541 - House or Wife

On today’s episode, Karen covers the Pandora’s Box murder and Georgia talks about levee tampering and 1993’s Great Mississippi Flood. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com http://www.exactlyrightstore.com/. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. 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.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  This is Ashley Conetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast. You know that feeling when your skin just needs a tall drink of water? That's what Clinique Moisture Surge 100-Hour Moisturizer is for. Moisture Surge 100-Hour Moisturizer absorbs instantly and hydrates for 100 hours for plump, glowing skin. That's right, 100 hours. It's a lightweight, oil-free gel cream, safe for sensitive skin. It's allergy-tested and fragrance-free. So try Clinique Moisture Surge 100-Hour today at clinique.com. Feels like Moisture Surge.

• 1:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello and welcome.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:32Karen Kilgariff?

  That is Georgia Hardstark.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And we're here to podcast at you.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  We do it every day of our lives.

• 1:39Karen Kilgariff?

  How are you?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Good, how are you?

• 1:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm good. It's like a lovely summer day. I just kind of wanted to sit outside all day long.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And...

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Smoke cigarettes.

• 1:50Karen Kilgariff?

  You know when it's hot and you just want to smoke a big, long Virginia Slim? You know, the kids are starting to smoke again.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Like real cigarettes?

• 1:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Not vapes?

• 1:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, hopefully.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Vapes are just immediately killing children.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03Karen Kilgariff?

  That is allegedly.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Also, cigarettes aren't great either, but...

• 2:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Cigarettes won't get you healthier. They won't.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  They won't.

• 2:10Karen Kilgariff?

  There's so many things now that it's like, remember the story we did where it's like the green wallpaper or the green dresses that were poisoning people in the Victorian era or whatever? It's like, that's vapes.

• 2:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and you're like, you know that, so you're essentially licking the wallpaper. You're not even like, I didn't know. It's like, you know.

• 2:26Karen Kilgariff?

  You're like, the doctor was here, told you to stay away from the wallpaper.

• 2:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And look at you go.

• 2:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at you.

• 2:31Georgia Hardstark?

  With that tongue.

• 2:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Mummy, I love the wallpaper.

• 2:35Georgia Hardstark?

  The wallpaper tastes like death. I have a kind of an update.

• 2:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 2:39Georgia Hardstark?

  About, remember when I covered the bodies on Mount Everest in episode 174? Called Rough Winds and High Water?

• 2:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Been there.

• 2:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, well, I had mentioned the body of a climber that was called Green Boots because of his distinctive boots, and he was like, what's it called when you're like hiking? And he's like a spot that everyone knows along the trail.

• 3:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Landmark?

• 3:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Landmark, thank you. They could never see his face, and so he had been identified as possibly being one of two men, both from India, but the Indian government has now identified him. They did DNA testing.

• 3:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 3:14Georgia Hardstark?

  They can't move him right now because it's impossible to survive and move a body, but they are sure now that his name is Dorje Maurop, and there are plans to recover his body later this summer.

• 3:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you know how long he's been there?

• 3:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Thirty years.

• 3:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 3:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Thirty years. It's chilling, too, the photo of him is just, oh, I, I mean, I just can't get over those.

• 3:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It's tough, it's like, it's such an extreme decision when people, I mean, that's why they do it, right? And that's why when they come back, they can say they did it.

• 3:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 3:47Karen Kilgariff?

  But the danger is...

• 3:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll never understand the like, I'll never understand a lot of things.

• 3:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Agree.

• 3:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Climbing Mount Everest is one of the top ones.

• 3:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I've told you this multiple times, but there's times where I order like dinner and the doorbell rings and I just can't get off the couch to answer the door.

• 4:06Georgia Hardstark?

  To get the food. You can't even climb your own stairs.

• 4:10Karen Kilgariff?

  My personal Everest, the living room.

• 4:13Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 4:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is flat.

• 4:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I couldn't bother.

• 4:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I think what I'm always looking for is that get up and go. That people who are like rock climbers and extreme athletes and all those things like they have an engine in there.

• 4:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Is it always on?

• 4:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. And is it because they like cut everything else out of their lives that give them dopamine?

• 4:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean?

• 4:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, they have to run for seven miles straight to get that three beer feeling.

