487 - As Will Mine Be

This week, Georgia covers Detroit’s drug kingpin White Boy Rick and Karen tells the story of “Queen of Sinking Ships” Violet Jessop. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes http://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Everyone loves the idea of spending an afternoon curled up with a good book.

• 0:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, grow up, because it's almost impossible.

• 0:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Luckily, you can take your next great story with you on Audible.

• 0:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Audible has a massive selection of titles to choose from, including This American Life, new books by Michael Connelly, along with classics from Magathah Christie, and so much more.

• 0:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Whether you want a mystery, a true crime story, or something completely different, there's always something new to listen to.

• 0:29Karen Kilgariff?

  New members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.com/mfm.

• 0:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Audible, stories that speak to you. Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom.

• 0:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.

• 0:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.

• 1:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 1:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello and welcome.

• 1:23Karen Kilgariff?

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Georgia Hart's chart.

• 1:26Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Karen Gilgarra.

• 1:27Georgia Hardstark?

  We're not going to do those voices this whole time.

• 1:30Karen Kilgariff?

  We promised just half, and that's it.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  This is called a Habsies episode, where we annoy the ever-loving shit out of you.

• 1:37Karen Kilgariff?

  To some people, it's ASMR.

• 1:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's true.

• 1:40Karen Kilgariff?

  To other people, it's please shut the fuck up right now.

• 1:43Georgia Hardstark?

  How about I whisper and you scream?

• 1:45Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna be the super, like, smash that like button, and then you're gonna bring it in with...

• 1:51Georgia Hardstark?

  What? Let's imagine you're chewing on glitter. I don't know. What's ASMR like? Chewing on glitter?

• 1:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That was it right there. Do you love the feeling of chewing on glitter? So do I, here on my homepage.

• 2:07Georgia Hardstark?

  What's going on?

• 2:08Karen Kilgariff?

  I like when people on, I've noticed on TikTok, a lot of people, and maybe it's just because things are so stressful these days, have pretty bad dry mouth. Where like, you know what I mean? The extra smack.

• 2:18Georgia Hardstark?

  I was listening to a podcast over the weekend, I'll not say what it is.

• 2:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't, don't.

• 2:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Obviously. And he took the wettest pauses. That, oh my god. And I was like, this is the editor's fault. Like, this should have, someone should have.

• 2:33Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the development person's fault.

• 2:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I don't want to blame, editors are the best people in the world. I'm not trying to, yeah. And they would have spent hours upon hours of editing out someone going.

• 2:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you can't, you can't. And also, there are some people who would come back and say, hey, you've taken all the humanity out.

• 2:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 2:48Karen Kilgariff?

  But.

• 2:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm sure someone who is not on so many medications as I am, and so fucking insane, would, has, no one's noticed it. But it is a wet pause.

• 2:57Karen Kilgariff?

  My sister Laurel Kilgariff would notice it if she listened to podcasts. But I think that's one of the reasons she can't. Cause she has misophonia, or whatever version of that.

• 3:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, literally just recently referenced, talking to Adrian, my sister's friend Adrian, and she goes, and her chewing doesn't bother you about me? And I was sitting right in fucking front of them. And I was like, what, wait a second.

• 3:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Why has no one told, yeah, someone, like, I'm sure I do really annoying noises.

• 3:25Karen Kilgariff?

  We all do.

• 3:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Tell me. I don't want to. I am not, oh my god. I can't even imagine.

• 3:31Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the kind of thing, she's been complaining about it since I was young. So I know there's part of me that I do it on purpose. That's why I chew two pieces of gum at one time.

• 3:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you're just chomping on them?

• 3:42Karen Kilgariff?

  The least pleasant for this monster in my life.

• 3:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, no one sounds good chewing gum, but talking like a normal thing on an interview and on a podcast.

• 3:50Karen Kilgariff?

  I used to always automatically eat it when I would be doing standup comedy. And if you would get nervous and your mouth went dry. If that's the way you get nervous, which was the way I was, then you're like lipstick to your teeth. People just know you're freaking out.

• 4:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, that, that happens. And that's totally, like, I totally understand that. I'll down some water while I'm doing any kind of thing like that, like this, like right now. I have two mugs. But.

• 4:12Karen Kilgariff?

  We could get more.

• 4:13Georgia Hardstark?

  We could, but there could always be more.

• 4:15Karen Kilgariff?

  There could always be more for that nervous, like, your mouth is very connected to your gut in that way.

• 4:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 4:22Karen Kilgariff?

  People know.

• 4:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, man.

• 4:23Karen Kilgariff?

  We're back on video.

• 4:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's been so long.

• 4:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we took a little video hiatus, which was so lovely. I just looked like shit the entire time and enjoyed it.

• 4:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, this whole thing of having to wash my hair is a real pain in the ass now.

• 4:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Really is. Having to wash your hair is hard for me, too.

• 4:39Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a lot.

• 4:39Georgia Hardstark?

  But we're back on video. We're on YouTube. If you want to watch us, here we are.

• 4:43Karen Kilgariff?

  We are. And because we're on YouTube, I had just a little fun thing for you.

• 4:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 4:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I realized, as you know, I went up to visit my dad. I was up in Petaluma for a little bit. And every time I go up there, I try to steal something from his house that I want at my house, that if I brought it up directly, he would just fight with me.

• 5:00Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think I knew that.

• 5:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. But nothing like a clock or something valuable or whatever.

• 5:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it to fuck with him or just because you want it?

• 5:06Karen Kilgariff?

  No, because it's like something meaningful that I want that's sitting in a corner with dust all over it.

• 5:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it. Okay, like, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

• 5:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the healthiest version of shoplifting from your own parents.

• 5:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I, I've done that. I did that to my grandma. I get it.

• 5:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 5:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:18Karen Kilgariff?

  You're kind of like, you don't care about this.

• 5:20Georgia Hardstark?

  That's my grandfather's old trash can in his office, and you haven't been in that office in fucking decades. So like, and I still have that trash can.

• 5:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 5:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And I adore it and love it.

• 5:30Karen Kilgariff?

  You don't outwardly steal because you kind of point to it as you're walking out the door. It's like, you don't care about this, right?

• 5:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 5:35Karen Kilgariff?

  See you later.

• 5:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 5:36Karen Kilgariff?

  So it was one of those.

• 5:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 5:37Karen Kilgariff?

  But it is a thing that was hanging in my parents' kitchen for literally fifty-two years.

• 5:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 5:45Karen Kilgariff?

  So it-

• 5:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it a giant fork and spoon? Because those, that's so fucking seventies.

• 5:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It's very similar. It's a very seventies vibe.

• 5:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 5:52Karen Kilgariff?

  But it also, my discovery and the reason I stole it is because we were talking, as we do endlessly, about hot dogs and Hot Dog Summer and Hot Dog Sisters and all those things. And I put my eyes upon this thing and saw it anew for the first time.

• 6:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 6:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Because it's a, I think they used to call it like a memory box or something from the seventies that features my sister and I, and it cut out of an article that- Was on the front page of the local newspaper. Laura and I at the local fair.

• 6:27Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 6:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Being the original hot dog sisters. Are you ready?

• 6:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my gosh.

• 6:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Is there a way to move close?

• 6:35Georgia Hardstark?

  I see it all. That is glorious.

• 6:38Karen Kilgariff?

  There she is. Do you see the?

• 6:39Georgia Hardstark?

  First of all, those are corn dogs, which makes me love it even fucking more. But look at Karen, little Karen in her knitted poncho chopping on a corn dog the size of her head.

• 6:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Poncho diaper. Full focus on that corn dog. Nice barrette. Did I still wear barrettes in that spot?

• 6:55Georgia Hardstark?

  You better. The thing in general, like the piece in general, I've never seen before anything like that. And it's like so homey.

• 7:03Karen Kilgariff?

  I think my mom's friend Priscilla made it for us.

• 7:05Georgia Hardstark?

  So homemade. So you stole it? I love it.

• 7:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So I stole it back.

• 7:09Georgia Hardstark?

  There's corns of kernel for some reason. There's dried pasta for some reason. What are those? Hazelnuts for some fucking reason?

• 7:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I think they're like old chickpeas.

• 7:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Old chick- chickpeas or?

• 7:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And a piece of wheat.

• 7:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Wheat?

• 7:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And then I think that was a flower that's like some lavender.

• 7:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Wild flower.

• 7:24Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's so old that like under the wildflower, there's just little piles of dust.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So that's skin cells. Those are skin cells.

• 7:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just kitchen shit that's in there.

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing. Let's put it, we're gonna put it on the Instagram for sure. So you can see it.

• 7:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And I think the challenge might be.

• 7:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, this was, I was jokingly bragging like I'm the OG hot dog sister.

• 7:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Karen Kilgariff?

  But do you have hot dog sister pictures? Whether that means your actual sister, a friend, any kind of thing?

• 7:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone eating a hot dog you want?

• 7:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know.

• 7:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Specifically.

• 7:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, can you show your love of hot dogs the way we've been talking about our love of hot dogs?

• 7:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Like prove your love to hot dogs.

• 8:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe?

• 8:01Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. Okay, let's do it. Let's do hashtag.

• 8:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Hashtag.

• 8:05Georgia Hardstark?

  My favorite hot dog.

• 8:07Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you can send us a picture of any hot dog. Did you fall asleep next to a hot dog? Did you, were you harassed by a man in a hot dog suit? We want any and all stories.

• 8:18Georgia Hardstark?

  We want hot dog content.

• 8:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 8:19Georgia Hardstark?

  And then we can post them.

• 8:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Georgia Hardstark?

  We can post our favorites.

• 8:23Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. And it can be as old as 1972 if you want.

• 8:26Georgia Hardstark?

  If you can beat that, actually.

• 8:28Karen Kilgariff?

  If you were in the fucking newspaper.

• 8:30Georgia Hardstark?

  If you were in the fucking womb. And your mom was eating a fucking hot dog while you were in the womb.

• 8:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Pedaluma fair of your mother's womb. It's all the same thing, guys.

• 8:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And we're at my favorite murder. So tag us then. I love that.

• 8:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, our podcast is called My Favorite Murder.

• 8:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Did you know that? And that's what we're on, on all the places. My favorite hot dog. I love it.

• 8:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Pretty fun, right?

• 8:50Georgia Hardstark?

  So fun, because National Hot Dog A is coming up.

• 8:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 8:53Georgia Hardstark?

  So, yeah, we have been discussing, like, what should we do?

• 8:55Karen Kilgariff?

  We want a piece of this. We want to get in on this.

• 8:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we want it to be about us.

• 8:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And then I'm like, standing in front of it where I'm like, I've been staring at this thing for literally my whole life and it's right there.

• 9:05Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a hot dog. Corn dogs are allowed, as long as there's a hot dog involved. So it could also be like, do Beans and Frank's count?

• 9:11Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean...

• 9:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Chopped up hot dogs?

• 9:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't be crazy. Let's not get crazy.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Hot dog bowl? Can we do hot dog bowl?

• 9:17Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, what, some rice underneath it?

• 9:20Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's from Detroiters, or I think you should leave where it's a hot dog bowl is just chopped up hot dogs in a bowl. It says it like that. Hot dog, chopped up hot dogs in a bowl. With like, like a burrito bowl, but a hot dog bowl.

• 9:31Karen Kilgariff?

  A hot dog bowl, yes, whatever. I mean, I think whatever, however people want to interact with it.

