Pod Insights My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark 520 - Kind of Meant to Be-ish About this episode This week, Georgia covers the wrongful convictions of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Karen tells the incredible survival story of Lieutenant Leon Crane.
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Transcript 13,256 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
0:06 Speaker 00 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:35 Speaker 01 In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it. This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
1:28 Karen Kilgariff? Hello and welcome.
1:30 Georgia Hardstark? My favorite murder.
1:31 Karen Kilgariff? That's Georgia Hardstark.
1:32 Georgia Hardstark? That's Karen Kilgariff.
1:34 Karen Kilgariff? And this is a podcast that's also a video podcast.
1:37 Georgia Hardstark? Why do I feel like we haven't done this in months? Does it feel like that?
1:40 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, it feels very foreign. You know what it was? Because we flipped our record days.
1:43 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, right.
1:44 Karen Kilgariff? So it actually is much longer between records.
1:47 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
1:47 Karen Kilgariff? In our minds.
1:48 Georgia Hardstark? Which I hate because we talk about the Super Bowl now and how amazing Bad Bunny was. That happened fucking two weeks ago to people.
1:54 Karen Kilgariff? People are like, shut up. Bad Bunny was amazing, but then did we talk about the reaction videos from the families who are watching the Super Bowl and then watching themselves be represented?
2:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
2:05 Karen Kilgariff? And recognizing all the references and people who know Puerto Rico and...
2:11 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, I have been just sitting around my house, watching families have big emotional shared experiences and crying, staring at my phone.
2:19 Georgia Hardstark? It's amazing.
2:20 Karen Kilgariff? It's so crazy. That thing was incredible.
2:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it was. It was moving, like, so beautiful and wonderful, especially because there are people who just didn't like it based on the fucking, based on nothing.
2:33 Karen Kilgariff? Based on fear.
2:34 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
2:35 Karen Kilgariff? Very stupid fear.
2:36 Georgia Hardstark? And hopefully, this did something to fix that divide. I don't know.
2:40 Karen Kilgariff? Well, 164 million people watched it.
2:43 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
2:44 Karen Kilgariff? And were into it.
2:45 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
2:45 Karen Kilgariff? Or at least watched it long enough to be recorded.
2:48 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
2:49 Karen Kilgariff? So, I think that's all people need to know.
2:52 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
2:52 Karen Kilgariff? The majority of people are open, into it, want to be a part of things.
2:57 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, support it, all the things.
3:00 Karen Kilgariff? Dancing grass. And all of it.
3:04 Georgia Hardstark? Um, what's going on with you?
3:07 Karen Kilgariff? Just exactly what I told you. Me, watching families have experiences.
3:11 Georgia Hardstark? Well, see, the problem is I took Instagram off my phone because I was getting just trigger upon trigger with the Epstein files shit. Like, I just needed to stop because, you know, as soon as I start clicking on it, that's all they feed me.
3:23 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
3:24 Georgia Hardstark? So I'm getting fed and fed. And so now, I took it off, but I'm just reading Virginia Roberts Giuffre's memoir.
3:31 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
3:31 Georgia Hardstark? Which is, you know, at least it's from her mouth.
3:35 Karen Kilgariff? So you were reading it on social media and then listening to a book about it?
3:38 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
3:39 Karen Kilgariff? Wow. Yeah, that's, we gotta measure out and meet out our horrible realities.
3:46 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
3:46 Karen Kilgariff? And our, and our unbelievable truths that we're all now living through.
3:50 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
3:50 Karen Kilgariff? Because I just co-hosted Brief Recession with Michael.
3:55 Georgia Hardstark? That's awesome.
3:56 Karen Kilgariff? Foot. On it, I was told, for the first time, and I don't know if you've already heard this, they're now getting together the evidence that Kurt Cobain did not kill himself. That was breaking on that show where I was like, sorry, like he was telling me.
4:10 Georgia Hardstark? Like they have the evidence now?
4:12 Karen Kilgariff? Well, they want it to be looked at again because and then they did like point by point evidence that they have.
4:18 Georgia Hardstark? I fucking buy it.
4:19 Karen Kilgariff? One of the things was that all of the caps were put back on the heroin needles that he supposedly used to.
4:27 Georgia Hardstark? No.
4:28 Karen Kilgariff? The word is that he OD'd with three needles full of heroin and then shot himself.
4:32 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
4:33 Karen Kilgariff? And the caps were on those needles.
4:36 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that doesn't really add up.
4:38 Karen Kilgariff? That all together, I was just like, wait, what? And then that's just the first couple of things you mentioned.
4:43 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God. Okay, now I have to get back on it, but I can't wait to hear more about that.
4:46 Karen Kilgariff? There's just so much to, to absorb and accept.
4:50 Georgia Hardstark? And by the time this comes out, that could already be, that could already be solved completely.
4:55 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
4:55 Georgia Hardstark? So just bear with us, you guys, we're.
4:57 Karen Kilgariff? We're a little bit behind on our, uh, break, on our breaking weekly podcast. You can't, weekly's not enough, daily's not enough.
5:05 Georgia Hardstark? No, no, we're a little behind on the uptake. Is that what they say?
5:08 Karen Kilgariff? And it's, uh, it's not behind on the uptake, it's slow on the uptake.
5:11 Georgia Hardstark? Slow on the uptake. I am slow. I'm behind on the slow uptake.
5:16 Karen Kilgariff? Took me literally seven full seconds to tell you what it actually is, to correct you about being slow on the uptake.
5:22 Georgia Hardstark? That's what we guarantee you here at My Favorite Murder.
5:24 Karen Kilgariff? Do you know what podcasting is? Cause you just saw it in action. Okay, so we have a, a podcast network called Exactly Right. There's many wonderful shows on it and we'd love to tell you about some of them right now.
5:36 Georgia Hardstark? That's right. This week on I Said No Gifts, Bridger does his best not to go for the throat when Alison Toldman from St. Dennis Medical and Fargo shows up with a gift.
5:44 Karen Kilgariff? The best. Alison Toldman is the funniest, best actress.
5:47 Georgia Hardstark? Rad. They talk about forever chemicals, we fit, and the complicated social politics of luncheons.
5:53 Karen Kilgariff? It's a real luncheon based show. If that's something you're into.
5:57 Georgia Hardstark? Tiny sandwiches.
5:59 Karen Kilgariff? Get over to I Said No Gifts.
6:00 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
6:00 Karen Kilgariff? They're classy.
6:01 Georgia Hardstark? Scones, okay.
6:02 Karen Kilgariff? And then over on Brief Recess, I teased this already, Michael's joined by substitute co-host Karen Kilgariff with a special guest appearance from the therapist from Euphoria. You know her, you love her. It's Martha Kelly.
6:13 Georgia Hardstark? I love her. I love the trailer for the new season where she's just. Fucking bawling so hard.
6:20 Karen Kilgariff? It's so exciting. I can't wait to watch her do that. Martha is the funniest. And if you've never seen her stand up, one of the best stand ups there is.
6:27 Georgia Hardstark? It'll make this character even better when you know how fucking hilarious she is in real life.
6:32 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, that's right.
6:32 Georgia Hardstark? And then on Dear Movies, I love you. Millie and Casey honor Black History Month by revisiting the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You. They also dig into listener emails and pose their eternal question, should you finish a movie even if you're not feeling it?
6:46 Karen Kilgariff? No.
6:46 Georgia Hardstark? No.
6:46 Karen Kilgariff? Never.
6:47 Georgia Hardstark? Right?
6:48 Karen Kilgariff? I never do.
6:48 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
6:50 Karen Kilgariff? I have to get up and go stand in the kitchen. So why would I be sitting there watching something I don't like? I need to be over there.
6:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
6:56 Karen Kilgariff? Puttering. Over on Trust Me, Lola and Megan have such a great time with Martina Castro, the creator and host of our newest podcast, Two Face John of God, that they actually had to make that episode a two parter.
7:08 Georgia Hardstark? So rad.
7:08 Karen Kilgariff? Precious. This week is part one of their conversation where Martina breaks down John of God's rise to international fame as a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon.
7:17 Georgia Hardstark? I just saw Megan and Lola in the kitchen here at Exactly Right Studios. And speaking of Two Face John of God, episode four is now out. It follows journalists from Brazil's largest news organization as they investigate John of God's rape allegations. As more women come forward, it becomes clear the story is far bigger than anyone realized.
7:36 Karen Kilgariff? Such a good podcast. Got to go listen to it. Also, if you're listening to us right now, you might be interested to know that you can also watch us on Netflix.
7:44 Georgia Hardstark? Look at the camera.
7:45 Karen Kilgariff? And then long take to the camera, light surprise, fear, trepidation,
7:55 Karen Kilgariff? and joy. All right. New episodes of My Favorite Murder and Buried Bones are released weekly. So when you're there, please remember to hit the double thumbs up.
8:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Don't be confused. It's thumbs up in some places. It's double thumbs up in Netflix.
8:10 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
8:10 Georgia Hardstark? So don't forget that one.
8:11 Karen Kilgariff? It's your way to star it, to like it, to heart it.
8:15 Georgia Hardstark? And if you're outside the US or not into Netflix, that's okay. Just remember the Fan Cult has you covered. Full episode videos are now available along with ad free episodes, merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content. There's a lot of that and more. Join at fancult.supercast.com to get access and join in the fun.
