September 16, 2025 • 38 mins
This week Sierra takes us to 1800's Troublesome Creek Kentucky to tell us about the blue Fugate family history and what caused their blue bloodline. Get ready for more science with Sierra twisted humans, this one is crazy! Side note, neither of us heard the mystery banging in the background but it is coming from Sierra's side. Yikes!
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Want more twisted content? Consider joining our Patreon for some welcome goodies and 100+ bonus episodes ready for you to unlock. Your support truly means the world to us.
https://www.patreon.com/twistedanduncorked
You can buy us a drink on Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/twistedpod
Watch on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@twistedanduncorked
Follow us on all of the socials:
Instagram and TikTok @twistedanduncorked
Facebook @twistedanduncorkedpodcast
Resources used in todays story:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, twisted humans.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the
latest murder, conspiracy, cult, or haunting.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Than this is the podcast for you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Alicia and I'm Sierra and this is Twisted and Uncorked. Hello,
and welcome to episode to ten of this twisty podcast.
I know I told you that I was covering a
conspiracy episode this week, but the truth is, I'm having
a very hard time fitting myself into boxes. I don't
(00:34):
know if this constitutes a conspiracy. It's not even technically
a crime. No, maybe it should be. But today's story
takes place in the Appalachian Appalachian appellation. We've done this already,
Appalachian Appalachian. I can't tell us.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Both are right. I'm pretty sure you said depending on
the region, both are technically right.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, Well, this place is a whole conspiracy in itself.
So here we are, before we delve deeper. Do you
have a fun fact for me?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
So our show is traditionally about wine and zingrias, as
it started, So my fun fact is wine related in
that a seventy three year old bottle of French Burgundy
became the most expensive wine ever sold at an auction
in twenty eighteen. Going forward, do you want to guess.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The most expensive seventy three year old in twenty eighteen?
That means it's from nineteen twenty five. Sure, maybe sounds
like this is near the time of prohibition, so it's
probably really like fanci Shmanchi. Wait, but it's French, not American. Okay, okay,
(01:48):
I'm gonna guess eighty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Oh my god, I wish five hundred and fifty eight
thousand dollars. Holy, that is more than I paid for
my home.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah. What did someone drink it?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I don't know to be determined. Did it taste.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Like five hundred thousand dollars I needed?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I did it? Originally it was estimated at thirty two
thousand dollars, but I guess because everyone wanted it, it
just drove the price up.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It is insane, Okay, My fun fact.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Have we discussed why veins are blue already?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I think so? Okay, sounds familiar.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I remember in A Bitch and Wine we talked about
how we were told veins were blue in school.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Maybe refreshing because blood? Okay, okay, because look, you can
even see my blue ass veins on this.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I remember we've, like I just said, we talked
about this on Bitch and Wine before. I remember being
in school and hearing, maybe from other kids, maybe from
not so smart adults, that blood is blue before oxygen
touches it. This is not true. Blood is always red.
Very oxygenated blood is bright red. Less oxygenated blood is
(03:15):
dark red or brownish red, and oxygenated here does not
mean it's being touched by oxygen. It means it's carrying oxygen.
That's what blood does, It carries oxygen. The veins in
our bodies are also not blue. If you cut open
a body to see the vein, it would look dark red,
as it is usually carrying blood that has been depleted
(03:36):
of its oxygen and is on its way to be reoxygenated.
The bright oxygenated blood usually lives in the arteries. The
veins without blood in them are actually transparent or like
off whiteish. So why do they look blue? Because of
the way light travels and reacts with our skin. The
(03:56):
other colors of the rainbow are absorbed deeper and scattered,
but the blue light that we see is reflected, and
it's only on the veins. Because of the way the
fats and the tissues lightly surround the veins, giving something
for it to bounce off of. So basically, light is magic.
(04:18):
Life is an illusion, and it's kind of unexplainable. But
I tried, right.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think you did really well. I think we need
to have like we were talking about Bill and I
the Science Guy two weeks ago. I think we need
to have like Science with Sierra. I would watch that show.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Speaking of blue, today's episode pairs well with I forgot
to put down the name of this drink. It doesn't
matter this is it looks kind of purple right now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I promise you.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It is very deep indigo blue, butterfly pea flower tea.
That's what it's called. Butterfly pea flower tea, and marsha
and mint and blueberries metal blueberries at the bottom. It's
a very very blue drink. Because it's a blue drink,
(05:09):
I figured it would only go well in a cup
that would appreciate the blueness, and that is my Tampa
Bay Lightning Stanley Cup Stanley Cup Championship glass.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You're really pretty.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I swear to you it's blue. I promise your blueberries. Afterwards,
I did not oh, they're just floating around in here.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh, mine looks like toilet water with like purple blueberry
skin floaties in there. It's supposed to toilet water. Okay,
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's a good thing, but Kevin made me feel really
insecure about it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
The only difference to mine is that I didn't have
marshmallow root. If I had ordered it, it wouldn't have come
on time. And then I was like, whatever am I
going to use this for? But as a bonus fun fact,
Sierra said, it is actually very good for monstrel craps,
so I need to order some and your gut.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
In general, it's just marshallow art is a very very
good thing to be drinking or eating or whatever. Put
it in like smoothie. It's not tasty, you know. It's
kind of like flax seed. It doesn't taste very good.
You just mix it and shit, Okay. I had to
put a lot of syrup in this to mask the
flavor of the marshall dart. It just tastes like dirt,
(06:24):
all right. It literally tastes like dirt. But the drink
itself is good because it is really good, and I
like the tea.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, blueberries and mint. It's very refreshing. Mine is kind
of like lukewarm because I did brew it shortly before
we recorded this, and it's just more mostly an awkward
temperature now, but it is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
It is still really tasty, very tasty.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It was very serendipitous because I had never heard of
butterfly flour before until I started working at the yoga
studio and I jumped out the tea from the day
before to brew like new tea, and I was like,
why is this fluorescent blue? And then I read the
sign afterwards and I was like, oh, interesting. And then
Sierra told me two days later, She's like, oh, use
(07:09):
that for our recipe. And I'm not gonna lie to you.
When I first pulled up the recipe that you sent me,
I read marshmallow root just as like marshmallow, and I
was like, Oh, what are we making? I was so
offended for like five minutes. Though, Yeah, but with mint
and blueberries?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, probably not.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
It's great in a hot tea, in a hot tea,
cool hot tea, disgusting, but I really like it. And
uh yeah, it's to the spooky season with my witches
brew cup and I'm like, really a true girl, right,
now I have a water, I have our drink, and
I have a coffee. You know, are you are you
really a girl if you're not also a beverage goblin?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Exactly? I have my water as well. In Lousville, Kentucky,
in eighteen six five, a boy named Madison Cowine was
born to his mother Christina and his father William, a
maker of medicines from natural herbs. Madison grew up to
have a love for nature and for mythology, and he
(08:17):
became the first Kentucky poet to earn a national reputation.
