456 - True & Provable

This week, Karen covers the murder of Jeanne Clery and Georgia tells the story of the Cottingley Fairies.

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

• 0:06Speaker 00

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• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Iris Palmer from Against All Odds with Iris Palmer. You know it's the holidays when somebody in the family starts cooking before the sun comes up. The babusas are grilling in the pan, everybody's sneaking bites, and somehow, there's always room for one more person at the table. And nothing goes better with that first holiday plate than a delicious Coca-Cola. That crisp, refreshing taste makes everything that much better. Because the best holiday traditions aren't just about what we're eating. They're about who we're sharing those moments with. So check that shopping list twice. Stock up on Coca-Cola for all your family fiestas y disfruta Coca-Cola.

• 1:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello and welcome.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:33Karen Kilgariff?

  That's your start.

• 1:35Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:36Karen Kilgariff?

  This is Thanksgiving.

• 1:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's, this comes out on Thanksgiving 2024?

• 1:41Karen Kilgariff?

  2024, that's right. That's the year that we're dealing with.

• 1:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving.

• 1:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, what are you grateful for, Azteor?

• 1:50Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm grateful for all the decorations that Asia put up in the studio. If you're watching this on video, you can see that it's super autumnal.

• 1:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's gorgeous, it's themed out.

• 2:01Georgia Hardstark?

  It totally is.

• 2:02Karen Kilgariff?

  There's baby gourds, but that also kind of feel like, I was, I was looking at this, I'm like, what if you could turn them like this and there's like secret? It's one of those, you could put your pot in it type of container.

• 2:11Georgia Hardstark?

  I wanted it to be like a kitchen timer. Oh.

• 2:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Remember those old Tupperware commercials where it would be like something like this, but then there'd just be a little lock on the front or an advertisement?

• 2:21Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 2:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And when I was, I was little enough that I used to think that's what Tupperware was.

• 2:26Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like a lock.

• 2:27Karen Kilgariff?

  It was like a tomato with a lock on the front of it, where I'm like, I want a tomato with a lock on it.

• 2:34Georgia Hardstark?

  How about these turkey glasses?

• 2:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You've got a cornucopia one.

• 2:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 2:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, never have you looked better.

• 2:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Why does New Year's get all the fun when Thanksgiving's ready for it?

• 2:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Guys.

• 2:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I can't.

• 2:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna go ahead and put these right here.

• 2:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Is it what was meant to be on my head?

• 2:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It's like, oh, finally Karen's found her calling. Did you see there was like a girl who turned her long, beautiful hair, she must be a hair influencer, turned it into like a cornucopia?

• 3:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Really?

• 3:06Georgia Hardstark?

  It was really cool. All these braids and then all these like accessories and stuff.

• 3:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Was there stuff coming out of it?

• 3:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, she like put a pumpkin in and put a this in.

• 3:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 3:14Georgia Hardstark?

  It was cool.

• 3:15Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, that reminds me of just that much hair. Did you ever see that video where Bob the Drag Queen is doing a live show? And he's got this gigantic wig on. So there's the thing where they like, take off the wig and it reveals like another wig and it's kind of like a thing.

• 3:29Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I love it.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  That's, uh, sometimes in the drag community, they do it. So there's a, I can't remember what the song was, but basically like builds, builds, builds, and it goes to do the wig reveal. And there's literally like a five-year-old little girl sitting on his head. It is so funny and the crowd go, it is just like the most epic reveal of all time.

• 3:52Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like a crowd that's primed and ready for something awesome and epic and then it fucking outdoes itself.

• 3:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Then it's just the cutest little girl that's like, mm-hmm.

• 4:01Georgia Hardstark?

  What the fuck?

• 4:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So hilarious.

• 4:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm sure it was an AI. I mean, I can't even picture it.

• 4:06Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel it might have been pre-AI.

• 4:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Pre-AI.

• 4:08Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not sure.

• 4:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Should we say what we're thankful for?

• 4:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 4:12Georgia Hardstark?

  This year, because there's a theme. Of what Karen and I are thankful for. And guess what? It's you, listener.

• 4:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I thought it was us.

• 4:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 4:21Georgia Hardstark?

  It's us. We're thankful for ourselves.

• 4:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The theme is us once again.

• 4:26Georgia Hardstark?

  No, like, okay, so the theme is that we're thankful for the murderino community.

• 4:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Every day.

• 4:31Georgia Hardstark?

  God, you guys are fucking awesome. And we have a couple of cool things going on that we wanted to tell you about regarding you, yourself, the murderino community.

• 4:39Karen Kilgariff?

  What the murderinos have done in the world.

• 4:41Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. So a listener named Mandy sent us an article that I hadn't seen at all.

• 4:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Just came out, I think.

• 4:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Just came out in People Magazine by Angela Andaloro. It's called "Micro-Preemie Mom Didn't Know If She'd Be Writing An Obituary Or Birth Announcement When Baby Arrived At 25 Weeks."

• 5:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, God.

• 5:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And this actually kind of hits me because my dear friend Carrie Sellin-Better just had a preemie at 34 weeks. And I met that baby, and it was still in the NICU, and it was so tiny. And the thought of a 25-week baby, I just cannot even imagine.

• 5:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Must have been so scary.

• 5:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And so scary and unexpected. And, yeah, like Carrie's baby was three pounds, nine ounces. I mean, little tiny baby. She's doing great.

• 5:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, good.

• 5:29Georgia Hardstark?

  So is Carrie.

• 5:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 5:30Georgia Hardstark?

  So basically, the mother, Caitlin, gave birth to her daughter prematurely, unexpectedly, at 25 weeks due to complications. The baby named Nora was named Nora. Hey.

• 5:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Baby Nora.

• 5:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Baby Nora was in the NICU for 118 days. And in the article, Caitlin says she sought help, didn't know, you know, who to talk to about this. So she said she got support by posting to a subgroup for fans of the True Crime Podcast, "My Favorite Murder" on Facebook. And she says, quote, "I started posting there every week, and it kind of became a thing where I found help that way."

• 6:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Georgia Hardstark?

  How fucking beautiful is that?

• 6:08Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, truly.

• 6:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, because when you have this, like, many listeners, everyone has the experience that you've had somewhere in this weird little thing that we've created.

• 6:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And I think it's the thing, too, of women being given the opportunity to support and help each other.

• 6:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Around a thing that, of course, it's like, why, first of all, why do you like that? Why are you interested in that?

• 6:31Georgia Hardstark?

  True crime.

• 6:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Blah, blah, blah. Then it's like, but it's really not about that.

• 6:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 6:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And here's actually what it is about, where it's like, there's a sisterhood.

• 6:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Karen Kilgariff?

  That's actually real in this way.

• 6:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's a good point, when they're always like, why do women like true crime like you guys do so much? And it's like, that's not what it's about. It's about so much bigger than that. And this is like, a lovely example of that.

• 6:52Karen Kilgariff?

  It's beautiful.

• 6:53Georgia Hardstark?

  So now, so Nora is now 18 months old, happy and healthy, and in a beautiful family. And we're so, so happy for you, Caitlin. Thank you to Mandy for sending that to us. Should I read her email?

• 7:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Who's?

• 7:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Mandy's? Okay. Let me read Mandy's email.

• 7:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I thought you meant like her email address. I was like, sure, yeah. Is it Mandy at Gmail?

• 7:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Or? Just Mandy Moore at Gmail. Mandy says, hello, hopefully this reaches you. I wanted to share an article written about a fan, her micro-preemie daughter, and the community that we have, all because of your podcast. The community was built over our love of MFM and spread into worldwide friendships. I'm in a Facebook subgroup and witness Caitlin and Nora's journey from birth until now. Baby Nora has so many honorary aunties and uncles because of the community.

• 7:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 7:41Georgia Hardstark?

  So I just wanted to share this and say thank you. Thank you for giving us something that we love and the community that has been built around it. Because of you.