8:35 Karen Kilgariff? We.
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9:05 Georgia Hardstark? The Hulu original series "Phony" is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+
9:10 Karen Kilgariff? Sonny's life is pretty great, until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception: his mom.
9:18 Georgia Hardstark? To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives, but for Sonny, he knows something is off.
9:23 Karen Kilgariff? As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger.
9:31 Georgia Hardstark? Is this all in his head, or is there really an imposter in his house?
9:34 Karen Kilgariff? Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nevola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.
9:42 Georgia Hardstark? Watch the Hulu original series "Phony."
9:44 Karen Kilgariff? Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
9:49 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
9:50 Karen Kilgariff? We've all had moments where dealing with healthcare or insurance feels completely overwhelming.
9:54 Georgia Hardstark? You're sick, worried about someone you love, trying to understand what comes next, and suddenly you're spending hours on hold, filling out paperwork, and trying to figure out who to call.
10:03 Karen Kilgariff? Research shows patients spend the equivalent of an eight-hour workday every month coordinating their own care.
10:09 Georgia Hardstark? Nobody hands you a roadmap when you're dealing with a diagnosis or ongoing health issues.
10:13 Karen Kilgariff? That's why there's Solace Health.
10:15 Georgia Hardstark? Solace provides personal healthcare advocates who average 16 years of healthcare experience and can help you get answers fast.
10:21 Karen Kilgariff? Think of them as someone in your corner who understands the healthcare system and can handle the logistics while you focus on your health.
10:27 Georgia Hardstark? They can help with appointments, insurance denials, medical bills, treatment options, and understanding doctor recommendations.
10:33 Karen Kilgariff? Research shows 92% of patients report a positive impact on their care from working with an advocate.
10:39 Georgia Hardstark? Advocacy improves outcomes, and Solace advocates are covered by insurance nationwide.
10:43 Karen Kilgariff? Eligibility varies by insurance plan.
10:45 Georgia Hardstark? Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice or services must be 18 years or older.
10:50 Karen Kilgariff? Go to solacehealth.com/murder to see if you qualify.
10:53 Georgia Hardstark? It takes about two minutes and it's covered by insurance.
10:56 Karen Kilgariff? That's S-O-L-A-C-E health.com/murder.
11:00 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
11:03 Georgia Hardstark? Today's story is one most of us are probably familiar with because it's been immortalized in a Bob Dylan song and a 90s biopic starring my mom's hall pass, Denzel Washington.
11:14 Karen Kilgariff? Janet.
11:15 Georgia Hardstark? Janet is.
11:16 Karen Kilgariff? Janet's right about that.
11:18 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, but the whole story actually has several more twists and turns. This is the story of a promising boxer who was wrongfully convicted twice, or more, depending on who you ask. He went on to become one of the world's most prominent advocates for the wrongfully convicted. As the Bob Dylan song goes, here comes the story of the hurricane.
11:35 Karen Kilgariff? It's such a good movie.
11:37 Georgia Hardstark? Such a good movie, such a good song. I played it for Vince, who of course knows the song, but didn't realize what it was about. So we like listened to it together. It's a great fucking song. The main sources I used for the story are Rubin Hurricane Carter's own autobiography, The 16th Round, which he published from prison, and Reuben's New York Times obituary. And the rest of the sources are found in the show notes. In regard to Reuben, I'm gonna call him Reuben for now, his childhood, in his own words, he says, quote, "The kindest thing I can say about my childhood is that I survived it," end quote. He's born in 1937 to Lloyd and Bertha Carter and grows up in Passaic in Patterson, New Jersey. Do you know them?
12:18 Karen Kilgariff? I've heard of Passaic.
12:20 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, I have too. Isn't there a sort of?
12:23 Karen Kilgariff? A Passaic mall?
12:24 Georgia Hardstark? Hot wives of Passaic or something?
12:25 Karen Kilgariff? Hot wives of Passaic. If there is, I mean, Molly, do we know if the Bravo team has gotten onto Passaic in the way that we think they should?
12:34 Georgia Hardstark? Isn't it near the falls, Niagara Falls? I think it is.
12:38 Karen Kilgariff? I thought it was near an airport.
12:39 Georgia Hardstark? The Passaic Airport, sure.
12:42 Karen Kilgariff? Well done. Not on Bravo. Great. Confirmed.
12:45 Georgia Hardstark? Potomac, I'm thinking of Potomac.
12:47 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. Got it.
12:50 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, he's one of seven kids and the family is more comfortable than a lot of their neighbors. But Reuben has a very difficult relationship with his dad, who is physically abusive. It's all the stories we've heard so many, so many times. And also, Reuben stutters, which is hard for him. But by the time he's eight, he does gain a reputation in the neighborhood for being a talented fighter. And that outweighs the fact that he has a stutter. And so he falls in with sort of a kid's street gang that fights other kids and commits minor crimes. It's just, you know, juvenile delinquency. Pretty early on.
13:23 Karen Kilgariff? Also, I would imagine that his fighting and his stutter are interconnected.
13:27 Georgia Hardstark? Sure.
13:27 Karen Kilgariff? Because he's just like, you're gonna let people bully you or say shit to you about something? Go fight them.
13:34 Georgia Hardstark? Right, totally. It's like, he kinda had to do that. It's like, do or die, sort of, yeah. When Ruben's dad finds out about a petty theft that he and his friends committed in town, he beats Ruben and then turns him into the police, leaving Ruben alone with them for questioning. And the officer also beats Ruben. Again, he's not much older than eight at this time.
13:55 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, my god.
13:56 Georgia Hardstark? When Ruben is 11 years old, so we're talking like, the late 40s, he and some other boys are at Passaic Waterfalls, which you've seen, Ally says you've seen them in The Sopranos.
14:07 Karen Kilgariff? Okay.
14:08 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, yeah, I remember them.
14:09 Karen Kilgariff? Okay.
14:09 Georgia Hardstark? Right? When a man attempts to sexually abuse several of them, the boys fight back and Ruben, who has a knife in his pocket, stabs the man. The man's injured, but he survives. But consequently, Ruben is sent to a state-run juvenile facility called Jamesburg Home for the Boys. And just, we can think about old-timey, you know, institutions.
14:33 Karen Kilgariff? For children.
14:33 Georgia Hardstark? For children who are not behaving is like, nightmare.
14:37 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
14:38 Georgia Hardstark? And it is a nightmare. There's no rehabilitation and no education actually going on. The boys are assigned to work details and Ruben works in the industrial laundry room. Ruben writes in his book that kids from eight years old ended up there for varying infractions and that the setting was a, quote, "atmosphere more vicious than the slums they left could ever be," end quote. Ruben is supposed to be paroled when he's 17, but when that's taken away by an abusive corrections officer for a made-up disciplinary infraction, and now he has to stay longer, Ruben and another inmate escape. He makes it home to Patterson and miraculously, the police aren't waiting for him at his parents' house, so his mother, Bertha, packs him a suitcase and sends him off to a relative in Philadelphia.
15:23 Georgia Hardstark? It seems like the dad was the one who was like, vying for him to be
15:27 Karen Kilgariff? Sent back.
15:27 Georgia Hardstark? incarcerated and locked up. And, yeah, and the mom just sent him to a family member.
15:31 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, it's one thing to punish a child, but especially like, we've all seen those and that, those kinds of like,
15:38 Georgia Hardstark? Reformatory. Exactly. Where it's just, the adults aren't trained, you know. Right. It's for profit. And, yeah. Child prison. There's not enough of those employee, or yeah, yeah, there's just not enough of anything. No, and if you're children of color. Right. Worst case scenario. Ruben spends just two weeks in Philadelphia and then he joins the army. They don't know that he had been locked up and he's basically got a warrant out for his arrest. He goes through basic training in South Carolina and while the other recruits struggle to get used to the discipline, the physical conditioning and the terrible food, it's actually a significant step up from Jamesburg. So he actually doesn't mind it that much. But then when a white superior who's berating him calls him a racial slur, Ruben punches
16:23 Georgia Hardstark? him in the face and he gets some other disciplinary infractions along those lines. So the movie with Denzel Washington kind of glosses over a lot of the rough and tumble, you know, of his life, but you know, you can understand why. So Ruben's unit goes to a base in Germany when he's around 18 and on the base, there's a lieutenant who coaches the boxing team. The lieutenant has Ruben try out boxing with no prior training by entering the ring with the two-year all-army heavyweight champion. Hmm. Just get on in there and let's see what you can do, thinking this will show him. And Ruben is actually only 5'8" and like 150 pounds to begin with, but he knocks the guy out cold after three punches. Oh, my God.
17:08 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. And after that, I think the lieutenant's like, oh shit, you gotta be like, you need to do this and he's assigned to a special unit so that he can become the new star of the army's boxing team. I mean, he's been training since he was eight years old. Right. Right. That's incredible. Yeah. After he starts boxing, other things start to fall into place. Ruben gets speech therapy and overcomes his stutter and that opens a new passion for expressing himself, for reading and writing and education. And he writes, quote, "Silence was no longer a defense mechanism for me. It became instead a luxury. If I kept quiet now, it was only because I wanted to and not because I felt I had to," end quote, to hide his stutter. At this point in time, Ruben also starts exploring Islam.
