533 - An Exercise in Frustration

On today’s episode, Karen covers mental health rights pioneer Elizabeth Packard and Georgia tells the story of the Aconcagua Mountain Mystery. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com http://www.exactlyrightstore.com/. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. 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.

• 0:01Karen Kilgariff?

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:35Speaker 02

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• 1:04Speaker 03

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest.

• 1:16Speaker 04

  Ooh, I scammed them.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  What?

• 1:18Speaker 04

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And today, we're going to beautiful Italy. I've been practicing my horrible Italian.

• 2:03Georgia Hardstark?

  On Karen since I'm going, oh, yes, she's pulling out the chef's kiss.

• 2:08Karen Kilgariff?

  His Italian corner.

• 2:09Georgia Hardstark?

  The chef's kiss. Did you preparado cafe for me?

• 2:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, I made coffee for you.

• 2:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Grazie.

• 2:18Karen Kilgariff?

  You're gonna do great.

• 2:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 2:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Right now, I'm flashing back to pictures of very patient waiters waiting for me to do that and then being like, madame, I will speak English with you. It's like, thanks so much.

• 2:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, thank you. They just want to see you sweat a little bit.

• 2:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 2:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Put some effort into it.

• 2:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Please have some respect for the country you're in.

• 2:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And also, we're supposed to say, when they say, oh, where are you from? You say, I'm from the Republic of California instead of the US. Because you're like, I'm cool.

• 2:45Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 2:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Speaking of, I feel like obligated that we have to talk about this real quick.

• 2:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Do I move this off?

• 2:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, this is getting serious.

• 2:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 2:53Georgia Hardstark?

  We have a lot of listeners that live in LA and that are over 18. And I think we need to make sure we tell them that they have to vote for mayor.

• 3:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 3:03Georgia Hardstark?

  And they cannot vote for Spencer Pratt. And I know that they, you're 18, you're like, I don't give a shit. It doesn't bother me. You have to vote. So you cancel out the people that are stupid that are voting for him, because we know our listeners aren't stupid. They're not going to vote for him.

• 3:18Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 3:18Georgia Hardstark?

  But they might not go vote that day.

• 3:20Karen Kilgariff?

  True. That's a great point to me.

• 3:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I also think, I will say, I believe in the children who are so much smarter and more active than we ever had to be.

• 3:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 3:32Karen Kilgariff?

  The privilege of apoliticalism from the 90s, I think about and shiver with how disgusting it is.

• 3:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And how much I'd never helped or did anything.

• 3:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Karen Kilgariff?

  And I think these kids today know what's what. Also, speaking of which, I'm a real believer in Nitya Raman. She's also running. You know she's amazing because they do everything they can to keep her down. They do everything they can.

• 3:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I mean, that's a debate all on its own.

• 3:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Vote for someone you believe in.

• 4:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Do your research.

• 4:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Clearly, it's not going to be him.

• 4:02Karen Kilgariff?

  We've played around with democracy too much.

• 4:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 4:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And we are now actively doing damage and harm to people every single day with non-action.

• 4:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, for sure. That's, I felt like we had to say that just because.

• 4:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And now, dun dun dun.

• 4:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And we're back.

• 4:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And we're back, because this is the crazy world we've had to live in, where we simultaneously deal with the fall of democracy. And then, hey, Georgia's excited to go on vacation to the wonderful world of Italy.

• 4:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I feel like there might have been a glitch in the matrix, and it's freaking me out a little bit.

• 4:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, this second?

• 4:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, or before we walked in this room. Maybe this room is a time machine, who the fuck knows? Or a time capsule or something. But the hot dog phone box is upside down. And it's freaking me out.

• 4:46Karen Kilgariff?

  You know what it is?

• 4:46Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 4:47Karen Kilgariff?

  The other podcasts that shoot in here, they take our stuff down and put other stuff up.

• 4:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone's fucking with us. Who did that?

• 4:52Karen Kilgariff?

  With you specifically.

• 4:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Paul Holes. Paul Holes did it. Oh, that's okay. We're gonna call him on that.

• 4:59Karen Kilgariff?

  That's really funny. Wait, was this like an Easter egg that he put in to say, hey?

• 5:03Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I don't think Paul did it. I think that it just happened on accident. Paul doesn't clean up after himself. But he was in here not that long ago. Someone turned the hot dog phone upside down and blew my mind.

• 5:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Seriously, there's three people crying in the control room right now because of the intensity with which you do that.

• 5:17Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I love it. I love it. Um, what's up with you?

• 5:20Karen Kilgariff?

  I went to the desert this past weekend for a last minute birthday trip.

• 5:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Hot springs?

• 5:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 5:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah.

• 5:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I didn't plan anything. And then I was like, well, I don't, I'm not just gonna sit here. And I might as well go and sit in some

• 5:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, hot water.

• 5:35Karen Kilgariff?

  magnesium water.

• 5:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 5:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Man, I'm a believer.

• 5:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You look glowy.

• 5:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, thank you. Well, I really also, I think I've gone over the, I went over the stress waterfall. And for a while, I was churning down in those, the white water at the bottom of the stress waterfall.

• 5:51Georgia Hardstark?

  I see you in a barrel, just like an old timey barrel.

• 5:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? I was down there, water straight down on my head for a while. I popped straight back up.

• 5:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And I landed in a hot spring out by the desert.

• 6:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell, yeah.

• 6:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, it was 103 or 4. At one point, we just sat by a pool like I was a person that gets tanned. And just like laid around by the pool for like hours.

• 6:12Georgia Hardstark?

  So nice.

• 6:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It was great. I like less self-help books and more like just go, just go sit in the sun or just go bake and

• 6:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, get some dopamine.

• 6:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 6:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Somehow.

• 6:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Actively.

• 6:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but like, good for you, dopamine, not like alcohol.

• 6:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, exactly. Do something that immediately have an effect on your nervous system.

• 6:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 6:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Which that really does. I didn't realize.

• 6:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I love that place.

• 6:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm a real desert lizard.

• 6:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Should we get into it? Or do you want to hear about jump roping? Nope, let's get into it.

• 6:41Karen Kilgariff?

  What is jump roping?

• 6:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I just started a new personal challenge. If you want to join me, jumping rope, five minutes a day.

• 6:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 6:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Boom.

• 6:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's great.

• 6:50Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm gonna turn it into content because nothing can happen without turning it into content.

• 6:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you gonna learn to double dutch eventually? Are you gonna build up to a skill?

• 6:58Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm gonna learn to jump rope first.

• 6:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 7:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it's harder than I remember.

• 7:01Karen Kilgariff?

  But do you feel like you might be able to get skip rope?

• 7:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's the idea, right?

• 7:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Then?

• 7:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Then I'm a jump rope influencer.

• 7:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Then you can go to New York City where I watch TikToks of people jumping into those double duches that that pop up in a square.

• 7:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I could do that as a kid.

• 7:18Karen Kilgariff?

  You could?

• 7:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I think I could do it a little bit.

• 7:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I could do it now. That's how cocky I am and how much I don't know how old I am. I bet I could fucking get into a double dutch.

• 7:26Karen Kilgariff?

  You immediately break your hip the second you do that.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God.

• 7:30Karen Kilgariff?

  That's really good. I'm totally down for that. Do we have to check in and stuff?

• 7:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. Unless we don't do it. And we'll never talk about it again.

• 7:37Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that is our way.

• 7:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 7:39Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's fun to try things.

• 7:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 7:41Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, I have a mini trampoline that I jump on all the time.

• 7:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I do too. I'd never jump on it. It's so hard.

• 7:46Karen Kilgariff?

  What about this? I'm gonna get on my mini trampoline, you do your jump rope.

• 7:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 7:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And we'll do parallel jumping therapies and then report back.

• 7:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 7:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 7:55Georgia Hardstark?

  My favorite jumping apparatus.

• 7:58Karen Kilgariff?

  This is not an integration of any kind?

• 8:01Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 8:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Or not being paid by Big Jump at all? It's not what's happening.

• 8:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I am. You're not.

• 8:07Karen Kilgariff?

  You can't.

• 8:08Georgia Hardstark?

  You didn't get the? Did you see Katie Van Buskirk right before we started recording?

• 8:12Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 8:12Georgia Hardstark?

  She's our incredible integration person.

• 8:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Ad sales?

• 8:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Ad sales manager. She texted us and said, I was looking through where your listeners are across the world. And then she wrote with a fucking gif, Vatican City.

• 8:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That's not true.

• 8:28Georgia Hardstark?

  It's true.

• 8:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Inside the Vatican?

• 8:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, we have listeners in Vatican City.

• 8:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, then may I just for one second?

• 8:35Georgia Hardstark?

  We are tying it all the way back to Italy. Please. Get it back up there.

• 8:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Get it up.

• 8:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, what?

• 8:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello, every every citizen of Vatican City that's listening to us right now.

• 8:46Georgia Hardstark?

  They're putting it over the.

• 8:49Karen Kilgariff?

  May we please go into your archives that you don't let the public into? So we can see the dragon eggs and the ghosts that are caught in a Bragganyand doll. We want to see it all.

• 9:00Georgia Hardstark?

  There has to be a listener who just does the archives.

• 9:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Gotta be someone.

• 9:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Just like a custodian.

• 9:04Karen Kilgariff?

  A custodian, a file folder tend toer.

• 9:08Georgia Hardstark?

  We'll give you some merch.

• 9:10Karen Kilgariff?

  You can have any sweatshirt you want if you tell us the secrets of the Vatican.

• 9:14Georgia Hardstark?

  And let us look inside.

• 9:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll be there soon.

• 9:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I have watched the secrets of the Vatican.

• 9:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And they don't tell you any good secrets. Like, it's like Mary Magdalene is actually the one.

• 9:24Georgia Hardstark?

  No, nobody knows the good secrets, but the people who ate them.

• 9:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And I bet it's, if you're going to talk about fucking time travel cities and places, that's obviously.

• 9:33Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the number one portal.

• 9:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 9:35Karen Kilgariff?

  They do a lot of old crazy shit there. We did go on, we went on a tour of the Vatican because Paige Hurwitz, our friend and EP, made us go there. A person who was born and raised very Jewish.

• 9:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Karen Kilgariff?

  She was like, we have to go to the Vatican. And it was me, Janet and Adrian were like, we don't want to.

• 9:52Georgia Hardstark?

  But was it amazing?

• 9:53Karen Kilgariff?

  She made us go. Yes, it was incredible. Except for I did get in trouble for filming inside the Sistine Chapel. And I was doing it for my dad where I was like, he's going to lose his mind. And the man like put my hand down and he was like, be respectful of other people's religions. And I was like, um, I think we're the number one of the classic Catholics in this religion. My grandparents paid for this fucking thing. They gave you all kinds of money they didn't have.

• 10:19Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, Vatican City, here we go.

• 10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  What, here's the thing. You're flipping through Netflix, you're like, oh, look, there's a true crime podcast. Let me click on here and see what they're doing.

• 10:30Georgia Hardstark?

  What the fuck are they talking about?

• 10:33Karen Kilgariff?

  What is this?