• 7:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that's such a beautiful.

• 7:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 7:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Beautiful thing.

• 7:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 7:55Karen Kilgariff?

  It's, it's so lovely and, yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's the piece of it that like, you and I have just been watching and hearing about, but we're like, it kind of doesn't have anything to do with us in a lot of ways. It's like, it's a true honor.

• 8:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Karen Kilgariff?

  To have done something that is, it's essentially, hey, this is what we're interested in, and this thing grew up around it.

• 8:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Of people being this. Kind of beautiful to each other.

• 8:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Inspired by a true story.

• 8:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, let's make it about ourselves and make a donation in the name of murderinos.

• 8:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Nice.

• 8:27Georgia Hardstark?

  To St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, $10,000. We're giving them, its mission is to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. You can go to stjude.org, S-T-J-U-D-E.org, to donate yourself if you'd like to. And, uh, yeah, yay.

• 8:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Beautiful.

• 8:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Thankful for y'all.

• 8:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, thanks you guys for, I mean, that's just kind of staggering. It's like, it's really lovely. Well, I also have a really beautiful thing to share.

• 8:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 8:57Karen Kilgariff?

  About a murderino.

• 8:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 8:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And TikTok.

• 8:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, you've been building this up and I'm really fucking excited to see it.

• 9:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I just, here's the thing, as I've already said this already, which is, I'm on TikTok, but I'm also middle aged, so a lot of time I don't know what's going on. And I don't really want to be in there, I just want to look at stuff and not, it not like normal social media interaction.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Karen Kilgariff?

  But of course, there's people that are interacting with me and I talk about it all the time, so people are like, hey, did you see this? Hey, you would like this.

• 9:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And they, they also were saying it to you too, but kind of through me.

• 9:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:27Karen Kilgariff?

  So I don't really, I don't even know that that inbox is there. Every once in a while, I'm like, what, what's this over here? And then it'll be like 20 things. I'm like, oh God. So a while ago, I did that. And if you don't know, I've been doing a thing, I started reviewing sinkholes because it's a true passion of mine.

• 9:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's, we called it Sinkhole Saturdays. And it's just like a little fun dumb thing. So then I opened the TikTok inbox one day and there is this TikTok, I think if you look

• 9:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God, okay, here we go.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Karen, longtime listener, first time caller. I live next door to a very old house. Our house is very old too.

• 10:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh my God.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Some flippers came in and there's now a big sinkhole. This property sold for $630,000. Now listen, I don't have any kind of reference to how deep this is, but I have a banana for scale.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Banana for scale.

• 10:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Banana for scale, that's huge.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  And I'm on the very edge of the precipice to bring you this breaking news. Karen, please rate my sinkhole.

• 10:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That looked like a well, like an old well.

• 10:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? It was like you, you got this house and then suddenly it's like, oh, but then now there's a crevasse on the side.

• 10:46Georgia Hardstark?

  For almost a million dollars. And honestly, I, it did look bigger once the banana was in it.

• 10:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? Banana for scale, banana for scale.

• 10:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Banana for scale, much needed.

• 10:54Karen Kilgariff?

  So I just want to say, I don't know that person's name, but their TikTok handle is Jesse Buffet.

• 11:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 11:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Assuming it's a person named Buffet.

• 11:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And the bio says they're an amateur human. And I just have a couple of questions to Jesse Buffet, which is, like, how did you discover

• 11:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 11:15Karen Kilgariff?

  something that close to your neighbor's house?

• 11:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 11:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, you were clearly snooping in between the other person moving out and somebody else moving in.

• 11:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, a little sneaky.

• 11:22Karen Kilgariff?

  In my opinion.

• 11:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Suspish.

• 11:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, were you literally trespassing? Please give the full crime details of what you were doing. And then also, just the, how did you get the idea of using a banana for scale? Is, is that a reference to our show Bananas?

• 11:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And I also love that she had a string around it. She wasn't going to leave it behind. She's not a litterer.

• 11:42Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 11:42Georgia Hardstark?

  She wouldn't litter the banana. You could leave it there.

• 11:44Karen Kilgariff?

  In 2024, who can throw a banana down into a hole and never have it return?

• 11:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Those aren't cheap. You gotta pull it back out. It's really thoughtful, actually.

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so lovely all the way around. The energy with which that was delivered, where it's like, please write this down.

• 11:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't tell Karen about my sinkhole. I love it.

• 12:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Love it so much. So I guess if you have a sinkhole in your life, of course, please send it in, because I want to know about it.

• 12:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Do not create a sinkhole just to like, have something to create. You know what I mean?

• 12:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Don't be like that lady that was digging the hole in her basement for no reason and then like, truly

• 12:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  you just kept digging.

• 12:18Georgia Hardstark?

  No illegal sinkholes.

• 12:19Karen Kilgariff?

  No, you have to observe them in nature. But Jesse Buffet, I can't thank you enough. It's truly one of my favorite things that I have seen on TikTok. But because I just don't really interact with it, it seemed like, I think I favored it or like said yay, but it, it meant much more. And I talked about it much more. And I want that person to know

• 12:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 12:38Karen Kilgariff?

  how much it meant. And because I want people to send us TikToks like that.

• 12:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Send us TikToks like that. Okay. Well, speaking of the Bananas Podcasts and other podcasts that are on our podcast network.

• 12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And other fruits and vegetables that we enjoy.

• 12:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's get to the Exactly Right Media highlights.

• 12:55Karen Kilgariff?

  This week on, hosted by Roz Hernandez, Roz is joined by comedian and impressionist James Adomian to talk about spoofy, to talk about spooky things in other people's voices.

• 13:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And then on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, Cara and Lisa chat about the ballad of Dwight and Irina from SVU's 22nd season. And comedian Ricky Lindhahn joins them to talk about her role in the episode.

• 13:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Very cool. Also, over at the MFM store, we now have signed copies of our book, Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered, if you want to give that book to the superfan in your life for the holidays, or yourself, if you're that person. You can head over to wwwexactlyrightstore.com to get your copy today.

• 13:40Georgia Hardstark?

  And for all you demon heads, Son of Satan, the latest episode of MFM, animated by Nick Terry, is now available on youtube.com/exactlyrightmedia. Please follow that as well if you feel like it.

• 13:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, a little bit of a sad announcement. After 180 thrilling double features, we are saying goodbye to our beloved movie podcast, I Saw What You Did, is closing its cinema doors. We want to thank Danielle Henderson and Millie DeCherico for four years of hilarity and hard work. You guys did such an amazing job on that podcast, and we really, we're really gonna miss you.

• 14:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely. And if you're a listener, please stay tuned, because Millie will have exciting news for you in 2025. And until then, please enjoy their last episode, where they cover Alien from 1979 and Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill from 1965. What a great duo to end on.

• 14:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's a really powerful sign off right there.

• 14:39Georgia Hardstark?

  It is. The holidays are coming, which means we'll all be spending more time away from home.

• 14:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Whether you're visiting family or doing something actually fun, you want to know your home is protected while you're away.

• 14:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why now is a good time to think about home security with SimpliSafe.

• 14:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Unlike traditional security systems that alert you after a break-in starts, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. These days, you're worried about your house, you're out of town, and then something comes up and you get to look on your phone, and SimpliSafe is going to show you not only the video of like, it's a raccoon at your front door, but also that they have staff that's sitting there, they already know. And if it was something different or worse, they would have already been on it.

• 15:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I really think that's invaluable peace of mind that just like relying on your neighbors, paying attention is not going to give you. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year. 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/mfm.

• 15:36Karen Kilgariff?

  That's simplisafe.com/mfm. And when you order, write in MFM at checkout and it tells them we sent you and it really helps the show.

• 15:44Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 15:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. Nothing makes you take a good, hard look at your furniture like inviting people over for the holidays.

• 15:53Georgia Hardstark?

  So give your home a little holiday upgrade with Article.