17:51 Georgia Hardstark? Under the tutelage of a fellow soldier, he finds its messaging empowering, especially having been oppressed by multiple systems of white supremacy over the course of his life, though he doesn't ever formally convert.
18:03 Georgia Hardstark? Now, even though Ruben is flourishing in a lot of ways during this time in his life, he's not exactly becoming a model soldier and he gets in trouble repeatedly in the army and he's eventually discharged. He intends to become a professional boxer, but he first gets in trouble with the law. He's sent to prison for 10 months because there's still that warrant out for his, from something he did when he was a child. I mean.
18:25 Karen Kilgariff? Also, it makes sense that he has problems with authority. You know what I mean? Just like, the army would be perfect for him in some ways, but then it's, it's not like he's getting therapy. It's not like he's, you know, he fits in and there's a bunch of stuff he's natural at, but then he's also like, the shadow of his past abusers are right there as, but now they're his sergeants or his leaders.
18:45 Georgia Hardstark? And they're not, not racist. You know what I mean? It's kind of the same thing.
18:49 Karen Kilgariff? It's the, what, 40s, 50s?
18:51 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
18:52 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
18:52 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, it's the 2026 and it's still fucking pretty goddamn racist. So he's sent to prison for 10 months and then he serves about three more years because he snatched a woman's purse and assaulted a man, both of which he did while he was drunk. So he's released from prison in 1961 when he's about 24 years old. And this is when he actually starts to get his boxing career off the ground. He's quickly named the Hurricane because of his aggressive fighting style. And around this time, Ruben meets a woman named, this is the best name, May Thelma Basket. And they get married and have a daughter. There's a photo of him in the military.
19:28 Karen Kilgariff? Wow.
19:29 Georgia Hardstark? And then this is him in the boxing stance.
19:32 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, yeah.
19:33 Georgia Hardstark? I know, right?
19:35 Karen Kilgariff? He's serious.
19:36 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. I'd be scared if I were the opponent. Can I imagine me being a boxer?
19:39 Karen Kilgariff? It'd go real fast. You'd be like the hummingbird. Right?
19:45 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Over the next three years, he climbs from the bottom of the top 10 middleweight fighters toward the top and he becomes a well-known fighter. It's got a lot of similarities to Muhammad Ali's story, which I've covered in the past.
19:59 Karen Kilgariff? And Mike Tyson.
20:00 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
20:01 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
20:02 Georgia Hardstark? So in this background, Ruben gets a reputation for being very charming and charismatic, but also for being unabashedly critical of law enforcement. In the buildup of several of his fights, he doesn't hide his contempt for the police or his belief that black people should stand up for themselves when confronted with racist violence. He says, quote, "If you act like you're afraid of me, you better be afraid of me because I would do to you exactly what you would do to me."
20:26 Karen Kilgariff? Mm-hmm.
20:27 Georgia Hardstark? And then he says, "I'd just do it quicker." End quote. As a result of this, he is frequently stopped and harassed by police officers. At this point, when Ruben's 29, everything in his life comes to a screeching halt. So in the wee hours of June 17th, 1966, in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Patterson, New Jersey, which is a dive bar in a bad part of town that's also notorious for not serving black people, four people are shot. Their names are Jim Oliver, who is the bartender, and three customers Hazel Tanis, Fred Nowyeks, and Willie Marins. Willie and Hazel initially survive, though Hazel will succumb to her injuries a month later. Willie is blinded in one eye, and he and another witness say that the shooters are
21:12 Georgia Hardstark? two black men, one who held a pistol and one who held a shotgun. One witness, named Alfred Bello, is standing outside the bar when the police get there. But he had actually gone into the bar after the shooting to try to take the cash from the register. Oh. So this is going to become their main witness against Ruben. Yeah. So this is who we're talking about. He says he saw two black men, both of whom were around 5'11". And let's remember, Ruben is famously on the short side for a middleweight boxer at 5'8". Like, those are not heights that you get mixed up. Right. So Ruben's car actually matches the description of the getaway car. And so he had been out driving around that night, and he is in the car with a 19-year-old man he knows named John Artis, as well as another man.
21:56 Georgia Hardstark? They're stopped by the police, who say they're looking for two black men. Ruben then quips, "Any two will do." Sss. But the police actually let them go, and the third man gets out of the car and goes home. But later that night, they were looking for two black men. The police circle back to Ruben and John, and they are brought to the hospital, where Willie Marins, the guy with the, who's, I got shot at, he's conscious. And police ask him if Ruben and John are the ones who shot him. Willie and another witness, who knows what Ruben looks like, because he's famous in the area as being this prizefighter, they both say it's not him.
22:30 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, wow.
22:30 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Despite this, Ruben and John are brought to the station where they're interrogated for hours insisting that they were not at the Lafayette and they're actually let go at this point. And four months pass. And then in October of 1966, Ruben and John are arrested and charged with the three murders. What happened over the course of those four months? Well, a $10,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest. How much is $10,000 in 1966?
23:01 Karen Kilgariff? Um, 70,000?
23:03 Georgia Hardstark? 100. I almost accidentally said it.
23:04 Karen Kilgariff? Oh.
23:05 Georgia Hardstark? So this caused Alfred Bello, the man who police had already spoken to outside the bar, and another man, Arthur Dexter Bradley, to come forward. So Bello was the guy who stole the cash from the register after there was a shooting and people were fucking dead in a bar.
23:20 Karen Kilgariff? He actually got in there and got it?
23:22 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, I think like before the police got there.
23:24 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
23:25 Georgia Hardstark? Which is just jarring how...
23:27 Karen Kilgariff? Well, it points to like the desperation of everybody that it sounds like in a dive bar in a bad part of town, that's what happens.
23:34 Georgia Hardstark? Right. And actually, it turned out that he had been a lookout that night while his accomplice Bradley was burglarizing a neighboring factory. So they're there to burglarize. He goes in and steals money from a crime scene, but he's their main witness. And despite the fact that Bello's original statement to the police had described men not matching Ruben and John's descriptions, and despite the fact that he had previously agreed that Ruben was not one of the shooters, he now changes the story and says that Ruben and John were the men that he saw that night. And Bradley, the other guy who previously didn't admit to seeing anything, says the same thing. So Ruben and John's case goes to trial in 1967. Bello testifies that he saw both men at the scene that night, and
24:18 Georgia Hardstark? Bradley testifies that he only saw Ruben. The prosecution doesn't offer any kind of motive for the killings, and three other witnesses provide alibis for both men for the time of the murder. Despite this, Ruben and John are both found guilty and Ruben is sentenced to 30 years to life and John 15 years to life.
24:37 Karen Kilgariff? So does it feel like a setup?
24:38 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
24:39 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
24:40 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, it feels like these guys want to get the money and the cops want to nab somebody for it and it's convenient that it all works out for all the white people.
24:49 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, well, but I was gonna say that seems like the cops, like if Ruben was the kind of person that's like, any two will do.
24:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
24:57 Karen Kilgariff? Which it must have felt amazing just to be able to say that because it's absolutely the truth that they had to live under. But then it's like you can, I'm sure that there was some white sergeant somewhere that's like, that guy needs to be taught a lesson.
25:12 Georgia Hardstark? Absolutely.
25:13 Karen Kilgariff? And sergeant isn't the rank I don't really know.
25:16 Georgia Hardstark? While in prison, Ruben refuses to wear his uniform most of the time, which means he can't leave his cell and he forgives most prison meals, heating up his own cans of soup on an electric coil. Basically, you know, it's his own way of fighting the system however he can.
25:33 Karen Kilgariff? And avoiding that food that you know is disgusting.
25:36 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god. Oh my god.
25:38 Karen Kilgariff? Yep.
25:38 Georgia Hardstark? He reads voraciously, especially books from the law library and while Ruben refuses to acknowledge many of the realities of prison life, like that uniform, he's also so respected by his fellow inmates that he is able to keep peace in the prison on multiple occasions when things could have turned violent. And in fact, one prison guard credits Ruben with saving his life.
26:00 Karen Kilgariff? Wow.
26:00 Georgia Hardstark? During a riot.
26:01 Karen Kilgariff? Okay.
26:02 Georgia Hardstark? In November of 1974, from prison, Ruben, now 37 years old, publishes his autobiography, The 16th Round. The book gets a lot of attention and Bob Dylan reads it and visits Ruben in prison. God, you should have heard me trying to sing that to Vince while I was like trying to remember, do you know that song? And I just kept singing fucking terrible, terrible, stupid, fucking, you know.
26:25 Karen Kilgariff? It is a really good song though.
26:26 Georgia Hardstark? Such a good.
26:26 Karen Kilgariff? Also, it just makes me want to stop everything, but it's gonna take too long to tell the story. But I told you the story of when I walked into the wall in the movie theater, right? Because we came in late.
26:35 Georgia Hardstark? No.
26:36 Karen Kilgariff? And it was the Bob Dylan movie.
26:37 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
26:38 Karen Kilgariff? So it's very dark and it was like the beginning where he's
26:40 Georgia Hardstark? I can see that.
26:40 Karen Kilgariff? Visiting someone in the hospital.
26:42 Georgia Hardstark? And you thought you were turning into the theater and you just walked into a fucking wall?
