you don't have time because you can't bang if you
don't get married. That's true.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
So you don't want to be sinners, right and I
don't want that. No, So yeah, I mean, might as
well just get married so you can fuck.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Andrew all this. She doesn't she had that one one
daughter that passed away area.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, yeah, so the wedded bliss with Edward wouldn't lasts
more than a month.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
I'm beginning to think maybe she should.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Be called Typhoida because husband number four also suddenly felt
ill and succumb to typhoid.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well that's only two, right, but like everybody else had
the same symptoms, is basically whatever the doctor feels like
writing down is okay, you think everyone had typhoid. I
think it's a possibility. I think everyone had cyanide.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Two husbands that's far have died from typhoid. Okay, so
everybody's dying from typhoid, typhoid, lidas whatever she is now.
So after the unfortunate death of Lyda's fourth husband, she
started to draw the attention of a chemist named Earl Dooley,
because how unlucky can a girl get?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Right, I was assuming that nobody really connected all those
because she was moving around and then she changed her
name and yeah and all that. Like, so Earle was
a close relative to Lighta's first husband, Robert, and once
she had moved back and had husband number four die
that and then he found out his husband number four,
yeah that's now died, and then he was like, cool,

(27:56):
I'm going to get back to my notes so I
don't mess up what I say next.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Sorry, but yeah, I think I do think it only
drew his attention because he was related to husband number one.
So Earl with the help of a doctor and another chemist,
took it upon themselves to start digging around for more
information on what could have really happened to his family members. So,
now what happened next is or the order of it

(28:19):
is kind of up in the air a little bit.
So I'm just going to give you the information and
then you can choose how it falls for you.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
So some articles claim that Earl first went to the
farm that Robert and his brother Ed had owned and
tested the soil along with the doctor and the other chemist,
and in that soil they found trace amounts of arsenal.
So some of the articles said that the Entrance companies
were the ones that first raised the alarm bells after

(28:49):
she collected so many policies on dead husbands. Okay, either way,
the Twin Falls authorities had their attention drawn to Lida
and the string of unfortun husbands that she So the
Twin Falls County Prosecutor Frank Stephen then opened a formal
investigation and ordered the exhumation of three bodies Leida's first

(29:13):
husband Robert, his brother Ed, and baby Lorraine. Both Robert
and Ed came back positive with varying levels of arsenic.
One article said that Robert had enough arsenic and his
body to kill like five guys kicks a lot, and
then the the bodies were also pretty well preserved because
of the amount of arsenic in their bodies.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
La, Yeah, a lot.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
So I couldn't find for certain if Lorraine tested positive
or not. One article said that all three bodies had
tested positive for arsenic, while another one said that Lorraine's
results were inconclusive, so it's up in the air on
whether she was actually poisoned or whether she related just
die from contaminated water. Even Lighta's cookware tested positive for arsnack.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Was she not washing it? I don't know, but apparently
like she's just fucking microdosing herself. At the same time
she's like, I will become stronger.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, Like she had to have obviously been consuming some
of it herself, like not intentionally obviously, but.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
How many pots and pans did she have? Probably not
very many all the time, don just soap wasn't invented yet,
So a warrant was issued for Lighta's arrest, but Leighta
had already skipped down naturally right, So when searching Lighta's home,
deputy's shareff Virgil Wormsby found a barrel containing a foot
high stack of flight paper. At this point in time,

(30:42):
flight paper had arsenic in it that could be easily
extracted by simply boiling or soaking the paper to leach.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Out the chemical. How did she learn that? Right? Because
she was nineteen when she married her first husband, right
that died? How did she learn that? Same question?

Speaker 2 (30:58):
I have the same question, like, and also, so she
was such a charming person that you know, they all
said already said how charming and nice and everything.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
She was, But she obviously had a fucking screw.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Loose because she immediately started killing people when she became
an adult. Like what was she doing during that childhood
that people were missing?

Speaker 1 (31:21):
And not?

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Like you know what I mean, because she didn't just
go crazy at nineteen.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
She had to been doing shit prior to that.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
If you ask me something, did any of her eleven
siblings die mysteriously?