• 15:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Article makes it effortless to create a stylish, long-lasting home at an unbeatable price.

• 16:01Georgia Hardstark?

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• 16:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And with Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it.

• 16:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Plus, Article's customer care team is available seven days a week. I know we're getting into fall and winter, but we live in Los Angeles. So my outdoor furniture is just like the perfect focal point for the pool parties we still end up having. Sorry, everyone, when it's like sunny and gorgeous year round. I sit on my Article patio furniture every morning and have my coffee and watch Cookie Lay in the Sun. And the whole thing is just so peaceful and pretty. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

• 16:48Karen Kilgariff?

  To claim, visit article.com/murder and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

• 16:53Georgia Hardstark?

  That's article.com/murder for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

• 16:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 16:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Holiday shopping gets a lot easier when you can find something for everyone.

• 17:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially one everyone includes yourself.

• 17:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Find thoughtful, high-quality gifts for everyone on your list at Quince.

• 17:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Quince makes beautiful, everyday essentials with high-quality materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. They're the kind of things you love to give as a gift or get yourself.

• 17:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50 and they also have beautiful 14-karat gold Earrings and bracelets that make great gifts.

• 17:28Karen Kilgariff?

  I was so excited when I got home and I got to break out my gray Quince cashmere sweater that I wear constantly around the house. We've been waiting for even the slightest temperature drop so that we could get into sweater weather and finally it's here and I celebrated with my beautiful Quince cashmere sweater that I think I got the second year we started doing ads for them.

• 17:52Georgia Hardstark?

  They laugh.

• 17:53Karen Kilgariff?

  They do.

• 17:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season.

• 17:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com.

• 17:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

• 18:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Now available in Canada and the UK too.

• 18:05Georgia Hardstark?

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was My Favorite Murder. It's the best way to support the show.

• 18:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. Thanksgiving Day is such a weird day. It's like everyone's working really hard. At least in our household, everyone's like in the kitchen, like working really hard. And there's a kind of almost like it's a holiday, but it's the least holiday-ish of all the holidays because it's a, it's a holiday about people just busting ass in the kitchen all day long and trying to make, trying to time everything out and make it good.

• 18:41Georgia Hardstark?

  I'd rather just go to a Mexican restaurant, honestly.

• 18:44Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that's my only option. If my dad and my sister didn't cook, I'd just be like, well.

• 18:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Vance, he like has to have the whole thing and so he, and has to have it a certain way. And like, I wouldn't do it that way. So he's just like, I'll do it myself. And he does it himself.

• 18:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And is it like, is it the like classic Michigan way?

• 19:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Classic Midwest, the whole casserole thing.

• 19:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 19:06Georgia Hardstark?

  All of it. It's great. I'm happy with it. And it's all like, um, a lot of it's canned stuff and instant that. So like, I don't, it's not that complicated, but.

• 19:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, also does he, does he do ocean spray cranberry sauce with the, with the canned shape?

• 19:19Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that. You've got to.

• 19:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Favorite. And you can just get your slices as big as the ripple of the can.

• 19:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, it's perfect.

• 19:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I love Thanksgiving.

• 19:27Georgia Hardstark?

  It's today it is, so.

• 19:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, then let's celebrate with terrible stories.

• 19:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, great.

• 19:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, cool. Cause it's what we like. Okay, so today I'm going to tell you the story behind a federal law that you might not be familiar with. So it's not really a household name, but it fundamentally changed how colleges and universities across the US handle safety and transparency on campus. This is the story of the murder of Jean Clary, whose death exposed gaps in the existing system and sparked a push for real change. The sources of this story today are several articles that ran in the Morning Call newspaper in the 1980s, a 1989 Los Angeles Times article by journalist Beverly Bayet, a 1990 People

• 20:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Magazine article by journalist Ken Gross and Andrea Fine, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So Jean Clary is born in 1966 and grows up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, which is just outside of Philadelphia. She's raised in a loving home with her parents Howard and Connie and her two older brothers, Benjamin and Howard III. Her mom Connie would later say that, quote, "Jean loved her family with a passion, especially her brothers. She wanted to be just like her brothers." So she grows up, she's a great kid, she has a reputation for being kind and loyal and brave, and she's not afraid to stick up for classmates who are getting bullied or being overlooked.

• 20:54Karen Kilgariff?

  And for a while, Jean proudly rocks a gap in her smile after she lost her front tooth while skating. She's not afraid to be different and she's not afraid to be herself.

• 21:04Georgia Hardstark?

  She's scrappy.

• 21:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Her dad Howard would later tell People Magazine, quote, "She was one of the first little girls on the local Little League team."

• 21:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 21:14Karen Kilgariff?

  That's hard.

• 21:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 21:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the early 80s, you're playing Little League and people are like, "What are you even doing?"

• 21:21Georgia Hardstark?

  No girls allowed. Go to fucking Homic and shut up.

• 21:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And at that time, when you were doing stuff like that, like, "I want to play baseball and I'm going to fight for my right to play baseball," guess who didn't help you do that? Other little girls. Like, that's the time where people are like, "Oh, no."

• 21:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Stay away.

• 21:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no. But I bet she was really good at baseball because she had two older brothers.

• 21:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 21:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So later at college... She would reflect on her relationship with her gender and her family in an essay that she called Growing Up in an Androgynous Environment. And in it, she talks about how her parents treated her the same as her brothers and that she was educated at an all-girls school where she was able to, quote, "hold positions that a male most likely would have held in a public school," such as school president, president of the athletic association, and head of the newspaper.

• 22:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so interesting. I would have never thought of that, but yeah.

• 22:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Georgia Hardstark?

  It's all stuff that girls typically didn't do back then.

• 22:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And then you get this, you get this sense of like, of course, we can do this.

• 22:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Of course, we should be doing this.

• 22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 22:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you graduate from that school and you go out into the world.

• 22:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And you're like, oh, no.

• 22:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:29Karen Kilgariff?

  They hate us.

• 22:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Karen Kilgariff?

  But I just love the idea. It's like an early 80s fighter.

• 22:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Karen Kilgariff?

  You know?

• 22:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Karen Kilgariff?

  So with that, Jean is also, she seems aware as a young woman that she's vulnerable in ways that aren't always in her control. So, for example, her first choice to go to college was at Tulane University in New Orleans, where her brothers went. She'd actually already applied and been accepted and planned on going there and joining the school's tennis team, but in the fall of 1984, the Cleary family learned that an 18-year-old Tulane student named Karen Minkin was raped and murdered in her off-campus apartment by a man who also lived in the building.

• 23:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 23:14Karen Kilgariff?

  So, of course, this tragedy rattles the Cleary family. Jean's mom, Connie, later says, quote, "We were so shocked, Howard and me. We told Jean we couldn't allow her to go to Tulane. We were too frightened. It was just so far away." So, the family decides to take what they believe is the safer path, which is that Jean enrolls at Lehigh University, which is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's about 50 miles from her parents' house, about like an hour and a half drive. It's an excellent school with a picturesque university look, complete with Gothic-style buildings, winding walkways, a beautiful canopy of trees. It's like, and Connie says, quote, "Jean just loved the campus, and I loved the fact that it was an hour and 20 minutes away."

• 23:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So several months later, in late March of 1986, Howard and Connie go to pick Jean up from school and take her back to Bryn Mawr for the Easter holiday weekend. And Connie remembers, quote, "She couldn't wait to get back. She loved Lehigh. It was the happiest year of her life." So she gets back to school. A couple of days later, on the night of Friday, April 4th, Jean goes to a frat party and she stays there until around 3:00 a.m. when she heads back to her residence hall. So Jean's roommate lost her keys. This is such a like, we've all done this a million times. Jean's roommate loses her keys and she's still out. So Jean leaves their dorm room door open unlocked for her

• 24:43Karen Kilgariff?

  so she can get in when she comes back.

• 24:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Just the wrong night for some fucking reason of all nights.

• 24:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Just anything that goes on.