26:45 Karen Kilgariff? I thought that I was gonna get to the stairs on the other side and go down because I couldn't find my cousins.
26:50 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
26:50 Karen Kilgariff? And there were no stairs on the other side, so I just very slowly walked into a wall, a carpeted wall. But luckily Sophie was sitting in the last seat. So she's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, god damn it.
27:00 Georgia Hardstark? I would have left. I would have fucking left.
27:03 Karen Kilgariff? We laughed for the rest of the movie. And there was all these, like, of course, heavy things in it. And we could not stop laughing. It was the dumbest. Okay, sorry.
27:11 Georgia Hardstark? No, it's good.
27:12 Karen Kilgariff? And we're back.
27:13 Georgia Hardstark? We needed a
27:13 Karen Kilgariff? A little stopover.
27:15 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Okay, so Bob Dylan visits Reuben in prison, and then he releases the song Hurricane, which tells the story of what happened that night, which charts in the top 40 in 1975. Reuben and John's case gains widespread attention at this point. And at that time, they are finally awarded a new trial. So this is chiefly because Bello and Bradley, the two witnesses, quote, had recanted their statements.
27:41 Karen Kilgariff? Oh.
27:41 Georgia Hardstark? It had also been revealed that the prosecution had promised to be lenient to each of them on their own crimes they were committing in that moment that night.
27:50 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
27:50 Georgia Hardstark? So they get the award money and they get leniency, you know? To raise money for their defense, Bob Dylan headlines a concert at Madison Square Garden.
27:59 Karen Kilgariff? Fuck.
28:00 Georgia Hardstark? And then one at the Houston Astrodome.
28:03 Karen Kilgariff? Jesus.
28:03 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
28:04 Karen Kilgariff? That's amazing.
28:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. We don't do that anymore. Remember, like, all the fucking
28:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
28:10 Georgia Hardstark? Tribute concerts that people would do?
28:11 Karen Kilgariff? And the, like, Farm Aid and Live Aid and USA for Africa.
28:15 Georgia Hardstark? Yes, those.
28:17 Karen Kilgariff? We need that. I think it's because our center has completely exploded. So there's nobody outside of the bad stuff to be like, here's how we're gonna help. Everyone's inside of it going like, we don't know what to do. Also, our media is completely state-run at this point. We don't know what's going on.
28:36 Georgia Hardstark? Wow. You just basically said it all.
28:39 Karen Kilgariff? I know what's going on. I don't know what to do about it.
28:43 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
28:44 Karen Kilgariff? We could play the Astrodome. It's not there anymore.
28:47 Georgia Hardstark? So the New Jersey Supreme Court overturns Ruben and John's sentences based on the recantations. But the Passaic County prosecutor decides they want to try the case again and goes back to trial in 1976. Ruben and John are out on bail for nine months. In between that and at the new trial, Bello recants his recantation.
29:09 Karen Kilgariff? What?
29:10 Georgia Hardstark? But Bradley doesn't. He's like, I swear it was a lie. And so that means he's the prosecution's only witness placing Ruben at the scene. And other people saying he wasn't, you know?
29:20 Karen Kilgariff? Yep. The liar and the stealer is the one holding out.
29:25 Georgia Hardstark? Exactly. The one who can actually gain from this whole situation is your only witness.
29:31 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
29:32 Georgia Hardstark? This time, the prosecution does offer a motive saying the killing was revenge for the prior shooting of a black bartender in town. But there's no evidence to back this up. However, Ruben and John are found guilty again.
29:44 Karen Kilgariff? No.
29:44 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, you're surprised?
29:45 Karen Kilgariff? I guess I did see the movie, but I didn't. It's just when you hear about the details of these things where it's so thin and it's so overt. And it's such a scam.
29:55 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
29:56 Karen Kilgariff? It's just heartbreaking.
29:57 Georgia Hardstark? It is a scam. Fuck, man. What do we do?
30:00 Karen Kilgariff? We'll work on it later. We have to do this podcast. I know. Got to burn. It's coming down anyway.
30:06 Georgia Hardstark? I know. They're found guilty again. Ruben's second child, a son, is born two days after he's found guilty again.
30:12 Karen Kilgariff? See, this is that heartbreak of like, you're telling me this man has spent so much time in jail in his life. And then he gets out for nine months for the retrial.
30:20 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
30:20 Karen Kilgariff? And he gets that taste of real life again.
30:22 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, like maybe this will work out. Maybe like I'm actually free. They saw their error of their ways.
30:28 Karen Kilgariff? There's tons of people behind me now. Like my story's being told.
30:31 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
30:32 Karen Kilgariff? No.
30:33 Georgia Hardstark? No, it doesn't matter who's on your fucking side.
30:35 Karen Kilgariff? Not if the system's corrupt.
30:36 Georgia Hardstark? Yep. Right.
30:39 Georgia Hardstark? After his second conviction, Rubin tells the New York Times, quote, "They can incarcerate my body, but they can never incarcerate my mind," end quote. And that holds true as Rubin spends five more years in prison.
30:52 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, man.
30:53 Georgia Hardstark? It's a dark time. Obviously, he and his wife get divorced, and Rubin is so hopeless that he doesn't read any of the letters that pile up in his cell from supporters of his case. Because now it's like a known story, and there's so many people writing in.
31:06 Karen Kilgariff? And reading those letters would just be so bittersweet.
31:10 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
31:11 Karen Kilgariff? If not, just so depressing.
31:12 Georgia Hardstark? Right. But for some reason, in September of 1980, he opens a letter, a random letter, and he'll later say it's because the letter had vibrations.
31:22 Karen Kilgariff? Oh.
31:23 Georgia Hardstark? And the letter's from a 17-year-old kid. This is a fucking long story that I'm gonna just truncate, but it's a 17-year-old kid in Toronto named Lesra Martin. And Lesra had read Rubin's book and was so moved by it that he wanted to get in touch and thank him. And so Lesra's letter to Rubin leaves him so touched that he begins corresponding with the teenager. So Lesra had actually been adopted from a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn by a commune of artists and academics living in a mansion in Toronto.
31:53 Karen Kilgariff? Those Canadians.
31:55 Georgia Hardstark? I mean, scene.
31:56 Karen Kilgariff? Seriously. AKA heaven.
31:58 Georgia Hardstark? It wasn't a great, it ended up not being a totally great place.
32:02 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, shit.
32:03 Georgia Hardstark? Right. But it's, when there's a bunch of people together, it's always gonna go to shit.
32:06 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, that's true.
32:07 Georgia Hardstark? After hearing about Rubin through Lesra, three of the members of the commune wind up moving down to New Jersey to work full-time on Rubin's wrongful conviction case.
32:16 Karen Kilgariff? Wow.
32:17 Georgia Hardstark? And after numerous appeals, the case is heard in the US District Court in Newark, and the judge overturns the conviction on constitutional grounds, ruling that the prosecutors had, quote, "fatally infected the trial," end quote, "with an unfound theory of racial revenge." Rubin is free for good in 1985 at the age of 49.
32:38 Georgia Hardstark? Having spent just about 20 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And James had been paroled in 1981. So he leaves prison and for his first six years after leaving, Ruben lives at the commune in Toronto.
32:53 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, wow.
32:53 Georgia Hardstark? He goes back. Eventually, the commune proves to also be too oppressive for him. And he leaves it. It's a very long story that I'm making very small. But you can look it up. When's independent in Toronto? Ruben founds a group called Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, which is now called Innocence Canada. They actively work on the cases of people who they believe are wrongfully convicted. The group has helped to exonerate 36 wrongfully convicted Canadians. In addition, Ruben works as a motivational speaker and advocates for the wrongfully convicted all over the world, contributing to many, many more exonerations. Then in 1999, director Norman Jewison makes a movie about his life called The Hurricane, Denzel.
33:38 Georgia Hardstark? The movie glosses over his military discharge and his prior convictions to make it look like he's a purely sympathetic figure. But like, when you know the truth of his actual life and the violence and unfairness that he overcame, the fact that he spent his formative years in highly abusive and highly racist institutions, it makes his later contributions to society that much more impressive. Meaning like, we don't, you don't have to gloss over them. You don't have to be a perfect person to deserve a perfect life.
34:06 Karen Kilgariff? And to not deserve being wrongfully convicted for a crime you did not commit to just then be another body that's being warehoused
34:15 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
34:16 Karen Kilgariff? in this prison system.
34:17 Georgia Hardstark? Right. It's almost more impressive that he ended up being this incredible, you know, motivational person.
34:23 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, my God. The idea that he left prison to then turn around and help other wrongfully convicted people says it all to me.
34:30 Georgia Hardstark? Exactly. He could have walked away and just lived his life.
34:33 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
34:33 Georgia Hardstark? And he didn't. Which is OK, too. Go live your fucking life, everyone. When asked about being played by Denzel Washington, Ruben says, quote, "I didn't know I was that good looking." End quote. Well, here's a photo of Ruben and Denzel Washington. Let's show that one. Oh. I know. Oh, look at that. Such a cute pic. Ruben dies at 76 years old in April of 2014 of prostate cancer, and he spends his last weeks campaigning for the release of a black man named David McCallum, who had been wrongfully imprisoned for 29 years. He writes an op-ed for the New York Daily News called Hurricane Carter's Dying Wish, saying, quote, "If I find a heaven after this life, I'll be quite surprised.