• 9:37Georgia Hardstark?

  How do you interpret hot dogs? Show us your content.

• 9:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 9:41Karen Kilgariff?

  And then also, we'll have a separate file for dick pics. It's something else completely. It's a different part of the show.

• 9:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought you were gonna say like, dogs in hot dog costumes. No.

• 9:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Sex sells, and we're trying to get a hashtag going.

• 9:54Georgia Hardstark?

  We are. Oh, I have an email. It's not an email, it's a fucking letter, a real life letter.

• 9:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, a hard copy letter?

• 10:00Georgia Hardstark?

  A hard copy letter, because you know how I had that crow was dead in my pool a couple of weeks ago? And it was like, so heartbreaking. And I was like, I hope the crows don't blame me. I got like, the most beautiful package slash letter about that.

• 10:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 10:13Georgia Hardstark?

  So, they sent me two beautiful bags of bird feed. Is that what it's called? And then this letter that I want to read.

• 10:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Bird seed?

• 10:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but they're not, it's not seeds. There's worms there, too.

• 10:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, amazing.

• 10:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It's pretty exciting.

• 10:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 10:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. "Hi, Georgia and Karen. We just finished episode 484 and felt we needed to formally acknowledge the fallen crow in Georgia's pool. Since crows hold funerals and mourn their dead, we thought it only proper to send a bereavement meal." And then it says, "I had to send this because bird watching genuinely changed my life." During a hard season, when I was running a nonprofit that provided free birth control for women in the South while managing my own anxiety and stress, I sat on my front porch doing a grounding exercise and noticed the birds. I downloaded an ID app just to see what was out there and I was hooked. Welcome to your 40s.

• 10:59Karen Kilgariff?

  That is the best. Also, yeah, you're sitting on your porch trying to calm the fuck down as the world melts down around you and this person who's like, "I'll provide free birth control for women in the South."

• 11:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Focus on the birds.

• 11:12Karen Kilgariff?

  God damn.

• 11:13Georgia Hardstark?

  A few years later, I left that job and became a entrepreneur. Now I run a nationally recognized bird seed company I created. From birth control to bird seed, who knew?

• 11:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, living that American dream.

• 11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  At Happy Birdwatcher, we customize blends based on your location. So they put your fucking zip code in and they're like, "Here's what birds in your area are interested in," right?

• 11:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Because like Texas birds don't want to eat what fucking California birds eat.

• 11:40Karen Kilgariff?

  No, totally different worms.

• 11:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. We use eco-friendly packaging and give a dollar to mental health charities for every 10 pounds we sell.

• 11:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Nice.

• 11:47Georgia Hardstark?

  It's still about helping people, but now I get to do it through something that brings joy and peace, one backyard at a time. Just wanted to say thanks for being part of our workday and it's an all-women team as well. Just wanted to say thank you for being part of our workdays and the rhythm that keeps us going. We never imagined bird seed and now crow funerals would be part of our story, but here we are. And listening to you reminds us that meaningful work can take all kinds of unexpected forms. That's so true crime.

• 12:12Karen Kilgariff?

  True crime. Who'd have thunk?

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. Stay sexy and don't get murdered and maybe go feed a crow with bird seed and love. Susan, she/her, founder, Happy Birdwatcher.

• 12:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Happy Birdwatcher.

• 12:23Georgia Hardstark?

  And they sent the most beautiful, two bags of the most beautiful bird seed I've ever seen before.

• 12:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible.

• 12:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Is that right? It's like really touching.

• 12:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, there's so many people with their small businesses out there who, yeah, when you hear the story behind the small business, you're like, "I want to support those people."

• 12:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally, it's passion. Passion projects.

• 12:42Karen Kilgariff?

  It's really nice.

• 12:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. What else?

• 12:45Karen Kilgariff?

  So are you going to take pictures of all the crows you feed? What's gonna happen?

• 12:48Georgia Hardstark?

  So for the weekend, I popped those bags open and the crows were watching me as I put it down and walked away. Cookie gets really jealous when that happens, but like I called her away and I will tell you right now, the squirrels loved it.

• 13:02Georgia Hardstark?

  The crows still don't trust me.

• 13:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Georgia Hardstark?

  But I'm gonna keep putting it out there and see how it grows.

• 13:05Karen Kilgariff?

  You're gonna have to win them over.

• 13:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm going, and I'm going to, like, they watched me put down two trays of food.

• 13:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're like, careful, she might sprinkle something in it.

• 13:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, so I'm gonna just keep going and keep doing it, but.

• 13:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Crows are cynics, but you know.

• 13:16Georgia Hardstark?

  But I like squirrels too.

• 13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  That's like, I put out a bird feeder in my old house and I was so excited and it was like,

• 13:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Karen Kilgariff?

  this very large bird feeder. I think I got it as a gift and I was like, I'm gonna do it. And the next day I went out to check what kind of birds were using it and there was like 25 pigeons in my backyard. They were just all standing around like, when's this food coming? Like, and they had gone, a squirrel had gone in and spun it, so the seeds went everywhere and everyone went and got it.

• 13:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Like the least mindful bird that will help you ground yourself, fucking pigeon.

• 13:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, they're from the Vons parking lot and they're like, we heard there's seed over in this backyard.

• 13:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no, that's not, that's actually worse than, I had a mouse on the video of the one I did once and I was like, well, great. That's not.

• 14:02Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a little, they're like loitering.

• 14:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Karen Kilgariff?

  They're like, it felt dangerous.

• 14:05Georgia Hardstark?

  They're opportunists.

• 14:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, get them the fuck out of here.

• 14:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's do Exactly Right Corner. We have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.

• 14:14Karen Kilgariff?

  This week over on That's Messed Up, Karen and Lisa cover the SVU episode Manhunt. And they dig into two truly horrifying cases, some of the worst, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. And then the murdering pastor Gary Heidnik. We covered Gary Heidnik in episode 77, Live at the Keswick Theatre. So you can go listen to an old live show and hear that story if, once you listen to That's Messed Up, you're like, I need more of this horrible, or you can just wait six months and it'll be on a rewind.

• 14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  That's true. And then on this podcast, We'll Kill You, I was so excited to see this, the Aarons are talking about all things food dye, which is like, there's so much. To know, am I dying of dye? Should I stop eating it? I don't know. From their accidental discovery to their overuse in snacks. And they do address the purple ketchup that Heinz released in 2001.

• 15:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Must be disgust. And there's a brand new episode of MFM Animated on YouTube. It's called Snails and Green Beans. Truly some of the best work of Nick Terry. There's times where we get into little patches where I go, this is made for Nick Terry. And this was one of those ones where as we were doing it, I was like, I think we were both like, and if he has animated it, this would be good. So go watch. They're all on our YouTube page at youtube.com/ExactlyRightMedia. And all of the other episodes of MFM Animated are on there, too.

• 15:35Georgia Hardstark?

  And MFM, too. And then over in the merch store, oh, this is exciting. So we have a new design. It's our SSDGM moth design. And it's a death's head moth that we absolutely love. Designed by our beloved Sammy Rich. It's available in a ladies' tank top that I have right here that I'm absolutely going to wear to sweat in. And then also a tote bag.

• 15:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at that nice, big tote bag.

• 15:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Bring that to the farmer's market or to the library. And wow, everyone.

• 16:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And fill it with bird seed.

• 16:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And let them follow you around.

• 16:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, Sammy Rich, for designing yet another super cool piece of merch for us.

• 16:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Show them the arms so they know that it's not. Yeah, yeah. There we go.

• 16:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, holding it up a little bit. But this is like a double tote bag size.

• 16:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a good tote bag. That's a good one.

• 16:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I think it's a nice one.

• 16:24Georgia Hardstark?

  This is classy. Go to ExactlyRightStore.com, please, to check it out.

• 16:30Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:11Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:21Georgia Hardstark?

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• 17:23Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:45Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:53Karen Kilgariff?

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• 18:08Georgia Hardstark?

  And your stinky feet now smell like lavender. Like, what more do you want?

• 18:11Karen Kilgariff?

  How dare you call my feet stinky.

• 18:13Georgia Hardstark?

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• 18:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Sonny's life is pretty great, until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception: his mom.

• 18:32Georgia Hardstark?

  To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives, but for Sonny, he knows something is off.

• 18:38Karen Kilgariff?

  As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger.

• 18:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Is this all in his head or is there really an imposter in his house?

• 18:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.

• 18:56Georgia Hardstark?

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• 18:58Karen Kilgariff?

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• 19:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I'm first. Okay, so this is a wild one that I knew about because Vince told me about it because it's from Detroit in the 80s. And it is a wild story. It's an infamous case where there were on drugs, remember that? Came head to head with political corruption and an unexpected drug kingpin, a white teenager, wound up caught in the crossfire. This is the story of Detroit legend, Richard Wershey Jr., aka White Boy Rick. Do you know, have you ever heard White Boy Rick?

• 19:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like I've heard the phrase White Boy Rick.

• 19:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I called to Vince today because we talked about it a long time ago and I said, "Hey, if I said White Boy Rick without mean anything to you?" And he was like, "Hell, yeah." And like, it's legendary.

• 19:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and it was kind of when he was growing up, right?

• 19:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Vince, yeah, yeah, perfect timing. So the main sources for this story are a deep dive reporting from The Atavist and The New Yorker, both articles by Evan Hughes, who did like the deep dive on these and really, really interesting, awesome pieces about it that I am heavily using for this episode. And then also there's a 2018 movie and a 2017 documentary called White Boy Rick, which I watched. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes.

• 20:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Who played him in the movie?

• 20:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, we're gonna get into that. I'll tell you right now, his father, who's a main character, was played by Matthew McConaughey.

• 20:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so it's a good one. All right, so let's start in July of 1987. Detroit was the homicide capital of the United States for the third year running. And there's so much to be said about Detroit in the 80s. I mean, this whole time period, Detroit, there's so much to talk about. And the crack cocaine epidemic had invaded Detroit. It's at this time that Detroit's local news station airs a stunning dispatch from the front lines of the war on drugs, which is what the Reagan administration called their racist plight to put black people in prison because they were addicted to drugs, essentially.

• 21:05Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the beginning of privatized prisons and prison as a money-making venture in this country.

• 21:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, so the war on drugs. So in this story about what's going on in Detroit, a young Chris Hansen... Of course, as we know him for hosting To Catch a Predator, he is like a young journalist. He rides along with Detroit's Joint Task Force of the city's police department and the DEA, who are trying to crack down. That group of cops, their nickname is the No Crack Crew. Because they always had to have a fucking war on drugs, No Crack Crew there. You know, like, they just...

• 21:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It was like civic branding, essentially, where it's like, don't think about it, you just know you're on our side because we have this dog with the trench coat.

• 21:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 21:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And then we have Nancy Reagan. So, how can you not be on our side?

• 21:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So, just as a note, and I don't know if you know this, that crack and cocaine are essentially the same drug, just done differently. But much harsher enforcement of crack is one of the legacies of the war on drugs that led to much longer sentences because crack itself was used by more poor people and black people. So, you have people on Wall Street using coke in the clubs. It's the same fucking drug that people are buying who are poor and people of color. That's why there's harsher sentences, essentially.

• 22:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a trick, and it goes all the way to the top. The mandatory minimum sentence for five grams of crack is the same as for 500 grams of cocaine powder.