He died of apoplexy in nineteen fourteen. Apoplexy, by the way,
just means a sudden stroke, though some sources say that
he had fallen and hit his head in the tub
three days prior, which would have made the death very
(08:37):
less sudden. However, dying of apoplexy sounds much more dramatic,
and I think a poet would appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I agree with that, and dying in the tub new
fear unlocked.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So anyway, Madison Cowine had a grandchild named Madison Cowine,
and today's story is more about him. You can really
tell that Madison had a lot in call with his grandfather, Madison,
because he became a doctor though we started to get
away from natural medicine by his time in the early
(09:09):
to mid nineteen hundreds, and he also became someone who
loved to chase an interesting story. Madison Cowine, like his grandfather,
lived in Kentucky, but by the time he had graduated
and married and started practicing medicine, he started to hear rumors,
maybe just urban legends, of the people living amongst the
(09:32):
hallers of the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky along a waterway
known as Troublesome Creek. The urban legend was about a
little guy who lives in a blue world and all
day and all night, and everything he sees is just blue.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Like him blue.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Okay, just kidding, just kidding, But seriously, the rumors were
about blue people. Okay, that's the true part. The blue
people of Troublesome Creek, to be exact. And though not
many people saw the blue people with their own eyes,
the rumors were one hundred percent true.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh no, I can't handle the fact that there's cave
people up there and now there's blue people.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
There's blue label.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Stay away from these mountains. It's my only advice.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Way back in eighteen twenty, before even Grandpa Madison was born,
a man named Martin Fugate who had come over to
America from France, and an American woman whom he married
named Elizabeth Smith, settled on Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. It's unknown
when exactly the creek got its name, but it became
(10:47):
known as Troublesome Creek because of how troublesome it was
to cross, to maneuver, and to live around. It would
flood unexpectedly, making it quite dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, unexpect and flooding is no space for a home.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But there's a strong possibility that the Fugates knew all
of these things about the creek that would eventually be
called Troublesome, And if they knew, then maybe that's exactly
why they decided to settle there to be secluded. Elizabeth
was described as a very fair, pale, really redheaded woman,
(11:23):
while Martin Fugate, it turns out, was blue. Literally, his
skin was blue. And when they had children seven of them,
three were pale redheads and four were also very blue.
Martin Fugate seemed by others to be embarrassed of the
(11:43):
blueness on his skin, so he stayed pretty secluded. But
his kids were just kids. They went out to play,
they traveled to town to try to make friends. They
had no reason to feel embarrassed by who they were
until society gave them a reason. Other Kentuckians were surprised,
to say the least, by the children with blue skin.
(12:05):
They didn't make many friends, and while they weren't necessarily mocked,
they were definitely talked about. Everyone wanted to know why
those kids were literally blue. I mean fair enough. They
also didn't know why they were blue, and probably were curious.
But these poor kids had rumors and legends created about
them due to this.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
If they learned anything about wicked children are not fair
to those who are different colors. Yeah, it's not nice.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Some people thought that whatever the blue skin condition was
was contagious, so they'd stay away from the blue fugates
or tell their kids to stay away. Some people were
straight up racist and assumed that anyone who didn't look
like them was no good. Some thought that the blue
fugates could fall over and die at any minute from
some heart or lung disorder, and they just didn't want
(12:56):
any part of a dying kid.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That is, I should get involved. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Others thought the family were cursed or even were some
sort of evil devil worshippers, and that the blue skin
was their punishment from God. It didn't help that the
blue fugate blood. It didn't help that the blue fugate's
blood ran like chocolate, thick and brown whenever they had
(13:24):
a small cut. So clearly popa Fugate had the right
idea about staying secluded. Society is awful, and the awfulness
eventually led to the children to become recluse as well. Luckily,
Elizabeth's more extended family moved nearby, so the kids had
cousins and aunts and uncles to mingle with and also
(13:49):
to procreate with because they couldn't find anyone else cousins
that's situation. Guys come on, aunts and nephew who were
close in age began their own families together. But as
more and more family members were born, more and more
people came out with blue skin, until a whole clan
(14:12):
of incestual blue Fugates lived among Troublesome Creek, only going
into town on occasion to grab necessities that they couldn't
grow or forage on their own. These are the stories
that Madison Cowline heard through the grapevine. Blue people people
who must have something wrong with them, and as a doctor,
(14:34):
he was determined to find out what that something was
and how to cure it. A popular medical explanation for
blue skin even today is algeria, which is caused by silver.
People working in industrial settings with prolonged exposure to silver,
or people who ingest silver often can experience argeria. This
(14:59):
is when sil particles bind to proteins in the skin.
It literally dyes your skin and it cannot be fixed. This, though,
is usually gray, silvery blue. The blue fugates were very blue.
Some even called indigo, like smurf blue, like more than
(15:20):
smurf blue, like purple blue, like this drink right here,
Well that's actually really purple now, But it's blueish.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I don't know why at all.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's I swear to you. In the front of my
face it is blue. I see blue, but I don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
The video, what does it look like in the photo?
Did you take a photo?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I did. It looked bluer, but I believe things with
the veins.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Okay, light is magic.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Light is magic. Everything is an illusion. So originally, Cawine
was able to find a bit of information in a
medical text about a similar case of blue skin among
Native people in Alaska, which at least confirmed for him
that it was possible for these people to exist, as
he had never seen them with his own eyes, that is,
until his curiosity got the best of him and he
(16:15):
decided to hunt for them in the nineteen sixties. It's
a little dramatic, Okay, I still got Grandpa Poet in
my head, all right, literally, but he was creepy about it, Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
In the nineteen or sixties heard which you should not
be hunting for either, But you know what I mean,
wrong with people.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
In the nineteen sixties, Caline decided to drive through all
of the towns nearby Troublesome Creek. He stopped in at
little stores and doctor's offices, asking has anyone seen blue
people around? When he finally found someone in town that
had seen blue people before, I guess that he trusted
(16:57):
because anybody could say yes. He moved in to this town.
He's like, all right, if you've seen a blue person,
I'm going to live here.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And then he waited until he saw them himself, Like
I mean at a doctor's office. He was a doctor, okay,
but he started working at a doctor's office in that
town waiting for.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Blue people to come a person.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Okay, it's weird, but whatever, little stalker ish it did work, though,
and eventually two blue siblings came into the doctor's office
one day where doctor Cowine had been waiting, and immediately
he spoke with them about their blueness, eventually learning that
they very much wanted to not be blue, and he
(17:39):
set out to make that happen. What doctor Cowine discovered
was that both Martin and Elizabeth, way back in eighteen twenty,
had a recessive genetic trait that causes a blood disorder
called metahibaglomininia. It's actually pretty rare to pass on this
(17:59):
genetic trait, but because this family was ostracized since the
beginning of their settling at Troublesome Creek, they only had
each other to procreate with, and so the rarity became
a commonality. The gene was passed on and on and
on until almost all of the Fugate line had blue
skin and chocolate blood. To be clear, it was not chocolate,
(18:22):
but it was brown and thick, and actually that is
the reason why their skin was appearing to be blue.
I am not a doctor, not a doctor, but here
is what I understand from the research that I did.