• 24:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So Jean leaves it open and goes to sleep. So this residence hall, you know, it's the mid 80s. So it's a residence hall that has the exterior door that you need a key for. Then there's two interior doors, at least two, including the actual dorm room door. But on this night, which is a Friday night, all those doors are jammed open with pizza boxes so that the people in the dorms can have their friends come and go.

• 25:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Very common, just how it is. So sometime between 4:00 and 6:30 in the morning, an intruder enters Jean's dorm, heads to the laundry room, steals a couple odds and ends, and then goes upstairs, eventually stopping on the third floor. And that's where Jean's dorm room is. And then the intruder just starts trying the doors, looking for one that's unlocked. And he finds one when he gets to Jean's door. He enters while she sleeps and he grabs a radio, a camera, some jewelry, some cash. But then Jean wakes up and finds a man in her dark room. He brutally attacks her and rapes her. He mutilates her neck with a broken beer bottle,

• 26:07Karen Kilgariff?

  bites her, he beats her, and then he strangles her to death and then leaves with the valuables he's stolen. So when another student notices that her door has been left open all night, they enter and discover Jean's brutalized body. Hours later, Jean's parents get a knock at their door. And when they open it, they find a policeman standing there. Connie says, quote, "Most Americans saw the space shuttle Challenger splinter into a billion pieces. That's what happened to our hearts."

• 26:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God.

• 26:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So it doesn't take long for investigators to identify Jean's killer. It's another Lehigh student, a 20-year-old sophomore named Joseph Henry. So Joseph had been co-hosting a party that same night at his off-campus apartment with his roommates, and he got very drunk. And his crush left with another guy, and he got really mad. He kicked down a door in his own apartment. And then later on, when his roommates had gone to sleep, he walked basically onto campus to Jean's residence hall. Joseph and Jean had never met. It wasn't like he was going to look for her.

• 27:19Karen Kilgariff?

  So when he gets back home after this attack, only a couple of hours pass, and he admits what he did to his roommates.

• 27:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 27:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And they go to police. He's arrested immediately. So it's important to note Joseph is black, Jean is white. So you can imagine how this case got treated in 1980s media. It's a total circus, and it actually has a real effect on the Lehigh campus. The students of color who go to Lehigh are left to process this horrific crime, as well as that instant sensationalism around the interracial element of the crime. And there's only about 60 black students in a student body of 6,000.

• 28:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 28:03Karen Kilgariff?

  One Lehigh alum will later remember, quote, "It was the most horrible crime you can imagine, and has also kind of reinforced racial stereotypes. It was very hostile for the students who were there through that period. We didn't necessarily see it directly targeting us, but it sort of lived on through the stories and the dynamic." So you're already definitely experiencing standard racism, being 60 out of 6,000. And suddenly now, you know, it's just like...

• 28:34Karen Kilgariff?

  People, if they're going to blame you,

• 28:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:37Karen Kilgariff?

  whether they do it overtly or it's just like the energy.

• 28:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and it's part of the conversation, no matter what.

• 28:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. So, Joseph has tried. It's basically an open and shut case for the prosecution. Police find missing items from Jean's dorm room inside of Joseph's bedroom. He admitted, of course, to his roommates, the evidence is all there. His defense tries an insanity plea that hinged on the idea, the theory, that Joseph had a rare reaction to alcohol and experienced a personality change while intoxicated. But the jury doesn't buy it and ultimately convicts him. He's currently now serving a life sentence. He has expressed regret for his actions. So meanwhile, the Cleary family is, of course, just inundated in this tragedy. And then they learn something that shocks them.

• 29:27Karen Kilgariff?

  In the three years preceding Jean's murder, there had been 38 reports of violent offenses on Lehigh's campus, including rapes and robberies.

• 29:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 29:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And considering the fact that many crimes, especially rape, don't get reported at all.

• 29:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 29:44Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a pretty high number for a school with only 6,000 students.

• 29:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 29:49Karen Kilgariff?

  To compare, Penn State has a student body of around 60,000 at that time, and there were 24 offenses reported.

• 29:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, okay, that's a really high rate.

• 29:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, so the Clearys base their decision on what college Jean would go to, primarily based on the idea of campus safety. So having access to that information about Lehigh, of course, would have impacted that decision. At the time, only 4% of colleges and universities in the US track this type of data. Connie says, quote, "I knew I was going to have to do something to try to prevent other parents, other students, from this eternal nightmare that never goes away. It never goes away." But the Clearies take their grief and channel it into activism, our favorite kind of story.

• 30:38Karen Kilgariff?

  So they sue Lehigh University for $25 million in damages and that lawsuit settles out of court for an undisclosed amount. But then they take that settlement money and their own money and the entire family starts a watchdog group called Security on Campus, including the dad Howard who quit his job at a madele order business to join the family and work on this.

• 31:04Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing.

• 31:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And they basically, as a family and as this business, start collecting data on campus crimes.

• 31:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. That's so innovative.

• 31:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Instead of just throwing money at it, they're like creating this system that's so necessary.

• 31:22Karen Kilgariff?

  That's going to help a solution.

• 31:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 31:25Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's the 80s, so collecting data.

• 31:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, data is just fucking.

• 31:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It must have been like, what do you do? You write the government for it or you like call people on the phone? I have no idea.

• 31:36Georgia Hardstark?

  I can hear the dot matrix printer fucking going right in my head.

• 31:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. I don't think we're even two fax machines at this point.

• 31:43Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no.

• 31:44Karen Kilgariff?

  At the same time, the Clearies launch an aggressive campaign to reform and enhance campus security. They realize that colleges might not choose to publicize this type of data to protect their reputations, so the Clearies' first move, which is so smart, is to lobby elected officials to pass legislation mandating it.

• 32:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Karen Kilgariff?

  The Clearies, alongside several survivors who join them in their mission, begin to, quote, "pound the halls of Congress." And Connie adds, quote, "You couldn't have paid me $1 million to get up and speak before, but Jean's death has freed me. I'm not afraid of anything or anybody anymore."

• 32:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm.

• 32:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And those efforts pay off. In 1988, Pennsylvania's then-Governor Bob Casey signs a bill into law that requires all state colleges and universities to regularly publish three years' worth of campus crime reports. Shortly after, more than a dozen other states follow suit.

• 32:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 32:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Then in 1990, George H. W. Bush signs the Gene Clearey Act into law at the national level. And this is described as a federal consumer protection law, and it requires any university that receives federal funding to track and publicize crime statistics on various offenses, including robbery, sexual assault, hate crimes, stalking, homicides, and more.

• 33:03Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing. And I love the consumer part of it, because it's so true. You are paying to go to this institution. You are, you know, you are a consumer of this institution. Especially if they're fucking federally funded.

• 33:15Karen Kilgariff?

  You wouldn't send your child to a movie theater where you got the information that people punched people randomly in the face.

• 33:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, all the time.

• 33:23Karen Kilgariff?

  So you're like, yep, I won't go ahead and spend my money there. I'll take it somewhere else where they care about safety.

• 33:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And if you don't care about safety and, you know, don't want to put any effort into it, your numbers will be bad and reflect that. So they'll put more money into it so they don't have to put those numbers out.

• 33:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so smart.

• 33:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so smart.

• 33:41Georgia Hardstark?

  You gotta force people to fucking behave a lot.

• 33:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and I think that idea of like, as a family, making those kinds of really calculated, very smart, strategic decisions that it's like, let's not stand over here and, and try to get people to like, believe or care. It just goes straight to get a law passed.

• 34:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's not ask them politely, let's just make it that if they don't do it, their bottom line will be affected, because that's really what they give a shit about.

• 34:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Wow, we're all over colleges and universities. Fuck those schools.

• 34:14Georgia Hardstark?

  It's why we didn't go to college.

• 34:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's why they kicked us out. Ring, ring. Sac State, yes? What?

• 34:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Listen, City College, loved it. I did.