Speaker 1 (31:32):
I wish I could have found that. I didn't look
into it, But I didn't wish I could have found that.
Did I look into it? No? I meant like I
feel like it would have been mentioned articles. Yeah, So
I'm wondering if, like, the loss of her daughter triggered
something like like, fuck, I'm killing everybody, possibly because I
kind of lean towards like maybe she didn't actually do
I don't know, there's no telling, like because who knows

(31:54):
what or why she right? I just mean, like I
could see that being a trigger.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Didn't her brother in law die for I thought that
her daughter was the first one. Let me, I'm gonna
hand a highlight where it was so I don't lose
this one. Let me scroll back super quick married.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, you're right, the daughter did die first, So maybe
that was a trigger point for her that she's like.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Cool, I'm killing everybody now, right. Anyhow, So, like I said,
she was using or supposedly she was using the flight
paper to extract the arsenic to poison people. So while
the hunt Forlida was underway, her other husbands were also
exhumed and tested for artsnack all showing signs of the poisoning.

(32:35):
When Lida was finally located, she had made it all
the way to Honolulu, and she had already married husband
number five.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
And they found her and she's had like a stack
of flight paper soaking in water. What are you soaking
this for?

Speaker 2 (32:50):
So Paul Southard was a Navy man who was stationed
there in Honolulu, Okay. Unfortunately for Lida, when she requested
that Paul take out a life insurance policy, he refused,
not because he didn't want to leave his new bride
with anything should something happen to him, but just that
if something were to happen to him, she would get

(33:10):
government benefits, because.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
He's as, I'm not going to waste the money on that.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right, So he's like, why would we need to do
that when you were already going to be the beneficiary
should something happen to me, you.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Know, And that's straight from the government.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
So luckily for Paul, Leida was arrested in May of
nineteen twenty one, eight months after her fourth husband had
died and before he could contract something like typhoid as
well from Lida.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Right, because it's typhoid. It's all an accident, yeah, which
is just typhoid Leida. So Paul was not happy about
the arrest and he made his protest known. Alida was
of course taken back to Idaho and charged with the
murder of husband number four, Edward Meyer, but not the
first one and the brother in law no I didn't
see anything any mention of why she wasn't tried with

(33:58):
any of the other murders. But she was only ever
tried for this murder. Okay. Maybe they were like by
with the possible resources on that, Like we know she
did that, so her sentence isn't gonna change. Yeah, just
just wait, okay.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
So the trial started October third of nineteen twenty one
and lasted six weeks. It was, of course a spectacle,
and Lida was given the nickname Lady Bluebeard, okay, which
I guess is to draw off the French folk tale
of a murderous husband who kept the bodies of his wives. Yeah,
the heuse okay, just for anybody else who didn't.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
So Paul stood by Lighta's side during the trial, still
denying that his wife could have done what she was
accused of. Leta was quoted as saying, don't you think
I have a dear husband to stick by.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Me like this? I mean, maybe gullible would be a
better naive.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
She trusting, but I don't understand what she had going
on to Like if she were a man, I would
say that she's got the good dick, but I don't
know she's a lady, but she's doing something to and
maybe she was a witch because she's had these guys
fucking head over heels for her.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
The magical vagina like Sharon Kinney.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe maybe she has that. Maybe
it's the arsenic, Maybe it's arsnic. Yeah, maybe it's Mabelene.
So her parents also supported her and stood by her
side and saying, you know, thinking that she could not
have done what she was accused of. It was said
that the upwards of one hundred and fifty witnesses recalled
over the course of weeks to testify. At the trial,

(35:28):
Leida tried to make the case that she was a
carrier of typhoid and had sadly just passed it on.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
To her husband. Where did the arsenic come from? I listen,
she had fled the flies, She had to control the
flies at the house, so like she needed the fly beaper. Yeah,
but I thought then in the body is not from typho.
It was pass No, this was cross contamination. It was
purely accidental. So she accidentally gave them arsenic poisoning and typhoid.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
No, she just accidentally gave them the typhoid. She's claiming
nothing to do with the arsenic.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Where did the arsenic come from Leida get in their body?
And the cookie utensils?

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I'm literally everything, How are you cross contaminating everything?