35:17 Georgia Hardstark? In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years and have been in heaven for the past 28 years. To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all," end quote. David McCallum is freed four months after Ruben's death. And that is the story of Rubin Hurricane Carter. Amazing. What a quote. I know. That's a great quote. I know. It's really true. Wow. Yeah. Very inspiring. So read his book. It's called The 16th Round.
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36:24 Georgia Hardstark? The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
36:28 Karen Kilgariff? Sonny's life is pretty great, until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception: his mom.
36:36 Georgia Hardstark? To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives, but for Sonny, he knows something is off.
36:42 Karen Kilgariff? As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger.
36:49 Georgia Hardstark? Is this all in his head, or is there really an imposter in his house?
36:53 Karen Kilgariff? Starring five Time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nevola. This small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.
37:00 Georgia Hardstark? Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.
37:02 Karen Kilgariff? Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
37:07 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
37:08 Karen Kilgariff? We've all had moments where dealing with healthcare or insurance feels completely overwhelming.
37:13 Georgia Hardstark? You're sick, worried about someone you love, trying to understand what comes next, and suddenly you're spending hours on hold, filling out paperwork and trying to figure out who to call.
37:21 Karen Kilgariff? Research shows patients spend the equivalent of an eight-hour workday every month coordinating their own care.
37:27 Georgia Hardstark? Nobody hands you a roadmap when you're dealing with a diagnosis or ongoing health issues.
37:32 Karen Kilgariff? That's why there's Solace Health.
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37:39 Karen Kilgariff? Think of them as someone in your corner who understands the healthcare system and can handle the logistics while you focus on your health.
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38:08 Karen Kilgariff? Go to solacehealth.com/murder to see if you qualify.
38:12 Georgia Hardstark? It takes about two minutes and it's covered by insurance.
38:14 Karen Kilgariff? That's S.O.L.A.C.E. health.com/murder.
38:18 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
38:21 Karen Kilgariff? All right, so I'm going to take a left turn as we like to do. We play levels. We do different tones and tastes.
38:28 Georgia Hardstark? Right. We contain multitudes.
38:30 Karen Kilgariff? We always have, and I'm going to tell you a survival story, which is one of my favorite things to do.
38:36 Georgia Hardstark? Classic Karen.
38:37 Karen Kilgariff? Our story begins in Alaska on December 21, 1943. We're in the thick of World War II. It's around 9:45 in the morning, and a crew of five Americans in a B-24 Liberator bomber plane has just taken off for a test flight from what used to be called Ladfield, but is now called Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska.
38:59 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
39:00 Karen Kilgariff? Here's the plane. Right away.
39:02 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, yeah. So old school.
39:04 Karen Kilgariff? So old school. The co-pilots of this plane are Lieutenant Leon Crane and Second Lieutenant Harold Hoskin. The flight crew is Sergeant Ralph Wenz, Master Sergeant Richard Pompeo, and Lieutenant James Seibert. As of this day, there's no active threat, but the Allies are afraid that there could be an enemy invasion of America by way of Alaska. So the troops are taking these routine flights and patrolling the area. So here is a picture of Lieutenant Leon Crane.
39:34 Georgia Hardstark? Hi.
39:34 Karen Kilgariff? He's one of the pilots.
39:38 Karen Kilgariff? So...
39:38 Georgia Hardstark? I'm sorry. The other day, I was in Justice's office.
39:43 Georgia Hardstark? I don't remember what we were chatting about, but one of her, Christina, said, "Do you know if you ask any man if he thinks he could land a plane, they all say they can? They think they can."
39:53 Karen Kilgariff? Really?
39:54 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
39:56 Karen Kilgariff? That's like when men were saying they thought they could fight off a bear.
39:58 Georgia Hardstark? Exactly. I asked Vince, and he laughed and said, "Hello." So like, I'm really happy for that.
40:03 Karen Kilgariff? That's actually pretty wild. I also recently just saw what was a viral video. Did you ever see that one of the girl who had just gotten her pilot's license? She'd flown three times and her...
40:15 Georgia Hardstark? She was with her dad?
40:16 Karen Kilgariff? No, she's by herself. And the landing gear, like locked up, and she just didn't have any landing gear in the back, I think? So a commercial pilot jumps on and talks her through the landing.
40:28 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
40:29 Karen Kilgariff? And she does it. And is fine. It's one of the scariest, craziest things that I was like, "I don't want to watch this, but I have to see what happens to the end." It's amazing. Okay. So it's all business for this flight crew until just after noon, when the bomber is about 130 miles out from Ladfield, flying over the Alaskan interior, when one of the engines fails. So the bomber begins to spin. The pilots fight to regain control, but the plane goes into a nosedive at 300 miles an hour and smashes into the snowy earth.
41:01 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, shit.
41:02 Karen Kilgariff? It's silent. Until one man's voice can be heard calling out for the others. And what begins as a tragedy now restarts as an incredible story of survival that will play out for the next 81 days across the Alaskan interior. This is the story of 24-year-old Lieutenant Leon Crane's long journey back to civilization. Oh, I forgot it was a Survivor story that quickly. It's that easy. Yeah. Show you a couple of pictures. Done. Right? Oh, my God. So the main sources used today are the book 81 Days Below Zero by Brian Murphy and Tula Vellahu, also at 2023 Anchorage Daily News article by journalist David Reamer,
41:44 Karen Kilgariff? entitled Lost in the Wilderness for 81 Days, a write-up on the National Park Service's website entitled WW2 Survival Story from the Charlie River, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So when the plane was crashing amid all the chaos, Lieutenant Crane somehow gets his parachute on and is able to eject himself from the bomber or bail out. So as he's floating down to the earth, he watches the bomber in the distance as it smashes into a mountainside and erupts into what he'll later describe as, quote, "a huge blob of red flame." Yikes. Miraculously, he was like out before any of that ever happened. Yeah.
42:26 Karen Kilgariff? When I first was reading it, I was like, this man survived a nosedive into the earth. I was totally picturing that. Climb out of the wreckage. Yeah, no. Snow isn't that powerful. Right. The problem, though, is that he's floating down to earth. He doesn't know if any of the other crew members have also been able to get out of the plane like him. Also, as he's floating down, the air around him is somewhere between 40 and 50 degrees below zero, but the wind chill makes it more than 100 degrees below zero. He's wearing his Army-issued flight suit, a down-filled parka, and canvas mukluks. And luckily, he also has several pairs of socks on.
43:07 Karen Kilgariff? What he doesn't have on are his heavy-duty gloves because he had to just, you know, escape. Bail out. So the air stings his exposed hands and face as he's floating toward the earth. Somehow, he avoids all the trees and rocks and everything that's super dangerous, and he lands without injury, but then he immediately sinks hip-deep into snow.
43:31 Karen Kilgariff? He's about two miles from where the plane crashed. He has no idea if any of his crewmates are alive or dead. He just starts shouting anyway, just in case someone could hear him. But he is met with silence. Lieutenant Leon Crane is now faced with the fact that he'll have to figure all of this out on his own, which would be a huge problem for anybody, but especially Lieutenant Crane, who sources describe as, quote, "a city boy from Philadelphia." Oh, shit. So it's not like he's got some survivalist experience or anything. And despite being stationed in Alaska for the last two months, he hasn't gotten any practical survival training for this cold, rugged environment. The good news is there's some things that are just plain common sense.
44:14 Karen Kilgariff? He knows the temperature is going to plummet once the sun goes down, somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 o'clock, and that means he has just a couple of hours before he's at risk of freezing to death. And if by some miracle he does survive the night, he knows whatever food, water, or supplies the bomber had onboard have gone up in flames. So that can't help him, like if he just hikes to the wreckage. He also knows that the last time he and his crew gave their location via radio contact was around 11:08 a.m., when they were about 65 miles out from Ladfield, but they continued traveling for nearly an hour after that without checking in. So he realizes to the army, he and his crewmates could be anywhere.
44:57 Karen Kilgariff? So Lieutenant Crane starts with what he's got in front of him. He wraps himself up in his parachute for warmth, and he looks at the tools that he actually brought, two matchboxes with about 40 matches between the two, a Boy Scout knife that he carries with him everywhere, and a letter from his father back in Pennsylvania. Then he scans the area around him, identifying a small frozen-over river, and he heads toward that. Always go toward the water. Yeah, right? Yes. So then you can follow it down, because it's always going down to meet bigger water. Right, where people build homes because it's near the water and we need water to survive. That's right. You are very smart. I made that all up. What?
45:41 Karen Kilgariff? So Leon can't know this at the time, but he is at the headwaters of the Charlie River, and that empties out into the Yukon. He starts collecting driftwood from the riverbanks, which he then cuts down with his pocket knife and arranges into a little cone to start a fire for warmth. But his hands are so ice cold as he does this, they've gone completely numb. So he struggles to get the fire started, and he ends up having to use the letter from his father as kindling. Oh. But he does get a small fire going, so he warms himself up as much as he can. He's obviously exhausted, and he can't help but start wondering if he might die out there all alone. Fortunately, he does wake up the next morning, bundled in his parachute, still very cold,
46:25 Karen Kilgariff? increasingly hungry, and unsure of what comes next. But he is alive. Do you carry a knife? I carry a knife. Do you carry a knife? I always make sure there's something sharp in my purse, that something kind of like could cut through something. Yeah. But I don't, I so easily forget things of like, I'm not gonna, I'll walk through a security, like, deeper with a knife. Easily. Yes. I had to replace my pepper spray so many times because I don't take it out of the airport. Yes. I'm not like... Savvy. Savvy? Smart. Aware enough. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm still putting my phone down when I start looking at sweaters and walking away. I just can't. So me and knives aren't, you know?