• 34:24Karen Kilgariff?

  It was a good time.

• 34:25Georgia Hardstark?

  It was a great time.

• 34:27Karen Kilgariff?

  This law also requires schools to publish a report explaining their plans for handling emergencies, from national disasters to mass shootings, as well as measures taken to secure on-campus buildings. So it's just like, what you got, put it together and turn it in.

• 34:42Georgia Hardstark?

  You're gonna offer this place, and you need to also offer, you know, some kind of level of safety.

• 34:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. The CLEARY Act goes beyond physical violence. Students can file CLEARY complaints for anything that threatens their safety on campus and that includes threats to their personal health. And universities that don't comply with the CLEARY Act are fined by the Department of Education, and there have been several high-profile examples of those violations.

• 35:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 35:08Karen Kilgariff?

  One infamous one is the $2.4 million fine levied against Penn State for not publicly reporting incidents involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

• 35:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 35:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Ahead of his 2012 conviction for serial sexual abuse, as well as the $4.5 million fine on Michigan State University for its failure to protect students from Dr. Larry Nassar.

• 35:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right.

• 35:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Who sexually abused hundreds of female gymnasts before being convicted in 2017.

• 35:40Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just, yeah.

• 35:42Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the stats that universities are required to collect under the CLEARY Act are imperfect, of course. For example, it's well-established that sexual assault remains seriously under-reported. The website of the American Association of University Women notes that, quote, "Despite numerous studies showing that rape is common on campuses, 89% of colleges and universities reported zero incidents of rape. 77% of campuses reported zero incidents of sexual assault, including rape and fondling, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking."

• 36:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Zero percent? Can you imagine that world?

• 36:21Karen Kilgariff?

  As fucking if.

• 36:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I would go, I would go move there immediately.

• 36:24Karen Kilgariff?

  As if?

• 36:25Georgia Hardstark?

  If you get zero percent, you need to be fucking worried, because that means you're in a culture that is scaring women and scaring survivors into not reporting.

• 36:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Into silence, yeah.

• 36:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's all that it means.

• 36:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, that's right.

• 36:40Georgia Hardstark?

  It doesn't mean it's safe.

• 36:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 36:42Georgia Hardstark?

  That's, that's almost scarier.

• 36:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 36:45Karen Kilgariff?

  A shocking statistic that speaks to the inadequacy of reporting structures rather than the frequency of events.

• 36:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I should have let you finish.

• 36:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no. I think your wording was much clearer and more understandable, but I mean, it is that kind of thing. I feel like that if that isn't a thing that's threatening to you, then that isn't a thing that's... It's very easy to brush that off. If you're some college dean and you're just like, "It's fine."

• 37:14Georgia Hardstark?

  See? It's zero.

• 37:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. It's zero. So now, the Cleary Act has been amended multiple times. It's far more extensive than it was in the mid-'80s, like many significant laws, including Title IX, which deals with sex-based discrimination on campus and overlaps with the Cleary Act. It has faced some criticism for becoming overly complex and bogged down by bureaucracy. Yeah. So have they all.

• 37:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I'd rather have that than the alternative.

• 37:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, than nothing.

• 37:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Can we just have... Can we have something that's complicated rather than nothing that's nothing?

• 37:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Something that's this horrible is going to have complicated solutions.

• 37:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 37:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm really on my high horse on this one. It's almost like saying, it's like, "So it's complicated, so just don't do it."

• 37:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's too complicated.

• 38:00Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 38:00Georgia Hardstark?

  It's too complicated.

• 38:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry.

• 38:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Then stop fucking sexually assaulting and raping, fuckers.

• 38:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, it's not perfect. The Cleary's crusade is an undeniable, huge step towards greater transparency from academic institutions. Meanwhile, their original organization, Security on Campus, is now the Cleary Center, and it continues to advocate for safer campuses by raising awareness around things like hazing and binge drinking. In 2015, on the 25th anniversary of the Jean Cleary Act's passing, Jean's mother Connie says, quote, "It took an army and it took my life. It was worth every single bit."

• 38:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. I can't imagine.

• 38:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. So, November 23rd, which is this week, would have been Jean Clary's 58th birthday. And here's her as a teenager.

• 38:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, what a bright, beautiful smile.

• 38:55Karen Kilgariff?

  She truly looks like every girl I knew in the 80s.

• 38:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 39:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Outside of her old residence hall at Lehigh, there's a plaque honoring her and it says, quote, "Lest we forget the meaning of her death, we must protect one another so that her life will not have been in vain." And that is the story of Jean Clary and the federal law named in her honor.

• 39:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. I did not know about that at all.

• 39:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Me either.

• 39:23Georgia Hardstark?

  That's incredible.

• 39:24Karen Kilgariff?

  I had no idea.

• 39:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, that was amazing. Great job.

• 39:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 39:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Great Thanksgiving story.

• 39:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I know, right?

• 39:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. The holidays are coming, which means we'll all be spending more time away from home.

• 39:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Whether you're visiting family or doing something actually fun, you want to know your home is protected while you're away.

• 39:41Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why now is a good time to think about home security with SimpliSafe.

• 39:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Unlike traditional security systems that alert you after a break-in starts, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. These days, you're worried about your house. You're out of town. And then something comes up and you get to look on your phone and SimpliSafe is going to show you not only the video of like, it's a raccoon at your front door, but also that they have staff that's sitting there. They already know. And if it was something different or worse, they would have already been on it.

• 40:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I really think that's invaluable peace of mind that just like relying on your neighbors, paying attention is not going to give you. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year. 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/mfm.

• 40:28Karen Kilgariff?

  That's simplisafe.com/mfm. And when you order, write in "MFM" at checkout and it tells them we sent you. And it really helps the show.

• 40:36Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 40:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 40:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Holiday shopping gets a lot easier when you can find something for everyone.

• 40:43Karen Kilgariff?

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• 40:46Georgia Hardstark?

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• 40:49Karen Kilgariff?

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• 41:00Georgia Hardstark?

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• 41:08Karen Kilgariff?

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• 41:32Georgia Hardstark?

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• 41:33Karen Kilgariff?

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• 41:36Karen Kilgariff?

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• 41:40Georgia Hardstark?

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• 41:43Karen Kilgariff?

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• 41:45Georgia Hardstark?

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• 41:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 41:54Georgia Hardstark?

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• 41:58Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:00Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:04Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:12Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:19Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:24Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:34Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:40Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:42Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:50Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Potential subject to various factors such as customers' accounts, age, and investment settings. Does not include Acorns fees.

• 43:02Georgia Hardstark?

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• 43:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Acorns Advisors LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com/mfm.

• 43:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 43:17Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, well, let's take a fucking, what, all the 180, 360, fucking...

• 43:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's go from, you know, eating the salad and having our vegetables.

• 43:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Straight into dessert.

• 43:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It's dessert time.

• 43:31Georgia Hardstark?

  It's dessert time.

• 43:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 43:32Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm gonna tell you a very dessert-y story. It's about a tween and teen cousins getting into mischief together. And in doing so, accidentally creating one of the UK's most endearing debates on fantastical, unexplained creatures in the vein of like what you love, fucking Loch Ness or Bigfoot. But this one, this is the story of the Cottingley Fairies.

• 44:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, excited. I love this story and I love how far it went.

• 44:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it went really far and we're gonna have to talk about why, because it's so compounding.

• 44:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 44:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Because I'll show you the photos too. I'm sure you've seen them. The main sources for this story are two articles from BBC News and the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. All right, well, let's start in one of your favorite times and places. The late 1800s, early 1900s. Picture it, the Industrial Revolution is starting to take over the world. All these like rural communities are coming into big cities and this is how people are now living and making money. And just this is how society is sadly headed.

• 44:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 44:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? And so this means that our once reliance and connection with nature and traditional lifestyles that relied upon nature is starting to fracture. And it's during this time then, of course, that people start to romanticize that connection that we supposedly had, thinking of it as an innocent time and using it kind of as magical escapism. So it's in this vein that the fairy aesthetic becomes a huge trend in the UK, even being nicknamed Fairy Fever.