Speaker 1 (36:08):
She was like, you can't cook with that? Are you serious? Right?
She's like, I didn't know I got married at nineteen.
Nobody told me a defense.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, And I think hilarious to just be like, oh no,
I'm just a carrier of typhoid. And I continuously kept
marrying and spreading it even though I thought that this
was a possibility, because she obviously didn't.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
I just think it's stupid. Yeah, because there's arsenic in
the bodies.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
And yes, at very high levels, right preservation levels.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
She mummified that literally.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
So a shoppaper from Montana was brought in to testify
about selling a very large quantity of arsenic laced flight
paper to Lida to like counter this defense of she
just had the typhoid, should.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Bind in bulk? Yeah, I mean you know they're are
on sale.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, you never know when you're in a need a
huge stack of flat paper. So, after twenty three hours
of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
And he guesses not guilty.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
No, surprisingly, Lido was found guilty of second degree murder
of Edward Meyer has been number four.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
She was sentenced to ten years to like what shut
the fuck up? Yeah? Ten years ten years to life.
Paul filed for divorce after Lida's conviction.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
One article said that it wasn't until like years later though,
in like nineteen twenty eight, so like he didn't even
mean It's not like she like she got convicted.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
He's like, oh fuck, goodbye.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
No, she's somehow still cut him around until like nineteen
twenty eight, okay, and she tried in what I say,
twenty one. Also, it's like he married her newer for
I don't know, we'll say a few months, and now
his name is forever tied to a serial killer, right,
that's okay?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
I matchin yeah, I mean no, I said yeah, but
I meant.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
No simply because you accidentally married a serial killer and
didn't didn't know wild So. While locked up at the
Idaho State Penitentiary, Leida again poured on the charm of
any man who would pay attention to her.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
I guess she's stuck up.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Struck up a pen pal relationship with fellow inmate David
Minton and also charmed the prison guards.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Who's David Minton? Just another inmate at the penitentiary? There?
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (38:16):
I didn't see what he did. This is around the
time that you called me this morning. I didn't see
what he did. Just there was no mention, just that
he was also in the prison at the same time,
and that she started to be a pin and pal,
you know, thing with him.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
David Minton, owen, I you don't just lie to stuff.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
That's what I figured. So, like I said, she was
charming anybody. She could have struck up the relationship with Evid.
She even convinced one guard to bring her a saw
in extra bed sheets, and on May fourth, nineteen thirty one,
three weeks after her new found love David was released,

(38:55):
I put her plan into motion. She used the saw
to remove a bar from her window and then use
the sheets to climb down to David waiting on her outside.
Police of course, searched for the couple, but it wasn't
until July when they got their first real lead from.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
None other than David. Did he tattletale? He did? Because
it turns out Lida was just using David and didn't
really want anything to do with him, so she ditched
him and married husband numbers shot the fuck up.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, she's like cool, thanks for helping me bust out
of prison. You're not what I need because you are
also an enemy. I need somebody else who has money.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
You're so not my type. You're poor, You're not my type.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Because clearly she can't get money from him. So Lda
married husband number six, as I said, and his name
was Harry Whitlock. Lyda met Harry when she became his
housekeeper out in Denver, Colorado.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Harry was a wealthy widow who lived with his mother
or youan son.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Not long after Lida started working for the family, Harry's
mother fell ill and passed away from gastric.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Ailments is all it's said the typhoid. Yes, because that's
what she's claiming. She was writing to everyone. Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Soon after, Harry married Lida and took out a life
insurance policy listing her as the beneficiary tail ass as
time yep, her regularmo. So Lida saw in the paper
that she was a wanted woman, so she fled to Topeka, Kansas.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Luckily for Harry. I was gonna say, so Harry was
like Harry survived, I have a runaway bride. Okay, I
totally skipped over her being caught. I didn't put that pardon.
She was obviously caught.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Harry promptly had the Mary ginal because he realized he
was married to a literal ceral.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Well.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Lda was of course sent back to the Idahope Penitentiary,
where she once again used her charm to get what
she wanted. This time it was with the warden. So
she had convinced Warden George Rudd to grant her trustee
status even though she had previously escaped and possibly murdered somebody.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Wall out, Yeah, what the heck?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
He warden would allow Lida to leave the prison for
things like movies, no, the spa?