• 4:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 4:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 4:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And when we know better, when we know the way.

• 4:42Georgia Hardstark?

  We do. When you've never, when you haven't had those deep conversations after three beers at a bar that like suddenly everything makes sense, of course you're gonna wanna go fucking climb a mountain.

• 4:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. No one comes and talks to you at mile seven?

• 4:55Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 4:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No, they think that guy's intense and I can't really have a conversation right now. He's into his thing.

• 5:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 5:02Karen Kilgariff?

  They don't ever say that at the bar.

• 5:03Georgia Hardstark?

  No, they don't.

• 5:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Quite the opposite.

• 5:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 5:05Karen Kilgariff?

  I was gonna just tell the listener that I told you right before we started that I, driving over here today, I have a brown long sleeve shirt on, listener. Watcher, welcome to Netflix.

• 5:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Netflix, what's up?

• 5:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's boiling hot outside, but I'm playing against the weather.

• 5:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And I was thinking, everyone's, me and Georgia match accidentally or psychically. Interesting to see what she'll be wearing today.

• 5:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's literally the extreme opposite of what I'm wearing.

• 5:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I am wearing like a 1970s like disco dress that's in rainbow colors.

• 5:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I'm dressed like Gordon Lightfoot's roadie and you're dressed like Donna Summer herself.

• 5:43Georgia Hardstark?

  With pockets.

• 5:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you have that made or something?

• 5:47Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's from Unique Vintage, this online company I love.

• 5:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, girl, are you going roller skating after this?

• 5:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It is a roller skating outfit.

• 5:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It really is.

• 5:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Or a birthday party.

• 5:59Georgia Hardstark?

  And look at this ring I found at a vintage wedding store in Altadena.

• 6:03Karen Kilgariff?

  A vintage wedding store? Does that say Carol?

• 6:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Nope, it says cunt.

• 6:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, cunt.

• 6:10Georgia Hardstark?

  How amazing is that? Among all the like beautiful vintage purses and shoes and jewelry and like little headpieces, I said the same thing, does that say cunt? And then I was like, I'm wrong. But I'm gonna be embarrassed.

• 6:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm saying it to the girl.

• 6:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And did she say it's current or that it's a 70s cunt ring?

• 6:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think it's, I think it's current, but you could tell she was like. Just kind of cheeky and wanted to throw it in.

• 6:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And she loves it. And I was like, it's going to a good home. Should we get started? Do you have anything else?

• 6:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's do it.

• 6:39Georgia Hardstark?

  We have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media.

• 6:42Karen Kilgariff?

  And these are some highlights from what's going on on that network. This week on Buried Bones, Kate and Paul continue their investigation into the Axeman of New Orleans, one of the most compelling and fascinating old timey cases. As the bodies continue to pile up, they ask whether the murders are truly connected or the work of copycat killers.

• 7:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Did you see they're making a Dorothea Puente biopic?

• 7:07Karen Kilgariff?

  With who?

• 7:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I think Gina Davis. How great is that?

• 7:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Unbelievable.

• 7:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Do they have to dig her a trench because she's so much taller than everybody?

• 7:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 7:16Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what I always think of with her.

• 7:17Georgia Hardstark?

  But you know what's creepy is that like, she probably is the same age as Dorothea Puente. It's just that we don't look like old ladies anymore when we get older.

• 7:25Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, Dorothea Puente was dressed up as an old lady on purpose.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  She, I don't remember that.

• 7:30Karen Kilgariff?

  She wasn't as old as she dressed and acted like.

• 7:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Because you get away with so much.

• 7:34Karen Kilgariff?

  She was like in her mid to late 70s, but she was kind of like, I'm a little old lady.

• 7:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And then she'd picking up bodies and bringing them upstairs and stuff.

• 7:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Like a little old lady. Okay. Then also over on DisgraceLand, Jake tells the unbelievable story of the band Happy Mondays.

• 7:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Legends.

• 7:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Love them. From thieves and drug dealers to attempted kidnappings and the fall of Manchester's music scene, this one is almost too wild to be true. Oh, to be alive then in Manchester.

• 8:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible. I mean,

• 8:03Georgia Hardstark?

  On so many drugs.