• 10:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Why is this, this is so dumb. It's first of all, it's two women. I can't stand women.

• 10:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen to their voices.

• 10:40Georgia Hardstark?

  They think their opinions matter.

• 10:41Karen Kilgariff?

  They can't even speak Italian.

• 10:43Georgia Hardstark?

  They need to go into the kitchen and be trad wives.

• 10:46Karen Kilgariff?

  And really.

• 10:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Meanwhile.

• 10:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Meanwhile. We're not going to.

• 10:50Georgia Hardstark?

  We refuse.

• 10:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Meanwhile, that's not in the plans.

• 10:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, real quick, let's do some case updates.

• 10:55Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, if we are a true crime podcast, let's talk about, because big things have actually been happening in the true crime space.

• 11:00Georgia Hardstark?

  That's true. We're in.

• 11:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And the craziest one is that the convictions in the Murdoch murders have been overturned. Alec Murdoch convicted for the murders of his wife Maggie and his son Paul. That guilty verdict has been tossed by the South Carolina Supreme Court citing shocking jury interference by a woman named Becky Hill, a court clerk who managed jurors during his 2023 trial.

• 11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm. What'd she do?

• 11:27Karen Kilgariff?

  They say she improperly influenced the jury, among other things, by advising them not to trust the defense's evidence.

• 11:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you can't do that.

• 11:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, that's egregious. I mean, absolutely not. The South Carolina Supreme Court seems to agree with this, saying in its recent decision, Hill had, quote, "placed her fingers on the scales of justice." But we should say Becky Hill has denied influencing the jury, although she did...

• 11:54Georgia Hardstark?

  What would she do?

• 11:55Karen Kilgariff?

  She pled guilty to misusing public funds and using her job for personal gain, and specifically to promote her book about the trial.

• 12:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit.

• 12:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's a wash. That's no good.

• 12:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Because here's the thing, I think they get her on this crime.

• 12:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Justifiably so.

• 12:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it's like, and perfect, because now we undo the whole sweater.

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Totally.

• 12:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Unbelievable.

• 12:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. Okay, I have a quick update on my, you know, the case that is nearest to my heart, which is the yogurt shop murders.

• 12:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I covered in episode 70, Live at the Moon Tower, and so they have finally found the actual killer based on DNA. It's clearly this person. And so the city of Austin is expected to pay $35 million in restitution to the four teenage boys who were arrested and convicted of this. So Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forest Welborn, and the family of Maurice Pierce, who died in 2010. So 35 million.

• 12:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 12:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It's taken a long time, but they're at least getting some justice.

• 12:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Is it justice, or just like, at least they're getting some... Relief from the difficulties that being convicted for this crime has probably created in their lives.

• 13:09Georgia Hardstark?

  And you can, if you watch the documentary that was on HBO, I think they're in it and we're clearly struggling still, so.

• 13:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that whole case. All right.

• 13:16Karen Kilgariff?

  God.

• 13:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Well. We have Podcast Network.

• 13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It's time to be positive. Okay. So this week on Ghosted, Roz is joined by the scrumptiously spooky drag sensation Pineapple Honeydew.

• 13:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god.

• 13:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you familiar with Pineapple's work?

• 13:29Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I love Pineapple.

• 13:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not either. I can't wait to watch. They get into Appalachian superstitions, psychic dreams, and Pineapple's own uncanny manifestations.

• 13:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh. And then on I Said No Gifts, Bridger avoids a full-blown argument when writer-comedian Chloe Radcliffe arrives with a gift. Then, the two discuss Craigslist killers, bedbug immunity, and dating delicate men.

• 13:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like a conversation just for us. Then, over on this podcast we'll kill you, Erin and Erin dive into histoplasmosis, which is among the most widespread fungal infections in North America.

• 14:02Georgia Hardstark?

  What is it about me and them that makes me so excited about that?

• 14:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Because you know you're now going to listen to that episode, and now you'll be an expert on the widespread fungal infections in North America.

• 14:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I love fungus.

• 14:15Karen Kilgariff?

  They also discuss bats, birds, tuberculosis, and the surprising history behind this disease's discovery.

• 14:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 14:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That's going to be good. Finally, on Hollywoodland, Jake and Zeth tell the story of the legendary Steve McQueen. From beers with Elvis to Charles Manson's hit list, this story never takes its foot off the gas.

• 14:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That's our disgraced Hollywoodland vibe over there.

• 14:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 14:37Karen Kilgariff?

  And just for everybody to know, in the merch corner, we have looked around this terrible world of ours and decided to officially restock the This Is Terrible, Keep Going mug. You asked for it. There it is.

• 14:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Blue on blue, and it's on both sides now, which I really love.

• 14:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. I love that color combination. It's very 1981.

• 14:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 14:56Karen Kilgariff?

  I love it. That's a good mug.

• 14:58Georgia Hardstark?

  It is.

• 14:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, don't forget my Ontario mug from touring in, like, 2018. I probably got it at a Starbucks.

• 15:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, Starbucks for sure.

• 15:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Or it was given to us.

• 15:08Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 15:08Karen Kilgariff?

  If you gave this to us, and you're seeing this right now, please write in and tell us what it was like. Okay.

• 15:13Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, you're first?

• 15:14Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm first today.

• 15:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 15:16Speaker 02

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• 15:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It's December 18, 16, so a while ago. A baby girl named Elizabeth is born in Massachusetts in a comfortable household by two parents who can afford to educate their children. Her two brothers are sent to all-boys schools, while Elizabeth will eventually be trained with other young girls to someday become schoolteachers. She is a curious, driven, and exceptionally bright young girl. These are all qualities that would be celebrated if they were displayed by her brothers, but we're talking about 1816.

• 16:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 16:18Karen Kilgariff?

  An intellectually gifted girl invites scrutiny and criticism, and screams of "kill the witch." Elizabeth will learn the hardest way she can. Society prefers their ladies to be nice and to be quiet. And when they're not, when they dare to use their brains to question authority or their husbands, that intelligence will be used against them, and they will be deemed too dangerous for their own well-being. And that usually, back then, meant being institutionalized.

• 16:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 16:47Karen Kilgariff?

  When Elizabeth is forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution, she witnesses and experiences genuine harm, but it also radicalizes her. And she will begin to keep a diary, writing down everything she sees. And when she finally gets to tell her story, she will not be nice or quiet about it. She will change the world.

• 17:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 17:07Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the story of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. Her Packard. She has three last names, like a modern day lady. Maren read the book, The Woman They Could Not Silence by author Kate Moore, who wrote The Radium Girls. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's the main source that was used today. Any other source is listed in our show notes, but it's mostly the work of Kate Moore. So Elizabeth Parsons Ware grows up very religious. Her father Samuel Ware is a minister with Calvinist leanings. So pretty bleak lens of Christianity that says all humans are inherently sinful and salvation isn't determined by you making good choices or being a good person.

• 17:52Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just kind of randomly what God decides based on like, I like you, you'll be saved. You won't. Sucks. Pretty fear inducing at all times. So you kind of can't do anything right and you're always apologizing. We've all been there. Right. So the Wares run a very God fearing, theologically strict households, and yet they're very progressive about their daughter's educations. For a girl of her era, Elizabeth's education is an unusually rigorous one, and it also probably helps that they live near Amherst College, which kind of provides this intellectual backdrop. So that influences the way she sees the world, of course. By the time 1835 rolls around, 19 year old Elizabeth is working as a teacher until her

• 18:36Karen Kilgariff?

  career is interrupted by what doctors will refer to, the doctors of the time will refer to as brain fever. Her symptoms include headaches, chills, fever and confusion. Today, she would likely be diagnosed with a viral or a bacterial brain infection. Wow. Like encephalitis or meningitis. Wow. Those are fully treatable with modern medicine. But it's 1835, so doctors theorize that Elizabeth's job as a teacher has overstimulated her female brain. Hysterical. She's hysterical. She's just fucking lost it, which is manifested in these physical symptoms that she has. Now, cut to my sister Laura going, it does drive you insane. Like I, that's all I can think about where it's like, it's true.

• 19:21Karen Kilgariff?

  They were right, but she's wrong. So, oh, that felt great.

• 19:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I've never really, I've never really taken that to the public stage.

• 19:30Georgia Hardstark?

  She's never gonna hear it.

• 19:31Karen Kilgariff?

  You're wrong, Laura. Yeah, she doesn't. She's not a fan of the show.

• 19:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, Laura, you guys are wrong.

• 19:35Karen Kilgariff?

  You guys have always been wrong.

• 19:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 19:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so when Elizabeth's father hears about this diagnosis, he requests that his daughter be admitted to the local asylum, believing that the root of her illness is that she's, quote, "used too much mental effort," end quote, in her line of work.

• 19:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Me too.

• 19:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Too much mental effort?

• 19:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Need the hot springs.

• 19:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It's really hard.

• 19:56Georgia Hardstark?

  We should do this from a hot spring.

• 19:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh, we absolutely should.

• 19:59Georgia Hardstark?

  We could.

• 20:00Karen Kilgariff?

  There's two ducks that just hang out the whole time with you and they're not scared of you because they're filled with lithium.

• 20:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I want ducks to be my friends now. That's my new, like, bird obsession.

• 20:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's guy-girl duck couple.

• 20:10Georgia Hardstark?

  And they're like, cool with everyone?

• 20:12Karen Kilgariff?

  They don't care. They're just so relaxed and filled with magnesium and all the minerals you need for your nervous system to be okay.

• 20:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You just sold this to me completely.

• 20:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, great. We'll get you a little gift certificate. So, this, of course, will be entirely against her will, obviously, and according to Elizabeth, she will later write, "a needless and unkind decision." She will spend six weeks in this asylum, subjected to all kinds of archaic treatments, including at one point, bloodletting.

• 20:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 20:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's not any kind of, like, hospital that we would know today.

• 20:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. They didn't have lobotomies yet, right?

• 20:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't think so. I would love to. Everything in me wants to say, "No, of course not," but I don't.

• 20:54Georgia Hardstark?

  I want to ask if they had electric shock therapy, but I don't even know if they had electricity.

• 20:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't.

• 20:58Georgia Hardstark?

  So I shouldn't ask.

• 20:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I think it was like, the fresh new thing around town, electricity, but I don't know either. What we know is this: she does not write about this first time she's hospitalized in any way, but it's a 19th century mental asylum.

• 21:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Her physical symptoms do start to improve, though, so she's finally discharged because, of course, she is treated and basically her brain infection goes away. But by the point that she gets out, she firmly believes that her recovery is incidental and that her treatment by these asylum doctors has actually only made her worse mentally and emotionally.

• 21:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 21:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So, a couple of years pass after that, and then in 1839, when she's 22, she gets set up with a friend of her father's named, get ready for this, oh, sorry, we have a picture of Elizabeth, here's her OG.

• 21:46Georgia Hardstark?

  She does not look happy. That's a dour face.

• 21:49Karen Kilgariff?

  All she wanted to do was be mean to children and hit them with a stick while she taught them Latin.

• 21:55Georgia Hardstark?

  She's like, "Someone unzip my dress, it's so tight."