Speaker 1 (41:03):
What even driving her to see her mother? Was she
banging this guy? She banged the principal? Like? The prison
had to have been right right the words like the principal.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yes, she had to be right yeah like and like
I said, he would even drive her to go visit
her mother and leave her there on supervised for hours.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Feels illegal? It does.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Homegirl is even allowed to hang curtains in her cell
and put up flowered wallpaper.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Oh so Leto was paroled in nineteen forty one. This
should not be allowed, and two years later she was
given a full ass parton from the guvernment. Shut the
fuck up, no joke. I feel like I've said shut
the fuck up like ten times. I told you, Yeah,
why she got paroled? What me?

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Twenty years after going to prison for murder? So she
did have to serve more than ten right, but that's
not even not even counting this point, the time that
she escaped, I didn't see why she had the pardon.
She was probably stuck in his stick too. Honestly, I
don't know she's Yeah. So, despite being one of America's
first female serial killers, homegirls still got a pardon.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
But she wasn't finished there, obviously. She met and married
yet another wealthy man named Howel Shaw. Howell disappeared. Howell
how h l howl. You're saying Howell like the show
after it really did not do me any any favors.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
How okay, how disappeared two years later and was never
seen again. So of where he disappeared to concerns, I
have concerns. Husband number six gone okay? But she Lida
later moved to Salt Lake City, working again as a
housekeeper for a well off bachelor, and on February fifth,

(42:46):
nineteen fifty eight, Lida suffered a heart attack while walking
home with groceries and died.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
I will be so fucking pissed if I die on
my way home from I was looking Ali.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
I literally was thinking that, and I'm like, oh, that's funny,
because you were just going groceries.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah. Crazy.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
So an autopsy was obviously done on her, and it
revealed that she had no hair on her body, likely
due to the exposure from all of the arsenic I
don't know she lived so long.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Because she was microdosing that whole time.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
So her gravestone reads Anna Shaw since technically she was
married that sixth time, and she I'm assuming they probably
didn't use her first name.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
I love last words.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
My brain's just like, nope, we're done, just to not
draw attention to it. Yeah, probably, she and like, if
you look her up, for some reason, a husband number
five was husband number five, the navy guy, right was
the guy?

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah? Yeah, so Paul Southard, Like, if you look her up,
it's always light of Southard. Like for some reason, they
stuck with her name. Maybe that's because who she was
married to when she got arrested maybe like all the Yeah,
if you try to look her up, it's not even
her her actual married name. Yeah. So yeah, that is

(44:08):
the case of idahose first Idaho. I know again my
brain dish, that's the first serial killer in Idaho, I
do believe.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
So that's crazy and one of America's late first female
serial killers.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Not the first, right, yeah, because how many other I
mean I have a lot, especially go back to like
the wild wet days like yeah, but yeah, I'm like,
I'm still hung up on the whole like how did
she know to do that with the flight? That's what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
Like, and she was a literal like newborn adult when
she just what was her mom teaching all of those
if you don't like your husband, just do this. Mom
obviously liked her husband. She produced eleven children. There were
girling craps and babies. But yeah, that was that's crazy. Yeah,

(45:04):
and I don't know's twisty and tourney. I never covered this.
I should have covered it sooner, but yeah, it was.
It was a fascinating one, all right. So my sources
are there are two medium dot com articles, one from
Delaney Bartlett and one from Eve Evans. There was a
from Boise dot com.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Article didn't say who wrote it. They used that one
for a lot of the information.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
And then there's another Boise article from Anna Daily, and
there's obviously murder Pedia, Wikipedia, the obvious.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
She was a straight up murderer. That was light as
other crazy. I never heard of the flypaper thing. Yeah,
I hadn't really either, because and out of all of
the cases that I've covered like this, I think that's
the first time that I've talked about flypaper.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
So she wasn't even doing the regular rough on rats.
She was just like, I'm going to do it my
with my paper and ruin all of my cook wear
while doing it.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yeah, you gotta wash that shit off, huh.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Or like, have a specific pot for your Arsnick, don't
be eating out of that ship.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, don't be eating out of that ship. Yeah. That
was a good one. Well, I mean a bad one.
It's of all the fascinating interesting. That was very interesting.
I don't know what's talking about. Everybody, please wash your
water bottles. Yes, I just washed mine a day ago. Congratulations,
thank you, good work. I have to wash mine so

(46:30):
really every week. This is just my reminder to myself,
like I'm going to go home and wash my water bottle.
But I think that's all we have for this week.
Thanks for listening. Hey Bye, hey bye,