47:10 Karen Kilgariff? I'll have you carry the knife. So he wakes up, it's day two in the Alaskan wilderness, and Lieutenant Crane is still holding out hope that rescuers will find the crash site and then be able to save him. He focuses on that short-term survival, so he keeps his driftwood fire going as he makes an impromptu campsite, and he stays hydrated by eating snow. This is actually something experts say can be risky to do because it burns a lot of your energy, because it's cold, and so then you have to heat it up. Your body expends too much energy to heat it up. Interesting. It also risks cooling your body to the point of hypothermia. Oh, man, I was like, "Snow, you have unlimited water." Nope. Careful. Also, ice cream headaches.
47:52 Karen Kilgariff? But it does work for Lieutenant Crane in this situation. He waits for the sounds of a rescue plane all day long, then the next day and the next day. After nine days pass, he is forced to accept no one is coming for him. So on top of that, he hasn't had anything substantial to eat in that long. Right. But the problem is, he can see squirrels running in the trees above his campsite. So the hungrier he gets, the more desperately he tries, like, to, you know, basically hunt these squirrels. But he doesn't have any real weapons to help him. Right. And he tries to make them, but he has very limited materials. So he attempts, like, rudimentary clubs and a slingshot, and he tries to fashion a sort of spear. None of it works.
48:37 Karen Kilgariff? The squirrels always get away. Lieutenant Crane's morale is sinking. And fearing he might starve to death, he decides his best bet will be to follow the frozen river, hoping it just leads him to people, like, he can't just stay at this campsite. But following the river turns out to be a treacherous hike through ice and snow along sometimes very steep, rocky inclines. The Anchorage Daily News reports that it takes Lieutenant Crane several hours just to travel a few hundred feet. So he's in some serious, like, wilderness. Do you have a picture of, like, what it looks like? Yeah, can we put up a picture of maybe the crash site? But that's it. The crash site is too clear. Oh, but it's, he's on snow. Right.
49:21 Karen Kilgariff? Well, he bailed out, like, I think what would be like two miles away from here. Okay. Yeah, that's where, where the crash site, like, they probably went back to take that picture. Right, totally. So of course, he's getting exhausted, but he is able to find breaks in the ice, and he's able to drink river water, which is good. He still isn't eating that much, though, aside from a few plants here and there. And then at night, he follows the same routine. He lights a small fire, he warms himself up, he wraps himself up in his parachute. But the hungrier he gets, of course, the more he's dreaming of food. He has vivid dreams about steaks and potatoes and frothy milkshakes. Same. Every day. So this goes on for another week for Lieutenant Crane.
50:06 Karen Kilgariff? And at this point, he's been out in the wilderness for over two weeks. He is nearly just depleted. But he keeps on. He gets up to hike one more time. And one day, as he's trudging along the river, something amazing happens. He looks up to see a small log cabin in the distance. As he gets closer, he discovered this cabin is not only unlocked, it is fully stocked with food and supplies.
50:31 Georgia Hardstark? Come on.
50:32 Karen Kilgariff? And this is not a mirage. It's actually customary in the frontier as a sort of pay it forward practice by hunters and trappers who know how lethal getting lost in the Alaskan wilderness can be.
50:43 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
50:43 Karen Kilgariff? So they leave their stuff open and they leave it fully stocked for anyone who might need it.
50:48 Georgia Hardstark? That's amazing.
50:49 Karen Kilgariff? It's kind of beautiful.
50:50 Georgia Hardstark? That's like that in certain towns where polar bears are always around. People leave their car doors unlocked just so if you're like walking along as a fucking polar bear, you can jump in someone's car.
50:59 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, I didn't know that.
51:00 Georgia Hardstark? It has to be Alaska, right?
51:02 Karen Kilgariff? It would make sense. Leon finds a name on some of the items around the property, and that name is Phil Burrell. And he figures it's the cabin's owner. And he is like, I'll never forget this person.
51:14 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
51:15 Karen Kilgariff? Because this cabin is a literal lifesaver. Lieutenant Crane finds clothes. He also crucially finds a pair of mittens among the supplies. There's also shelf-stable food. There's a gun for hunting.
51:27 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
51:27 Karen Kilgariff? There's all sorts of tools. There's a stove. There's a supply of ready to use firewood. Like, he doesn't even have to go chop firewood.
51:33 Georgia Hardstark? It's like he leveled up in a video game.
51:35 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
51:36 Georgia Hardstark? You know?
51:36 Karen Kilgariff? He earned this cabin.
51:37 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
51:39 Karen Kilgariff? He even finds himself some hot cocoa.
51:41 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
51:41 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. So he warms up, he feeds himself. He stays the night in Phil Burrell's cabin, desperately hoping that means that some other person, maybe Phil himself, if not an entire homestead, is nearby. But this is the part of the movie where if the camera pulled up and out of the roof and then expanded out, you would be able to see high in the air that Lieutenant Crane is 100 miles away from the nearest settlement.
52:08 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, no.
52:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. He doesn't know that, though. What Lieutenant Crane knows is that he's fed and rested and that the next morning, with mittens finally covering his frostbitten hands and pockets filled with raisins that he's found at the cabin. He sets out on his course along the Charlie River. He spends the entire day hiking that same punishing terrain, hoping that he is gonna find, you know, a cabin a mile away, two miles away. He doesn't find anything. So then he has to turn back and hike all the way back to the cabin. When he gets there, he's exhausted and defeated and he collapses. Pocketful of raisins. With fucking raisins. Gross, those don't keep. But back then, it was like the 40s. People were like, this is nature's candy. It's a delicacy.
52:53 Karen Kilgariff? I love this shit. So Lieutenant Crane spends the next six weeks venturing out of this cabin a couple of miles at a time, hoping to find something other than vast snowy expanses. It never happens. And he doesn't know what else to do. What would you do? Stay there, just keep staying. Just live. Yeah, ration, stay. Yep. Hope that someone comes back at some point. I think what I would do is light the forest around me on fire and be like, try to find some liquor and be like, if they don't see this smoke, I don't know what, I don't know how to help these people. My stomach is growling now because I think I'm so in it with you. Yes. That happened, I was working on this this morning, but I was sitting outside and of
53:36 Karen Kilgariff? course, everyone's gonna hate me and you when I say this. It was freezing, it was like 53 degrees this morning in LA. What, what? So I was typing and I realized, I thought I was really into the story, but I was like, no, my hands are cold. I'm not used to any temperature fluctuation whatsoever. Okay, so your plan is what his plan was at first. Lieutenant Crane was just gonna subsist on what was in Phil Burrell's cabin until warmer weather comes and basically thaws everything out. But then he realizes that even if he really rations, barely eats every day, there isn't enough food to sustain him for that long. So he is forced to once again set out along the riverside. But this time, he has fashioned himself a very simple sled so that he can take as
54:20 Karen Kilgariff? many of the supplies and tools with him as he can, which is great. So now he has a tent and a sleeping bag. So as bad as the situation is, it is definitely better than it was before. He's gained strength, he's gained morale, he's gained some mittens, so he heads out once again. He walks for miles and miles. At one point, he stops to get cold water from the river, but he slips and he falls into the river. It's, of course, ice cold. Somehow Lieutenant Crane manages to get back out, but now his clothes begin to freeze.
54:51 Georgia Hardstark? He's so embarrassed.
54:55 Georgia Hardstark? All those little animals that saw him.
54:57 Karen Kilgariff? He lands like on the side of his face and shoulder.
55:00 Georgia Hardstark? Grown man falling is like, just not, no one wants to see that.
55:03 Karen Kilgariff? No, grown man, child, doesn't matter. Falling is the ultimate humiliation.
55:08 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
55:09 Karen Kilgariff? Alone, or not.
55:11 Georgia Hardstark? Walking into a movie theater wall.
55:14 Karen Kilgariff? Maybe worse alone, where then you're like grunting and getting up like, you're really left. No one comes and says, "Oh no, are you okay?"
55:21 Georgia Hardstark? We can laugh together about how funny and clumsy that was. No, I remember every fall.
55:25 Karen Kilgariff? It's just you and yourself beating yourself up for falling down. Okay, wait, sorry, because this is supposed to be exciting. See, because he's going down the river and he's like, "Maybe I'm making progress." He falls into the river, immediately he's in danger. Like, his life is immediately in danger. Like, as he's trying to assess the situation and fix it, he has to do it as quickly as possible, but he's shivering so hard, he can barely control his hands. And he also kind of can't think straight because his body is in shock. So he pushes through and he is able to start a fire. Then he runs a rope above it, he strips off all of his icy clothes, hangs them across the rope, and then he runs into his tent naked and like, you know, wraps himself up, praying
56:09 Karen Kilgariff? that the flames won't burn so high that they burn his clothing. But like, basically, I have to dry out that clothing and then warm myself up. Fortunately, his clothes do dry out, he does warm up, he puts his clothes back on, he gets into a sleeping bag and he just goes to sleep.