One of the roles of the blood in your body
is to transport oxygen to all of your cells, including
(18:42):
your skin cells. The genetic mutation made them have a
deficiency of an enzyme or a protein responsible for converting
met hemoglobin to hemoglobin. So basically their blood had just
a little bit of oxygen and it was not even
giving that oxygen to the other cells. So their whole
(19:02):
body looked to be oxygen deficient, but not a dangerous
levels that risk their health. The blue fugates almost all
looked to be pretty old. It was just to levels
that made their blood dark and their skin always look
blue like we see our blue veins. They're what would
(19:23):
be considered blue veins, were so dark like their blood
was brown, so it made everything look blue. Back to
the fun fact. I don't understand it, but that's the
way light works with our body. Once Calwine discovered that.
Once Cawin discovered what was going on, he was able
(19:45):
to figure out how to get that enzyme they were
missing into the blood that allowed the metaemoglobin to be
reduced to normal hemoglobin. Caline suggested a medicine called methline blue,
which basically forces a chemical reaction in the blood to
create the oxygen that they needed. The treatment. Sorry one second, Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
My god, are you doing? My treatment.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Was just a simple injection, and when it was administered,
the blue few gates would turn pink.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
What that's wild? Pink?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Unfortunately color yes, okay, unfortunately for the few gates Unlike
my color changing tea. Get on YouTube if you missed it,
they were only pink for a short while and quickly
turned blue again. Now, before I continue, I want to
explain to you the chemical reaction that just happened in
my cup, because the lighting in the video is just
(20:56):
not good enough. But if you have butterfly pea flower
tea and you add citrus to it, it does turn pink.
I just added lemon juice to my tea to turn
it from blue to pink. That's why this drink was
perfect for today. So the blue fugates turning quote unquote
pink again was not a quick fix. It was something
(21:17):
they would have to treat forever if they wanted everlasting change.
And so a pill was developed, and while there was
a seemingly temporary side effect of blue urine, at least
the Fugate line could be mixed with people of other
gene pools because they now had the confidence to go
out and meet new people now that they looked not blue. Eventually,
(21:42):
no more blue people were born amongst the family. The
genetic mutation had receded back to a rarity. And this
is the story I needed to tell you, the interesting
story of the blue people of Troublesome Creek, which, going
back to my fun fact, might be why some people
used to think that blood blue until it touched oxygen. Again,
(22:02):
not true, but I can understand how it's confusing because
oxygenated blood looks redder than non oxygenated blood, but it
has nothing with touching oxygen.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
In science's defense, they used to clean up blood at
crime scenes thinking it was getting in the way. So
what did they know back then? Really very true.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Now, before we continue, I need to take you on
a side quest from this story. Okay, because learning about
the story, I at first thought, Wow, what a dedicated
doctor who went out and helped these people feel good
enough to be included in the world again.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
But then I found out.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Weird stuff about this doctor Madison Cowwine. Not only is
he named for his famous grandfather, not only did he
cure this strange mystery, he is also linked to what
is considered to be one of Lexington, Kentucky's biggest unsolved mysteries,
the coldest case in Kentucky. There wasn't a ton of
(22:59):
easy research on this, and it was just a side
quest for me. So I'm just gonna read you an
article about it, But first let me tell you about
just how cool this article is. This is coming from
Kentucky dot Com and the Lexington Herald Leader. The top
portion here says quote editor's note. As Lexington celebrates the
(23:20):
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its founding, the Harald
Leader in Kentucky dot Com each day throughout twenty twenty
five will share interesting facts about our hometown, compiled by
Liz Carrie. All our notable moments in the city's history,
some funny, some sad, other's heartbreaking or celebratory, and some
(23:41):
just downright strange. End quote. The specific article I'm about
to read to you comes from July twenty fourth, twenty
twenty five. But we should all definitely go look into
more because three hundred and sixty five days of interesting
history is pretty freaking cool. So thank you, Liz Carrie.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I think that's right up the alley for all
of our lefts.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, that's amazing, all right. So Liz Carrie writes it
was a story straight out of a crime show, but
it embroiled the well to do in Lexington. At the
prestigious Idle Hour country Club, the body of a member,
Mary Mars Cowan, was found the day after the country
(24:23):
club's Fourth of July party in nineteen sixty five, slumped
over in her bedroom chair. She had been poisoned. The
investigation into her death, with no resolution to the case,
leaves it as one of Lexington's biggest unsolved mysteries. Mary
and her husband, Madison Cowline, grew up in Lexington and
(24:44):
were both from well known and respected families. Her father
was George Swineboord, a renowned thoroughbred auctioneer. Madison Cowline was
named for his poet grandfather, who was known as the
Keats of Kentucky. The couple met at the University of Kentucky,
and by nineteen forty nine the two were married. Madison
(25:05):
Cowain's career as a doctor specializing in hematology would take
him to Hazard, where he helped to solve the mystery
of the Fugate family, also known as the Blue People
of Kentucky. By July fourth, nineteen sixty five, the pair
had been married for fifteen years. They had a house
on Chino Road and were enjoying the life Madison Cowine's
(25:28):
successful medical practice afforded them. They were close friends with
Sam and Betty Strather, who lived near them. That night,
the Cowains and the Strathers went to the Idle Hour
country Club for the Fourth of July party celebration. Sorry
for the Fourth of July celebration. They allegedly drank quite
a bit that night, racking up a forty dollars bar
(25:49):
tab about four hundred and ten dollars today. Side note,
thank you, Liz Carrey. You knew I was going to
look that up.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that. As a forty dollars bar tab to,
it's pretty normal. Yeah, even if you have like one drink.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Unfortunately, yeah, And and they left the country club around
eleven thirty pm. What happened next was unclear, as the
two couples had a lot to drink the Strather's and
Madison Cowine kept drinking, but Mary Cowine said she wasn't
feeling well and wanted to go home. Sam Strather, who
(26:25):
was already drunk by Ben, drove her home and went
inside with her for another drink. Alarm bells for me
are ringing. Why is someone else's husband taking her home
when her husband is there? Strather called for a taxi
to take the babysitter home. After the babysitter left the
house around one am, Sam's Strather had another beer and
(26:46):
Mary Cowwine poured herself a bourbon. The two then moved
to the only room in the house with air conditioning,
the master bedroom. After a twenty minute chat, Sam Strather
went home. He would later tell police that when he
left the house, Mary Cowine was sitting in her bedroom
chair drinking her bourbon. Madison Cowaine, however, slept off his
(27:08):
overindulgence at the Strather house. When Betty Strather got up
to run errands the next morning, Madison was still asleep.
She called to check on Mary Cowine but got no response. Concerned,
she stopped by to check on her friend. When she arrived,
she called for Mary Cowine, but no one answered. When
she walked into the master bedroom, she found Mary Cowwine,
(27:31):
still clothed in the yellow dress she had warned to
the country club. She was in her armchair, lifeless and
with her head lolled to one side. Mary Cowine was dead.
Betty Strather called her house to rouse Madison Cowine. The
doctor hurried the three blocks from the Strather house to
(27:51):
his own and ran into the bedroom with a cursory
check of his wife. Madison Cowine declared that his wife
had committed suicide. Completed suicide, but that wasn't the end
of the story. An autopsy of Mary Cowan's body found
two fresh needle marks in her thighs. Her blood alcohol
level was just below lethal at zero point four percent.