• 22:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 22:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is one of the reasons why no investment bankers went to prison for possession.

• 22:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, they bought their way back out.

• 22:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly. In that televised report, Chris Hansen goes with members of the task force while they make one of the biggest drug busts in Detroit history. The crew enters an abandoned, once grand apartment building called the Broadmoor, not the asylum that we've talked about so many times.

• 22:54Karen Kilgariff?

  In England.

• 22:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So, clearly, so if you thought...

• 22:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Not that.

• 22:58Georgia Hardstark?

  No. It's been turned into a sort of crack emporium where larger amounts are sold on ascending floors. So, like, it's been taken over. The bus leads to the arrests of the area's highest-volume dealers of crack, four brothers named Larry, Billy, Joe, Willie Lee, and Otis Chambers, the Chambers Brothers.

• 23:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 23:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Being close to the top of a vast drug network, they themselves had hurt a lot of people and done a lot of bad things. But the work of getting to them had involved the No Crack Crew using very discriminatory policing tactics and sweeping up much lower-level offenders and users, addicts.

• 23:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Who were interned and imprisoned with very punitive sentences. So they go after everybody to get to the top, but nobody gets off on the lower levels.

• 23:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 23:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And the No Crack Crew would sometimes arrest neighborhoods of houses where crack was supposedly sold, just the neighborhood, just to get information. And then those people who had absolutely nothing to do with the drug use or the drug trade were still made to talk and they got in trouble as well. Members and leadership of the No Crack Crew were almost all white and some of its leaders, obviously, were deeply and openly racist.

• 24:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So while the net around the Chambers Brothers is closing in, the question becomes, who is supplying them? Because that's who the No Crack Crew says they want to go after is the highest. But the answer, apparently...

• 24:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Is Ronald Reagan.

• 24:26Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't say that.

• 24:27Karen Kilgariff?

  So sorry.

• 24:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. No, the answer is totally true. However, at the end of this, you know, series that Chris Hansen is at the helm of, they reveal that the answer to who is at the top is apparently a 17-year-old white boy named Rick Wershey Jr. History will know him as White Boy Rick, but it's not a nickname he has on the streets. It's a nickname that like the media gives him. But it becomes a legend, like a cowboy legend, you know?

• 24:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Georgia Hardstark?

  So the question ultimately becomes, who is this kid that the No Crack Crew want to find out about? And the answer is pretty easy to find. Rick is not exactly subtle about his involvement in the drug trade. He doesn't have a driver's license, but he drives around Detroit in a white Jeep with a decal on the back that says The Snowman. This is actually one of eight cars he owns, 17. He's known for wearing...

• 25:20Karen Kilgariff?

  He's a junior.

• 25:21Georgia Hardstark?

  He's a junior in high school.

• 25:22Karen Kilgariff?

  He's not even a senior.

• 25:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Not even a senior. He's known for wearing fur coats and gold watches, the whole like, I'm rich off drugs scene.

• 25:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 25:29Georgia Hardstark?

  He's 17 years old and he looks it. He's got a baby face, this like pencil-thin, you know, 80s little boy mustache. In the movie, he's played by Richie Merritt, who I wasn't familiar with, but Vince had thought that the actor was Emile Hirsch, which totally... Bits.

• 25:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 25:47Georgia Hardstark?

  So picture Emile Hirsch from

• 25:49Karen Kilgariff?

  The I Will Go to Alaska and Slowly Die in a Bus.

• 25:53Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the one.

• 25:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Into the Wild.

• 25:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Into the Wild.

• 25:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 25:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you, Molly.

• 25:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not called I Will Go to Alaska and Slowly Die in a Bus.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  So close.

• 26:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So close.

• 26:02Karen Kilgariff?

  They really had an opportunity there.

• 26:03Georgia Hardstark?

  So this guy could have totally been played by him, super 80s. So Rick had been in authority sites by the time the Chris Hansen piece airs, and in fact, had already been arrested for being found near eight kilos of cocaine.

• 26:18Georgia Hardstark?

  And what I mean by near is that they were found

• 26:20Karen Kilgariff?

  One finger touching?

• 26:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, who's that?

• 26:22Karen Kilgariff?

  You what?

• 26:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Cocaine was side eyeing him. No, the cocaine was found hidden under the steps of his grandmother's house, under the porch.

• 26:31Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, brilliant.

• 26:32Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's near enough.

• 26:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Near enough.

• 26:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Rick's case about this goes to trial in 1988, just as he turns 18. And it's a huge case, attracting national attention. He's found guilty. And again, because of those steep mandatory minimums for possessing large quantities of cocaine, he, who had been arrested at 17 and found guilty at 18, is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

• 26:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit.

• 26:58Georgia Hardstark?

  And at the time, murder got like 10 years.

• 27:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 27:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, across the country.

• 27:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, also, just at the time, I just remember that it played out in the media that like, we are cracking down, we are getting tough on crime. It was the tough on crime thing.

• 27:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 27:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Across the board, whether it's this, that, or the other. And there was a lot of that, like, this sheriff is gonna make all the prisoners wear pink and they're humiliated. And it would be like in Time Magazine, then you'd be like, that's great, because this is the way. And it was such a shot into the monoculture of, we like this.

• 27:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't worry about the people, because it's the, we're gonna handle it in this way, like, in the infrastructure.

• 27:35Georgia Hardstark?

  And we don't understand it, and so we're celebrating how it's being handled, even though how it's being handled has nothing to do

• 27:42Karen Kilgariff?

  With justice.

• 27:43Georgia Hardstark?

  With any of it.

• 27:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Or anybody getting, and all of those kinds of like, there's still people in jail now who got arrested for like, having a joint on them.

• 27:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 27:51Karen Kilgariff?

  In 1979.

• 27:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, yeah, it's very fucked. I'm not gonna be able to cover it all, but.

• 27:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, and also, it's why, when we first started and we'd be like, yeah, put that serial killer away for life, there would be this counter of like, you guys are into privatized prison, you don't know what you're advocating for, which was really true in the beginning, but we were basically saying.

• 28:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:10Karen Kilgariff?

  If somebody has raped and killed more than three people.

• 28:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Karen Kilgariff?

  How about we don't talk about their parole or whatever?

• 28:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Karen Kilgariff?

  But what people are saying is like, we have to be analytical about the entire system.

• 28:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Because that's the cultural thing of, yeah, throw them away.

• 28:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Throw away the key.

• 28:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Rehabilitation and all, yeah.

• 28:29Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a layered topic that we know nothing about, except for what we've done wrong.

• 28:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And except for, yeah, what we're reading from journalists.

• 28:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 28:36Georgia Hardstark?

  So, there we go. We're off the hook. If you want to listen to a podcast that's about that, listen to Wrongful Conviction. It's a great podcast. So, life in prison, no parole, again, as a minor. So, during the jury deliberation, Rick's father, Rick Wershey Sr., Matthew McConaughey, picture it, he confronted members of the No Crack Crew. He's pissed off about how his son's getting in trouble, and he winds up being separately arrested and charged with threatening a police officer at the hearing. So, after his son's guilty verdict, Rick Sr. gives an interview from his jail cell, making a claim to all the media that no one has heard before, and at the time, pretty much

• 29:18Georgia Hardstark?

  no one believes, and that is that Rick Sr. claims that his son, white boy Ricky, had acted as an informant for the federal agents. The whole time, he was like, on the streets, he was an informant.

• 29:30Karen Kilgariff?

  So, he's a, basically, kind of a plant drug dealer that was there to collect information?

• 29:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and he's like, a patsy now, because they're sending him away.

• 29:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean? He says, quote, "They used me, and they used my son, and now they turn around and fuck us over," end quote.

• 29:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Rick Senior names the specific FBI agent who they had been working with, saying his name was James Dixon. When reporters go to Dixon, asking him if what Rick Senior is saying is true, he refuses to comment and he resigns from the FBI not long after.

• 30:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wow.

• 30:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I mean, this article in The Atavist is incredible. He interviews like everyone. But let's go back. I gave you a lot of information just now.

• 30:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's a real influx.

• 30:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that was quick. This is not the end of it.

• 30:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 30:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's go back to the beginning. Richard Wershey Jr. is born in Detroit in 1969 to Darlene and Richard Wershey Sr. The family lives on the east side of Detroit, which is still, at the time, a functional, working-class neighborhood. But by Rick's teen years, in the early 80s, it goes into sort of a freefall. Evan Hughes writes, quote, "The auto manufacturers, which had lured so many to Detroit with union jobs that promised entry into the middle class, were now in rapid decline. From 1978 to 1988, the industry shed more than a third of its Detroit-area workforce." This period, as you know, is often described as white flight, when nearly every white family abandons the area for the suburbs.

• 30:56Georgia Hardstark?

  But as Evan Hughes points out, it wasn't actually just all the white people. He writes, quote, "Almost everyone who had the means to leave was taking the opportunity. It was very swiftly becoming a dangerous place to live." But Rick's family stays. Then there's various reasons. Their grandparents lived across the street, and Rick's father's businesses and schemes have always been either in a legal gray area or sometimes straight-up illegal. So he was getting away with a lot of stuff in lawless Detroit. Primarily, he sells guns and very often sells them illegally. When Rick is 13, so like, picture the 80s. What's that movie, Over the Top? It's the movie we talk about all the time with Matt Damon, like that.

• 31:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Matt Dillon.

• 31:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Matt Dillon, thank you. So Rick is 13, his parents divorce, his mom joins the exodus to the suburbs and Rick lives with her for a while and says it's paradise. He's shocked that a high school could have a swimming pool and a perfectly manicured baseball diamond. He says, quote, "It was culture shock, dude. Like, moving from hell to heaven." But unfortunately, he and his stepfather don't get along, as is often the case in the 80s, it feels like.

• 32:03Karen Kilgariff?

  They did a lot of, uh, it was like, no-fault divorce, all of a sudden everyone got divorced.

• 32:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And then everybody was like, "Oh, I can't do this, I have to get remarried."

• 32:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And then people remarried, the weirdest people that were just like nearby.

• 32:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 32:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And tried to do Brady Bunch family blending.

• 32:19Georgia Hardstark?

  I met him at the church social and I knew him for two months and now he's a monster, totally.

• 32:25Karen Kilgariff?

  I watched so many of my friends kind of go through that. I would come home and my parents had one negative thing to say to the other. I'd go, "Are you getting divorced?" I was like, "I just need to know. I need to get prepared."

• 32:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. No, I met the men my mom dated, they were divorced for a reason, I'll tell you right fucking now. You know?

• 32:44Karen Kilgariff?

  It wasn't, they weren't just getting kicked out for crackers.

• 32:46Georgia Hardstark?

  No, they were not.

• 32:47Karen Kilgariff?

  I said that really weird. Not crackers, the white people.

• 32:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I thought you meant crackers in bed.

• 32:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Crackers in bed, that's what I meant, that's what I meant.

• 32:54Georgia Hardstark?

  That's what I got.

• 32:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Just keep it specific.

• 32:56Georgia Hardstark?

  They don't get along, so Rick ultimately moves back with his father in the old neighborhood and like, there is just a lot of fun trouble to get into as a teen in the fucking 80s.

• 33:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Your dad sells guns.

• 33:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Your dad sells guns. There's no rules at all. His older sister Dawn starts dating like a drug dealer and so he becomes friends with him and sees how much fun, you know, essentially everyone's having, how much money people are making and how much like cool stuff they're buying that he would never have been able to afford as just a regular kid.