• 45:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 45:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And this is for everyone. I don't know. It's these little, it's like Tinker Bell, essentially.

• 45:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the fairy idea we're talking about. And actually got huge in Victorian children's literature. So children grew up with fairy art and stories, of course, particularly in the wildly popular Peter Pan, which debuted in 1907. And then it was a massive sensation. And then it was performed as a play consistently for about 25 years. So people were obsessed with this. Every child went and saw the play. I mean, clapping if you believe in fairies, that kind of thing.

• 45:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Bring Tinker Bell back.

• 45:58Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, yeah, I remember. She was kind of country and I loved it.

• 46:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, Tinker Bell is like, it's my way or the highway.

• 46:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Karen Kilgariff?

  But also in Irish culture, like my grandpa grew up believing in fairies and telling us about, like, no, they're real.

• 46:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Really?

• 46:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, they're on our property. Oh, yeah, completely, because it's part of that living with nature.

• 46:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 46:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Where you're like, you know, a circle of mushrooms is a fairy ring.

• 46:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Karen Kilgariff?

  That kind of stuff where it's like, oh, it's, it's the way people explain what nature's doing and, you know.

• 46:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Makes sense of it, yeah.

• 46:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Or they're real.

• 46:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Or they're real and they planted those mushrooms perfectly with a compass.

• 46:33Georgia Hardstark?

  More than 350 books about fairies are published in the UK between 1920 and 1925.

• 46:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 46:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a fucking lot.

• 46:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:41Georgia Hardstark?

  And adults are into fairy stuff, but for them, the fascination, it kind of overlaps with spiritualism, which I know you love. This is the same time period when seances are becoming very popular and people attribute this to the grief that adults, of course, felt in the aftermath of World War I. They wanted that connection with the afterlife so that all of their sons who died didn't die in vain and they could still connect with them. And, you know, that's understandable.

• 47:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and also just a little, the idea of like, this isn't just how life is.

• 47:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Karen Kilgariff?

  There's, there's more, there's magic out there.

• 47:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. And so people see proof of the existence of fairies as a corroboration for other fantastical ideas that they would like to approach with the seriousness of science. A lot of people who are really into the afterlife are pissed off that fairies are lumped in to what they're into, you know, saying like, they don't believe in that and you're making this seem less legit, but other people like see them all as kind of this like fairy tale that is true.

• 47:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I like to just put them all on one shirt. And then that's what, that's what decides.

• 47:45Georgia Hardstark?

  What do you mean?

• 47:46Karen Kilgariff?

  You're just like, if you want a sweatshirt,

• 47:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Karen Kilgariff?

  you can have some spiritual stuff over, spiritualism stuff over here and some fairies.

• 47:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 47:52Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you're like, I've been reincarnated.

• 47:54Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought you were gonna say like, when it's like spiritualism and reincarnation and fairies. And when it's just all the names.

• 47:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, like the John Ringo, Paul and Judy. It's just the fourth Beatle. I can't remember.

• 48:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Judy, Judy.

• 48:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Judy, Judy.

• 48:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. So, here we are in this headspace. And now we're gonna travel to the north of England in the summer of 1917. War's just ended. And we're near Leeds in the village of Cottingley, which is part of the city of Bradford. Got it?

• 48:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 48:26Georgia Hardstark?

  We're in the home of the Wright family, which spocks up to a little wooded valley. At the bottom of that valley is a small body of water. I mean, it's a fucking novel.

• 48:35Karen Kilgariff?

  You just get, you're like, I'm gonna just go walk out into the woods.

• 48:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It writes itself. There's just like a stream. And it's called the Cottingley Beck. And a beck is a regional term for a brook.

• 48:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 48:45Georgia Hardstark?

  So, the Wright family is made up of a married couple named Polly and Arthur, and their 16-year-old daughter, Elsie. Elsie loves to draw. She's a skilled artist. Her father is an amateur photographer with his own darkroom. And Elsie has learned a lot about photography from him. Which is, oh my god, so cute. Also living with the family is Elsie's aunt and her nine-year-old cousin, Frances, who recently moved back to England from South Africa, where of course colonization was rampant. So even though Elsie is a lot older than her cousin, you know, 16 and nine, you wouldn't think they'd be best of friends. But the two girls get along and they love playing together. And in particular, they like to hang out by that beck,

• 49:30Georgia Hardstark?

  where they typically get into trouble for getting their clothes and shoes wet and for tracking mud into the house. Sounds like a fucking great childhood.

• 49:36Karen Kilgariff?

  The dream.

• 49:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Karen Kilgariff?

  We got to hang out near a creek, growing up.

• 49:40Georgia Hardstark?

  That sounds amazing.

• 49:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Just like, there was a creek in our backyard.

• 49:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 49:43Karen Kilgariff?

  You just went down there. And it just like hung out.

• 49:46Georgia Hardstark?

  We hung out by that like LA river. And drank under bridges. And like.

• 49:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And raced with the Pink Ladies.

• 49:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Smoked cigarettes and.

• 49:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Takes all kinds.

• 49:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it does.

• 50:00Georgia Hardstark?

  So when the moms yell at them for getting wet, Elsie and Frances.

• 50:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Takes all kinds.

• 50:06Georgia Hardstark?

  It's my new favorite thing. I say it a lot lately. It's really true. Okay, sorry. So when their moms yell at the girls for getting wet, Elsie and Frances like to reply that they were, quote, "off to see the fairies." Like, that's their excuse, "we're off to see the fairies." It sounds like this is mostly Frances, the nine-year-old's excuse, and it's looked at by the family as, like, the equivalent of "dog ate my homework," kind of a jokey thing. But Elsie always backs her up, agreeing that there are fairies in the back. Of course, no one takes them seriously. It's just a cute little thing the girls say when they get in trouble. Until one day, in July of 1917, the girls tromp into the Wright's kitchen after fucking around in the back, and the mothers are fed up. This time, Elsie says that they really

• 50:49Georgia Hardstark?

  had seen fairies, and that she was going to prove it. She borrows one of her father's cameras, and she and Frances head back down. And they come back to the house less than an hour later, saying that they have irrefutable proof that the fairies are real. Arthur helps Elsie develop the photo, and sure enough, clear as day, there's a photograph of Frances surrounded by several dainty dancing fairies. This beautiful Victorian photograph, which I'll show you in a minute, but let me keep, let's keep going for a second. Arthur is suspicious, the dad is, like, super suspicious. He also knows his daughter does have the artistic chops to fake this. Okay. First of all. Yeah.

• 51:30Georgia Hardstark?

  In fact, Elsie has a job at a photo studio in Bradford, retouching photographic plates. But the image does look incredibly lifelike, and he knows that Elsie didn't tamper with the photo plate, like, uh, which is, like, basically the negative, because he helped her develop it. He would have seen it when he was developing it. Yeah. So he's like, "This is so, this is like, I can't explain this." Right. The only other option is that Elsie drew an extremely lifelike fairy, cut it out, and posed it in the picture. And listen, let me tell you, that's what she did. Spoiler alert. That's exactly what she did. I hate to spoil it, but like, you gotta know the whole time.

• 52:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. If you know the story, you kind of know the ending of the story.

• 52:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's exactly what they did. She copied pictures from a book of children's stories, added wings, cut out the drawings, and stuck them in hat pins to stand them up. That's why they look real and three dimensional. And the girls are adamant that the photo isn't faked. And they're committed to their story. And, you know, at least when it's just their immediate family.

• 52:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Georgia Hardstark?

  They're just playing along.

• 52:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 52:31Georgia Hardstark?

  They're so committed in fact that they take another picture a few months later. And in September, this one shows Elsie sitting next to a little winged creature, which the girls claim is a gnome. So let me show you the two photos that we have. And you tell me what you think.