(28:17):
Doctors determined that Doctors determined the cause of her death
wasn't suicide, but poisoning by carbolic acid. Poisoning carbolic acid
is known as phenol, a compound made from cold tar
used to synthesize plastics. Exposure to phenol can cause coma
(28:38):
or seizures within hours, and ingesting it can cause irregular heartbeat, coma,
and death. Investigators suspected she'd been injected with a knockout
drug and made to drink liquor spiked with phenol. The
question was by whom cops began to dig deep and
uncovered some unsavory and scandalous allegations about Madison Cowine, but
(29:01):
held those facts close to the chest in deference to
Luxington's elite. Now more than fifty years later, the case
is still unsolved and is regarded as an instance where
etiquette and fealty took precedence over the investigation. The police
were called late into the crime scene instead of calling
(29:21):
them upon finding his wife, Madison Cowin called some of
his doctor friends to confirm the death. When they got there,
the scene was already contaminated. Several other people had entered
the room, and Madison Cowine had instructed Sam Stauther to
dump out the glass of bourbon sitting on his wife's
night stand. Six weeks after her death, the coroner declared
(29:43):
the death a homicide. Madison Cowine had spent that time
telling his own version of what had happened. Police overheard
a phone call between the doctor and his mother in
law where he alleged his wife had probably just taken
too many alcaceelcers and gas had built up in her system.
Caused a heart attack. Is a doctor. There's a doctor
saying this. Police eventually charged Madison Cowine in his wife's death.
(30:08):
During grandjury testimony, one witness, doctor Emma Lapat, admitted she
had been Cowine's mistress for two years. However, she said
she ended it when he had had a sexual dalliance
with a patient who was married to another Lexington doctor,
herschel Leetmann. Both Liepman and Lapat told Mary Cawline about
(30:30):
the affairs. Mary Cowine's father testified during trial that she
had been considering the divorce. All three of the doctors
had the skills and the motives to kill Mary Cawline,
but the grand jury did not return any indictment. It did, however,
issue a statement calling out neighbors and others for being busybodies.
(30:51):
After that, the case disappeared into the Colt case files.
Madison Cowin died in nineteen eighty five, and Lexington authorities
fought the release of for years. In two thousand and nine,
Lieutenant James Curlis took interest in the case and decided
to question Lapat, who was still alive at eighty three.
She met Curlis at the door of her home, listened
(31:13):
to his questions and asked what in the world he
was bringing up the sordid mess up again?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Why?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Asked what in the world he was bringing the sordid
mess up again for and closed the door in his face.
With that, the door closed on the investigation and left
Lexington with one of the biggest unsolved mysteries to date.
End quote. So yeah, not a good guy. His grandfather
(31:40):
would be so disappointed, I assume, But here we are
retelling these stories, so maybe not U. Anyway, that was
my delve into Kentucky Appalachia.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I thought that that was so interesting, and I did
google the blue people while you were telling your story.
It is a silvery like dark dark dark blue like
it's almost like they've been cut from like like they
haven't been able to breathe properly for so long. But
they were foll Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, weird. If you look up, I don't know how
you say silver. Papa Smurf probably will help. That's what
argeria looks like. That's what the silvery blue looks like.
It's much different than metahemoglobinemia blue.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Oh true, true true, Okay, that is what came up
for me with silver Papa Smurf okay wild and that
unsolved mystery is also wild and makes me really sad.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I know, and also like I don't know who did it,
but clearly someone yeah, Like why was.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
If it was possible to die from too many Alka
seltzers and have a heart attack, I would have been
gone a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, come on, come on now, guess.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I said, you're eating a spicy omelet.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, that's what burbing and farting is for.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Geez. Yeah, somebody absolutely killed her. Yeah, somebody tried to
take advantage of her and didn't like being rejected.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, And it sounds like it was either the neighbor
and the husband was like, I'm sorry, my wife didn't
let you rape her. Good for you killing her. Get
rid of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, I want to get rid of her too, a
long time ago.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, or the husband just was like, hey, do me
a favor and get rid of her while you take
her home, Like why did her own husband not drive
her home? If the man who was also drunk, why
did her own husband yeah was drunk?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I agree?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Or the woman Why didn't the woman drive? Why was
the husband left alone with a woman and the wife
left alone with a man. It's all weird.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
It's not okay, it's not okay. It's suspect as she
had suspect that great jo. I've never heard of the story.
I'm glad that you know they have found their place
in society. Yeah, but there's no longer ancestual relations happening.
That makes me feel much better because that's never the answer,
(34:17):
even if you're blue, just even if you're blue. I
really liked that. That was interesting, and I would say
that that's conspiracy. I'll yeah, I mean, and the dedication
to just like wait out a sighting of a type
(34:37):
of person that you're looking for, like committing putting all
like way to put all of your eggs in one basket. Literally.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna go and I'm just gonna
go and find out.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I'm just gonna go find these blue people. Yeah. When
you first said hunting, I thought you meant hunting like
hunting to kill, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
My god, yeah, a little dramatic, horrifying.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm glad that that's not the way that that went.
But good job, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Do you have anything happy or just happening in your
life that you want to discuss that you haven't had
a reason to talk about otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I don't know. No, I feel like I'm just like
in survival mode between all of these weird shift schedules. Yeah,
it's been good, though I hope that it continues to
get better because the tips have been good, but not
as good as they could be. So I'm picking up
a couple of extra ships in the meantime on Sundays,
(35:36):
which has made Kevin deeply sad as well. So yeah,
but it's okay. We're getting through. I spent all day
or all night last night reading and having a little
bit of me time, So that's happy and I'm thankful
for That's all I got good. I don't even know
what I did yesterday. Oh and I work out that
(35:59):
was so good that I'm still sore from Sunday as well.
There you go, Mary that sounds fall Filipino lady that
covers our classes sometimes she teaches a hot power cores
on Sundays. Oh sliders. Oh yeah, and I still can't
really use my legs, so that's fun. Hopefully they feel
better tomorrow. Ahl the weast serving's going to be interesting. Yeah,
(36:23):
and the bar that I work at already is like
awkward sized tables, and I feel like I'm too short
for or too tall for, and like because liberally low
ones are really low, so you kind of have to
crouch a little bit. My point being, I don't want
to use my legs more than I have to pray
for me. Fun, fun, what about you? You'll be fine
other than your kid getting a ring stuck on her finger.
(36:46):
Mid recording, ye, mid recording.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
What day does this come out?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
This comes out on Tuesday the sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I don't know if it'll be announced by then yet,
so I'm going to be they But there is another
child being born to my family, and I'm really kind
of excited about it. Is I don't want to like
tell somebody's news that doesn't want it, but fair vegue
is fine.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Babies are always an exciting time. Yeah, yeah, I have
baby fever at all times. Babies are cool. They're just
so dang cute. Like one of the girls that I
work with, her friend came in with her baby and
she's like three months old, and every time I would
walk by the table, she would like smile at me,
and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Stop it right, adorable.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Adorable and it's also funny, like it's like a little
bit of an oxymoron seeing babies in a bar. Yeah,
it's just amusing to me. I don't know why, but
I'm excited for your family and fear more about that. Yeah.