• 33:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It seems like he just falls in love with what he sees.

• 33:31Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, if this part of the movie, there would be, you know, like a montage with Bad to the Bone playing on the music.

• 33:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, oh my god, 100.

• 33:39Karen Kilgariff?

  That's all exciting, party sex, everyone's in a good mood.

• 33:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Lots of just like, you follow what you see and that's all there was in Detroit, including his father, who later admits like, "I fucked up bad, I should have done better for him." I mean, it's just, it's sad.

• 33:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Georgia Hardstark?

  So Rick falls in with those local petty criminals and with them, he starts breaking into houses. That's what he first starts doing. He also starts learning about Detroit's bigger figures in crime, particularly the major players in the drug business, who are basically celebrities in Detroit, where everyone is broke and the houses are falling down and no one has money. People are on crack. These sellers are kings that kids look up to.

• 34:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 34:21Karen Kilgariff?

  They have all the money.

• 34:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 34:23Karen Kilgariff?

  That's where the money's going.

• 34:24Georgia Hardstark?

  And they fuck the system too, because they're like black and rich, which was not a thing in the 80s that was like widely shown in the media. So at the same time, Rick Sr. is tangentially related to the drug trade because he sells guns out of the house that they live in. So in the spring of 1984, when Rick is 14 years old, James Dixon, the FBI agent, and a police officer from the Detroit Narcotics Division, visit Rick Wershey Sr. They're trying to get the dad, who's selling guns, they're like to get information because he's tangentially involved with the drug scene by selling them guns. But Rick Sr. doesn't really know a lot about it. But Rick Jr. is in the room, 14-year-old Rick Jr., and he's like looking at the photos, being like, oh, that's so-and-so. I know

• 35:09Georgia Hardstark?

  that guy. I know that guy. And suddenly, they like hone in on this kid, who kind of knows everything about what's going on.

• 35:15Karen Kilgariff?

  So basically, they get the kid to turn and become an informant.

• 35:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, that's the story the dad and Rick tell.

• 35:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. But when he's like essentially a freshman.

• 35:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Like so young.

• 35:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So young, definitely worldly and like streetwise in a way that doesn't happen today, which is not an excuse and it doesn't forgive anything. But, you know, and very smart. So he gives the men a lot of helpful information and the FBI winds up making Rick Sr., the dad, a registered informant, but Rick Jr. stays off the books. That said, law enforcement quickly begins meeting with Rick on his own, without his father's presence, which is at least what they claim, allegedly. Dixon says he never met with Rick Jr. without his father also being there, but it seems hard to believe.

• 36:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, it's like, what's he, sitting outside 7-Eleven on his BMX bike?

• 36:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 36:09Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, they're just like, hey, what's up?

• 36:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's like, I'll meet you at your house every time I need to talk to you. No, it's like, hey, did you see blah, blah, blah?

• 36:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Georgia Hardstark?

  See you later.

• 36:15Karen Kilgariff?

  If he's a narc, he's narkin.

• 36:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 36:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're not, everything's not going to be like typed up and put into the report.

• 36:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, that BMX bike, man. So Evan Hughes, the writer, first writes, quote, "At first, where she just gave up isolated scraps of intelligence, the identities of the thieves who robbed a jewelry store, the name of a health clinic that was selling illegal prescriptions, the location of a cache of stolen guns. In time, he grew bolder, however, and began informing on leading crime figures."

• 36:43Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so dangerous.

• 36:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, I know. With that information, in February of 1985, the authorities raid a house that he had told them about with a search warrant, based all on where she's information, and they find almost $200,000 in cash, which in today's money...

• 37:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, it's 80...

• 37:05Georgia Hardstark?

  It's 85.

• 37:07Karen Kilgariff?

  $200,000? Are we like a 1.5 million?

• 37:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Half a million. I would think it'd be more than that. Over half a million.

• 37:15Karen Kilgariff?

  That's just slightly over double.

• 37:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 37:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I want better numbers than that.

• 37:18Georgia Hardstark?

  I want more, I want more. So Rick Jr. says, at the beginning of all this, it was just really exciting. He kind, you know, it was like, he was in his early teens, he had no grasp of consequences.

• 37:29Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so crazy.

• 37:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 37:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, if we were gonna make the movie now, we could cast the kid from Young Sheldon to play this child at this point.

• 37:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 37:37Karen Kilgariff?

  That's young.

• 37:38Georgia Hardstark?

  With a little pencil mustache.

• 37:40Karen Kilgariff?

  It would be a great, like, turn of like, no one's seen this from you in your career yet.

• 37:44Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a good one. He says, quote, "What kid doesn't want to be an undercover cop when he's 14, 15 years old?" End quote.

• 37:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I didn't want to.

• 37:51Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 37:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Lots of them.

• 37:53Georgia Hardstark?

  But I feel like it almost feels like playing cowboys in a way.

• 37:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, fully.

• 37:57Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just not real to you. I would never want to be an informant for anyone, for anything, but especially Detroit drugs in the 80s. That just sounds... Dangerous.

• 38:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So bad.

• 38:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So dangerous.

• 38:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I wonder if it is a little bit of a, if it's a compliment to

• 38:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 38:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Rick Senior, where it's like, clearly the bad side of this business and what can happen was shielded from this child.

• 38:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Because you wouldn't be doing that, knowing that people just get taken out to the woods and...

• 38:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. And like, you know, Rick Senior is always like, "I was just selling guns. I was not involved with drugs." Like, drugs, I was against them. When I found out my son was, you know, making all this money off of them, I kicked him out of the house. So, they were anti-drugs.

• 38:42Karen Kilgariff?

  You can't be like...

• 38:42Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, I know.

• 38:44Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm morally superior because I'm only selling guns.

• 38:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm only selling guns to the people who have drugs, not drugs to the people who have drugs. Okay.

• 38:50Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not arguing for either.

• 38:52Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's not good. And then Rick is also getting paid for his work as an informant. He says the FBI probably paid him a total of around $30,000 as a kid, which today, you want to try again?

• 39:05Karen Kilgariff?

  I do. Well, a quarter of a million dollars?

• 39:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Thirty thousand?

• 39:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Thirty thousand to 250,000?

• 39:12Georgia Hardstark?

  No. Ninety.

• 39:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Damn.

• 39:13Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like, so much less than we think.

• 39:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I refuse to learn math.

• 39:16Georgia Hardstark?

  But you know why? It's because everyone was thriving in the 80s, you know, like...

• 39:20Karen Kilgariff?

  They didn't need as much money?

• 39:21Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. I think that inflation took a couple steps back after the 80s.

• 39:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 39:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe? I don't know.

• 39:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Could be.

• 39:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't listen to me.

• 39:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Or just I'm a bad guesser, and I refuse to notice the pattern.

• 39:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't, no. I refuse.

• 39:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 39:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so while this is happening, Rick Jr. is having many escalating run-ins with the law, but for some reason, which we now understand to be because he was an informant, most likely, allegedly, charges never seem to stick.

• 39:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Rick Jr. is a teenager, shoots a man who had stolen his grandmother's car. The arresting officer never appears at trial, so he never gets charged with anything. Rick is shot in the stomach in a different altercation, and law enforcement officers have him registered in the hospital as John Doe. Eventually, Rick Senior gets a new FBI handler, a man named Herman Gromman, but Rick Jr. is showing up with his father at every official meeting because he knows more than his dad does. Every time the FBI agent asks the father a question, the son answers. So that $30,000 that Rick makes as an informant basically sets him up to be a drug dealer. Like, that's what the money's for. So Rick starts dealing, though it's unclear if the FBI officially knows that he's doing that.

• 40:30Georgia Hardstark?

  But why give a child $30,000 in that situation unless they know he's going to-

• 40:35Karen Kilgariff?

  We thought he was gonna start his own Long John Silver's.

• 40:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 40:38Karen Kilgariff?

  We wanted to go into franchise fast food.

• 40:41Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so true. Fried fish fast food. Think about it.

• 40:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Get into it.

• 40:46Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a great idea. So the FBI agent, Grauman, the handler, says that he believes Rick was making drug buys with the specific knowledge and at the behest of members of the Detroit Police Department. So like, he's acknowledging that that was, the money was for. While this is happening, Rick quickly becomes part of that drug-selling crew, essentially, or that scene. The person that the FBI is trying to gather information about, this guy named Johnny Curry. And he's got this big crew, so basically Rick is a mole, but he's also legitimately a drug dealer. Again, he's only 15. So he kind of infiltrates this drug-dealing Detroit gang. He's like, "The only white person, and I'm 15, and let's do this."

• 41:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So, one retired FBI agent named Greg Schwartz puts it, quote, "We brought him into the drug world, and what happened? He became a drug dealer, and we're surprised by that."

• 41:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You know? So, in the spring of 18- No. That would be fun.

• 41:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Now, go-

• 41:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Now, let's go back.

• 41:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Victorian England.

• 41:47Georgia Hardstark?

  In the spring of 1985, only a year after the FBI has first approached Rick's father, Rick Jr. goes to Las Vegas to watch a boxing match with Johnny Curry and other high-ranking members of this gang. I cannot understate how powerful these men are, that he has somehow been able to become friends with this 15-year-old white boy.

• 42:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Georgia Hardstark?

  These are kingpins.

• 42:13Karen Kilgariff?

  He must have a great sense of humor.

• 42:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I bet he's fun to be around.

• 42:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, he must be.

• 42:16Georgia Hardstark?

  He's chill as fuck.

• 42:18Karen Kilgariff?

  He's seen a lot.

• 42:19Georgia Hardstark?

  He's seen a lot.

• 42:20Karen Kilgariff?

  For a young teen.

• 42:21Georgia Hardstark?

  He's not a snitch, they think, probably.

• 42:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, he's going to places like Vegas where you can't cover it's not for children in any way.

• 42:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 42:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Or even young adults.

• 42:33Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 42:34Karen Kilgariff?

  And yet, there he is.

• 42:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and no one's gonna question it because of the crew he's with.

• 42:37Karen Kilgariff?

  They're like, white boy Rick, wait at the buffet for us. We're gonna go play 21.

• 42:42Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 42:43Karen Kilgariff?

  What do we do?

• 42:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That's not happening. So basically, what happens is while they're there, Johnny Curry becomes enraged with an associate back in Detroit because he hadn't made the travel arrangements for the Vegas trip. You know how that is.

• 42:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, like, your travel agent fucks up somehow?

• 42:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah, your friend, who you made the travel agent, who you've probably given a lot of fucking money to.

• 43:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, didn't do what he was supposed to do.

• 43:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Just had to make, like, four phone calls, because this was pre-internet.

• 43:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, not that big of a deal. So Curry orders some of his foot soldiers to shoot up this man's house. Tragically, when they do that, they end up killing this man's 13-year-old son.

• 43:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 43:18Georgia Hardstark?

  So, this wasn't supposed to happen, and Curry tells his crew, including Rick, that if the police offer money in exchange for information, he'll pay them more to stay silent, which scares Rick, who, of course, has already been feeding information to the cops. This is like a, oh shit, moment.

• 43:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Rick does tell the FBI what he knows about the homicide, though. And the FBI has already tapped Curry's phones with a warrant from the information that Rick gave them. When they look at the call logs, they realize that on the morning after the shooting of this poor kid, the first two calls that Curry made were to members of the Detroit Police Department, called them that morning. One is a sergeant named Jimmy Harris, and the other is his supervisor, a man named Commander Gilbert Hill. And Hill will later become a Detroit City Council member and will run for mayor in 2001. So this goes all the way to the top.