• 21:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Please, I'm just upset about it. The idea that you would get a physical infection or a virus and suddenly it's like, "Sorry, crazy, go to the insane asylum."

• 22:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Your father or your husband says you're crazy, so...

• 22:09Karen Kilgariff?

  That's all that's needed.

• 22:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That's it.

• 22:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so, she gets set up with a friend of her father's named Theophilus Packard. Can we take a look at Theophilus?

• 22:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Theoph-

• 22:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Theophilus, yes. This is when he's young.

• 22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  No!

• 22:24Karen Kilgariff?

  This is after he sees the ghost.

• 22:27Georgia Hardstark?

  He looks like Planet of the Apes, where they like, put a suit on one of the apes with those-

• 22:33Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, I think it's the chin strap beard, this is the final argument against the chin strap beard. I know guys do it because they're like-

• 22:40Georgia Hardstark?

  There was more left?

• 22:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, there used to be a lot. Now we're down to this one and the answer is firm no.

• 22:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Bro.

• 22:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Please don't.

• 22:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm trying to see if he'd be hot without it, but I don't think so.

• 22:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, also, he's taken the chin strap beard to a totally upsetting level where it's under his chin but grown out. So, it looks like he's wearing a children's lion costume.

• 23:00Georgia Hardstark?

  What do you think it smells like? Is that so they can eat soup better?

• 23:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe. It's so that he can worship the Lord better because he is, like her father, a Calvinist minister and 14 years older than her. He's 37, he is not particularly romantic, I know that's gonna shock you. He's not all about that relationship. And in fact, later Elizabeth will write that during their courtship, he quote, "Did not seem to love me much."

• 23:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that sounds about right.

• 23:30Karen Kilgariff?

  She does go on to say that she marries him in part to make her father happy, but they are not a match. So, author Kate Moore writes, quote, "Their characters were as opposite as it was possible to get. Where Elizabeth was vibrant, sociable, and curious, Theophilus was gloomy, and in his own words, dull."

• 23:49Georgia Hardstark?

  He said he was dull?

• 23:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 23:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Always trust the guy when they tell you what they are.

• 23:52Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, "Look, don't get fooled by my way-back chinstrap beard."

• 23:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I know I seem whimsical because of this fucking...

• 24:00Karen Kilgariff?

  This was, this was just an accident.

• 24:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Karen Kilgariff?

  What if he couldn't grow beard hair on his chin? It started back there. Okay, so for years, Elizabeth endures a marriage that she will later describe as, quote, "love strangling." The worst. She spends that relationship constantly tempering her own thoughts and feelings to keep peace in the household. She has a lot of children, and she moves at the whim of her husband's ministry career. He is always the focus of everyone's life. Because how could it not be?

• 24:32Georgia Hardstark?

  He turns heads when he walks in the door.

• 24:34Karen Kilgariff?

  He looks like he invented, like, grape juice or something. He looks like something from an old, like, "Try my car cleaner."

• 24:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Like a disgusting prune tonic. And he's like, "It works. It makes you vitality."

• 24:45Karen Kilgariff?

  It'll fix your spleen.

• 24:47Georgia Hardstark?

  He's always talking about his spleen. Like, he won't shut up about his spleen.

• 24:50Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, "Listen, I'm dull, but your spleen will be clean."

• 24:53Georgia Hardstark?

  The spleen is the heart of every malady.

• 24:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Of every chin beard. In 1848, the first women's rights convention ever held in the US, which was the Seneca Falls Convention, takes place in New York, and activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott are, like, the central players of this event. It's a watershed moment in the broader movement for women's rights in the United States. Elizabeth is now in her early 30s. She doesn't get to go to this, but she hears about it, and she hears the messages of women's empowerment that come out of it. It resonates with her. She is a decade into this miserable, dull, loveless marriage, and she begins to test the social limits of her role, not only as a mother, but as a preacher's wife.

• 25:38Karen Kilgariff?

  So she takes on, this is the ultimate like, get out of jail free. She starts doing missionary work. So she gets out of the household. She's like, it's for the Lord, by, it's what we're all supposed to be doing. And she gets to be out in the real world. And once she gets out into the real world, she starts examining her own faith. And this is the time where spiritualism is very, very popular in the United States, which is the belief the living can communicate with the dead. And being raised in the Calvinism end of Christianity, she's drawn to theologies that are more empathetic and mystical and humanistic.

• 26:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I could see that.

• 26:16Karen Kilgariff?

  She even attends a seance where she claims that she spoke with her late mother.

• 26:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 26:21Karen Kilgariff?

  So, listen to episode 363, Landed in Marshmallows, if you want to hear about Harry Houdini's fight against spiritualism.

• 26:29Georgia Hardstark?

  That was a good one.

• 26:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Because he didn't like it. So, for most other women at that time, that kind of dalliance into spiritualism was what was happening. It probably would have been fine. But because Elizabeth's husband is a rigid 19th century Calvinist minister, her spiritual journey puts a huge strain on their marriage. But she doesn't want to hide her beliefs anymore. Basically, she's just trapped and she's like, whatever, I'm gonna do what I want. So, in their ultra-religious social circle, which is probably just all the people at her husband's church, they're just watching as the minister's wife dabbles in the heretical, like the seance.

• 27:04Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't, you can't.

• 27:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not allowed. And so, at home, this, I guess, hobby is challenging Theophilus's values on everything, from how to raise their six children to major issues of the day like slavery. Elizabeth identifies as an abolitionist, although a very flawed, white 1800s one. Very self-serving, but overall, especially like, trying to put it on the table with her husband, who is 10 times worse in every direction than her. He doesn't like it. She is an avid supporter of John Brown, the man who led the antislavery raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and was executed for it. She's a believer in this movement and her husband is mortified.

• 27:49Karen Kilgariff?

  He, of course, unsurprisingly finds his wife's politics increasingly embarrassing. She becomes so disillusioned that she actually leaves her husband's church. Because she's like, how could you say you're of God and be doing this to people?

• 28:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, that's such a fuck you, you know?

• 28:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh my god.

• 28:05Georgia Hardstark?

  A wife leaving?

• 28:06Karen Kilgariff?

  The preacher's wife.

• 28:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:08Karen Kilgariff?

  You saw the Whitney Houston movie? You know what it's like. So, leaving the churches, she is just piling up the humiliations for him. Their marriage is in shambles, but of course divorce is off the table. He would never do it.

• 28:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Morally, and she is deathly afraid that she'll lose custody of her children. Then her husband of 21 years does the unthinkable.

• 28:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Dies?

• 28:30Karen Kilgariff?

  No. No. It's close, though, but not bad for him. It's 1860, they're living in Jacksonville, Illinois. And one night, in the middle of the night, Elizabeth is taken from her home by two strange men and brought to the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital.

• 28:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, he's just like, here's the problem, let me get rid of it.

• 28:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you're so embarrassing by contradicting me that you must be insane.

• 28:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And so you have to be committed. And it's right there in Jacksonville. Elizabeth has no idea what's going on. She remembers being in the reception room hours later, begging to be released. And then she sees her husband through a window and realizes like he's there to confirm this is happening and make sure it happens.

• 29:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Chilling.

• 29:16Karen Kilgariff?

  She will later write in her journal that he looked at her with, quote, "one last look of satisfied delight. Never had I seen his face more radiant with joy."

• 29:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Damn.

• 29:26Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, she's gone. Can you imagine that face? Can we see the face again? Never had I seen the face so radiant with joy.

• 29:34Georgia Hardstark?

  He doesn't look like a joyful person.

• 29:36Karen Kilgariff?

  He's not.

• 29:38Georgia Hardstark?

  He looks a little stunned.

• 29:39Karen Kilgariff?

  It would actually probably be very upsetting to see him.

• 29:42Georgia Hardstark?

  That guy?

• 29:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Radiant with joy.

• 29:43Georgia Hardstark?

  First of all, just seeing that face through a window, and I think like that's a ghost or whatever, but to see him happy?

• 29:49Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, hooray, she's finally gone. I can get back to my books and ledgers.

• 29:56Georgia Hardstark?

  And God.

• 29:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And of course, God. So Theophilus commits his 44-year-old wife to an asylum, telling the doctors there that she is, quote, "slightly insane." His proof is.

• 30:06Georgia Hardstark?

  We all.

• 30:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, we'd all be in there.

• 30:09Georgia Hardstark?

  We would all be in there.

• 30:10Karen Kilgariff?

  This whole building of people would be in there.

• 30:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank God.

• 30:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Together. His proof is her leaving his Calvinist church and disavowing his worldview. And Illinois state law at the time says, "No problem, pastor. All husbands have the right to institutionalize their wives without any medical proof that they are mentally ill in any way."

• 30:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Y'all.

• 30:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And it was just so recently.

• 30:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 30:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So, as we know, Elizabeth has been through this before. It's what her father did to her when she was a teenager. And of course, that works against her and reaffirms her diagnosis. The well-respected 43-year-old superintendent of this hospital is a man named Dr. Andrew McFarland, and he does seem to agree with Theophilus's assessment that Elizabeth's actions over the last few years suggest that she is, quote, "slightly insane."

• 30:57Georgia Hardstark?

  "Slightly insane" is so cute. Like, can you... That would be great.

• 31:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, she's not raving in the streets, we understand. But she certainly isn't down a church, nodding along with her husband's beard. Elizabeth will write that she has been, quote, "placed there by her husband for thinking."

• 31:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Dun dun dun.

• 31:17Karen Kilgariff?

  End quote. But her insistence that she's sane, of course, only seems to affirm to Dr. McFarland that she's not. The old trick.

• 31:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Screaming, "I'm insane."

• 31:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Never works.

• 31:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. "I'm sane. I'm sane." And then you say it 500 more times. So, she's committed with no clear discharge date, and so she begins to write. And from her very thorough diaries, she describes her time in there, yearning not only for her freedom, but for her children. She is in agony. Her friends on the outside are advocating for her release, but they are powerless, of course, because of the laws of the time, so they can argue all they want.

• 31:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 31:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Elizabeth is certainly not alone in her experience, though. She documents the leagues of other women that she meets in the asylum who have also been unfairly institutionalized by the men in their lives. She also records details on patients who are genuinely unwell and how the staff are clearly unequipped to treat them and are often abusive. It is a miserable place. It's overcrowded. Resources are stretched thin. There's high staff turnover. Some wards are filthy. There are puddles of human waste left on the unclean floor. Every room seems to have been stripped of the smallest possible comfort. Patients only get to sit on hardwood benches, and the bedding is as scratchy and itchy and terrible as it could possibly be. And so Elizabeth writes all this down.

• 32:41Karen Kilgariff?