• 8:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So many drugs all day long. Jake is so good at breaking stuff down.

• 8:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Karen Kilgariff?

  But then after that, you can go watch the movie 24 Hour Party, People, which is truly one of my favorites.

• 8:12Georgia Hardstark?

  It's incredible.

• 8:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Then over on Dear Movies, I Love You, Millie and Casey celebrate the Criterion release of John Waters' Desperate Living from 1977. And writer and actor Lloyd Kaufman joins them to talk DIY filmmaking, my dinner with Andre, and the movies he's watching now.

• 8:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And for the biggest news of the summer, we've teamed up with Blanchard House once again. We love them. For our newest true crime limited series called Royal Swindle, listen to the trailer now before the premiere on July 23rd. Follow the show on iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, please.

• 8:46Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a scammer limited series with crazy people scamming British horse people.

• 8:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Insane.

• 8:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It's going to be epic.

• 8:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Because we've been talking about, from the last rewind, we've been talking about the word "proclivity." I did claim it to be the best title we have ever titled any episode.

• 9:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Karen Kilgariff?

  I kind of went way out on a limb there.

• 9:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think you were wrong.

• 9:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I think that people have responded. And because "proclivity" is such a popular, I guess, title and made up word of Georgia's, we're now going to make some "proclivity" merch.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so good.

• 9:17Karen Kilgariff?

  It's really good.

• 9:18Georgia Hardstark?

  We just laughed our asses off when we picked it out. We'd given some options and we were like, "This has to be it."

• 9:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 9:22Georgia Hardstark?

  It looks like...

• 9:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The cover of a drug, the box, it looks like a drug container.

• 9:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Like someone made up a drug.

• 9:28Karen Kilgariff?

  A drug logo.

• 9:29Georgia Hardstark?

  A drug logo.

• 9:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 9:30Georgia Hardstark?

  And you went to a convention for drugs and this place gave you a "proclivity" shirt.

• 9:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 9:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Or a tote.

• 9:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 9:36Georgia Hardstark?

  So, please check it out. You can preorder it now. Go to myfavoritemurder.com and click on "Shop."

• 9:41Karen Kilgariff?

  And get in there and look for that preorder. Very fun.

• 9:44Georgia Hardstark?

  "Proclivity" and listen to the rewind as well, if you don't know what we're talking about.

• 9:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It doesn't really matter.

• 9:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. My story today starts in Portland, Oregon, in late July of 1946.

• 9:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 10:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It's right after the end of World War II. It's summertime. It has been particularly hot, especially for Portland, Oregon. This July alone has several days with temperatures that go over 100 degrees.

• 10:12Georgia Hardstark?

  This July in '46 or now?

• 10:14Karen Kilgariff?

  '46.

• 10:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 10:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 10:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Who cares about now? Yeah, back in '46, very unusual.

• 10:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And in this relentless heat, there's a mix of a sort of post-war malaise, and it has Portlanders on edge. As the summer passes, the violent crime rate begins to tick upward. On any given day this summer, you can pick up an Oregon newspaper and see disturbing and grisly articles from the crime beat. There's the Oak Grove Jane Doe case, where an unidentified female victim's torso is found in the Willamette River. There's also the case of the 22-year-old veteran, William Kilpak, who was randomly attacked outside of a theater with a hatchet.

• 10:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 10:55Karen Kilgariff?

  He barely survived, and he later told a reporter, quote, "War is safer than standing in a Portland street."

• 11:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 11:01Karen Kilgariff?

  But those are not the cases I'm talking about today. Today's case is arguably the most notorious from Portland's summer of '46, and it starts around 8:45 on the night of Saturday, July 27, as police rush to a home on southeast Yam Hill Street. Inside, they find a chaotic scene. An explosion has turned the house upside down. And tragically, the 44-year-old wife and mother, who lives in this home, Fern Bowden, is dead. But whether or not this is a murder scene is unclear, and in some ways, it remains unclear to this day.

• 11:37Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm in your area.

• 11:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 11:38Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the story of what the Portland press calls "The Pandora's Box Murder."

• 11:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh, cold case for Karen.

• 11:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? This is actually a story that we were thinking about doing for the Portland show on the tour.