• 44:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it always does.

• 44:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Of course it does. You can't get away with that shit without, like, cover.

• 44:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Inside.

• 44:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, inside hookups.

• 44:15Georgia Hardstark?

  So, back in 1985, after the shooting, Rick basically confirms that Hill was collaborating with Curry, Hill, the sergeant, and says that Hill told Curry he'd take care of it, so not to worry about it. So, this is like, oh no, this is not good. So now, we're back to Rick being convicted to life without parole at the age of 18 in 1988. And again, Rick's father immediately says that he and his son had been informants. He also says that Rick had been feeding the FBI information about the involvement of members of the Detroit Police Department in the drug trade. The same one that they've been mercilessly cracking down on low-level offenders. They're part of it, and Rick's been telling the FBI about that. At the time, the feds only say that they can't comment either way and that they also can't

• 45:00Georgia Hardstark?

  really intervene on state charges or convictions. So they just leave everyone hanging. They back out. For their part, one of the FBI agents who was involved at the time says that they did offer Rick the opportunity to come forward as an informant before his case went to trial. But like-

• 45:15Karen Kilgariff?

  So that he could be killed?

• 45:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, exactly. He'd have to testify against major players in the Detroit drug world in open court, and then the federal government can help him. And it's like, that's not an offer. That's a threat.

• 45:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And then get his GED.

• 45:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 45:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And really get his life back together.

• 45:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And then open that silver, what's it called? Long John Silver.

• 45:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, there's no future if that's what you choose to do.

• 45:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely not.

• 45:37Karen Kilgariff?

  There's nothing else happening for you.

• 45:39Georgia Hardstark?

  No. So Rick obviously knows that. Instead, he tries his luck in court, and he winds up with a life sentence. So in 1990, James Harris, the police sergeant who Rick implicated in being involved with the Currys, is caught in an FBI sting operation in which he agrees to help traffic a large volume of cocaine into Detroit. The FBI asks Harris to assist them in targeting his boss, that guy Hill, the higher-up, but he refuses. So he goes to prison until his sentence is commuted by then-President George W. Bush at the end of his term in 2008. And there's other cops from that era and that squad who come under fire and get prison time as well.

• 46:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And actually, one of them ends up spending time with Wershey in prison.

• 46:25Karen Kilgariff?

  In prison.

• 46:25Georgia Hardstark?

  He's like the guy who testified against him, the cop who testified against him at his trial, gets put in prison.

• 46:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Is in the same woodshop class as him?

• 46:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that's intense. That's like, by that point-

• 46:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Everyone's at risk going to jail. Everyone is like, it's a free-for-all.

• 46:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 46:42Karen Kilgariff?

  I need to read this article and stop talking about it.

• 46:44Georgia Hardstark?

  So in 1998, Michigan does roll back the mandatory life without parole sentence for people found guilty of possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine. They're like, oh, no, this isn't great. In following decades, most of the state's high-level drug offenders from the 80s are freed, including John Curry, who was the drug kingpin over White Boy Rick, who was originally caught with the help from Rick, who was a teenager at the time. But Rick remains in prison. And this is where Evan Hughes finds him and is like, this is fucked up. Let's look into this and does this amazing investigative reporting on this. And he remains in prison in a large part because of the Detroit law enforcement establishment

• 47:26Georgia Hardstark?

  and political establishment fighting tooth and nail against any opportunity for parole. Why would they do that?

• 47:32Karen Kilgariff?

  It's as if they don't want him to be able to speak.

• 47:35Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. This is, of course, the very same establishment that included members who were found to be corrupt with information given by Rick. So this finally changes after Rick's case gets more publicity. Evan Hughes's first article comes out about him in 2014, then a documentary called White Boy comes out in 2017, and the feature called White Boy Rick comes out in 2018 with McConaughey playing Rick Senior, big hubbub. So Rick is finally paroled in 2017. I think that this publicity that Evan Hughes's articles helped a great deal.

• 48:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 48:10Georgia Hardstark?

  He's finally paroled in 2017, after almost 30 years, making him Michigan's longest-serving nonviolent drug offender.

• 48:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 48:17Georgia Hardstark?

  He then serves a sentence in Florida for involvement in a car theft ring while he was in prison. He's released in 2020 with time credited for good behavior. Rick sues the FBI, but the case is dismissed in 2023. Nowadays, Rick sells White Boy Rick branded cannabis and edibles.

• 48:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Which are now fully legal.

• 48:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Fully legal.

• 48:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely. Like, get that. Get that money. He uses proceeds from his business to help people who have been incarcerated or who have been saddled with excessive court fees and fines to get back on their feet.

• 48:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Nice. That's how you do it.

• 48:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly. That's the fucking story. And there's so much more that everyone needs to read out. FBI informant, Richard Wershey Jr., aka White Boy Rick. There's a book called Land of Opportunity by William Adler that discusses the rise and fall of the Chamber Brothers, who I mentioned. That seems incredible. And also a book that I read that Vince had told me to read called Devil's Night and Other True Tales of Detroit by Zaeve Shafitz, which talks about that time and that period in Detroit. And it is, it's just incredible. So I highly recommend that, Devil's Night. Check it out.

• 49:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 49:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible. Oh, my God.

• 49:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 49:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm genuinely fascinated. I mean, first of all, how is this possible? Secondly, we got McConaughey in a 2017 venture that no one saw.

• 49:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's all watch it and like, what if we all push it to number? If you guys can get that on the top 10 of the Netflix, we'll know that you're listening and that just means so much to us. You know what I mean? Like, what?

• 49:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That was simultaneously emotionally manipulative. It was.

• 49:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Desperate. So desperate for attention.

• 50:00Karen Kilgariff?

  There was a kind of element of corruption, just like the story you just told.

• 50:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. No, you're right.

• 50:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's use our influence.

• 50:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no, but it's.

• 50:08Karen Kilgariff?

  To affect Netflix.

• 50:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God.

• 50:12Karen Kilgariff?

  We're all White Boy Rick.

• 50:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Now I get it.

• 50:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Now I see how easy it is to fall into that lifestyle. Uh, amazing.

• 50:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 50:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Great job.

• 50:24Karen Kilgariff?

  You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium.

• 50:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's magnesium spray.

• 50:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt. It's designed to help you relax and get in the right state of mind for a good night's rest.

• 50:39Georgia Hardstark?

  If you need a reset after a crazy day, make Dr. Teal's magnesium spray part of your nighttime routine. It's an effortless way to get a boost of. Topical magnesium that can help you relax your body and mind before bedtime.

• 50:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Dr. Teal's magnesium spray comes in a lightweight, fast drying formula.

• 50:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Just shake it up and generously spritz onto the soles of your feet and massage until absorbed.

• 50:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I was kind of blown away the first time I used this spray because I do have problems sleeping. And when there's something this simple, you just sprayed on your feet and suddenly you're asleep. And the next morning you're like, wait, what happened? Did my problem just get solved? Like, it actually is that easy.

• 51:13Georgia Hardstark?

  And your stinky feet now smell like lavender. Like, what more do you want?

• 51:16Karen Kilgariff?

  How dare you call my feet stinky.

• 51:19Georgia Hardstark?

  For wellness, you can feel find Dr. Teal's magnesium spray online or in your local bath aisle.

• 51:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 51:25Georgia Hardstark?

  The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

• 51:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception, his mom.

• 51:38Georgia Hardstark?

  To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives. But for Sonny, he knows something is off.

• 51:43Karen Kilgariff?

  As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger.

• 51:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Is this all in his head or is there really an imposter in his house?

• 51:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Starring five time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.

• 52:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Watch the Hulu original series Phony.

• 52:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 52:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 52:10Speaker 03

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• 52:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Congratulations, great work.

• 52:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. Tell me a story.

• 52:46Karen Kilgariff?

  That was quite involved. As will mine be. We're gonna fly out of Detroit in the 80s. Gonna go back in time a little bit. We're going to go to a place we've been to before that I've actually forced you to come to twice before. But I need to go back and you'll see why. So it's 2:00 a.m. on April 15th, 1912. Get a sense of what we're about to do?

• 53:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Nope.

• 53:12Karen Kilgariff?

  We're in the middle of the North Atlantic, where the Titanic is sinking.

• 53:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Motherfucker. The Titanic?

• 53:18Karen Kilgariff?

  We're going back to the Titanic.

• 53:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Love that guy.

• 53:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Love the Titanic.

• 53:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You love that vessel.

• 53:24Karen Kilgariff?

  A lot of stuff happened on that vessel that I want to tell you about.

• 53:27Georgia Hardstark?

  It's funny that you say 2012 and I'm in the middle of the night and I'm like, eh. I don't know.

• 53:32Karen Kilgariff?

  1912.

• 53:32Georgia Hardstark?

  What did I say?

• 53:33Karen Kilgariff?

  2012.

• 53:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, that was a bad year too, so.

• 53:36Karen Kilgariff?

  2012 was rough. I fully agree.

• 53:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I love your Titanic stories. It's just so funny.

• 53:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Here's the thing about me and the Titanic. I love to talk about the people that made it off of the Titanic.

• 53:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty an amazing topic.

• 53:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I have no interest to go down and look at the Titanic.

• 53:54Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 53:55Karen Kilgariff?

  A lot of people want to.

• 53:57Georgia Hardstark?

  I think photos are cool, but they never, ah, they never give you what you want, you know?

• 54:01Karen Kilgariff?

  They don't put you there.

• 54:02Georgia Hardstark?

  They don't put you there. Maybe like a dish is so exciting, but like, that's about it.

• 54:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And it's got all those weird algae on it, that dish.

• 54:11Georgia Hardstark?

  So much algae.

• 54:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And a couple snails.

• 54:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Here we're going to 1912. Everything is snail-free. The Titanic is sinking and when it finally disappears under the water, it will take the lives of more than 1,500 people with it. There will be around 700 survivors. The survivors we've talked about on this show, episode 411, which was entitled "Eight Years, One Episode", that's when I talked about the unsinkable Molly Brown. They actually called her Margaret Brown, but everyone knows her as the unsinkable Molly Brown. She makes it onto Lifeboat 6 and she spends her time on that lifeboat rallying the terrified passengers and urging them to keep rowing. When the officer in charge starts to spiral in the midst of all the terror of what's going on around them,

• 54:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Molly threatens to throw him overboard. It's great for morale. Everybody keeps going. They survive.

• 55:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it, girl.

• 55:04Karen Kilgariff?

  At the same moment that she's doing that over on Lifeboat Six, the Titanic's baker, Charles Jockin, you might remember, he was the drunk one.

• 55:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, oh, yes.

• 55:13Karen Kilgariff?

  We learned about-

• 55:14Georgia Hardstark?

  He was the drunk one. Everyone was shitfaced on that.

• 55:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that, you know, that band was barely able to like, keep the bow to the strings.

• 55:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, so much good champagne.

• 55:22Karen Kilgariff?

  If you want to hear me talk about Charles Jockin, it's episode 348. It's called Old Biscuit. And we learn on that one that basically, the thing that saved Charles Jockin's life, they think, is that he got super shitfaced. As the ship sank, he jumped up onto the railing and rode it down as the ship was going into the water. Then he tread water in 28-degree waves for several hours and lived. And it's like, defy science, and they think it's because the liquor that was in his system just kept his body warm, almost like tricked him into being warm.