  She takes it all down. And she writes about all of it in detail. But the darkest testimony involves the extreme abuse that she experiences and that she witnesses other patients being subjected to at the hands of asylum employees. So you've got to figure probably a lot of these employees were totally unqualified, untrained. Right. They're just thrown in there like make sure they're quiet or make sure they eat or go to bed. Yeah. From there, the exploitation of that power. Yeah. Women are injured as they're violently stuffed into straitjackets. They're beaten for being unruly. They're choked. Sometimes Elizabeth tries to intervene, but she writes that once while trying to help a patient that's being manhandled by a much larger attendant, he turns and grabs Elizabeth

• 33:26Karen Kilgariff?

  and drags her through the hallways back to her room by her arm and locks her in so she can't interfere anymore. She writes about a patient being starved as punishment. And when she sneaks that woman some food, an aide finds out and pulls a knife on her and holds it over her head. Holy shit. So it's just, it's mayhem in there. She also writes about an assistant choking a young patient and one of his fingernails is so sharp, it slashes the young patient's throat. When the attendant backs off, Elizabeth dresses the patient's wound with a piece of her own clothing and she keeps that bandage. And she writes that the scrap is, quote, "red with the blood of this innocent girl as proof of this kind of abuse in the Jacksonville insane asylum."

• 34:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God. That's terrifying. Yeah. And she's just kind of like, I'm just going to put it down. She writes extensively about the arrival of bathtubs, too. Oh, no. And we talked about this a little bit with Nellie Bly. Right. So at first, they're introduced as a more hygienic and dignifying alternative to the sponge baths that were usually given to patients. But Elizabeth describes them as quickly becoming instruments of torture, used to punish girls and women for things as small as, quote, "silly behavior and laughing." From her bed, Elizabeth writes that she can hear the patients begging for mercy as attendants throw them into the tubs, sometimes with, quote, "their hands and feet tied,

• 34:53Karen Kilgariff?

  and if they resisted, a straitjacket was placed upon them," end quote.

• 34:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, just sadistic people. This is not therapy in any way.

• 35:01Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 35:02Georgia Hardstark?

  This is sadism.

• 35:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It's sadism because they're held underwater repeatedly for long stretches of time, and sometimes the water's freezing, or it's scalding hot.

• 35:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 35:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And the only way that Elizabeth knows that the patient survives this, basically, torture slash treatment is when they come back up out of the water screaming.

• 35:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 35:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So she is in this situation and in this hospital for months, and of course, it's deteriorating both her mental and her physical health because it's a living hell.

• 35:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Karen Kilgariff?

  As an act of resistance, she does her best to keep her mind sharp, so she commits to a routine of regular exercise and prayer. This is you and me and jumping rope. This is how we're gonna do it.

• 35:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Keeping sane in this fucked up world.

• 35:48Karen Kilgariff?

  As we jump rope or on a mini trampoline, we're going to be like, Lord, Lord, Lord.

• 35:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Sharpen our brains.

• 35:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's sharpen this shit up and get it together. She writes in her journal, quote, "I am becoming so extremely sensitive to wrong and abuse that I cannot or shall not witness it without interference, even if you put me in two fetters for it," end quote.

• 36:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 36:10Karen Kilgariff?

  She is trapped in this asylum for three years total.

• 36:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 36:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Until she's finally released in 1863 due to sustaining pressure from her older children, who are now either in their late teens or early twenties.

• 36:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 36:23Karen Kilgariff?

  So they just basically have been calling and pressuring Dr. McFarlane and the other asylum officials, like-

• 36:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Did they have phones?

• 36:30Karen Kilgariff?

  No, sorry. They've been calling. They've been-

• 36:36Karen Kilgariff?

  They have been putting pressure.

• 36:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry.

• 36:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Doctor, no, no, no, that's a good catch. They have been putting pressure on the doc, on Dr. McFarlane and on the other asylum officials, basically saying, "Our mother is not crazy and you know it and get her out of there." But also, the asylum officials and the workers are getting sick of dealing with Elizabeth and her interference because she really is fighting back.

• 36:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 36:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Essentially, they officially declare her incurably insane, but then release her. So, it's not a celebration because she is still married to Theophilus. And so, when she gets home, according to her journals, he locks her in the nursery of their home.

• 37:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Theophilus, Theophilus.

• 37:15Karen Kilgariff?

  He's...

• 37:18Karen Kilgariff?

  The whole time? Were you thinking of it the whole time?

• 37:20Georgia Hardstark?

  No, like, literally just now. Just now.

• 37:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Full credit then.

• 37:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 37:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Full credit. And apparently, nurseries were way smaller in houses back then.

• 37:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, they were like in the fucking attic, like the attic room with the...

• 37:32Karen Kilgariff?

  It's Harry Potter shit. He's, he's locking her in the smallest place he possibly can. She manages to sneak a letter out of the nursery window to a friend outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will.

• 37:43Georgia Hardstark?

  So, she's, she's just locked in there?

• 37:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And she had, okay, wow.

• 37:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Just like whatever, if, just, I mean, imagine it's just like, "You wanna give me some soup?"

• 37:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Karen Kilgariff?

  "Sounds goo, could we please do that?" Like, whatever.

• 37:54Georgia Hardstark?

  This guy.

• 37:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Fucking beardo.

• 37:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't, I don't wanna see him.

• 37:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't bring it back. Outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will under the false pretense that she's insane, that friend delivers the letter to a local judge. And finally, for some reason and somehow, it works. For the first time, Theophilus's behavior is seen as legally problematic. While a husband can easily have his wife committed to an asylum, it's not as defensible to lock that same wife up in a little room in your house.

• 38:25Georgia Hardstark?

  There are boundaries, people.

• 38:27Karen Kilgariff?

  People. We, we're here.

• 38:29Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't just run around.

• 38:31Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a rocking chair on the front porch, it's so nice here.

• 38:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Willy-nilly.

• 38:35Karen Kilgariff?

  You keep all that abuse to the asylum. Okay. So, in January of 1864, Elizabeth goes to trial to establish her mental state once and for all. She is now 48 years old.

• 38:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude, she's like, "Can I go to sleep?"

• 38:48Karen Kilgariff?

  She is like, but probably in the perfect, like, menopausal state to be like, "Let's do this thing."

• 38:53Georgia Hardstark?

  She's also like an old la, I mean, I...

• 38:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, say it. I mean, 'cause 48 in today's money, she's 117.

• 39:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Various physicians and family members, friends and acquaintances, go on record in the courtroom to state that she is a sane human being.

• 39:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 39:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And after five days of testimony, but only seven minutes of deliberating, the jury deems Elizabeth Packard to be sane.

• 39:17Georgia Hardstark?

  And you know it was an all male jury.

• 39:19Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, it would have to be, I believe.

• 39:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Neckbeards abound.

• 39:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Neckbeards being like, "I don't want to give this woman her freedom, but I must." With that, Theophilus immediately skips town and takes their three youngest children with him.

• 39:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Ugh.

• 39:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Elizabeth is left with nothing but the clothes on her back. Luckily, she does have her older children and her friends to lean on. But of course, she is forever changed by the years of mistreatment. So she channels her anger into advocacy work, and she starts by advocating for herself. She takes her husband to court in both Illinois and Massachusetts, where he's currently living.

• 39:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 39:56Karen Kilgariff?

  And she sues him for damages.

• 39:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Damn.

• 39:59Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, in the mid 1800s.

• 40:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 40:02Karen Kilgariff?

  In the, "Is electricity real yet?"

• 40:05Georgia Hardstark?

  We don't, nobody knows.

• 40:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It's that long ago. A few years after that, in her early 50s, she finally wins custody of her youngest children. And then she sets out on a campaign for the rights of both married women and patients in psychiatric institutions.

• 40:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 40:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Her most powerful tool is her writing. Her diaries capture the horrors of the asylum so vividly that when she publishes several books based on them, the public laps it up.

• 40:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm.

• 40:31Karen Kilgariff?

  She becomes increasingly famous. She travels all through the United States, sharing her story. And she eventually secures real changes in the law. She's said to have inspired the passage of over 30 different laws in various states, ones that better protect women's personal assets when they get married, and an Illinois law that guarantees a trial for anyone unwillingly being committed, which could have prevented Elizabeth's own institutionalization if it had existed years earlier. So now it's 1867 and Elizabeth's efforts also result in the state investigation of Dr. Andrew McFarland and the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital, which stretches on for seven months.

• 41:14Karen Kilgariff?

  In the end, investigators recommend he be removed from his post, but for unknown reasons, this doesn't happen. And he holds the job for three more years, at which point he willingly leaves to open his own private asylum.

• 41:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 41:29Karen Kilgariff?

  In 1897, when she is 80 years old, Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard dies suddenly of a strangulated hernia. She is buried in Chicago. After decades spent writing books and giving impassioned lectures on the horrors of the asylum and the women who were sent there and who suffered there, her legacy as a courageous woman who stood up and spoke out has endured. As for Dr. McFarland, despite the reputational damage caused by Elizabeth's advocacy work, not to mention the investigation into the asylum under his leadership, when a new state-run psychiatric center opens in Springfield, Illinois in 1968, it's named in his honor.

• 42:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Cool.

• 42:06Karen Kilgariff?

  The McFarland Mental Health Center. But when author Kate Moore's book, The Woman They Could Not Silence, is published in 2021, it brings renewed attention to Elizabeth Parsons Ware's story. And in 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announces that center will be renamed the Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard Mental Health Center.

• 42:26Georgia Hardstark?

  That is amazing.

• 42:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And it just happened. And it's because of author Kate Moore and her work. And of course, Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard's work, where she was just blindly in the dark going, this is wrong. I need to change this. Somebody do something.

• 42:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Such a strong, like, they could have named it something generic, too, just taking his name off of it. But instead of naming it after this evil doctor, they named it after a woman who... Fought him.

• 42:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Fought his evil. That's amazing.

• 42:56Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, it's like, was he evil? I feel like the naming thing is like their way of saying, but he did such great work, which always happens.

• 43:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:05Karen Kilgariff?

  But he didn't, according to the people he was doing the work on.

• 43:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And that's the key.

• 43:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Is that anybody can claim that, or their constituents can claim it.

• 43:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Or their boys down at the Elks Lodge.

• 43:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:18Karen Kilgariff?

  But how about the people that were there?

• 43:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And sitting in their own fucking piles of feces.

• 43:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, being tortured.

• 43:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah.

• 43:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. So of this decision, author Kate Moore has said, quote, "I think she would be personally grateful that she and her work have been recognized when for so much of her life she was denigrated and dumbed down. But I also think she would say, 'The work is not done,' end quote." And that's the story of mental health advocate Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard.

• 43:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, I didn't, as slightly, what is it, slightly insane?

• 43:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Slightly insane.

• 43:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't know that about her at all.

• 43:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 43:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing.

• 43:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, it's, uh, Mental Health Awareness Month.

• 44:00Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 44:00Karen Kilgariff?

  So that's what the whole vibe is about.

• 44:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, good job.

• 44:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you. And here's Kate Moore's book. She's an amazing author.

• 44:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:07Karen Kilgariff?

  The one they could not silence. Very cool.

• 44:11Georgia Hardstark?

  So cool. Good job. That was great.

• 44:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 44:13Georgia Hardstark?

  That was harrowing.

• 44:14Karen Kilgariff?

  The idea that there are this many women who had to go either undercover or just were committed to insane asylums and then had to do the work on the other end once they were released.