And we will see you guys next week for my
conspiracy episode that's actually happening this time, and in the.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Meantime, keep it twisted.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Twisted and Uncorked is hosted and produced by Cierra Zorn
and Alicia Watson. If you like the show, don't forget
to leave a five star rating and review wherever you
are listening now. It really is the best way to
spread the word. You can check out all things twisted
on our website twisted at uncorked dot com. And we
will see you next Tuesday for a brand new episode.
Hello, twisted humans.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the
latest murder, conspiracy, cult, or haunting.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Than this is the podcast for you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Alicia and I'm Sierra and this is Twisted and Uncorked. Hello,
and welcome to episode to ten of this twisty podcast.
I know I told you that I was covering a
conspiracy episode this week, but the truth is, I'm having
a very hard time fitting myself into boxes. I don't
(00:34):
know if this constitutes a conspiracy. It's not even technically
a crime. No, maybe it should be. But today's story
takes place in the Appalachian Appalachian appellation. We've done this already,
Appalachian Appalachian. I can't tell us.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Both are right. I'm pretty sure you said depending on
the region, both are technically right.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, Well, this place is a whole conspiracy in itself.
So here we are, before we delve deeper. Do you
have a fun fact for me?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
So our show is traditionally about wine and zingrias, as
it started, So my fun fact is wine related in
that a seventy three year old bottle of French Burgundy
became the most expensive wine ever sold at an auction
in twenty eighteen. Going forward, do you want to guess.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
The most expensive seventy three year old in twenty eighteen?
That means it's from nineteen twenty five. Sure, maybe sounds
like this is near the time of prohibition, so it's
probably really like fanci Shmanchi. Wait, but it's French, not American. Okay, okay,
(01:48):
I'm gonna guess eighty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Oh my god, I wish five hundred and fifty eight
thousand dollars. Holy, that is more than I paid for
my home.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah. What did someone drink it?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I don't know to be determined. Did it taste.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Like five hundred thousand dollars I needed?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I did it? Originally it was estimated at thirty two
thousand dollars, but I guess because everyone wanted it, it
just drove the price up.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It is insane, Okay, My fun fact.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Have we discussed why veins are blue already?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I think so? Okay, sounds familiar.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I remember in A Bitch and Wine we talked about
how we were told veins were blue in school.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Maybe refreshing because blood? Okay, okay, because look, you can
even see my blue ass veins on this.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I remember we've, like I just said, we talked
about this on Bitch and Wine before. I remember being
in school and hearing, maybe from other kids, maybe from
not so smart adults, that blood is blue before oxygen
touches it. This is not true. Blood is always red.
Very oxygenated blood is bright red. Less oxygenated blood is
(03:15):
dark red or brownish red, and oxygenated here does not
mean it's being touched by oxygen. It means it's carrying oxygen.
That's what blood does, It carries oxygen. The veins in
our bodies are also not blue. If you cut open
a body to see the vein, it would look dark red,
as it is usually carrying blood that has been depleted
(03:36):
of its oxygen and is on its way to be reoxygenated.
The bright oxygenated blood usually lives in the arteries. The
veins without blood in them are actually transparent or like
off whiteish. So why do they look blue? Because of
the way light travels and reacts with our skin. The
(03:56):
other colors of the rainbow are absorbed deeper and scattered,
but the blue light that we see is reflected, and
it's only on the veins. Because of the way the
fats and the tissues lightly surround the veins, giving something
for it to bounce off of. So basically, light is magic.
(04:18):
Life is an illusion, and it's kind of unexplainable. But
I tried, right.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think you did really well. I think we need
to have like we were talking about Bill and I
the Science Guy two weeks ago. I think we need
to have like Science with Sierra. I would watch that show.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Speaking of blue, today's episode pairs well with I forgot
to put down the name of this drink. It doesn't
matter this is it looks kind of purple right now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I promise you.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It is very deep indigo blue, butterfly pea flower tea.
That's what it's called. Butterfly pea flower tea, and marsha
and mint and blueberries metal blueberries at the bottom. It's
a very very blue drink. Because it's a blue drink,
(05:09):
I figured it would only go well in a cup
that would appreciate the blueness, and that is my Tampa
Bay Lightning Stanley Cup Stanley Cup Championship glass.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You're really pretty.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I swear to you it's blue. I promise your blueberries. Afterwards,
I did not oh, they're just floating around in here.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh, mine looks like toilet water with like purple blueberry
skin floaties in there. It's supposed to toilet water. Okay,
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's a good thing, but Kevin made me feel really
insecure about it.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
The only difference to mine is that I didn't have
marshmallow root. If I had ordered it, it wouldn't have come
on time. And then I was like, whatever am I
going to use this for? But as a bonus fun fact,
Sierra said, it is actually very good for monstrel craps,
so I need to order some and your gut.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
In general, it's just marshallow art is a very very
good thing to be drinking or eating or whatever. Put
it in like smoothie. It's not tasty, you know. It's
kind of like flax seed. It doesn't taste very good.
You just mix it and shit, Okay. I had to
put a lot of syrup in this to mask the
flavor of the marshall dart. It just tastes like dirt,
(06:24):
all right. It literally tastes like dirt. But the drink
itself is good because it is really good, and I
like the tea.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, blueberries and mint. It's very refreshing. Mine is kind
of like lukewarm because I did brew it shortly before
we recorded this, and it's just more mostly an awkward
temperature now, but it is.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
It is still really tasty, very tasty.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It was very serendipitous because I had never heard of
butterfly flour before until I started working at the yoga
studio and I jumped out the tea from the day
before to brew like new tea, and I was like,
why is this fluorescent blue? And then I read the
sign afterwards and I was like, oh, interesting. And then
Sierra told me two days later, She's like, oh, use
(07:09):
that for our recipe. And I'm not gonna lie to you.
When I first pulled up the recipe that you sent me,
I read marshmallow root just as like marshmallow, and I
was like, Oh, what are we making? I was so
offended for like five minutes. Though, Yeah, but with mint
and blueberries?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, probably not.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
It's great in a hot tea, in a hot tea,
cool hot tea, disgusting, but I really like it. And
uh yeah, it's to the spooky season with my witches
brew cup and I'm like, really a true girl, right,
now I have a water, I have our drink, and
I have a coffee. You know, are you are you
really a girl if you're not also a beverage goblin?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Exactly? I have my water as well. In Lousville, Kentucky,
in eighteen six five, a boy named Madison Cowine was
born to his mother Christina and his father William, a
maker of medicines from natural herbs. Madison grew up to
have a love for nature and for mythology, and he
(08:17):
became the first Kentucky poet to earn a national reputation.