• 11:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the main sources used today are articles from the Oregonian and Oregon Journal archives, and the writing and research of J.D. Chandler. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So, here's what we know about the Bowden family. On the night of the explosion, Fern Bowden is home alone. Her 13-year-old daughter Doris is out roller skating with friends. So, 1946. And thank God, right?

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Because also, her 17-year-old daughter Shirley is away visiting family. And her husband Jim is 130 miles away on the Oregon coast on a fishing trip. The Bowdens have been married for decades. Jim is a steam fitter. That means he installs and repairs pipes for heating systems in buildings. Sometimes, his job takes him out of state for high-paying gigs, because not everybody can do that.

• 12:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 12:38Karen Kilgariff?

  And over the last few years, he has worked months-long stints in places like Alaska and Toledo, Ohio. But Fern herself is also employed, not out of financial necessity, because Jim, of course, makes enough money alone to support the family as a pipe fitter, because there were unions back then. Working was a personal choice for Fern. She reportedly, quote, "thought it her patriotic duty to help out," end quote. During the war, she joins the Union Pacific Railroad workforce. We don't know what capacity, but the odds are that it's clerical. She likes the job enough to keep it after the war ends. So, back to the night of the explosion. Of course, the police rushed to the scene, and officers determined that this explosion took place in the basement,

• 13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  and that it was very powerful. It actually pushed the kitchen, so the kitchen- was directly above and it pushed the kitchen floor up one inch.

• 13:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 13:32Karen Kilgariff?

  So huge. And of course furniture, dishware and windows throughout the house are destroyed. If any other members of the Bowden family had been home, they would have been killed too. And at first investigators wonder if someone was keeping a military grade explosive in the basement, like a keepsake for war and then it just accidentally went off.

• 13:52Georgia Hardstark?

  And where was she? She just immediately died from the explosion?

• 13:55Karen Kilgariff?

  She did.

• 13:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 13:56Karen Kilgariff?

  But then when they go into the basement, they find a small box in the corner of the room and the box has been described to look like a trunk, an apple box, a suitcase and/or a footlocker. But footlocker seems to be the most common description across all reporting. So we'll call it a footlocker.

• 14:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 14:13Karen Kilgariff?

  It's about three feet long, three feet deep, 10 inches wide. It's kind of small. Investigators can tell that normally this footlocker is padlocked. They can tell stuff like that. It's already exploded. Isn't that crazy?

• 14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so weird.

• 14:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And back then. But of course, now the lock is no longer attached and the lid is missing. But somehow the base of this footlocker is largely intact.

• 14:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm.

• 14:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Exploded upwards. Police even find a few random items inside, including a journal with handwritten notes.

• 14:42Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so weird that explosion. This is like, it doesn't explode everything.

• 14:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Doesn't explode every single thing.

• 14:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 14:48Karen Kilgariff?

  But it moves the floor above it by a full inch.

• 14:51Georgia Hardstark?

  So weird.

• 14:52Karen Kilgariff?

  There's also a bunch of wires running through this box, which immediately leads investigators to believe this was a deliberate bombing. Officers are dispatched to track down all members of the Bowden family to tell them what's happened. They find Shirley and Doris first because they're close by, but it takes longer to reach Jim over on the Oregon coast. And when they finally do find him out on his fishing trip, they don't tell him Fern is dead. They just say there's been an accident at the house and ask if he knows anything about explosives being stored there. He says no, but the police believe there's something off about the way he's answering their questions. According to police, Jim seems very agitated as he's responding.

• 15:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So now the investigation moves back to Portland and as detectives dive deeper into the personal lives of this family, a picture of a failing marriage comes into focus. They find out that notebook that they found in the footlocker appears to log Fern's whereabouts across several dates, as if someone was quietly documenting her movements. They have a good idea of who was doing this. The husband.

• 15:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 15:59Karen Kilgariff?

  I thought you'd say it with me.

• 16:00Georgia Hardstark?

  The husband.

• 16:00Karen Kilgariff?

  The husband. Then they find out that on June 20th, about a month before her death, Fern filed for divorce, citing Jim's cruel behavior. And after that, on June 27th, Jim submitted a response to that filing, and in it, he denied acting cruelly and accused Fern of being unfaithful. So investigators determined that the notebook in the footlocker was Jim tracking his wife's whereabouts, probably to record evidence and prove his theory that she was cheating on him.