• 44:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 44:25Karen Kilgariff?

  To be like, you can't just send me here because you don't like that I'm talking.

• 44:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, it says something about like, you know, because she knew how to write. All the women who were not given an education, who couldn't write about their experiences or send a note through a window to their friend to tell them what was going on with them.

• 44:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 44:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 44:43Karen Kilgariff?

  They could only raise their voices, which then immediately qualified them as being slightly insane.

• 44:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is why they didn't want to educate women.

• 44:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Because then we would fucking talk back.

• 44:54Karen Kilgariff?

  That's why our school systems are in the state that they are. Because if nobody knows anything, then we're not going to be good with it.

• 45:01Speaker 02

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• 45:32Speaker 03

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• 45:43Speaker 04

  Ooh, I scam them.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  What?

• 45:45Speaker 04

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 45:47Speaker 03

  You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Scam Goddess.

• 46:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, great job.

• 46:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 46:05Georgia Hardstark?

  My turn.

• 46:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, if you insist, I guess.

• 46:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I don't have to.

• 46:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I could walk out right now.

• 46:12Georgia Hardstark?

  How do they get so disgusting? And how do you keep them clean?

• 46:16Karen Kilgariff?

  You never can. You're always wiping your glasses on your shirt. The thing they tell you not to do.

• 46:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, really?

• 46:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm. Unless you're the kind of person that can keep a little silky thing.

• 46:28Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 46:28Karen Kilgariff?

  I can't do it.

• 46:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Nobody can do that. That's a lie.

• 46:31Karen Kilgariff?

  It is a dirty lie.

• 46:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 46:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Conspiracy. I couldn't think of the word conspiracy. Oh, my God, my brain.

• 46:41Karen Kilgariff?

  The brains are going to cross the board, myself, the people I'm observing. This is what's happening to all of us.

• 46:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. But let's go back

• 46:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 46:50Georgia Hardstark?

  to February of 2020. Remember that? The world is starting to look with increasing concern at coronavirus outbreaks in China and Italy. But today, we are in Argentina. Specifically, we are in the Andes Mountains on South America's highest peak, the Aconcagua.

• 47:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 47:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you heard of it?

• 47:11Karen Kilgariff?

  No. Is it up by Machu Picchu?

• 47:15Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 47:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 47:16Georgia Hardstark?

  The fact that this is, I don't know. I don't know. Why am I saying yes?

• 47:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I am.

• 47:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? The fact that this is the highest mountain in South America makes it one of the seven summits.

• 47:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Which are the highest peaks on each continent. So this makes it part of a popular climbing challenge for mountaineers who want to conquer all of them. Could you imagine? Being like that?

• 47:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Do they not know about TV?

• 47:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Or naps?

• 47:43Karen Kilgariff?

  It's, I mean, I get it. It's nice to be outside and stuff. I don't know.

• 47:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Just have that drive would be cool for something besides podcasting.

• 47:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel, I feel like those are people who have learned something in this world about not the immediate gratification of like stuff like this. I just never learned that.

• 48:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, same.

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just, we need to, I can't hike all the time if no one's giving me attention.

• 48:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, or alcohol.

• 48:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. So Everest is the highest of the seven summits. It's also the most expensive and logistically worrisome, which is because of its popularity, altitude, and weather concerns. But it's debatable as to whether it's the hardest to actually climb. And so also I did the deaths on Everest in episode 174. And you covered Junko Tabai in episode 526. Should anyone want to feel cold more?

• 48:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Learn about a legendary lady mountaineer.

• 48:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 48:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Or your thing. Or just a bunch of terrible deaths. Skeletons, yeah.

• 48:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Okay, so it's the middle of summer in the southern part of the hemisphere, 2020, so February. It's the peak of the Andes climbing season and two porters are on the mountain not too far from the summit on its hardest climbing route. It's called the Polish Glacier, laying down ropes for a climbing expedition. And Aconcagua has multiple routes to the summit. Some don't require much technical equipment or skill at all. You can just kind of have a nice walk up to them. But you do have to be in really good shape to get to the top, which is 22,000 feet. Because the risk of getting severe altitude sickness is very high. And so some climbers use oxygen, some are purists and don't.

• 49:26Georgia Hardstark?

  But this route that we're taking, the Polish Glacier route, is where the porters are, you know, getting everything ready for the mountaineers. And this part- is extremely difficult. It requires significant mountaineering experience. And it's named the Polish Glacier because the first group to open up the route in the 1930s had been from Poland.

• 49:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 49:45Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not that interesting.

• 49:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Georgia Hardstark?

  It used to be that groups of mountaineers set up their own camps, lay their own lines. But now there's a whole industry around mountaineering and these porters are doing just that.

• 49:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Can you imagine that's your job, though?

• 49:56Georgia Hardstark?

  To be pretty rad.

• 49:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, some people are planning, like, this is my lifetime trip to climb this mountain. And other people are like, ugh, gotta go to work and climb this mountain again. They do it constantly.

• 50:06Georgia Hardstark?

  These idiots just keep coming.

• 50:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. Okay.

• 50:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Another thing that's changed is that the Polish Glacier is receding because of the global climate change. Fake. I'm just kidding. What's the word, conspiracy?

• 50:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Conspiracy.

• 50:20Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's not. This means that every so often, and I remember seeing this, like, in my news feed, the glacier spits out an item that had once been encased on ice.

• 50:30Karen Kilgariff?

  My favorite.

• 50:31Georgia Hardstark?

  On this particular day, the porters stumble upon a Nikomat camera.

• 50:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 50:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's an old school camera and it's got an old school label maker name on it. So a name and address with an old school label maker.

• 50:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 50:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 50:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 50:47Georgia Hardstark?

  The name says Janet Johnson and there's her address as well. The porters can see that 24 photos have been taken with this old camera. They shrug it off, they take it down to the mountain, to their campsite when they're done for the day, and they show it to a guide named Ulises Korvalan. And when Ulises sees the name Janet Johnson, he goes white. And he tells the porters that Janet Johnson, along with another climber named John Cooper, died on the mountain almost 50 years earlier under very mysterious circumstances.

• 51:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 51:18Georgia Hardstark?

  And her camera had just been uncovered.

• 51:20Karen Kilgariff?

  The ice receding is unveiling evidence.

• 51:23Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. This is the story of the Akonkogwa Mountain Mystery.

• 51:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 51:29Georgia Hardstark?

  The main source for this is a 2023 New York Times article. It's very, um...

• 51:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Good.

• 51:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Robust.

• 51:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Long.

• 51:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Boring.

• 51:38Georgia Hardstark?

  It's called, no, it's not boring. It's good. It's called Ghosts on the Glacier by John Branch with videos by Emily Rhine. It's a really great read. And then I also went to a website by this writer slash mountaineer named Mark Horrell, H-O-R-R-E-L-L.

• 51:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I know Mark.

• 51:54Georgia Hardstark?

  He's one of the greats. The rest of the sources can be found in our show notes.

• 51:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 51:59Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's 1972 and a 52-year-old Portland-based lawyer named Carmine Defoe.

• 52:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a good name.

• 52:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Well done.

• 52:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Starts putting together a group that will tackle Aconcagua together and they want to do the Polish Glacier route, the hardest one. If they succeed, they will be the fifth ever group to do so.

• 52:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 52:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, let's climb. Carmie is a member of a climbing club, which is-

• 52:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Carmie? Is that his nickname?

• 52:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Carmie. Yeah. Did I say Carmine?

• 52:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, I meant Carmie. It's probably Carmine. That's-

• 52:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It could be. And then it's such a cutie nickname for like Carmine Defoe. It's Carmie.

• 52:39Georgia Hardstark?

  So he's been a member of a climbing club. That's a thing called Mazummas. It's been around since the 1890s. It's still around today, so don't talk shit.

• 52:48Karen Kilgariff?

  You can join it.

• 52:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Most of the climbers he recruits are also members of Mazummas. The group includes a psychiatrist named Jim Petrowski, a doctor named Bill Eubank, a dairy farmer named Arnold McMillan.

• 53:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 53:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Just like people who were in the climbing mountains. It's like, takes all kinds.

• 53:05Karen Kilgariff?

  A showgirl named Maureen.

• 53:09Georgia Hardstark?

  No. A police officer named Bill Zeller and the youngest, a 25-year-old Brigham Young University student named John Shelton, who was hot. And he also spoke the best Spanish in his group because of his mission trip.

• 53:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 53:22Georgia Hardstark?

  The hot was me. What's it called?

• 53:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Editorializing?

• 53:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 53:25Karen Kilgariff?

  You're welcome.

• 53:26Georgia Hardstark?

  And NASA engineer named John Cooper.

• 53:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 53:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Who had worked on several recent Apollo missions.

• 53:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, every type of person.

• 53:34Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 53:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Except for women?

• 53:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Well.

• 53:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 53:37Georgia Hardstark?

  We're gonna get to her.

• 53:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 53:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Carmie hires a local guide named Miguel Alfonso. And then, close to when the group is going to leave, he announces one new member of the party. A school librarian with a PhD in education from Denver named Janet Johnson.

• 53:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 53:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? While most people in the group are in the same- General Orbit, although none of them have ever climbed together. Janet has never met anyone else in the group. But Carmy's Denver friends say she's a highly experienced climber, so she can come along.

• 54:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Let her in.

• 54:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Karen Kilgariff?

  A lady climber? What's she doing on this? I'm not gonna wait around all day.

• 54:13Georgia Hardstark?

  What's she doing on the mountaintop? Stop it. This is serious. No, it's not. Okay. Because the climbing party includes a NASA engineer and a woman.

• 54:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And a woman, for god's sake.

• 54:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Period. There's considerable public interest in the expedition. And it attracts some media attention. Because it's kind of a new, exciting thing, this mountain climbing.

• 54:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Women?

• 54:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Women in the 60s?

• 54:36Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, Everest, the whole climbing thing is like a big deal.

• 54:39Karen Kilgariff?

  The trend, it's really becoming a trend.

• 54:40Georgia Hardstark?

  And everyone loves NASA people, and women. Of course, they love women.

• 54:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Love women.

• 54:45Georgia Hardstark?

  They get us a lot of media attention, especially directed at John, NASA John, and Janet. So John, NASA John, I'm gonna call him that, is 35 at the time of the expedition. He had grown up in Kansas and had always loved the outdoors. After graduating from Oklahoma University, he becomes a pilot for the Coast Guard. He's an avid climber. He's just like all the things that you want if you want an outdoorsy type.

• 55:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 55:08Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, like when you are swiping whichever way and you're like, do I want to hike on my first date or no? He's the hike on the first date guy.

• 55:15Karen Kilgariff?

  He's the hike five miles on a first date.

• 55:17Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. He summited Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and Popocatépetl.

• 55:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, where my vacation home is.

• 55:24Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. And they all have elevations between 17,000 and 19,000 feet. And at NASA, John had worked on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and every mission since, up until the last one, which was Apollo 17, that's right, you knew that, shortly before this expedition to Aconcagua. While at NASA, he had met a secretary named Sandy Myers, and they had gotten married in 1968, and they had a son named Randy in 1969. And we're back. Let's show a photo of NASA John Cooper Seville play.