He died of apoplexy in nineteen fourteen. Apoplexy, by the way,
just means a sudden stroke, though some sources say that
he had fallen and hit his head in the tub
three days prior, which would have made the death very
(08:37):
less sudden. However, dying of apoplexy sounds much more dramatic,
and I think a poet would appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I agree with that, and dying in the tub new
fear unlocked.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So anyway, Madison Cowine had a grandchild named Madison Cowine,
and today's story is more about him. You can really
tell that Madison had a lot in call with his grandfather, Madison,
because he became a doctor though we started to get
away from natural medicine by his time in the early
(09:09):
to mid nineteen hundreds, and he also became someone who
loved to chase an interesting story. Madison Cowine, like his grandfather,
lived in Kentucky, but by the time he had graduated
and married and started practicing medicine, he started to hear rumors,
maybe just urban legends, of the people living amongst the
(09:32):
hallers of the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky along a waterway
known as Troublesome Creek. The urban legend was about a
little guy who lives in a blue world and all
day and all night, and everything he sees is just blue.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Like him blue.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Okay, just kidding, just kidding, But seriously, the rumors were
about blue people. Okay, that's the true part. The blue
people of Troublesome Creek, to be exact. And though not
many people saw the blue people with their own eyes,
the rumors were one hundred percent true.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh no, I can't handle the fact that there's cave
people up there and now there's blue people.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
There's blue label.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Stay away from these mountains. It's my only advice.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Way back in eighteen twenty, before even Grandpa Madison was born,
a man named Martin Fugate who had come over to
America from France, and an American woman whom he married
named Elizabeth Smith, settled on Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. It's unknown
when exactly the creek got its name, but it became
(10:47):
known as Troublesome Creek because of how troublesome it was
to cross, to maneuver, and to live around. It would
flood unexpectedly, making it quite dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, unexpect and flooding is no space for a home.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But there's a strong possibility that the Fugates knew all
of these things about the creek that would eventually be
called Troublesome, And if they knew, then maybe that's exactly
why they decided to settle there to be secluded. Elizabeth
was described as a very fair, pale, really redheaded woman,
(11:23):
while Martin Fugate, it turns out, was blue. Literally, his
skin was blue. And when they had children seven of them,
three were pale redheads and four were also very blue.
Martin Fugate seemed by others to be embarrassed of the
(11:43):
blueness on his skin, so he stayed pretty secluded. But
his kids were just kids. They went out to play,
they traveled to town to try to make friends. They
had no reason to feel embarrassed by who they were
until society gave them a reason. Other Kentuckians were surprised,
to say the least, by the children with blue skin.
(12:05):
They didn't make many friends, and while they weren't necessarily mocked,
they were definitely talked about. Everyone wanted to know why
those kids were literally blue. I mean fair enough. They
also didn't know why they were blue, and probably were curious.
But these poor kids had rumors and legends created about
them due to this.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
If they learned anything about wicked children are not fair
to those who are different colors. Yeah, it's not nice.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Some people thought that whatever the blue skin condition was
was contagious, so they'd stay away from the blue fugates
or tell their kids to stay away. Some people were
straight up racist and assumed that anyone who didn't look
like them was no good. Some thought that the blue
fugates could fall over and die at any minute from
some heart or lung disorder, and they just didn't want
(12:56):
any part of a dying kid.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That is, I should get involved. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Others thought the family were cursed or even were some
sort of evil devil worshippers, and that the blue skin
was their punishment from God. It didn't help that the
blue fugate blood. It didn't help that the blue fugate's
blood ran like chocolate, thick and brown whenever they had
(13:24):
a small cut. So clearly popa Fugate had the right
idea about staying secluded. Society is awful, and the awfulness
eventually led to the children to become recluse as well. Luckily,
Elizabeth's more extended family moved nearby, so the kids had
cousins and aunts and uncles to mingle with and also
(13:49):
to procreate with because they couldn't find anyone else cousins
that's situation. Guys come on, aunts and nephew who were
close in age began their own families together. But as
more and more family members were born, more and more
people came out with blue skin, until a whole clan
(14:12):
of incestual blue Fugates lived among Troublesome Creek, only going
into town on occasion to grab necessities that they couldn't
grow or forage on their own. These are the stories
that Madison Cowline heard through the grapevine. Blue people people
who must have something wrong with them, and as a doctor,
(14:34):
he was determined to find out what that something was
and how to cure it. A popular medical explanation for
blue skin even today is algeria, which is caused by silver.
People working in industrial settings with prolonged exposure to silver,
or people who ingest silver often can experience argeria. This
(14:59):
is when sil particles bind to proteins in the skin.
It literally dyes your skin and it cannot be fixed. This, though,
is usually gray, silvery blue. The blue fugates were very blue.
Some even called indigo, like smurf blue, like more than
(15:20):
smurf blue, like purple blue, like this drink right here,
Well that's actually really purple now, But it's blueish.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I don't know why at all.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's I swear to you. In the front of my
face it is blue. I see blue, but I don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
The video, what does it look like in the photo?
Did you take a photo?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I did. It looked bluer, but I believe things with
the veins.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Okay, light is magic.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Light is magic. Everything is an illusion. So originally, Cawine
was able to find a bit of information in a
medical text about a similar case of blue skin among
Native people in Alaska, which at least confirmed for him
that it was possible for these people to exist, as
he had never seen them with his own eyes, that is,
until his curiosity got the best of him and he
(16:15):
decided to hunt for them in the nineteen sixties. It's
a little dramatic, Okay, I still got Grandpa Poet in
my head, all right, literally, but he was creepy about it, Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
In the nineteen or sixties heard which you should not
be hunting for either, But you know what I mean,
wrong with people.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
In the nineteen sixties, Caline decided to drive through all
of the towns nearby Troublesome Creek. He stopped in at
little stores and doctor's offices, asking has anyone seen blue
people around? When he finally found someone in town that
had seen blue people before, I guess that he trusted
(16:57):
because anybody could say yes. He moved in to this town.
He's like, all right, if you've seen a blue person,
I'm going to live here.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And then he waited until he saw them himself, Like
I mean at a doctor's office. He was a doctor, okay,
but he started working at a doctor's office in that
town waiting for.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Blue people to come a person.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Okay, it's weird, but whatever, little stalker ish it did work, though,
and eventually two blue siblings came into the doctor's office
one day where doctor Cowine had been waiting, and immediately
he spoke with them about their blueness, eventually learning that
they very much wanted to not be blue, and he
(17:39):
set out to make that happen. What doctor Cowine discovered
was that both Martin and Elizabeth, way back in eighteen twenty,
had a recessive genetic trait that causes a blood disorder
called metahibaglomininia. It's actually pretty rare to pass on this
(17:59):
genetic trait, but because this family was ostracized since the
beginning of their settling at Troublesome Creek, they only had
each other to procreate with, and so the rarity became
a commonality. The gene was passed on and on and
on until almost all of the Fugate line had blue
skin and chocolate blood. To be clear, it was not chocolate,
(18:22):
but it was brown and thick, and actually that is
the reason why their skin was appearing to be blue.
I am not a doctor, not a doctor, but here
is what I understand from the research that I did.
One of the roles of the blood in your body
is to transport oxygen to all of your cells, including
(18:42):
your skin cells. The genetic mutation made them have a
deficiency of an enzyme or a protein responsible for converting
met hemoglobin to hemoglobin. So basically their blood had just
a little bit of oxygen and it was not even
giving that oxygen to the other cells. So their whole
(19:02):
body looked to be oxygen deficient, but not a dangerous
levels that risk their health. The blue fugates almost all
looked to be pretty old. It was just to levels
that made their blood dark and their skin always look
blue like we see our blue veins. They're what would
(19:23):
be considered blue veins, were so dark like their blood
was brown, so it made everything look blue. Back to
the fun fact. I don't understand it, but that's the
way light works with our body. Once Calwine discovered that.