• 56:03Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why I drink, is just to stay warm.

• 56:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Same. Don't tell anybody. We gotta stay warm, guys, on this fucking Titanic that we're on.

• 56:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 56:12Karen Kilgariff?

  So, when Charles Jockin is finally rescued, and we talked about this on that episode, but I still love this, he has two swollen feet, and that's it. That's the only thing wrong with that man who tread water in 28-degree ocean for hours until he got rescued.

• 56:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I wake up in my bed in worse shape.

• 56:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Two swollen feet? I wish that's why. Okay, so-

• 56:34Georgia Hardstark?

  See, what character is that?

• 56:35Karen Kilgariff?

  So, some of our favorites, but today I'm going to tell you about your new favorite Titanic survivor. She's a third Titanic survivor whose story is more unbelievable than the first two put together. Throughout this woman's life, she'll be involved in not one, not two, but three historic maritime disasters. The sinking of the Titanic arguably is not even the worst one for her. Some people call her the queen of the sinking ships. This is the story of stewardess Violet Jessop.

• 57:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 57:06Karen Kilgariff?

  So, main sources that Marin used for the story are Violet's memoir entitled Titanic Survivor: The Memoirs of Violet Jessop, comma, stewardess. She fucking worked on the Titanic.

• 57:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Incredible.

• 57:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, a National Geographic article by journalist David Kindy entitled, "She Survived the Titanic, But It Wasn't the Only Time She Faced Death at Sea." And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. Okay. We start the story 25 years before the Titanic sinks with an Irish Catholic couple from Dublin named William and Kelly Jessop. They have immigrated to South America and now they have a sheep farm in Argentina. And in 1887, they welcome their first child Violet. They will have eight more children in the coming years. Only six will survive childhood.

• 57:58Karen Kilgariff?

  So this was the horrible infant mortality situation of the turn of the 19th, 20th century. So Violet herself nearly dies of tuberculosis when she's little. She is sick for weeks and later she'll describe this time as, quote, "A dim awareness of being plunged into a very hot bath, then wrapped in cold, wet sheets, followed by long periods of nothingness."

• 58:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yikes.

• 58:23Karen Kilgariff?

  So scary and sad for a child. And speaking of, her coughing fits are so intense at this time that, quote, "Blood seemed to be on everything." And her eventual recovery from this is said to be miraculous. So normally Violet's day to day involves helping her family. She's the oldest sister in a big family, which means she's doing cooking, cleaning, taking care of her younger siblings, the whole nine. Then in 1903, when Violet is 16 years old, her father William dies while undergoing some kind of a surgery. It's sudden, it's shocking, the loss hits Violet especially hard. She was her father's favorite child and she will later write, quote, "In my grief, I was tongue tied and stunned.

• 59:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Whenever I tried to speak, I discovered I had lost my voice completely." So sad. But of course, the family has no time to mourn because now Violet's mother Kelly is a widow with six kids who has to find a way to support the family. So she moves the family back to Europe where they settle in England. And Kelly gets to work on ocean liners sailing between the UK and America. She's hired as a stewardess and that means she's doing things like cleaning cabins, serving meals, and even some light nursing duties. And while she's at sea, Violet is left to raise her siblings by herself.

• 59:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, her mom left to do that?

• 59:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 59:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 59:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And she's home with the five other kids.

• 59:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 59:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And the youngest is an infant.

• 59:54Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no.

• 59:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So they were just make and do.

• 59:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Karen Kilgariff?

  For the next several years, Violet's basically a stay at home mom dreaming about the day her mother will come home for good. And when she does, Violet plans that she will join the convent. But that dream never pans out because instead in 1908, when Violet is around 21 years old, her mother gets very sick and it's serious enough that she has to stop working. So to keep food on the family table, Violet again steps up for the family. And even though she does not like the ocean, she does not know how to swim. And she is kind of freaked out by the vast openness of the sea. She starts looking for stewardess work. She knows it's a good job if she can get paid well. Her mom can tell her how to do it, like.

• 1:00:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Karen Kilgariff?

  And she not only has years of caregiving experience raising her brothers and sisters, she's fluent in Spanish from having been raised in Argentina.

• 1:00:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:00:50Karen Kilgariff?

  But at the time, she struggles to get work as a stewardess, partly because she's so young, much younger than most of the stewardesses who are working at the time. But also Violet is very beautiful, which works against her because in a job like that, you're supposed to blend in and just be part of the wallpaper, right? And whether she wants to or not, Violet does not blend in.

• 1:01:11Georgia Hardstark?

  I get it.

• 1:01:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Nice.

• 1:01:15Georgia Hardstark?

  JK, JK.

• 1:01:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I've been through it.

• 1:01:17Georgia Hardstark?

  I feel that.

• 1:01:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I've never been a stewardess for that very reason on the Titanic. So after she gets interviewed a couple of times and gets rejected, she starts dressing down for the interviews. She stops wearing makeup altogether and it works. She ends up landing one job after another and by 1900. 1911, 24-year-old Violet is hired by the White Star Line to work aboard the RMS Olympic. So at the time, the RMS Olympic is the largest passenger ship in the world. It's completely state-of-the-art. It has electric elevators, Turkish baths, a swimming pool, and ornate features like crystal chandeliers and marble statues and plush velvet furniture.

• 1:01:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 1:01:57Karen Kilgariff?

  They really went all out. It was like the Empire State Building on the sea.

• 1:02:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Not that tall. But anyhow, Violet isn't all that impressed. She's just there for the money, and that's what keeps her going when she has the experience that she really doesn't like, which is the passengers treating her like their servant, which happens often. And rich male passengers leer at her. They proposition her. Some even propose like the second they meet her. While the women passengers can be extremely cutting, very condescending. Later on, Violet will write, quote, "I often reflected that there must be some quality in a sea trip that affects character, or maybe its enforced propinquity emphasizes how awful normal folk can become,

• 1:02:45Karen Kilgariff?

  mean, paltry, and selfish to a degree when they are in the position of indiscriminate power."

• 1:02:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm, it's like what happens on the Titanic stays in the Titanic.

• 1:02:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And also, it's like, just because we're stuck on this boat together doesn't mean I gotta do everything you say.

• 1:03:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Maren made a note to me, "Propinquity means physical closeness or nearness."

• 1:03:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 1:03:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And then she was like, "I've never heard this word before."

• 1:03:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you, again.

• 1:03:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Propinquity.

• 1:03:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Propinquity.

• 1:03:11Karen Kilgariff?

  It's your continual propinquity that causes the problem for me.

• 1:03:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Say it in ASMR.

• 1:03:16Karen Kilgariff?

  If you have a tendency toward propinquity, toward tapping your nails on stuff. Yeah, it's misused. Okay, so now it's September 1911. Violet's been working as a crew member on the Olympic for months. And then one night, the boat she's on, the Olympic, collides with a British warship called the Hawk off the coast of the Isle of Wight. So the Hawk is this little, it's like a sixth of the size of the Olympic. And it's actually specifically built to ram and sink enemy vessels. So it's very strong. The two boats collide and the Hawk nearly capsizes, but it still manages to leave a 40-foot gash along the side of the Olympic.

• 1:04:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Water rushes into the bottom of the ship and it actually downs a propeller. And of course, from her room Violet hears and feels this horrible impact. Although no one's injured or killed from this crash. And the ships aren't very far from land. And even with that propeller down, the Olympic is able to just hobble back to port. So no one has to evacuate on lifeboats. So comparatively, this is probably the tamest of all the horrible ship accidents that Violet is involved in. She gets reassigned to another White Star Line ship. And it is the company's brand new luxury ocean liner that's gearing up for its maiden voyage. It is the Titanic.

• 1:04:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey.

• 1:04:43Karen Kilgariff?

  So we're back on the North Atlantic just before midnight on April 14th. Violet is in her quarters. She is getting ready for bed after being a stewardess all day on the Titanic.

• 1:04:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, the feet, the feet pain.

• 1:04:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Just the feet, the work, the, um, over here. Can you get me a roll?

• 1:05:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Snap, snap.

• 1:05:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Snap, snap, roll.

• 1:05:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So Violet's back in her quarters. She's holding a piece of paper that has a handwritten prayer on it. And it's one that's supposed to protect her from fire and water. Which is very Catholic. We have saints, they do very specific things, very specific people. I guess there's a fire and water saint. I'll look up who it is later. And as all of that is going on, Violet hears a huge crash, followed by a quote, "low rending crunching ripping sound." So of course, it's a scary thing for her to experience. But like everyone else on board, they've been told time and again that the Titanic is unsinkable.

• 1:05:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:05:44Karen Kilgariff?

  So no one's panicking, she certainly is not. But eventually, a shell-shocked Violet is called up to the deck. This will be her very last assignment on the Titanic. She's told to translate evacuation instructions for the Spanish-speaking passengers. And then to assist women and children getting on the lifeboats. So that's what she does until she herself is loaded onto Lifeboat 16.

• 1:06:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:06:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Moments before her group is lowered into the ocean, an officer rushes over and says to Violet, quote, "Here, Miss Jessop, look after this." And then basically hands her a baby girl.

• 1:06:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah.

• 1:06:21Karen Kilgariff?

  The baby had been left alone on deck. And so the officer just basically made the hasty decision to grab this baby and throw it to Violet.

• 1:06:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Karen Kilgariff?

  For safekeeping. So as their boat is lowered some 60 feet in the dark to the freezing cold ocean below, with icy wind whipping at their faces like, quote, "a knife in its penetrating coldness."

• 1:06:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet is trying to soothe this baby girl.

• 1:06:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Karen Kilgariff?

  But the lifeboat hits the water hard. You don't think about that part of it where it's like, yes, you're being saved in a way.

• 1:06:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Karen Kilgariff?

  But off of a sinking ship.

• 1:06:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:06:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Into.

• 1:06:59Georgia Hardstark?

  In a hurry.

• 1:07:00Karen Kilgariff?

  The North Sea.

• 1:07:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Karen Kilgariff?

  That we've all seen TikToks about. Is it the North Sea? Yeah, well, the North Atlantic, yeah. So the baby starts crying when the lifeboat hits the water. Again, just a quick reminder, Violet does not know how to swim. And she's, of course, terrified herself, but she focuses on the baby. She pulls the baby to her chest, hoping to keep her warm. And she just watches as the Titanic sinks into blackness.

• 1:07:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 1:07:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And here's how Violet will later describe this moment. She says, quote, "I watched the Titanic give a lurch forward, one of the huge funnels toppled off like a cardboard model, falling into the sea with a fearful roar. A few cries came to us across the water, then silence, as the ship seemed to right itself like a hurt animal with a broken back. She settled for a few minutes, but one more deck of lighted ports disappeared. Then she went down by the head and a thundering roar of underwater explosions. Our proud ship, our beautiful Titanic, gone to her doom."

• 1:08:02Georgia Hardstark?

  God, what a sight.

• 1:08:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And you're like, however many feet away you could get away.

• 1:08:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:08:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Looking at that, I don't like it. It's too big and it's too vast. I'm on Violet's side.

• 1:08:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't like it.

• 1:08:17Karen Kilgariff?

  That's why I need to keep talking about it.

• 1:08:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I get it.