• 52:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 52:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Photography is pretty early at this time. So you and I look at this and we're like, that's so stupid. You can tell it's fake. But, you know.

• 52:55Karen Kilgariff?

  But I mean, yeah, right. These days, it would be retouched to high hell, whatever, but.

• 53:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And if you really want to believe it, then you'll believe it, right? So let's see the other one. So that's Elsie.

• 53:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, it's ethereal looking and very pretty.

• 53:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Hold on, let me. Oh, yes. Yes, there it is.

• 53:17Georgia Hardstark?

  You see it?

• 53:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so pretty.

• 53:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 53:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, I just kind of love, it's like, you've got a weird older cousin.

• 53:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:24Karen Kilgariff?

  You're super arty.

• 53:24Georgia Hardstark?

  She's the coolest.

• 53:25Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you're like a little nine year old that probably has a big imagination yourself.

• 53:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:30Karen Kilgariff?

  And so you're kind of like, it's the.

• 53:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And Elsie's like, playing along, even though adults are so fucking boring and shit.

• 53:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. Or she's like, maybe she's the one that's like, what if fairies were real? Like, who knows?

• 53:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Or like, hey, Frances, let's play a trick on our family. Like, this is, yeah.

• 53:46Karen Kilgariff?

  We're gonna do an arty thing.

• 53:48Georgia Hardstark?

  These girls are bros.

• 53:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Love it.

• 53:49Georgia Hardstark?

  However, I don't think they expected it to go as far as it went. Because in 1919, Elsie's mother, even though she doesn't seem to believe in it.

• 54:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Brings the prints of the girls' photos to a lecture on fairies being held at Bradford's Theosophical Society, which is a group devoted to a new age religious movement that's popular at the time. So it's all the kind of spiritualism stuff.

• 54:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And the photos are so impressive that the society's president brings them to a meeting in London and gives a series of lectures about them in 1920.

• 54:24Karen Kilgariff?

  As if they're real?

• 54:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm. Like, he believes it, it seems like.

• 54:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's kind of like, finally, the thing we've been, like, talking about and theorizing about, there's actually, like, because photographs themselves are relatively new.

• 54:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So then it's like, we have proof.

• 54:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Finally.

• 54:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Proof. It's all anyone wants.

• 54:43Georgia Hardstark?

  All these fucking, just little girls fucking around. In London, the photos catch the attention of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. So, he is already a famous author, and he'd been working on an article about fairies because he had been obsessed and fascinated with spiritualism ever since his own son died in World War I. So, it seems like he really wanted to believe this, with this whole being.

• 55:11Karen Kilgariff?

  We all really want to believe something. We really do.

• 55:14Georgia Hardstark?

  We do. And so, he viewed the photos as if they were real, and as if they were proof of the legitimacy of not just fairies, but spiritualism in general.

• 55:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 55:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, it's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who, like, when you watch Sherlock Holmes stuff, it's like, everything is deduction and logic and fact and all that stuff. So it's kind of very powerful.

• 55:34Georgia Hardstark?

  It's sad. It makes you think, he must have been really heartbroken if he were able, if he just so easily believed these things.

• 55:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and or if it's like, he lived that life of, like, logic only for so long, and then it's like, but what is that going to get me?

• 55:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 55:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 55:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 55:49Karen Kilgariff?

  More like, if I'm brokenhearted, that's, logic isn't going to help me.

• 55:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, if that logic is true, then I'm just, I have nothing.

• 55:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It's me here. Yeah. Sad.

• 55:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So, Conan Doyle writes an article about the fairy photos, and says that he has gone through every possible explanation for how they could have been faked, and can only come to the conclusion that they're real and that fairies exist. He even gets opinions from several experts in photography, including one from the Kodak Company. The experts all come back with mixed reviews, but Conan Doyle concludes that the results of these opinions show two out of three experts agree that the photos are real, which is him kind of... You know what, like, I'm taking this and I'm making it sound like this.

• 56:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 56:33Georgia Hardstark?

  He's not lying, but it's not, you know.

• 56:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just like that thing where Dennis recommends toothpaste. It's like, that's not real.

• 56:40Georgia Hardstark?

  No, they don't.

• 56:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not, they don't even like toothpaste. Also, it's just, I think it's also the piece of, you take something up and you're like, I believe in this. And then it's like, well, then, well, then fight for it. And it's like, oh, now suddenly there's something, there is a fight or like a, I'm on this side kind of thing.

• 56:58Georgia Hardstark?

  What is it, the confirmation bias? Where it's like, if you already believe in something, you're only going to see the stuff that supports what you believe in.

• 57:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Absolutely.

• 57:05Georgia Hardstark?

  And the other stuff seems like bullshit to you.

• 57:06Karen Kilgariff?

  There's magic in the world.

• 57:08Georgia Hardstark?

  It's bullshit.

• 57:09Karen Kilgariff?

  There is, there is.

• 57:10Georgia Hardstark?

  And I don't want to fight someone and be like, no, there isn't, you know, it's like, because if you need that, fucking, I mean, same with religion. Like, if you need that, have it.

• 57:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, who the fuck knows?

• 57:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Karen Kilgariff?

  I think there is a very beautiful thing of like, you gotta keep open to it.

• 57:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 57:24Karen Kilgariff?

  There's no point in being like, there's nothing ever anywhere.

• 57:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 57:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just like, that's not good.

• 57:29Georgia Hardstark?

  But you also have to be open to the point where like, other people's opinions are just as fucking legitimate as yours. Because there's no such.

• 57:36Karen Kilgariff?

  When?

• 57:37Georgia Hardstark?

  There's no such thing as.

• 57:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Is this new for you?

• 57:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Prove a negative.

• 57:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sorry.

• 57:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Prove a negative.

• 57:44Karen Kilgariff?

  There's debate, George. I've never met her before.

• 57:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah. She's ready for Thanksgiving dinner table.

• 57:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Prove a negative.

• 57:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I fucking dare you. So Conan Doyle asks Elsie's father for permission to print the photos in the article. And Arthur, the father, is so impressed by this famous author who's like, paying attention to this little family all of a sudden, that he agrees to letting the photos be published, although he refuses payment for the photos that Conan Doyle wants to give him. And it sounds like, he says it's because he doesn't want to tarnish their genuineness. But it sounds like he maybe knows they're fake and doesn't want to scam the author out of money.

• 58:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is thoughtful.

• 58:26Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, I think. I want to go along with this a little bit. I can't go that far.

• 58:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, if I take money, then I'm complicit.

• 58:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 58:32Georgia Hardstark?

  So Conan Doyle's article is published in The Strand magazine in the UK, Australia and America in the 1920s. The girls are referred to in the article by pseudonyms. And the article causes a huge sensation, not because everyone believes the photos are real. In fact, most people probably believe they're fake. But the debate over whether or not they are completely real, it's like goes viral essentially.

• 58:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 58:57Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like, like, what color is this dress?

• 58:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Remember that?

• 58:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And it's fun to land on a side.

• 59:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's totally exactly. And so like, find one person to argue the other side is just like, what you do at a pub.

• 59:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, what else are you gonna do at a pub?

• 59:11Karen Kilgariff?

  But also that dress was so clearly blue that I don't understand. Like, what were people seeing? Is it something like in your retina or something?

• 59:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Must be.

• 59:22Georgia Hardstark?

  You should cover that story.

• 59:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Gripping drama.

• 59:26Karen Kilgariff?

  The gripping drama of being on Twitter in like 2011 or whatever it was.

• 59:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So no one can figure out how the photos have been faked. So that's kind of part of the whole thing. And they don't think two young girls would have the skills necessary to create this kind of illusion. So it's like,

• 59:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck you sexist.

• 59:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, exactly. So after the article comes out, Arthur Conan Doyle buys Frances and Elsie new cameras so that they can try and capture more photos of the fairies. By this point, it's 1921 and the girls are 13 and 20 years old and they really don't know what to do because it's fucking fake. And they never believed that anyone would really fall for it.