• 55:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 55:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 55:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Rugged.

• 55:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 55:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Absolutely. You would love to have a beer with that guy.

• 56:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 56:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Fun times.

• 56:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Cheers. Although all of John's backstory becomes known to public around the time of the climb, most of what people know about Janet at the time is...

• 56:08Karen Kilgariff?

  She's a lady.

• 56:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Is that she's a lady. Yes. Which is unusual for a climber at this time. Janet's 36 at the time of the expedition and had been born in Minneapolis and adopted by Victor and May Johnson. The Johnsons are very religious and very strict and Janet is an obedient daughter. She's a voracious reader, extremely studious, loves to learn. When she's 10, she says to her parents that she wants a sister and so they adopt a five year old named Judy.

• 56:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I know.

• 56:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Judy says her sister, quote, "liked to study. That was her favorite thing to do. Straight A's. She would settle for nothing less." Same. When Janet goes away to college, this sucks. When Janet goes away to college, and this is so little sister.

• 56:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 56:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Judy finds a box of love notes between her sister and another woman.

• 56:58Georgia Hardstark?

  This Janet and love notes between Janet and another woman. Judy found those in her room.

• 57:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, OK.

• 57:03Georgia Hardstark?

  When she went away to college. It's unclear exactly how Janet's parents find out, although little sister.

• 57:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It's clear, yeah.

• 57:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I mean, allegedly, allegedly.

• 57:12Karen Kilgariff?

  But you said that, but you go, this sucks. And then you're like, she found it where I'm like.

• 57:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Why does that suck? Oh, yeah. Sorry.

• 57:19Karen Kilgariff?

  What's happening?

• 57:19Georgia Hardstark?

  That doesn't suck. Judy fucking became a rat.

• 57:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 57:24Georgia Hardstark?

  You know? I'm sure she regretted it the rest of her life. They find out about it. Her parents are really strict religious parents and they send Janet to a hospital to cure her.

• 57:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, who's her team today? This, of course, does not work and Janet moves to Denver as soon as she can to put distance between herself and her parents.

• 57:40Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the story my mom used to tell as being a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in like the, you know, the late 60s, 70s where it's people are just taking their, the kids that smoked pot, the kids that rebelled, the kids that were different in some way and just like, well, you have to go to a psych.

• 57:54Georgia Hardstark?

  To the scariest place on earth.

• 57:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's in Denver. She becomes her own woman and she gets her masters and then a PhD in education and starts working as a school librarian. And then really just, it's just the thing to do between climbing mountains whenever she can. She's just obsessed with it. She's among the first 20 women to climb all of Colorado's 14ers, they're called, the summits that are higher than 14,000 feet, as well as notable mountains all around the world.

• 58:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 58:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. In addition to local interest in John and Janet, the group also attracts attention because of their plan to climb the notoriously difficult Polish glacier. Again, they would be the fifth team to do it if they accomplished it. Spoiler. They don't. A journalist from the local paper in Mendoza, Argentina, named Rafael Moran, goes to interview the climbing team when they arrive in Argentina. So he goes to the hotel, he's like, wants to get just, you know, a little fluff piece on everyone. But right away, he gets some bad vibes when he interviews everyone together. He feels that the group is not cohesive. They don't seem to know each other well enough for what they're about to embark on. Because you have to trust each other, especially if you're roped together.

• 59:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And like, believe that the other person knows what they're doing and has your best interest and helps out. They also don't seem to quite understand just how difficult the Polish glacier route is. They're kind of being jovial about it.

• 59:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 59:13Georgia Hardstark?

  He tells the photographer to make sure he gets single shots of everyone in the party, because he's convinced they won't all make it back down the mountain, and he'll want a photo for the newspaper when that happens.

• 59:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Whoa.

• 59:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Oh, let's see a photo of Janet. So that's Janet.

• 59:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it.

• 59:28Georgia Hardstark?

  There's no sunscreen back then, but sunscreen didn't exist.

• 59:31Karen Kilgariff?

  No sunscreen, everyone's wearing the same flannel.

• 59:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right, no sunscreen, but skin cancer still exists.

• 59:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Those cool sunglasses, for sure, though.

• 59:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah, for sure. So that's, yeah, she's got it all going. The group stays together at a hotel in Mendoza, Argentina, before setting off. John Cooper, the NASA engineer, keeps a diary, and from it, it seems like he and the other men in the group don't quite understand, like, what category to put Janet in.

• 59:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 59:56Georgia Hardstark?

  She just is kind of an enigma to them. He says she doesn't seem feminine at all. He writes, quote, "Janet sure is weird. She went swimming in her bra, blouse, and panties today, and the pool was full of people," end quote. So it's just like, women, climbing mountains.

• 1:00:12Karen Kilgariff?

  But also, she just jumped in the pool because she didn't have a suit.

• 1:00:15Georgia Hardstark?

  She didn't give a fuck. Like, she was definitely like a, I don't give a fuck lady.

• 1:00:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I'm gonna live life how I want to live life.

• 1:00:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And then, so these guys had kind of never been around anybody like that before.

• 1:00:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:26Georgia Hardstark?

  So the team sets out for base camp, a 25-mile, extremely rigorous hike on its own. Like, you get to the first place, and you're like, we have to go more?

• 1:00:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Who's making the food?

• 1:00:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So base camp is at 13,500 feet, which is around 1,000 feet less than any of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Altitude sickness begins to be a factor at around 8,000 feet, and they're at 13,500. And by the time they reach the base camp, Eubanks, the group's doctor, is already not feeling well.

• 1:00:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:00:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And has to stay there. So I looked up what altitude Altitude sickness feels like, because I don't fucking know. And I'll tell you, and you'll understand this as well as I do. Altitude sickness generally feels like a severe hangover.

• 1:01:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Oof.

• 1:01:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Those fucking hangovers where you're lying there, just wishing for unconsciousness.

• 1:01:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you can get out of your own body, just for two hours, like-

• 1:01:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Sweaty and depressed and, oh, nauseous, so bad. It's characterized by a throbbing headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, and shortness of breath. So it sucks, you're not hiking anymore when you got it. At base camp, the group connects with a local 25-year-old climber named Roberto Bustos, whom they have hired to look after their base camp setup. So I think he might be the cook? Or they just are eating like, dried weird-

• 1:01:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, what is it, handfuls of walnuts? It would drive me insane.

• 1:01:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Roberto also specifically remembers that the vibe seemed off to him as well. They didn't seem like a team, but rather a group of individuals. He says, quote, "There was no group attitude. I was thinking, oh, I am on my own. Everyone has to take care of himself. In my opinion, they weren't ready for such a strange and big mountain as Akankagua."

• 1:02:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's a terrible way to start.

• 1:02:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:02:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Georgia Hardstark?

  And I think a lot of people underestimate this mountain, and the people who are from there know that.

• 1:02:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you think the infighting would be worse if it's strangers who aren't gelling? Or if it's people who know each other really well? Because that also has a thing of like, you could start as a great group, but something happens, and then-

• 1:02:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, either way.

• 1:02:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Then it's more personal?

• 1:02:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. But you'd think that they make sure you like each other, though, if you're gonna do it.

• 1:02:36Karen Kilgariff?

  You're right, trust is the piece.

• 1:02:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Two people might not like each other when everyone else, yeah. Who knows? Email us, are you a mountaineer? Let us know, what's it called? Altitude sickness is like-

• 1:02:45Karen Kilgariff?

  What's the ultimate threat on the trail? Let us know what it's like to be a mountaineer.

• 1:02:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you hate every- okay.

• 1:02:52Karen Kilgariff?

  The whole time you're thinking of string cheese, right? Because that's all I can think of. Or like, you have to like, line your pockets with gummy bears or something.

• 1:02:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Those little crackers that are sandwiched with peanut butter? They're so fucking good.

• 1:03:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Think up pulling that out of your socks so no one else can see.

• 1:03:07Georgia Hardstark?

  These days, it's expensive to be a mountaineer. And that's partly because nowadays, porters set up camps. They lay lines so that groups can mostly travel directly from base camp to base camp up the mountain. But in the 70s, that wasn't really how it went. This group would be doing all of that work themselves. So the route up the mountain will include three separate camps. So they have to climb up to camp one, haul all the gear up there and set up camp, then go back to base camp, then go back to camp one with the rest of the gear, camp there, and then do the same thing two more times for base camp two and three. So bring everything up, stay, bring everything up.

• 1:03:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's an exercise in frustration.

• 1:03:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Karen Kilgariff?

  While you're mountaineering.

• 1:03:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, yeah. Saw that tree already. You're like, your attitude just gets worse and worse.

• 1:03:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. The conditions are varying with the potential for storms to blow in, and the climb includes long periods of navigating through spiky ice formations called penitentes, right? Penitentes.

• 1:04:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Penitentes.

• 1:04:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you ever heard of them?

• 1:04:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Georgia Hardstark?

  They're literally penitents.

• 1:04:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Penitentes.

• 1:04:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Because they look like people praying in church.

• 1:04:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Georgia Hardstark?

  They're basically stalagmites.

• 1:04:12Karen Kilgariff?

  They're stalagmites coming up from the ground.

• 1:04:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. They're these huge spikes of ice, huge fields of them, just coming up from the ground like upside down giant icicles. I'm gonna show you a photo.

• 1:04:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, great.

• 1:04:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Because I didn't understand those.

• 1:04:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:04:26Georgia Hardstark?

  So you have to navigate around those. It's just a pain in the ass, essentially.

• 1:04:30Karen Kilgariff?

  You can't just like worry about putting one foot in front of the other.

• 1:04:34Georgia Hardstark?

  No. It looks like an old movie, like a dune or, you know, labyrinth kind of thing.

• 1:04:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Or a Dr. No situation.

• 1:04:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So there's a bunch of those as well. Those are a big pain in the ass, they're hard to climb around. It's grueling and already feels like people are starting to grumble about each other. NASA John writes in his diary that he does not think Janet is contributing enough. He writes, quote, "She's a real loner and appears to be, for only one thing, to get herself to the summit at the expense of everyone or on everyone's back." Meaning they're carrying more than she is or something and she's not really

• 1:05:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:08Georgia Hardstark?

  helping out.

• 1:05:09Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the first thing I thought of that she would be accused of because as a woman she can't maybe technically carry as much. Or if there is that kind of bitterness where they're like, we didn't want her here anyway.

• 1:05:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:05:21Karen Kilgariff?

  That is what you would say.

• 1:05:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Several in the group come down with acute altitude sickness. sickness right off the bat and stay at camp one or go back to base camp. This includes Carmy, right off the bat, the leader.

• 1:05:33Karen Kilgariff?

  The author of the whole plan.

• 1:05:35Georgia Hardstark?

  He's out. The doctor, Eubanks, is out. And Shelton, the hot interpreter, out.

• 1:05:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Gone.

• 1:05:43Georgia Hardstark?

  The rest of the group make it to camp three. They do the fucking thing at the base of the Polish glacier, about 18,000 feet up, and the last camp before the stretch to the summit. So, one last camp.