• 1:08:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So for the next several hours, as traumatized Titanic survivors wait to be rescued, Violet clings to this baby, as you would. At one point, she worries that both she and the infant are going to freeze to death in Lifeboat 16. And then the rescue ship, the SS Carpathia, shows up around 4 a.m. So it's like about two hours.

• 1:08:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Did we ever have the discussion about like the magnets?

• 1:08:45Karen Kilgariff?

  How do they work?

• 1:08:46Georgia Hardstark?

  How do they work? How do they maybe affect the Titanic's scouting system?

• 1:08:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Do we talk about that in any of these?

• 1:08:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't think so.

• 1:08:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:08:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you want to throw some theories out?

• 1:08:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll do it another thing.

• 1:08:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Have you been listening to RFK's podcast? What's happening? It's all magnets.

• 1:09:01Georgia Hardstark?

  It's all magnets.

• 1:09:03Karen Kilgariff?

  You think something interfered and that's how it drove into the iceberg?

• 1:09:07Georgia Hardstark?

  But a natural phenomenon interfered and that, yeah, that's why.

• 1:09:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Some like Bermuda Triangle stuff?

• 1:09:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So if you know what I'm talking about, send me the article that I write about. Please, because I don't remember.

• 1:09:17Karen Kilgariff?

  If you know what we're talking about and you're in the North Atlantic right now.

• 1:09:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Tell me.

• 1:09:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Tell me what I'm talking about.

• 1:09:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Tell me. Was this just an episode of Below Deck and I'm totally fucking wrong? It could be.

• 1:09:28Karen Kilgariff?

  I slept with him because of the magnets. They drew me toward his cabin.

• 1:09:32Georgia Hardstark?

  His dick is the Bermuda Triangle.

• 1:09:34Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not my fault that the draw is so strong. It's like two cartoon magnets pulling Wile E. Coyote off a cliff.

• 1:09:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Dick was the lifeboat. Okay, stop it.

• 1:09:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Stop it.

• 1:09:45Georgia Hardstark?

  This is a serious podcast.

• 1:09:47Karen Kilgariff?

  I was just talking about a baby. Okay.

• 1:09:48Georgia Hardstark?

  You tried to, you're playing this for your mom and now she's horrified. Okay.

• 1:09:51Karen Kilgariff?

  We're gonna do a quote from Violet about the moment that she and the baby are saved. Okay, ready? Quote, "I was still clutching the baby against my hard cork life belt when a woman leaped at me and grabbed the baby and rushed off with it."

• 1:10:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey.

• 1:10:07Karen Kilgariff?

  It appeared that she put it down on the deck of the Titanic while she went off to fetch something. And when she came back, the baby had gone. I was too frozen and numb to think it strange that this woman had not stopped to say thank you. End quote.

• 1:10:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, so the mom came.

• 1:10:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The mom was like, you have my baby. That's my baby.

• 1:10:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, well, everyone's panicking, so.

• 1:10:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And nobody would blame. She thought she lost the baby.

• 1:10:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:10:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Entirely. And there's a lady that has the baby.

• 1:10:34Georgia Hardstark?

  But also, like, babies all look the same to me. Like, how do you not see your baby?

• 1:10:37Karen Kilgariff?

  The same.

• 1:10:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Like such babies.

• 1:10:40Karen Kilgariff?

  The attitudes. Years later, Violet will receive a very short phone call from a woman claiming to be that baby.

• 1:10:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, the baby.

• 1:10:49Karen Kilgariff?

  The baby calls her.

• 1:10:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 1:10:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello, it's a baby.

• 1:10:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Call, uh, caller ID. It's the baby.

• 1:10:56Karen Kilgariff?

  The, that baby.

• 1:10:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That baby.

• 1:10:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Your favorite baby.

• 1:10:59Georgia Hardstark?

  The Titanic baby.

• 1:11:00Karen Kilgariff?

  From the North Atlantic. Some people say that that call was either a hoax or it wasn't really. Violet seemed to believe she really was the caller.

• 1:11:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure, why not?

• 1:11:09Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the Carpathia spends four hours pulling Titanic survivors from their lifeboats. Ultimately, they deliver around 700 people to safety in the New York harbor.

• 1:11:21Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought they went to Canada.

• 1:11:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I think they took the dead bodies to Canada.

• 1:11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:11:25Karen Kilgariff?

  That's where the big morgue was.

• 1:11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:11:27Karen Kilgariff?

  But, sorry, that's just what it said here, so you could be right.

• 1:11:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, that's probably below deck. Okay.

• 1:11:32Karen Kilgariff?

  That's more below deck Newfoundland. From there, Violet catches a ship back to England, and not two weeks later, she signs back up to go out to sea to work as a stewardess once again.

• 1:11:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Because like, what are the chances, right?

• 1:11:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sure. And she's kind of like, this is a real skill. She probably can make good money comparatively.

• 1:11:53Georgia Hardstark?

  And she needs the money. It's not like she can take time off.

• 1:11:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No, she can't go find herself and do a year abroad.

• 1:11:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you think there was a Titanic survivor fund or something? No, they didn't do that then.

• 1:12:03Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, you would think something. But anyway, she's kind of like all business, which, sorry, I do love that.

• 1:12:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Karen Kilgariff?

  We're just like, hey, look.

• 1:12:12Georgia Hardstark?

  It's Irish, man.

• 1:12:14Karen Kilgariff?

  It's Irish Catholic, because it's like,

• 1:12:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:12:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll get my reward later.

• 1:12:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:12:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll go back on to the thing that tried to kill me last two times. Okay, she will say, quote, "I knew that if I meant to continue my sea life, I would have to return at once, otherwise I would lose my nerve, for I had no love for it, but I needed the work."

• 1:12:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Girl.

• 1:12:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, intense. So Violet will later write about how the sinking of the Titanic changes her entire perspective on life and strengthens her already very deep faith. What it does not do is change how much she hates being at the beck and call of rich travelers. There's no faith strong enough to get you over rich people snapping their fingers at you.

• 1:12:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely not.

• 1:12:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet writes on that topic, quote, "I wanted the quietness of happy contentment, not the hectic turmoil of riches, which sapped simplicity and spontaneous kindness out of people. I wanted desperately to shut out the encroachment of sea life on my inner self, to retain something I feared I was losing, a kind of action that's performed for the love of pleasing and not for gain.

• 1:13:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I had gained one thing. I learned how to look very deeply into people and to value them for what I found. Famous names and possessions no longer moved me. I was more confident when confronted by some powerful woman whose cold eyes, as I served her breakfast, might once have shattered me." She's literally talking about my career. But each day, it was more,

• 1:13:41Karen Kilgariff?

  but each day it was more difficult to be my simple self, to ignore the pettiness, artificiality, and frothy gaiety that encompassed a stewardess's life on board a ship.

• 1:13:52Georgia Hardstark?

  I fucking totally hear that.

• 1:13:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Georgia Hardstark?

  As an ex-waitress, I fucking hear it.

• 1:13:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Come on.

• 1:13:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Like,

• 1:13:59Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not-

• 1:13:59Georgia Hardstark?

  entitled motherfuckers.

• 1:14:01Karen Kilgariff?

  On vacation being like, you make my vacation good.

• 1:14:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:14:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's the literal opposite of a vacation for you.

• 1:14:07Georgia Hardstark?

  You are here to serve me. And that's your purpose.

• 1:14:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Snap, snap, snap.

• 1:14:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck you.

• 1:14:13Karen Kilgariff?

  So, now, it's 1914, and World War I begins.

• 1:14:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Heard of it.

• 1:14:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet is 27, and as we all do at age 27, she decides to pivot. So what she does is become a war nurse.

• 1:14:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely, that's what you did.

• 1:14:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you got to. So she's in the hospitals. Both on land and at sea.

• 1:14:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, honey.

• 1:14:33Karen Kilgariff?

  She can't stop. In late 1916, she's assigned work on the Britannic, which is the third of the White Star Line's signature luxury vessels, this sister ship to the Olympic and to the Titanic.

• 1:14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Why don't they know when to quit? Or like, change the name of the company?

• 1:14:49Karen Kilgariff?

  With this assignment, Violet will have worked on all three

• 1:14:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:14:53Karen Kilgariff?

  of the White Star Line luxury ships.

• 1:14:55Georgia Hardstark?

  There can't be a lot of them.

• 1:14:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No. I bet you they gave her a nice pocket watch for it. So during the war, the Britannic is repurposed into a hospital ship. And on November 21st, 1916, it's moving through the Aegean Sea on the way to the battlefields in Turkey to treat wounded soldiers there. So they go pick up all the wounded soldiers and take them back away from all the war. So at a little after 9:00 AM, Violet has just left mass church. And she's now quietly eating her breakfast.

• 1:15:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Eating in temple?

• 1:15:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:15:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, do I have to translate it for you?

• 1:15:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:15:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, she's eating breakfast post-mass.

• 1:15:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Post-mass and not Massachusetts. And her breakfast is interrupted by a loud boom. We're doing it again. For years, the cause of the blast will be unclear. But today, in 2025, it's believed that the Britannic hit a mine.

• 1:15:47Georgia Hardstark?

  No way.

• 1:15:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. So the ship shakes violently, begins to sink. Violet yawns, checks her watch, looks around.

• 1:15:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Is there a baby? Does anyone want to give me a baby?

• 1:15:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Stop crying, it's not that big of a deal. I've seen worse. Does anybody have a baby? Hand me all the babies.

• 1:16:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll take the babies.

• 1:16:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Hand the babies over here, please. She's finishing her English muffin. Okay. Officers immediately start moving people onto lifeboats, but Violet runs back to her room to get a prayer book and a toothbrush.

• 1:16:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Honey.

• 1:16:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is something she sorely missed after surviving the Titanic sinking. A friend had jokingly told Violet to, quote, "Never undertake another disaster without first making sure of your toothbrush." That's how much she complained about not being able to brush her teeth after surviving the sinking of the Titanic.

• 1:16:38Georgia Hardstark?

  How much were toothbrushes back then? And then money, what did the toothbrush cost?

• 1:16:42Karen Kilgariff?

  I think she was just like, it was no one's priority to get me a toothbrush after we got back to land. And so she's like, never again.

• 1:16:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, all right.

• 1:16:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Girl.

• 1:16:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Seems like you could use your finger like we all did when we crashed at a dude's house in our 20s.

• 1:16:59Karen Kilgariff?

  So now Violet's loaded onto a crowded lifeboat. This is, if you are the kind of person that doesn't understand why you listen to true crime podcasts, because they're upsetting.

• 1:17:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Karen Kilgariff?

  This part might upset you.

• 1:17:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, okay, got it.

• 1:17:12Karen Kilgariff?

  This is a very upsetting part.

• 1:17:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:17:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially if you have ocean issues.

• 1:17:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, or you're on a boat right now.

• 1:17:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Or you're on a boat right now. So they're slowly being lowered into the water, which is not a smooth journey. The ship starts tilting. The lifeboat gets snagged on an open porthole. It almost flips upside down, but the people on the lifeboat managed to get it uncaught. Now it's scraping down the side of the Britannic as it's lowered. At one point, the ship takes another hard tilt and the lifeboat goes out and swings into the ship's green hospital band, which is made of glass. So it's, it's a hospital ship.

• 1:17:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Karen Kilgariff?