• 1:00:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Georgia Hardstark?

  They didn't expect, I guess maybe they didn't know their mom would take them to this lecture and never people would take it seriously. But everyone is so starstruck by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that they're just like, let's just go with it.

• 1:00:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, and he's like, put a lot at, there's a lot at stake at like his reputation at this point. So they like, don't want to tell him.

• 1:00:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:00:23Georgia Hardstark?

  For that reason as well.

• 1:00:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, sir.

• 1:00:25Georgia Hardstark?

  We're big liars.

• 1:00:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why you believe in us so much.

• 1:00:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Keep lying.

• 1:00:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So not knowing what to do, I'm feeling kind of sorry for Conan Doyle. The girls accept the cameras. He also pays them around 20 pounds each, which in today's US dollars.

• 1:00:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Five hundred dollars?

• 1:00:42Georgia Hardstark?

  1,150.

• 1:00:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah.

• 1:00:45Georgia Hardstark?

  He just fucking hands them a fucking 20 quid or whatever. They produce two more photos, one of Frances and one of Elsie. And there's a fairy in each photo. These photos are also published along with a fifth photo, which just shows the fairies and neither of the girls. And this last photo is called The Fairies and Their Sun Bath. And the fairies do look a little different in this photo, more transparent and ethereal.

• 1:01:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Those are the real ones.

• 1:01:11Georgia Hardstark?

  The idea is that they are dematerializing front of the camera. And actually, to this day, no one's quite sure how they achieved that effect.

• 1:01:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Cause they're the real ones.

• 1:01:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So the fairy craze peaks in about 1923. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies in 1930. But the debate about whether or not the Connolly fairies in those photos are real rages on for decades, with many people believing rightly that the fairies are a hoax, others insisting that they are real. Like, how fun and harmless, except for his heart.

• 1:01:44Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. I mean, but it didn't affect him. I think he probably really enjoyed it all the way through.

• 1:01:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I mean, it's like a, it's like a fun thing in the middle of a bunch of fucking horrible shit happening. It's like a fun debate.

• 1:01:58Karen Kilgariff?

  The sky is filled with ash and smoke. Everybody is like in the workhouse.

• 1:02:03Georgia Hardstark?

  The poverty is abundant. When television becomes mainstream, there are programs devoted to the tale and lots of people do investigative deep dives into the subject, but no one officially solves a mystery until the 1980s. I wonder if you watched this. That's when Frances and Elsie, who are now in their late 70s and 80s, come clean in an interview on a show about the paranormal called Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers.

• 1:02:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 1:02:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you remember it?

• 1:02:32Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 1:02:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I bet I was British.

• 1:02:34Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, somebody can, someone order it for me right now. How do I?

• 1:02:39Georgia Hardstark?

  You need the Time Life series of cassettes.

• 1:02:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Turn away from my job and start watching it immediately.

• 1:02:44Georgia Hardstark?

  You too. Oh, it's like the Spock one.

• 1:02:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. In search of?

• 1:02:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So Elsie, the older one, finally admits that the whole thing got out of hand when Conan Doyle got ahold of the story and the girls just decided to go along with it. She says, quote, "Two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle. Well, we could only keep quiet," end quote. The girls, now women, say they want to tell the truth. They say they want to tell the truth before they die. They don't want their grandkids wondering, which I love it. It's us always saying, "Don't leave anything a secret."

• 1:03:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, clear it up. Why not?

• 1:03:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Deathbed confessions for everyone.

• 1:03:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Even if you can make something up. So for her part, Frances, the younger of the two, has always insisted that that last photo, the one of the fairies in their sunbath, is real. It's like, why would she do that if she's there coming clean?

• 1:03:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:03:37Georgia Hardstark?

  And it is like really, it's like spider webby looking and the do, you know, kind of a thing.

• 1:03:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Because they're real.

• 1:03:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You think so?

• 1:03:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:44Georgia Hardstark?

  You do?

• 1:03:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Why?

• 1:03:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I just think there's things going on that we have no idea. But also, it's like, it's almost a thing of like whether or not that exact thing is. Here's what's magical. Two girls in a creek in this tiny town get the inventor of Sherlock Holmes to come and hang out with them and give them money.

• 1:04:07Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a book. Like, that doesn't happen in real life.

• 1:04:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's all like, it's almost like the thing that everyone's focusing on isn't the magic. It's the girls and what they're doing and how they do it is the magic.

• 1:04:17Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a beautiful story, and the story's about them.

• 1:04:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And the mom maybe knew that? Like, look what my brilliant daughter and my brilliant niece did.

• 1:04:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And in 2019, the daughter of Frances Griffiths put up a series of prints from the original negatives at auction.

• 1:04:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh!

• 1:04:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, guess how many pounds they sell for?

• 1:04:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Is it in the millions?

• 1:04:41Georgia Hardstark?

  No. I don't want to make you guess because it's not as much as-

• 1:04:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Fifty hundred million.

• 1:04:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Fifty thousand.

• 1:04:45Karen Kilgariff?

  It should have got way more than that.

• 1:04:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:04:49Karen Kilgariff?

  But still.

• 1:04:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, maybe I'll get you that for your birthday.

• 1:04:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Next year for Thanksgiving, I'll get you.

• 1:04:54Karen Kilgariff?

  You can make it a lithograph. It doesn't have to be the original.

• 1:04:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. And that is the story of the Cottingley Fairies.

• 1:05:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Perfection.

• 1:05:04Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, yeah, I really love that. Also, it's just like, Tarzan Conan Doyle, a man who has seen a bunch of shit, gone through a bunch of shit. Like, it's suddenly like, later in life, or maybe end of life, he's like, wait a second, one last chance to actually experience, like, he wanted it so bad because...

• 1:05:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Fear of his own death, fear of his son's passing, needing there to be more to life than this, the basics.

• 1:05:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:05:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is like, so human.

• 1:05:37Karen Kilgariff?

  So human and, and also kind of like, that's a...

• 1:05:40Georgia Hardstark?

  You don't think it's bad that they tricked him?

• 1:05:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, no, because it wasn't their intent. It wasn't like they were like, if we make these fairies, we can get a thousand dollars or whatever. It's like, they were just having fun and being artistic.

• 1:05:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And then, a little thing they were doing with their family of like, for either attention or just whatever. Or maybe because they were down there and there's like, they say that in Ireland, bogs would release gases that would do this weird sparkling thing, and that's why people were like, oh my god, what's that over there? Like, there's all kinds of shit that's been going on for a long time that we have no explanation for.

• 1:06:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Karen Kilgariff?

  So he's kind of coming and going, wait a second, is it, you know?

• 1:06:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Do I finally have something true? Or do I have something provable?

• 1:06:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Karen Kilgariff?

  To, for this feeling that won't go away.

• 1:06:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I like that. Well, we have something true and provable, and that is the listeners here that we're so thankful for. And thank you for spending your Thanksgiving with us, or not, if you're not listening to it.

• 1:06:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, true.

• 1:06:43Georgia Hardstark?

  It's fine.

• 1:06:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Or later, if it's 4th of July, and you're like, oh, I never caught this one.

• 1:06:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, thank you for creating that kind of human magic with your good vibes and your community, and your community building, because, man, we've seen it, we've seen it in action, and it is truly the definition of magic.

• 1:07:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. So, thank you, guys. Thanks for listening.

• 1:07:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Happy Thanksgiving.

• 1:07:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Stay sexy.

• 1:07:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:07:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:07:20Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right Production.

• 1:07:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

• 1:07:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle-Crayton.

• 1:07:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

• 1:07:29Karen Kilgariff?

  This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.

• 1:07:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Our researchers are Maren McClashern and Ally Elkin.

• 1:07:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:07:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder.

• 1:07:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:07:47Speaker 00

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• 1:08:15Speaker 01

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