56:26 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
56:27 Karen Kilgariff? So, he then just has to get up the next day, he's back at it, hiking along the river. Occasionally, he manages to catch a squirrel or a bird. Eating a bird.
56:37 Georgia Hardstark? All those little bones.
56:39 Karen Kilgariff? He covers a couple of miles a day. He does this for two more weeks. At one point, he has to abandon his sled. It's just too heavy and clunky and it's too hard. So whatever supplies or tools he can't carry, he has to leave behind. So just another devastating moment of like,
56:55 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
56:55 Karen Kilgariff? Is this, am I just like breadcrumbing my life away here?
56:59 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
56:59 Karen Kilgariff? Trying to get somewhere, which is kind of what life feels like a lot of the time.
57:03 Georgia Hardstark? For sure. We don't all get a sled. Some of us get sleds.
57:06 Karen Kilgariff? You gotta make your own sled.
57:07 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
57:08 Karen Kilgariff? And then you just gotta focus that there will be a cabin that's unlocked.
57:11 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
57:12 Karen Kilgariff? There will be. You just gotta keep going.
57:14 Georgia Hardstark? Hot cocoa in the future for you and a pocketful of raisins.
57:17 Karen Kilgariff? Don't.
57:19 Karen Kilgariff? We want people to keep going.
57:22 Karen Kilgariff? You can put the raisins in the hot cocoa.
57:24 Georgia Hardstark? Raisins mean whatever you want them to mean. Like raisins are symbolic of.
57:27 Karen Kilgariff? You're right. Of positive things.
57:28 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
57:29 Karen Kilgariff? Even though they don't seem like it. So he doesn't know if doing this is the best plan for him. He just simply has no choice. And he continues. And then, once again, the unlikeliest miracle happens. Lieutenant Crane comes across another unlocked and fully stocked cabin.
57:48 Georgia Hardstark? Come on.
57:48 Karen Kilgariff? Swear to God.
57:49 Georgia Hardstark? This is actually really like life. Where like, some people just get fucking, come across cabins stocked full.
57:56 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
57:56 Georgia Hardstark? And some of us don't. And you can't, forget it.
57:59 Karen Kilgariff? No, I'm gonna continue this.
58:00 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
58:01 Karen Kilgariff? You know what it is?
58:01 Georgia Hardstark? What?
58:02 Karen Kilgariff? It's the people who keep trudging along.
58:03 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
58:04 Karen Kilgariff? It's the people who take risks.
58:05 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
58:06 Karen Kilgariff? And it's the people who dig down and go like, I want to live and I want to make this.
58:11 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
58:11 Karen Kilgariff? And so I'm just gonna, I'm gonna play the odds. I'm gonna do my best. I'm not gonna let my brain get me down. And I will believe that there are unlocked cabins filled with raisins to the brim.
58:21 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, but meanwhile, the motherfuckers who were born in the cabin full of food are saying that the people who weren't, I could just go on and on.
58:30 Karen Kilgariff? I know.
58:30 Georgia Hardstark? Are lazy and taking their, their skiing jobs.
58:35 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, those people do exist, but let's focus on the people who leave the cabin unlocked, filled with supplies.
58:41 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
58:42 Karen Kilgariff? Because those people are, there's more, more people like that.
58:45 Georgia Hardstark? That's us. I think that's us.
58:46 Karen Kilgariff? That's us. That's America right now.
58:50 Karen Kilgariff? Those blamers and those cabin people, those original born in the cabin people.
58:55 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
58:55 Karen Kilgariff? Let's not worry about those guys so much. Not in this story.
58:58 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
58:59 Karen Kilgariff? This story is filled with raisins. Okay, so Lieutenant Crane lays down his pack and once again just steps out to recover, just like he did the first time. He stays in this cabin for about a week. Now it's March 10th and that means it's been 81 days since Lieutenant Crane parachuted out of the bomber on December 21st.
59:19 Georgia Hardstark? Oh shit.
59:19 Karen Kilgariff? He's back on the riverside, walking along, just trying to find someone. I mean, what a frustrating hike this would be.
59:26 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
59:27 Karen Kilgariff? To be like, you're just gonna hike until you try to find something or someone.
59:31 Georgia Hardstark? There has to be something somewhere at some point.
59:33 Karen Kilgariff? But you're in the Alaskan interior.
59:35 Georgia Hardstark? No, thank you.
59:36 Karen Kilgariff? Rough. He's walking along the riverside. He notices a neat trail of packed snow. And to him, it looks recent and it looks like it could be tracks from a dog sled.
59:47 Georgia Hardstark? Ooh.
59:47 Karen Kilgariff? So there's something to be excited about.
59:49 Georgia Hardstark? Uh huh.
59:49 Karen Kilgariff? He follows these tracks until they lead him to another cabin.
59:53 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
59:53 Karen Kilgariff? And this one is occupied.
59:54 Georgia Hardstark? Ah.
59:55 Karen Kilgariff? Leon approaches and a man steps outside to greet him. It's the first person Lieutenant Crane has spoken to in more than three months. And he tells the man, quote, "I've been in a little trouble. Boy, am I glad to see you."
1:00:08 Georgia Hardstark? Wow, I bet.
1:00:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yep. So this man explains that he is a trapper named Albert Ames and he lives in this cabin with his family, so he actually lives out there. Crane apologizes for not being particularly coherent. He can barely talk to this man.
1:00:23 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:00:24 Karen Kilgariff? Like, once he said, "I'm in trouble, I'm glad to see you," it was like the man was, Albert Ames was trying to talk to him and he just couldn't have a conversation. He hadn't seen people in 81 days.
1:00:33 Georgia Hardstark? No, for sure.
1:00:35 Karen Kilgariff? Albert Ames shows him mercy. He takes Lieutenant Crane inside, offers him food, lets him spend the next few days recovering. And Crane will soon learn, he has walked just about 100 miles in the last 81 days. Here's a map of what it looks like.
1:00:51 Georgia Hardstark? Whoa.
1:00:52 Karen Kilgariff? Him crossing all those rivers.
1:00:55 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, and there's really nowhere else he could have gone.
1:00:58 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
1:00:58 Georgia Hardstark? Kind of, you know, where it's like, I hate those stories where it's like, if he had just gone the other way.
1:01:03 Karen Kilgariff? Those ones.
1:01:03 Georgia Hardstark? 10 feet.
1:01:04 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, I know.
1:01:05 Georgia Hardstark? He would have been in fucking, whatever.
1:01:07 Karen Kilgariff? It's Triangle of Sadness where it's like, there's a sandals right on the other side of this mountain.
1:01:11 Georgia Hardstark? Exactly, but she went that way. Wow.
1:01:14 Karen Kilgariff? Right. Well, and also, if he had followed, say, a different river or something else, he wouldn't have gotten to Albert Ames.
1:01:20 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
1:01:21 Karen Kilgariff? Which is, you need people.
1:01:22 Georgia Hardstark? Right. The fact that he came upon two cabins is just so unbelievable.
1:01:26 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
1:01:27 Georgia Hardstark? Crazy.
1:01:27 Karen Kilgariff? Kind of meant to be-ish.
1:01:28 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:01:29 Karen Kilgariff? This is also when Lieutenant Crane sees himself in the mirror for the first time in months. And here's how he describes himself when he sees himself. He says, quote, "I had a two-inch beard, black as coal. My hair was long and matted, covering my ears and coming down over my forehead, almost to my eyes, so that I looked like some strange species of prehistoric man. I was dirty and sunburned and windburned, and my eyes stared back at me from the centers of two deep, black circles."
1:01:57 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
1:01:58 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. End quote. So, as he's recovering, Lieutenant Crane tells Albert about Phil Burrell's cabin and how it was this godsend that he found at his lowest point. And he's shocked to learn that Albert knows exactly who Phil Burrell is, because actually, everyone in the area does. Phil's a regionally famous hardcore trapper, who's described in the book 81 Days Below Zero as having, quote, "an almost scary tolerance for discomfort or pain. Nothing seemed to make him wince," unquote.
1:02:29 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
1:02:30 Karen Kilgariff? So, he's basically a local legend.
1:02:32 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:02:33 Karen Kilgariff? So, three days later, when Lieutenant Crane is fully rested, Albert Ames loads him up on his dog sled and takes him on a two-day trip to Woodchopper, Alaska.
1:02:42 Georgia Hardstark? So, even on a dog sled, to get back to civilization takes two days.
1:02:46 Karen Kilgariff? Two days.
1:02:47 Georgia Hardstark? Which is, like, just shows you how far he went.
1:02:50 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
1:02:50 Georgia Hardstark? You know? And how far he had left to go, if you haven't met anyone.
1:02:53 Karen Kilgariff? Yes, alone.
1:02:54 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
1:02:55 Karen Kilgariff? With no sled, with no dogs.
1:02:57 Georgia Hardstark? Got dogs.
1:02:58 Karen Kilgariff? And also, I think that the thing, it's like, there was so much snow, because he's on a sled, but Albert Ames is in snowshoes.
1:03:07 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
1:03:08 Karen Kilgariff? So, they have to get through. It's like, there's no paths.