• 1:05:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:05:54Georgia Hardstark?

  As they get ready to start climbing, Petroski, the psychiatrist, can't get on, I just hate this word, can't get on his crampons.

• 1:06:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I hate it. I can't every time I see.

• 1:06:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Are you gonna spit that out?

• 1:06:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Why did I take that sip?

• 1:06:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, they are spiky shoe attachments to get into the ice.

• 1:06:14Karen Kilgariff?

  That absorb your foot blood every month.

• 1:06:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Spiky shoes, not crampons. I just.

• 1:06:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Can I borrow a crampon?

• 1:06:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, do you have a crampon? I forgot to bring mine.

• 1:06:23Karen Kilgariff?

  God, I'm sliding into the penitence.

• 1:06:26Georgia Hardstark?

  So, he's like having trouble putting them on, which is weird, and it's clear to everyone else that it's because he's disoriented and they think that he's suffering from severe, possibly deadly altitude sickness, because at that point, your brain is like, not working.

• 1:06:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Fine, leave me alone. This is my tampon.

• 1:06:45Georgia Hardstark?

  The local guide, Alfonso, takes him back down the mountain to base camp. So now there are only four climbers left in the entire group. Zeller, the police officer, McMillan, the good old dairy farmer, and John, NASA John, and our Janet. None of them have ever climbed a mountain this high before, and none of them knew each other before the trip.

• 1:07:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Here's the other thing that I just would like to, and maybe I'm totally wrong in doing this, but the idea that someone was like, she's just doing it for herself, it's like, so how many that are left are doing it for everybody else?

• 1:07:15Georgia Hardstark?

  You wanna hold hands at the top of these seven mountains?

• 1:07:17Karen Kilgariff?

  They're literally gonna be like, me first. I mean, isn't that kind of what mountaineering is about?

• 1:07:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, you go together, but it's a one-man sport.

• 1:07:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It ends up being one woman. One woman, one, okay.

• 1:07:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. According to the accounts of Zeller and McMillan, the psychiatrist and the police officer who are left, and spoiler alert, they're the only two survivors of the group of four. The group had set out believing they would reach the summit that day, but had moved very slowly, picking their way across the glacier with ice axes and crampons. They realized they will have to camp for the night, and they didn't bring their tents, so they have to like be. Whack into the fucking ice and try to like spend the night in there.

• 1:07:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, make themselves like a little igloo, like the last minute igloo.

• 1:07:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It sucks.

• 1:08:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:08:00Georgia Hardstark?

  And so the next morning NASA, John Cooper says he's too fucking cold. He's like, I'm out, descends. He's like, I'm gonna go back to base camp and they let him go alone, which is something I guess you're not supposed to do, which is like maybe part of the thing of them not knowing each other.

• 1:08:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Georgia Hardstark?

  They don't stick together.

• 1:08:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, so those three climbers keep going up for the summit. The last stretch is an icy snowy ridge and Zeller and McMillan say they walk ahead of Janet making a path for her. Let's see that photo. Remember that one.

• 1:08:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:08:28Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just someone hiking with a rope tied around them, leading back to whoever's taking the picture behind them.

• 1:08:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 1:08:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 1:08:34Karen Kilgariff?

  They're at the top.

• 1:08:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Big old mountain.

• 1:08:36Karen Kilgariff?

  They made it to the top.

• 1:08:37Georgia Hardstark?

  No, they didn't.

• 1:08:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:08:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, that's technically not the top.

• 1:08:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, it's on the side?

• 1:08:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the top.

• 1:08:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:08:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? I don't know. What do I know?

• 1:08:49Karen Kilgariff?

  More than me.

• 1:08:50Georgia Hardstark?

  So they make her a path and at some point, as the sun is starting to go down, they turn around and realize Janet's not behind them anymore.

• 1:08:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:58Georgia Hardstark?

  According to their account, they find her 100 feet off the trail, lying in the snow. And she says, quote, "My name is Janet Johnson. Don't make me suffer. Just let me lay here and die," end quote. The men say that Zeller ropes himself to Janet and eventually both of the men try to get Janet back down the mountain. And they say her hands are swollen and black. They have to anchor her from three different directions to keep her standing up. They get to the snow cave where they had been in between the final ridge and camp three, where they had spent the night, where Cooper had left to go back down the mountain, remember?

• 1:09:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:35Georgia Hardstark?

  And there's a flare gun there and so they shoot it, but nothing happens. At the lower altitude at this point, because it came down, they say Janet seems in better shape. So they send McMillan down the mountain to help. So it's just Zeller, the police officer and Janet at this point, who is clearly not doing well.

• 1:09:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Georgia Hardstark?

  On his way down, McMillan loses his ice axe and falls sliding 1,000 feet down.

• 1:09:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 1:09:58Georgia Hardstark?

  He has a black eye when he tells this story and says that's how he got it. Then he says he saw members. Of the Argentine army and dead mules and a dead soldier. But it's only when he finally reaches Camp Three that he realized he had hallucinated all of that because that's what happens when you have altitude sickness. Okay. He will later learn that he really did see a body, but it wasn't a dead soldier hallucination. It was actually John Cooper's body, NASA John Cooper's. Oh, no. Thirty-five-year-old NASA engineer. So meanwhile, Janet and Zeller are following McMillan down the glacier, and they also take a big fall, which doesn't result in major injuries, but their faces get cut up and their glasses get broken. In the fall, Janet and Zeller become untethered from each other, because remember, they had

• 1:10:43Georgia Hardstark?

  tied her up in three places to help walk. And it's only when Zeller climbs back up to Janet that he sees John Cooper's body. He says, quote, "I checked him, and he was dead and appeared to be frozen. I didn't see any cuts on his exposed skin and no tears in the clothing, so I assume that he didn't die as a result of a fall, but exhaustion and hypothermia," end quote. So just kind of sat down where he was at and died. Zeller says at this point that Janet seems in decent shape since they've been coming down a bit, but wants to rest a bit longer. So he leaves her and says he'll go back ahead of her, back down to Camp Three, which, again, you're not supposed to leave anyone alone, especially someone who's clearly suffering.

• 1:11:22Georgia Hardstark?

  He reaches camp and he finds McMillan there, and the two fall asleep, and Janet never joins them. The men say in the morning when they woke up, there was no sign of Janet, so they decided to go back down the mountain, saying that Zeller was too disoriented from altitude sickness to try again and to keep going or to help get anyone down the mountain. Okay. Essentially, just two people of this whole mountaineering team make it close to the top and come down, and out of the four, only two come down alive. Okay. The case is widely reported on, and John and Janet's families are, of course, devastated. In some newspaper articles, Janet's name is misspelled as Jeanette. Janet's mother saves clippings of every single article and carefully crosses out every Jeanette

• 1:12:05Georgia Hardstark?

  and replaces it with her daughter's correct name. I know. Some articles quote Janet saying, having said, "Let me die here," which they said that she said. And in all of those articles, her mother blacks out the entire quotation. She's like, my daughter would never do that. They don't believe that at all.

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• 1:12:49Georgia Hardstark?

  A judge and police investigator in Mendoza opened a case labeled as an investigation into possible manslaughter, but despite this, after brief questioning, everyone on the mountain team is allowed to leave the country and go home. Once back in Oregon, Carmy gathers the surviving members at the party for a meeting with the club leadership, and they write an official chronology of events, which is a story everyone tells their hometown newspapers and any following investigators. So they put a story together in secret, and everyone sticks to that narrative.

• 1:13:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, so they don't, that meeting and that plan is a secret plan? They're not like, let's get together and put this on the official record?

• 1:13:27Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:13:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Georgia Hardstark?

  They're like, having been interviewed back in Argentina and having very different narratives and conflicting stories, they meet up and they get their story straight, essentially, which is suspicious.

• 1:13:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:13:39Georgia Hardstark?

  So the account says that John and Janet had been desperate to reach the summit and had likely died of pulmonary edemas from lack of oxygen at altitude. And because their bodies aren't able to be autopsied, they're still up on the mountain. That's the general consensus. That is, so that was 1972, and in the summer of 1973, John's body is found. That expedition is led by Alfonso, our local guide, who was haunted by this entire ordeal. At the foot of the Polish glacier, they find ripped tents and sleeping bags, and about 150 feet above on the glacier, they find John's body. And there's photos of it. John is found missing a crampon and without an ice axe. He's on a gentle slope.

• 1:14:24Georgia Hardstark?

  And reports say his face is frozen in a look of terror. But like, that to me is like, everyone's is when they die.

• 1:14:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, it's the same thing as when it freaks people out and people think it's demonic. When people's like, eyes are missing, when their bodies are discovered and it's like, soft tissues is what goes first.

• 1:14:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 1:14:42Karen Kilgariff?

  But it looks like the devil has been here.

• 1:14:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, so that says nothing to me, but it's just, it's noted.

• 1:14:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Death, it's dead bodies.

• 1:14:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So here's the weirdest part of all to me, that his abdomen has a cylindrical hole, which is bloody and goes so deep, it almost like hits his spine. Though this isn't seen until his body thaws at a lower altitude because they bring him down. A National Geographic reporter named Lauren McIntyre, who goes with this group, comes to the conclusion that, quote, "There is no mystery at all. He fell on his ice axe and he injured himself." But remember, his ice axe isn't with him when they find him, but he could have fallen on it, left it behind. Then he says, "He was in so much discomfort and pain when he was nearly to base camp that he finally got off the steep part of the glacier, got down on the flat. He had evidently stopped, sat down and removed his gloves and was probably trying to examine

• 1:15:31Georgia Hardstark?

  himself and his wound when he fell unconscious and froze to death." So he fell on his ice pick, is that consensus. He tells us to the press in a statement, and it seems like a lot of people take him for his word, even though he's just a reporter and not a forensic investigator. Alfonso, the guy, feels incredibly uneasy about all of this because he specifically remembers the two other climbers saying they had seen John's body in a seated position, not laying down with his head in his hands, but of course, they had been hallucinating. You can't, you have to remember the whole time that these two, who survived, were probably suffering from some sort of altitude sickness as well.

• 1:16:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Janet's body is not found until February 1975. Ernesto Cumbalero and his son Alberto, who's 17, are with another climber named Guillermo Viero, when they have to scrap their summit attempt and decide to climb down via the Polish Glacier in a field of 20 days and covered by some snow. So it's a field of those and it's covered by some snow. They find Janet's body.

• 1:16:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:16:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Her face is blackened from two years of exposure, but it's also severely injured with exposed bone. And there is blood visible on her face and jacket. And like John, she's missing one crampon and her ice axe.

• 1:16:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:16:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Her hands are bare. She's tangled up in ropes and this is super random. A rock is found sitting on top of her body. And there are no rocks around. She's in this ice.

• 1:16:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Field.

• 1:17:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Field, exactly. So she's found on a shallow slope, far from anywhere she could have possibly fallen a long distance with Zeller. So that narrative that that's how he lost her and she could have died, isn't true.

• 1:17:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:14Georgia Hardstark?