Once Cawin discovered what was going on, he was able
(19:45):
to figure out how to get that enzyme they were
missing into the blood that allowed the metaemoglobin to be
reduced to normal hemoglobin. Caline suggested a medicine called methline blue,
which basically forces a chemical reaction in the blood to
create the oxygen that they needed. The treatment. Sorry one second, Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
My god, are you doing? My treatment.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Was just a simple injection, and when it was administered,
the blue few gates would turn pink.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
What that's wild? Pink?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Unfortunately color yes, okay, unfortunately for the few gates Unlike
my color changing tea. Get on YouTube if you missed it,
they were only pink for a short while and quickly
turned blue again. Now, before I continue, I want to
explain to you the chemical reaction that just happened in
my cup, because the lighting in the video is just
(20:56):
not good enough. But if you have butterfly pea flower
tea and you add citrus to it, it does turn pink.
I just added lemon juice to my tea to turn
it from blue to pink. That's why this drink was
perfect for today. So the blue fugates turning quote unquote
pink again was not a quick fix. It was something
(21:17):
they would have to treat forever if they wanted everlasting change.
And so a pill was developed, and while there was
a seemingly temporary side effect of blue urine, at least
the Fugate line could be mixed with people of other
gene pools because they now had the confidence to go
out and meet new people now that they looked not blue. Eventually,
(21:42):
no more blue people were born amongst the family. The
genetic mutation had receded back to a rarity. And this
is the story I needed to tell you, the interesting
story of the blue people of Troublesome Creek, which, going
back to my fun fact, might be why some people
used to think that blood blue until it touched oxygen. Again,
(22:02):
not true, but I can understand how it's confusing because
oxygenated blood looks redder than non oxygenated blood, but it
has nothing with touching oxygen.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
In science's defense, they used to clean up blood at
crime scenes thinking it was getting in the way. So
what did they know back then? Really very true.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Now, before we continue, I need to take you on
a side quest from this story. Okay, because learning about
the story, I at first thought, Wow, what a dedicated
doctor who went out and helped these people feel good
enough to be included in the world again.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
But then I found out.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Weird stuff about this doctor Madison Cowwine. Not only is
he named for his famous grandfather, not only did he
cure this strange mystery, he is also linked to what
is considered to be one of Lexington, Kentucky's biggest unsolved mysteries,
the coldest case in Kentucky. There wasn't a ton of
(22:59):
easy research on this, and it was just a side
quest for me. So I'm just gonna read you an
article about it, But first let me tell you about
just how cool this article is. This is coming from
Kentucky dot Com and the Lexington Herald Leader. The top
portion here says quote editor's note. As Lexington celebrates the
(23:20):
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its founding, the Harald
Leader in Kentucky dot Com each day throughout twenty twenty
five will share interesting facts about our hometown, compiled by
Liz Carrie. All our notable moments in the city's history,
some funny, some sad, other's heartbreaking or celebratory, and some
(23:41):
just downright strange. End quote. The specific article I'm about
to read to you comes from July twenty fourth, twenty
twenty five. But we should all definitely go look into
more because three hundred and sixty five days of interesting
history is pretty freaking cool. So thank you, Liz Carrie.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I think that's right up the alley for all
of our lefts.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, that's amazing, all right. So Liz Carrie writes it
was a story straight out of a crime show, but
it embroiled the well to do in Lexington. At the
prestigious Idle Hour country Club, the body of a member,
Mary Mars Cowan, was found the day after the country
(24:23):
club's Fourth of July party in nineteen sixty five, slumped
over in her bedroom chair. She had been poisoned. The
investigation into her death, with no resolution to the case,
leaves it as one of Lexington's biggest unsolved mysteries. Mary
and her husband, Madison Cowline, grew up in Lexington and
(24:44):
were both from well known and respected families. Her father
was George Swineboord, a renowned thoroughbred auctioneer. Madison Cowline was
named for his poet grandfather, who was known as the
Keats of Kentucky. The couple met at the University of Kentucky,
and by nineteen forty nine the two were married. Madison
(25:05):
Cowain's career as a doctor specializing in hematology would take
him to Hazard, where he helped to solve the mystery
of the Fugate family, also known as the Blue People
of Kentucky. By July fourth, nineteen sixty five, the pair
had been married for fifteen years. They had a house
on Chino Road and were enjoying the life Madison Cowine's
(25:28):
successful medical practice afforded them. They were close friends with
Sam and Betty Strather, who lived near them. That night,
the Cowains and the Strathers went to the Idle Hour
country Club for the Fourth of July party celebration. Sorry
for the Fourth of July celebration. They allegedly drank quite
a bit that night, racking up a forty dollars bar
(25:49):
tab about four hundred and ten dollars today. Side note,
thank you, Liz Carrey. You knew I was going to
look that up.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that. As a forty dollars bar tab to,
it's pretty normal. Yeah, even if you have like one drink.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Unfortunately, yeah, And and they left the country club around
eleven thirty pm. What happened next was unclear, as the
two couples had a lot to drink the Strather's and
Madison Cowine kept drinking, but Mary Cowine said she wasn't
feeling well and wanted to go home. Sam Strather, who
(26:25):
was already drunk by Ben, drove her home and went
inside with her for another drink. Alarm bells for me
are ringing. Why is someone else's husband taking her home
when her husband is there? Strather called for a taxi
to take the babysitter home. After the babysitter left the
house around one am, Sam's Strather had another beer and
(26:46):
Mary Cowwine poured herself a bourbon. The two then moved
to the only room in the house with air conditioning,
the master bedroom. After a twenty minute chat, Sam Strather
went home. He would later tell police that when he
left the house, Mary Cowine was sitting in her bedroom
chair drinking her bourbon. Madison Cowaine, however, slept off his
(27:08):
overindulgence at the Strather house. When Betty Strather got up
to run errands the next morning, Madison was still asleep.
She called to check on Mary Cowine but got no response. Concerned,
she stopped by to check on her friend. When she arrived,
she called for Mary Cowine, but no one answered. When
she walked into the master bedroom, she found Mary Cowwine,
(27:31):
still clothed in the yellow dress she had warned to
the country club. She was in her armchair, lifeless and
with her head lolled to one side. Mary Cowine was dead.
Betty Strather called her house to rouse Madison Cowine. The
doctor hurried the three blocks from the Strather house to
(27:51):
his own and ran into the bedroom with a cursory
check of his wife. Madison Cowine declared that his wife
had committed suicide. Completed suicide, but that wasn't the end
of the story. An autopsy of Mary Cowan's body found
two fresh needle marks in her thighs. Her blood alcohol
level was just below lethal at zero point four percent.