1:03:11 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
1:03:11 Karen Kilgariff? There's no, it's been snowing. Like, it's the true wilderness. Why don't you understand?
1:03:17 Georgia Hardstark? It's like Griffith Park on a rainy day. It's like, get me out of here.
1:03:20 Karen Kilgariff? When there's a light breeze in Griffith Park. Okay, so they get to Woodchopper, Alaska. Best name of all time. This is an old gold mining settlement that's a ghost town now, but there's an airstrip there. So Lieutenant Crane is able to contact his unit and have him come and pick him up there.
1:03:37 Georgia Hardstark? Hey, guys, it's me.
1:03:39 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. I know you thought I was dead, but it's me. Woodchopper also happens to be where Phil Burrell lives. So they roll into town, then Albert takes Lieutenant Crane to Phil's house and basically says, here's the man that saved your life from a distance. The two men drink rum together while Lieutenant Crane tells Phil his story of survival over the past few months, and they bond over their shared toughness.
1:04:06 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
1:04:06 Karen Kilgariff? Because who could appreciate that story better than the man who doesn't win?
1:04:09 Georgia Hardstark? For sure.
1:04:10 Karen Kilgariff? The next morning is March 14th, and Lieutenant Leon Crane boards the airplane that takes him back to Ladfield in Fairbanks, Alaska. All this time, he's been wearing his now tattered flight suit. So when he deplanes at Ladfield, everyone is stunned. It's not like he got to Woodchopper and was suddenly able to like get it all together. It's a ghost town.
1:04:31 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, makeover.
1:04:32 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, so no, he walks off the plane looking pretty bad. After taking a hot shower and getting a medical exam, Leon asks for a milkshake. It's reported that when Lieutenant Crane learns his four fellow crewmen have not yet been located, he immediately gets back onto yet another plane to help the army find that wreckage site.
1:04:52 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
1:04:53 Karen Kilgariff? And it leads to the recovery of two crewmen's bodies, Sergeant Ralph Wentz and Lieutenant James Seibert. It's not until a half century later in 2006, when remains found not far from the wreckage are positively linked to 2nd Lieutenant Harold Hoskin. But to this day, Master Sergeant Richard Pompeo's remains have never been found.
1:05:14 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
1:05:14 Karen Kilgariff? So despite Lieutenant Crane's story becoming legendary, especially within the US military, he actually goes on to live a very quiet life. He eventually returns to Philadelphia. He starts a family. He becomes an aeronautical engineer. And he is credited with working on some of the earliest versions of modern helicopters.
1:05:33 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
1:05:34 Karen Kilgariff? So yeah, he's a very smart man. In 2002, and also maybe, ooh, that's part of why it was meant to be. Which part? That he basically found those cabins and took the right path because modern helicopters needed to be invented. Okay. You're not seeing the fate? I'm following that trajectory. With a lot of doubt in your eyes. I'm trying to be deep. In 2002, Leon Crane passes away. He's in his early 80s and he leaves behind six children who then, in the summer of 2005, three years later, decide they're going to revisit their father's journey along the Charlie River. Oh, my God. They go via plane and then raft. For a week, they witness the world.
1:06:19 Karen Kilgariff? Their father survived for 81 days, including the ruins of Phil Burrell's cabin. Wow. They take it all in. They even find some of the tools their father left near Phil's cabin that he had described to them when he told the stories. Wow. Leon Crane never sought fame or seemed to want much attention. So we don't really have many firsthand quotes from him on this incredible survival saga. But he did agree to a recorded interview in the 90s where he makes his feelings very well-known. In that, he says, quote, "God-awful place, Alaska. Ice and snow and cold as hell." And that is the story of Lieutenant Leon Crane's incredible survival in the Alaskan wilderness. Wow.
1:07:04 Karen Kilgariff? You did it. He did it. Right, but that... But we did it. We did it. Ultimately, this is our victory. We're going to claim it. Right? As our own. Let's all. Yeah.
1:07:25 Karen Kilgariff? We're in the car. We're in the car. And you know what that means? That means new Honking Hoorays. Presented by Hyundai.
1:07:34 Georgia Hardstark? You want to go first?
1:07:35 Karen Kilgariff? Sure. This email was sent to us. It says, "Hey ladies, excited to share my hooray with you. This year I turned 40 and I did something I've wanted to do for many years. I joined my local civic choir."
1:07:46 Georgia Hardstark? What is that?
1:07:49 Karen Kilgariff? That's the town choir.
1:07:50 Georgia Hardstark? Wow, okay.
1:07:51 Karen Kilgariff? "I was in chorus all through high school, performed in musicals and was a member of the prestigious all-female ensemble called you know, we're an ensemble, called The Melodears. It's been 22 years since I graduated high school and I really missed being in a choir. Every Monday, I'm excited to go to rehearsal and I've made some wonderful friends these past few months. It's been such a fulfilling addition to my life and I'm so glad I overcame the fear of thinking I was too old or it was too late or people would laugh. You're never too old, it's never too late, and don't listen to anyone who laughs at something that brings you joy. As SDGM Alana pronounced Elena, my parents couldn't be bothered to add an extra vowel. I don't know if I messed that up, but I love that one."
1:08:34 Georgia Hardstark? I love the idea of doing something you loved as an adolescent and like, you're allowed to do it as an adult.
1:08:39 Karen Kilgariff? And also, there's a bunch of other adults that want to go back and like, recapture some of that swing choir glory that you had long ago.
1:08:47 Georgia Hardstark? I'm gonna join a soccer team. Okay. I love that. Mine is-
1:08:51 Karen Kilgariff? I'm gonna start drinking by a rock again.
1:08:54 Georgia Hardstark? Start going to a field with random convicts.
1:08:56 Karen Kilgariff? That's right.
1:08:57 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, this is from Mike Kelly via Instagram. "Next week, I'm starting a job as an emergency room social worker after leaving a toxic workplace as a therapist." Jesus.
1:09:07 Karen Kilgariff? Wow.
1:09:07 Georgia Hardstark? "Although I was sad to leave my colleagues and the clients I was working with, I'm so excited for a move to a new city and a job that is going to be so fulfilling. Hooray." Emergency room social worker.
1:09:19 Karen Kilgariff? How bad and toxic does your job have to be? If you're like, "You know what, I need to go for some peace and quiet."
1:09:24 Georgia Hardstark? The ER.
1:09:25 Karen Kilgariff? The emergency room. Thank you. I'll handle people's problems at the emergency room.
1:09:30 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it's much more calm here.
1:09:31 Karen Kilgariff? It's just my zen place. Well, congratulations for making that move.
1:09:35 Georgia Hardstark? Yep.
1:09:35 Karen Kilgariff? Parallel? Here's this next one. It says, email titled, "Hooray."
1:09:41 Georgia Hardstark? Hooray.
1:09:43 Karen Kilgariff? It's fun to type. Hi, MFM fam. Gosh, I just love you all so much. My hooray is after literal years of searching, I finally landed the perfect job. I work for a small, local mom and pop bakery. She's not working for a small, local mom, which is how I read it.
1:09:58 Georgia Hardstark? A small, local mom.
1:09:59 Karen Kilgariff? Just this little, tiny mother. I work for a small, local mom and pop bakery where I get to make sourdough bread, cookies, and cinnamon rolls on the daily. I finally get to do what I love and get paid for it. Stay sexy and eat local carbs, DJ.
1:10:14 Georgia Hardstark? Eat local carbs.
1:10:15 Karen Kilgariff? Mm-hmm.
1:10:15 Georgia Hardstark? I love that.
1:10:16 Karen Kilgariff? Right? That's on par with joining choir.
1:10:19 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
1:10:20 Karen Kilgariff? Just all the stuff that makes you feel good.
1:10:22 Georgia Hardstark? Brings you joy, like the ER.
1:10:24 Karen Kilgariff? And brings me joy, like the ER.
1:10:26 Georgia Hardstark? It's like social work in the ER. Thanks, you guys, for tuning in to Honking Hoorays.
1:10:31 Karen Kilgariff? Thank you, Hyundai, for making all of this possible. Stay sexy.
1:10:33 Georgia Hardstark? And don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah!
1:10:44 Georgia Hardstark? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Lassaveto. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci. Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ally Elkin. Email your hometowns to [email protected] . And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix. 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. Goodbye.
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1:11:47 Speaker 06 4imprint, for certain.
1:11:49 Georgia Hardstark? You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium. Like the kind that's in...
1:11:53 Karen Kilgariff? Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray.
1:11:54 Georgia Hardstark? Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals, it's designed to relax and prepare you for a night of rest.
1:12:00 Karen Kilgariff? If you need a reset after your day, make Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray part of your nighttime routine.
1:12:05 Georgia Hardstark? Generously spritz each foot before bed and you'll be all set. I've actually started doing this and I'm obsessed with magnesium. It does everything.
1:12:12 Karen Kilgariff? Something like this is just like, it's simple, it's easy, and it actually works.
1:12:15 Georgia Hardstark? Totally. For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray online or in your local bath aisle.
1:12:21 Karen Kilgariff? Goodbye. Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.
1:12:27 Georgia Hardstark? With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.
1:12:33 Karen Kilgariff? You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.
1:12:36 Georgia Hardstark? Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.
1:12:41 Karen Kilgariff? Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.
1:12:47 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
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