  The green band around it is actually made of glass, which I didn't know that. So there's like a red cross up here, red cross back there. That's so you know, hey, don't bomb this ship.

• 1:18:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Can we get canvas?

• 1:18:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Was there a shortage of canvas?

• 1:18:03Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know who planned that, but they smash into it and glass shatters and Violet and the other people on the lifeboat are sprayed with shards of glass.

• 1:18:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:18:14Karen Kilgariff?

  All the while Violet is looking down at the water. She can see two lifeboats are already down there and the people who are on those lifeboats are doing everything they can to row away from the ship itself. But the captain is still trying to move the Britannic towards shallower waters and he has not turned off the ship's propeller.

• 1:18:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 1:18:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:18:36Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:18:37Karen Kilgariff?

  The propeller is now sucking the evacuees in their lifeboats.

• 1:18:42Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no.

• 1:18:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Toward the ship. Violet watches as the worst case scenario plays out in front of her. One of the lifeboats gets sucked into the ship's blades and the boat and all of the people on it are hacked to pieces and the water then turns red with blood. As she, as they're dangling over the same water they're supposed to go down into.

• 1:19:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 1:19:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet will later say, quote, "I gave that foolish, nervous laugh, as people sometimes do, when faced with an unpleasant discovery and a doubtful alternative."

• 1:19:15Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a beautiful way of putting, "Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck."

• 1:19:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck, holy fuck. Just sitting there, looking down.

• 1:19:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:19:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet's lifeboat is finally dropped into the same water. Almost on cue, everyone except for Violet and one other man, jump out of the boat and into the sea.

• 1:19:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet will later write about this, quote, "Not a word, not a shout was heard, just hundreds of men fleeing into the sea, as if from an enemy in pursuit. It was extraordinary to find myself in the space of a few minutes, almost the only occupant of the boat. I turned around to see the reason for this exodus, and to my horror, saw the Britannics' huge propellers, churning and mincing up everything near them. Men, boats, and everything were just one ghastly whirl."

• 1:20:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, man, dude, shut it off.

• 1:20:07Karen Kilgariff?

  So, she turns around to see why everyone's jumping off the boat, and then when she turns back, the one guy that was left also jumps off the boat.

• 1:20:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:20:15Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so horrible. She can't swim.

• 1:20:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, that's right.

• 1:20:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not an option, and yet, she knows, if she stays on this boat, she's going into that propeller.

• 1:20:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So she flings herself into the water, kicking and paddling for her life, and it is the very first time, her whole body and her head are underwater, like that.

• 1:20:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:20:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I'm sure she took baths before, but like, never, she has never.

• 1:20:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:39Karen Kilgariff?

  She's immediately jerked around by the power of these propellers.

• 1:20:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, they just suck you right in.

• 1:20:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, you're gonna go where that water takes you. Her head is hit onto the ship's keel, which is the bottom spine. Twice. She's pulled down and her head is knocked into the keel twice. She will later write, quote, "My brain shook like a solid body in a bottle of liquid."

• 1:20:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 1:21:00Karen Kilgariff?

  At the same time, the keel is also blocking Violet from being able to come back up and surface, so she is under there about to drown. She says, quote, "Suddenly, some twist of fancy made me see, even then, underwater, the humor of my situation."

• 1:21:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my honey.

• 1:21:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And I chuckled. That was very nearly my undoing, for I swallowed what seemed like gallons of water and everything that was in it.

• 1:21:25Georgia Hardstark?

  I love her.

• 1:21:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I love her.

• 1:21:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, how much fun was she to have a drink with?

• 1:21:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Because she is like, "You gotta be fucking..." Someone hand me a baby down here.

• 1:21:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Can you believe it?

• 1:21:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Miraculously, this is when the captain finally cuts the ship's engine.

• 1:21:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Thanks, guy.

• 1:21:40Karen Kilgariff?

  The propellers stop, and now Violet's adrenaline kicks in. Yes, she's injured. It is a head injury, but somehow she forces her way to the surface and finds a life vest floating nearby. She holds on to that life vest, she keeps her head above water, and she swims past dismembered corpses and dangerous debris from the chopped up lifeboats.

• 1:22:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude.

• 1:22:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Horror show.

• 1:22:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. This is the worst one.

• 1:22:07Karen Kilgariff?

  While the Britannic continues sinking behind her, Violet is far enough away, she gets far enough away, and when she does, she turns around and she watches it go down. Quote, she says, "All the deck machinery fell into the sea like child's toys." Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air, until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding through the water with an undreamt of violence.

• 1:22:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:22:37Karen Kilgariff?

  You just don't want to be that close to these gigantic ships when they sink.

• 1:22:41Georgia Hardstark?

  True. Like, really, you want to be at home.

• 1:22:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Far, far away. At home with your eight brothers and sisters. So Violet's out there bobbing in the water clinging to the life vest until a motorboat approaches and pulls her up to safety. She then realizes for the first time that her leg has been slashed and her head is, quote, battered almost to a pulp.

• 1:23:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oof.

• 1:23:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Doctors are amazed by how mobile and alert Violet is. When she sees a Britannic doctor that she'd sat beside at mass earlier that morning, he tells her, quote, "I know what saved you today, young lady."

• 1:23:16Georgia Hardstark?

  English muffin.

• 1:23:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you hear the way I choked on the finishing that sentence where I'm like, "Oh, wait, he means God. Hold on a second. Hold on a second."

• 1:23:25Georgia Hardstark?

  What did she think about?

• 1:23:26Karen Kilgariff?

  This, I don't know, I wasn't really thinking. It was like, this is a highly Catholic Church-sponsored episode.

• 1:23:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It truly is.

• 1:23:33Karen Kilgariff?

  The Britannic will sink in just under 55 minutes. It took the Titanic two hours and 40 minutes to sink. This thing went down fast. 28 people are killed when the Britannic sinks. It could have been much worse if the ship had picked up wounded soldiers, but it was on the way.

• 1:23:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:23:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank God.

• 1:23:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet is patched up and she's sent home to England where she lives with her mom Kelly. She ends up getting a job at a bank and for-

• 1:24:02Georgia Hardstark?

  That sounds way better.

• 1:24:04Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, but she's having problems with her, basically with her cognition because of the head injury. Years after the sinking, a doctor will be doing a routine exam on her when he tells Violet that she'd actually fractured her skull-

• 1:24:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:24:20Karen Kilgariff?

  -when her head hit the Britannic's keel. And she somehow not only survived, but was never treated for it and basically got through it.

• 1:24:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Good to know.

• 1:24:29Karen Kilgariff?

  So, a few years after that, in 1920, when Violet is around 33 years old, she gets an itch to go back to sea. Violet will go back to the White Star Line on the restored Olympic, which is the ocean liner she worked on that collided with the Hawks.

• 1:24:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Number one.

• 1:24:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:24:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:24:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet immediately notices how different the Olympics passengers are from the last time she was on it. Instead of the stuffy, ultra-rich, bossy assholes that she had worked for before the war-

• 1:24:59Georgia Hardstark?

  The Victorian Richie Riches.

• 1:25:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. Now she's dealing with Americans.

• 1:25:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:25:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Many middle-class.

• 1:25:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:25:05Karen Kilgariff?

  They're just there to have fun.

• 1:25:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 1:25:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Because on land, it's prohibition.

• 1:25:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:25:10Karen Kilgariff?

  So, that's a new responsibility as a steward and stewardesses on this ship. It's part of your job to basically help- These VIPs to booze it up while they're on the ship.

• 1:25:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Sounds great.

• 1:25:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm. And basically, part of the job is you have to hide the booze from customs agents.

• 1:25:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it.

• 1:25:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Violet will write about that quote, "It was all so fantastic. There were pillars of Wall Street, senators, lawyers, debutantes, all with their minds on the same problem as we approached the shores of the United States. How do we keep drinking?"

• 1:25:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:43Karen Kilgariff?

  So from here, Violet bounces around to other ships. She even completes two cruises around the world on the Red Star Line. And that experience means a lot to Violet. She's surrounded by diverse people. She's exposed to different world cultures. And this is when she really begins embracing her life as a stewardess, which she then comes to appreciate for its excitement and its unpredictability and the ways it's tested her spirit and resolve.

• 1:26:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Fair enough.

• 1:26:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that's quite a line, Maren, having written that of like, testing her spirit and resolve. It's like, you almost died on a three, the ocean wants to kill you so bad.

• 1:26:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely. This is fucking Final Destination Victorian.

• 1:26:24Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, guess what?

• 1:26:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I was at church this morning, it's not happening today. That's right. Mass will keep you from dying. Violet spends the next several years at sea. She marries and quickly divorces a fellow steward. In 1950, she retires at the age of 63 and moves into a cottage in Suffolk, England, in a village called Great Ashfield, where she raises chickens, makes an adjacent field available for her neighbors' horses, who she loves like her own. And she even grows flowers that remind her of the ones that she loved as a little girl in Argentina. Violet Jessop dies of congestive heart failure in 1971, when she is 83 years old.

• 1:27:06Georgia Hardstark?

  What a fucking life.

• 1:27:08Karen Kilgariff?

  What a life. And despite her long career at sea, She ends her life very grounded, close with her family, doting on her neighbors' horses, tending to her garden, and every so often delighting in telling one of her unbelievable stories of survival. And that is the story and the legend of the so-called queen of the sinking ships, Violet Jessop.

• 1:27:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. Yeah, I'd take that. I'll take that life.

• 1:27:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Chick, chick.

• 1:27:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Chick, okay.

• 1:27:39Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll take it all the way up until hovering over red water while people.

• 1:27:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't want that one.

• 1:27:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Why me?

• 1:27:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't want that one. That's fucking wild.

• 1:27:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It is. Not cool.

• 1:27:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, great job.

• 1:27:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 1:27:52Georgia Hardstark?

  You did it again.

• 1:27:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Great job. My researcher, Maren McGlashan, who took that, basically was like, I think I found one that's crazier than all of the Titanic stories combined. I'm like, how is that possible?

• 1:28:04Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a good one.

• 1:28:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:05Georgia Hardstark?

  We believe you guys. We believe in you guys.

• 1:28:07Karen Kilgariff?

  We believe you.

• 1:28:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Good job. To everyone listening, don't forget, hashtag my favorite hot dog.

• 1:28:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Hashtag it up. Prove to us that you like hot dogs the most.

• 1:28:18Georgia Hardstark?

  We'll show you ours if you show us yours, right?

• 1:28:22Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. And also, stay sexy.

• 1:28:23Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:28:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:28:36Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

• 1:28:43Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 1:28:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:28:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:28:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.

• 1:28:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:28:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye.

• 1:29:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.

• 1:29:16Georgia Hardstark?

  With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.

• 1:29:22Karen Kilgariff?

  You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.

• 1:29:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to budget beach bliss at your fingertips.

• 1:29:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.

• 1:29:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye. You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium.

• 1:29:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray.

• 1:29:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals, it's designed to relax and prepare you for a night of rest.

• 1:29:48Karen Kilgariff?

  If you need a reset after your day, make Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray part of your nighttime routine.

• 1:29:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Generously spritz each foot before bed and you'll be all set. I've actually started doing this and I'm obsessed with magnesium. It does everything.

• 1:30:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Something like this is just like, it's simple, it's easy, and it actually works.

• 1:30:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray online or in your local bath aisle. Goodbye.

• 1:30:10Speaker 03

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