  So Alberta was a teenager and doesn't really know what to make of it all, but the other two men will say that they are sure Janet was murdered. Of course, they are just as an expert, as a National Geographic reporter who swears the opposite, but it doesn't look like it squares up with the official narrative of the expedition.

• 1:17:31Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just such a weird thing for a reporter to come out and just be like, I'm almost positive that this is what happened. Where it's like, sorry, aren't you a reporter?

• 1:17:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:17:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, how would you know?

• 1:17:40Georgia Hardstark?

  You're not supposed to speculate.

• 1:17:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. A medical student who was present for the autopsy of both John and Janet says that John had a skull fracture and that hole in his abdomen, which looked to him like it could have been made by an ice screw, maybe or ice pick as well. The injuries to Janet's face and damage to her boot looked like she had been hit hard several times. So it looked like she had blunt force trauma to her face.

• 1:18:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Georgia Hardstark?

  The medical student, who is now a neurosurgeon, is also convinced that they were killed and that their deaths were not accidental. He says that this was the consensus and that the medical examiner believed the same. And they're all dead now. So he's kind of one of the last people who can verify that. Janet is buried at the small cemetery at the base of the Okinawa, which she had told her family she wanted before the expedition, if she perished on the mountain. No one from her family is able to attend. But someone leaves flowers with the note de tu madre or from your mother on her grave.

• 1:18:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's so sad.

• 1:18:43Georgia Hardstark?

  And the only item her sister receives is Janet's ring with a brown stone from her finger. And Judy still has it today. Unfortunately, any chance of further investigation. So here's, maybe there would have been a big investigation and the answers would have happened. However, it's 1976 in Argentina and there is a

• 1:19:04Karen Kilgariff?

  A coup?

• 1:19:04Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a violent military coup.

• 1:19:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:19:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That overthrows a democratically elected president, Peron, and establishes a military dictatorship that brutally just consumes Argentina for years. I hate to gloss over that because it's so important and

• 1:19:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Just go watch the musical Evita.

• 1:19:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:19:23Karen Kilgariff?

  You'll learn at least one woman's perspective.

• 1:19:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So moving on, just like that.

• 1:19:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Georgia Hardstark?

  But, you know, there's no chance of further investigation, essentially.

• 1:19:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:19:32Georgia Hardstark?

  The last surviving member of the party, John Shelton, the Mormon Nope, the Mormon.

• 1:19:37Karen Kilgariff?

  The missionary.

• 1:19:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Missionary, BYU student, was in hospice care at the time of this New York Times article by John Branch and Emily Rhine, and they go see him in his hospice bed. He insists that there is no foul play. He calls that idea hogwash. And he dies a month before the article is published, but he firmly doesn't believe in. But, you know, that's the narrative.

• 1:20:01Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the narrative that he, he was at the secret meeting to establish, right?

• 1:20:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and he wasn't there. He was

• 1:20:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't, yeah.

• 1:20:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So, but, you know, that's based on everyone, that's his opinion.

• 1:20:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:20:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Those around the Aconcagua community have more mixed feelings. Even though the medical examiner felt certain foul play had been involved, they might not adequately understand the damage a fall in the mountain terrain could actually inflict. So that makes complete sense. But still, looking back at the conditions at the time on the glacier, the amount of soft snow would have made a very long fall improbable or maybe impossible. So when Janet's camera is found, the film is sent to a special archival photo development company in Canada called Film Rescue. Because they're like

• 1:20:45Karen Kilgariff?

  What's on here?

• 1:20:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, if just anyone tries to develop it, it's gonna get fucked up. So they they are able to get all the photos off of it. So the camera film and another roll of film they found are able to be processed. And the pictures show the party mostly smiling in those early stages of the journey, hauling gear and setting up camp. The photos are beautiful and well composed. And actually, can you show one of them? Really beautiful photos. This is on the mountain for fucking 50 years.

• 1:21:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow, just sitting up there.

• 1:21:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Also, Zeller and McMillan said when she turned around and saw that she was gone, he said, well, we weren't tied together, so she could have just left. But that one photo that she took, they're tied together.

• 1:21:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:21:30Georgia Hardstark?

  So is that her last clue? They are tied together. Whoever took this photo, and we're not totally positive which one of them that is, they are roped together.

• 1:21:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:21:40Georgia Hardstark?

  So.

• 1:21:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So why lie?

• 1:21:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:21:43Karen Kilgariff?

  What's the lie about?

• 1:21:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So John Branch writes in the New York Times article, quote, "If she was oxygen deprived or delirious, she still knew how to focus the lens, compose the frame, and hold the camera steady to take clear photographs." That is where the film ends. That is where the legend begins. The film does not solve the mystery. It adds to it. It tells you what Johnson saw in her final hours, but not how she felt, not how she died. Not every discovery leads to revelation. Some just make you want to know more. End quote. And that is the story of the Okinawa Mountain mystery. You can punch me in the face just once.

• 1:22:23Karen Kilgariff?

  You goddamn.

• 1:22:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Just one time, you can punch me in the.

• 1:22:26Karen Kilgariff?

  The pic, you really set that up like we were gonna get the solution.

• 1:22:31Georgia Hardstark?

  But, okay, let's speculate. Pure speculation, allegedly, allegedly. This is just a true crime podcast.

• 1:22:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Theory.

• 1:22:36Georgia Hardstark?

  We're not doctors.

• 1:22:37Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 1:22:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Did one of them go a little?

• 1:22:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Although we could have been, it's been 10 years. We could have gotten a PhD.

• 1:22:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Why don't we have our fucking?

• 1:22:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Honorary degrees from Sacramento and LA City College.

• 1:22:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Because they know we're full of shit.

• 1:22:52Georgia Hardstark?

  So, speaking of, so maybe one of them actually kind of had lost it on the mountain and was hallucinating something and killed them.

• 1:23:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 1:23:01Georgia Hardstark?

  She was not sexually assaulted as well. I don't think that a sane, normal person would be able or have the energy to attack someone like that with being at that elevation. But if you were hallucinating, if you were...

• 1:23:15Karen Kilgariff?

  If you had...

• 1:23:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Delirious.

• 1:23:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, if you didn't like a person to the degree where they kind of invaded your space.

• 1:23:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:23:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it's not just anybody.

• 1:23:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's this lady that's, "I'm gonna get there for myself," is their perception for some reason.

• 1:23:30Georgia Hardstark?

  But, or she was pushing to keep going and they didn't want to. But I don't think that there was that level of linear thinking at that, at that height.

• 1:23:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Because they had such bad...

• 1:23:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Altitude sickness.

• 1:23:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, on the way down, he saw, you know...

• 1:23:43Karen Kilgariff?

  He hallucinated.

• 1:23:45Georgia Hardstark?

  So, what happened up there? Did he hallucinate? There, he was at war and these were soldiers and, you know...

• 1:23:51Karen Kilgariff?

  But I guess if that were the case, then when they all got together to put a story together, why wouldn't they be able to say, "Hey, listen, these are the myriad stories we have because these are the crazy things we experienced."

• 1:24:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Because mountaineering would change forever after that. Like, I, I see them, these mountaineers, these guys, guys, banding together and being like, "Let's not, you know, we're gonna get a bunch of press over this. We just want it like this to kind of be hidden so we can like go on doing what we're doing. And we don't want to ruin these guys, like the memories of these people and the lives of the living ones." This is speculation, I'm not saying this is true.

• 1:24:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, right.

• 1:24:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Or right, their entire families because they had altitude sickness and did...

• 1:24:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And some crazy thing happened.

• 1:24:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that they weren't aware of, they don't remember, and, you know, in their minds, aren't responsible for.

• 1:24:42Karen Kilgariff?

  So, it sounds to me...

• 1:24:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm not saying I think that's true.

• 1:24:45Karen Kilgariff?

  But it sounds like you think that's possible, like, as opposed to the usual where it's like, "They, they killed her," whatever. It's like, you're like, something weird happened for sure.

• 1:24:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:55Karen Kilgariff?

  But what they're protecting probably isn't just a pure killer.

• 1:24:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:24:59Karen Kilgariff?

  It's more of an accident, a situational...

• 1:25:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Ugh, I know. Doesn't it seem like, though, that's a little bit more of an argument of not mountaineering? Because it's like, you'll get, oh, you'll get up there.

• 1:25:12Georgia Hardstark?

  No, yeah.

• 1:25:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And you'll be hallucinating dead soldiers all around you because you're not supposed to go up that high.

• 1:25:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, because our bodies and brains were not meant for that elevation.

• 1:25:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:21Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I got sick in Denver because it was too fucking high.

• 1:25:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you remember how high we were onstage in Salt Lake City the first time we played there?

• 1:25:28Georgia Hardstark?

  We had to take oxygen in the back.

• 1:25:29Karen Kilgariff?

  That's crazy.

• 1:25:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:25:31Karen Kilgariff?

  And that was like, I'm guessing right now, 3,000 feet above sea level, like,

• 1:25:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably.

• 1:25:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Not even close to this. It's serious.

• 1:25:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but a camera being found in the fucking ice.

• 1:25:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, it does sound a little fake, them saying, "She said, 'My name is Janet.'" That whole story

• 1:25:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:50Karen Kilgariff?

  seems fake.

• 1:25:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:52Karen Kilgariff?

  And oversimplified. Like, if you fell and were laying there dying,

• 1:25:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Wouldn't you just be like, "Get help!"

• 1:25:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Leave me, or get help. I mean, I think leave me makes sense if you're a true mountaineer. I don't know. Tell us what mountaineering is like at myfavoritemurderatgmail. And,

• 1:26:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 1:26:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know.

• 1:26:11Karen Kilgariff?

  What other mysteries will be uncovered over the years as the snow melts?

• 1:26:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Those crampons.

• 1:26:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Those crampons come rolling along.

• 1:26:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Ice pick, DNA test them. I mean, he had a hole in his...

• 1:26:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, he got ice picked somehow.

• 1:26:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Did he fall in it? That's possible.

• 1:26:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Man. Well, that was a great story.

• 1:26:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 1:26:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that was very compelling.

• 1:26:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I've been excited to tell you about it, despite the ending. I apologize.

• 1:26:38Karen Kilgariff?

  I love 70s photographs.

• 1:26:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I love the idea that at the very end, it's like, except for that they were tied together.

• 1:26:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 1:26:45Karen Kilgariff?

  That's wild.

• 1:26:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Well...

• 1:26:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Jump rope, jump on a trampoline.

• 1:26:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Keep it positive.

• 1:26:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't go on a mountain. Don't go hiking up a mountain.

• 1:26:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't be a hero.

• 1:26:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't be a hero.

• 1:26:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Speak up. Your voice is wanted and needed.

• 1:26:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, definitely.

• 1:26:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And, of course, stay sexy.

• 1:27:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:27:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye! Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:27:13Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an exactly right production.

• 1:27:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

• 1:27:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lassaveto.

• 1:27:21Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 1:27:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:27:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:27:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 1:27:31Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:27:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

• 1:27:38Georgia Hardstark?

  And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show.

• 1:27:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

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