(28:17):
Doctors determined that Doctors determined the cause of her death
wasn't suicide, but poisoning by carbolic acid. Poisoning carbolic acid
is known as phenol, a compound made from cold tar
used to synthesize plastics. Exposure to phenol can cause coma
(28:38):
or seizures within hours, and ingesting it can cause irregular heartbeat, coma,
and death. Investigators suspected she'd been injected with a knockout
drug and made to drink liquor spiked with phenol. The
question was by whom cops began to dig deep and
uncovered some unsavory and scandalous allegations about Madison Cowine, but
(29:01):
held those facts close to the chest in deference to
Luxington's elite. Now more than fifty years later, the case
is still unsolved and is regarded as an instance where
etiquette and fealty took precedence over the investigation. The police
were called late into the crime scene instead of calling
(29:21):
them upon finding his wife, Madison Cowin called some of
his doctor friends to confirm the death. When they got there,
the scene was already contaminated. Several other people had entered
the room, and Madison Cowine had instructed Sam Stauther to
dump out the glass of bourbon sitting on his wife's
night stand. Six weeks after her death, the coroner declared
(29:43):
the death a homicide. Madison Cowine had spent that time
telling his own version of what had happened. Police overheard
a phone call between the doctor and his mother in
law where he alleged his wife had probably just taken
too many alcaceelcers and gas had built up in her system.
Caused a heart attack. Is a doctor. There's a doctor
saying this. Police eventually charged Madison Cowine in his wife's death.
(30:08):
During grandjury testimony, one witness, doctor Emma Lapat, admitted she
had been Cowine's mistress for two years. However, she said
she ended it when he had had a sexual dalliance
with a patient who was married to another Lexington doctor,
herschel Leetmann. Both Liepman and Lapat told Mary Cawline about
(30:30):
the affairs. Mary Cowine's father testified during trial that she
had been considering the divorce. All three of the doctors
had the skills and the motives to kill Mary Cawline,
but the grand jury did not return any indictment. It did, however,
issue a statement calling out neighbors and others for being busybodies.
(30:51):
After that, the case disappeared into the Colt case files.
Madison Cowin died in nineteen eighty five, and Lexington authorities
fought the release of for years. In two thousand and nine,
Lieutenant James Curlis took interest in the case and decided
to question Lapat, who was still alive at eighty three.
She met Curlis at the door of her home, listened
(31:13):
to his questions and asked what in the world he
was bringing up the sordid mess up again?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Why?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Asked what in the world he was bringing the sordid
mess up again for and closed the door in his face.
With that, the door closed on the investigation and left
Lexington with one of the biggest unsolved mysteries to date.
End quote. So yeah, not a good guy. His grandfather
(31:40):
would be so disappointed, I assume, But here we are
retelling these stories, so maybe not U. Anyway, that was
my delve into Kentucky Appalachia.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I thought that that was so interesting, and I did
google the blue people while you were telling your story.
It is a silvery like dark dark dark blue like
it's almost like they've been cut from like like they
haven't been able to breathe properly for so long. But
they were foll Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, weird. If you look up, I don't know how
you say silver. Papa Smurf probably will help. That's what
argeria looks like. That's what the silvery blue looks like.
It's much different than metahemoglobinemia blue.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Oh true, true true, Okay, that is what came up
for me with silver Papa Smurf okay wild and that
unsolved mystery is also wild and makes me really sad.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I know, and also like I don't know who did it,
but clearly someone yeah, Like why was.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
If it was possible to die from too many Alka
seltzers and have a heart attack, I would have been
gone a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, come on, come on now, guess.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I said, you're eating a spicy omelet.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, that's what burbing and farting is for.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Geez. Yeah, somebody absolutely killed her. Yeah, somebody tried to
take advantage of her and didn't like being rejected.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, And it sounds like it was either the neighbor
and the husband was like, I'm sorry, my wife didn't
let you rape her. Good for you killing her. Get
rid of the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Yeah, I want to get rid of her too, a
long time ago.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, or the husband just was like, hey, do me
a favor and get rid of her while you take
her home, Like why did her own husband not drive
her home? If the man who was also drunk, why
did her own husband yeah was drunk?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I agree?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Or the woman Why didn't the woman drive? Why was
the husband left alone with a woman and the wife
left alone with a man. It's all weird.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
It's not okay, it's not okay. It's suspect as she
had suspect that great jo. I've never heard of the story.
I'm glad that you know they have found their place
in society. Yeah, but there's no longer ancestual relations happening.
That makes me feel much better because that's never the answer,
(34:17):
even if you're blue, just even if you're blue. I
really liked that. That was interesting, and I would say
that that's conspiracy. I'll yeah, I mean, and the dedication
to just like wait out a sighting of a type
(34:37):
of person that you're looking for, like committing putting all
like way to put all of your eggs in one basket. Literally.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna go and I'm just gonna
go and find out.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I'm just gonna go find these blue people. Yeah. When
you first said hunting, I thought you meant hunting like
hunting to kill, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
My god, yeah, a little dramatic, horrifying.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm glad that that's not the way that that went.
But good job, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Do you have anything happy or just happening in your
life that you want to discuss that you haven't had
a reason to talk about otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
I don't know. No, I feel like I'm just like
in survival mode between all of these weird shift schedules. Yeah,
it's been good, though I hope that it continues to
get better because the tips have been good, but not
as good as they could be. So I'm picking up
a couple of extra ships in the meantime on Sundays,
(35:36):
which has made Kevin deeply sad as well. So yeah,
but it's okay. We're getting through. I spent all day
or all night last night reading and having a little
bit of me time, So that's happy and I'm thankful
for That's all I got good. I don't even know
what I did yesterday. Oh and I work out that
(35:59):
was so good that I'm still sore from Sunday as well.
There you go, Mary that sounds fall Filipino lady that
covers our classes sometimes she teaches a hot power cores
on Sundays. Oh sliders. Oh yeah, and I still can't
really use my legs, so that's fun. Hopefully they feel
better tomorrow. Ahl the weast serving's going to be interesting. Yeah,
(36:23):
and the bar that I work at already is like
awkward sized tables, and I feel like I'm too short
for or too tall for, and like because liberally low
ones are really low, so you kind of have to
crouch a little bit. My point being, I don't want
to use my legs more than I have to pray
for me. Fun, fun, what about you? You'll be fine
other than your kid getting a ring stuck on her finger.
(36:46):
Mid recording, ye, mid recording.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
What day does this come out?
Speaker 1 (36:52):
This comes out on Tuesday the sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I don't know if it'll be announced by then yet,
so I'm going to be they But there is another
child being born to my family, and I'm really kind
of excited about it. Is I don't want to like
tell somebody's news that doesn't want it, but fair vegue
is fine.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Babies are always an exciting time. Yeah, yeah, I have
baby fever at all times. Babies are cool. They're just
so dang cute. Like one of the girls that I
work with, her friend came in with her baby and
she's like three months old, and every time I would
walk by the table, she would like smile at me,
and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Stop it right, adorable.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Adorable and it's also funny, like it's like a little
bit of an oxymoron seeing babies in a bar. Yeah,
it's just amusing to me. I don't know why, but
I'm excited for your family and fear more about that. Yeah.
And we will see you guys next week for my
conspiracy episode that's actually happening this time, and in the.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Meantime, keep it twisted.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Twisted and Uncorked is hosted and produced by Cierra Zorn
and Alicia Watson. If you like the show, don't forget
to leave a five star rating and review wherever you
are listening now. It really is the best way to
spread the word. You can check out all things twisted
on our website twisted at uncorked dot com. And we
will see you next Tuesday for a brand new episode.
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