• 16:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 16:29Karen Kilgariff?

  So news spreads quickly about Fern's death, and within a day or so, a local contractor named William Buell reaches out to the police and identifies himself as an old buddy of Jim's. And William says that Jim recently came to him with an odd request. He wanted to get his hands on explosives strong enough to, quote, "blow the fish out of the ocean."

• 16:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Cool. Great.

• 16:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Just go ask your buddy.

• 16:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 16:53Karen Kilgariff?

  William has access to dynamite through his job, so he gives his friend six sticks of TNT.

• 16:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Ask a couple of questions.

• 17:01Karen Kilgariff?

  William says he saw Jim put the explosives into a footlocker, ostensibly the same one found by investigators, and he never seemed to ask any questions. Bros before hos.

• 17:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Okay.

• 17:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Dynamite bros.

• 17:17Karen Kilgariff?

  When police speak to the Bowden daughters, they say their dad had recently taken on a very secretive project. They would watch him disappear down into the basement over and over, and he was usually wearing thick gloves when he did it. And he seemed intentionally invasive about what he was doing down there.

• 17:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Evasive?

• 17:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Evasive, sorry. Invasive.

• 17:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like getting in their faces, their teenage daughter faces.

• 17:40Karen Kilgariff?

  He's looking through their diaries.

• 17:44Georgia Hardstark?

  What am I doing? What do you think I'm doing? Guess what I'm doing?

• 17:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, but here's what's weird. That is what he does. So he basically will go down into the basement and mess around with his big gloves on and come up and be like, "Nobody go into the basement and certainly don't look into that footlocker."

• 17:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 18:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And then he's like, "It's padlocked, and my notes are inside. Do not go look at it."

• 18:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 18:06Karen Kilgariff?

  So he's just warning people, "Don't go near it. My journal's in there. It's padlocked anyway. Stay away."

• 18:12Georgia Hardstark?

  You're dying.

• 18:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Now Fern and her daughters really want to know what's going on, what their dad is up to and what is in that foot locker. They do contemplate going downstairs to snoop around because of these weird warnings. Investigators go question Jim again when they find this out from the family. And at first, he sticks to his original story. He even denies that his friend William gave him that dynamite and that he asked for it. But eventually, Jim will crack and admit that he did in fact create a bomb and keep it in his basement. He sketches a diagram of it even for the police, showing exactly how he had rigged this circuit, connecting the dynamite sticks to some batteries. So if someone lifted the lid of the locker, it would trigger an explosion.

• 18:58Georgia Hardstark?

  With your two daughter, I mean, your wife, of course, but your two daughters in the house and you're like, basically egging them on to open the fucking locker?

• 19:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like he's a cowardly family annihilator. Like, he can't do it directly, but he's, yeah, true. So Fern obviously fell for this terrible ruse. But Jim maintains to investigators-

• 19:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, do they think she opened it?

• 19:19Karen Kilgariff?

  She opened it.

• 19:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 19:21Karen Kilgariff?

  That's how she died.

• 19:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought it just blew up on its own. So they think she went down there finally when the girls were out?

• 19:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Because the girls basically told the investigators, like, we actually were talking about maybe going and looking because he was being so weird about it.

• 19:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 19:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. So right now, I'm about to show you a picture of Jim Bowden. But you better get ready.

• 19:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I'm so scared. Oh, Jesus Christ. God almighty.

• 19:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Can you imagine if this man was waiting around the corner for you on a dark and stormy night?

• 19:51Georgia Hardstark?

  It looks like the bomb just blew up in his face.

• 19:54Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, he doesn't love flossing. That's something I can guarantee you.

• 19:59Georgia Hardstark?

  He looks shell shocked. Okay.

• 20:00Karen Kilgariff?

  He looks absolutely like if he had a knife in his hand and he was dragging it behind him, you would run.

• 20:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, definitely hatchet outside the theater. Did we know he didn't do that one too?

• 20:11Karen Kilgariff?

  That's so true.

• 20:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 20:13Karen Kilgariff?

  He switched it up when that didn't work.

• 20:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And it was like a bummer. We have Fern as well.

• 20:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 20:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Poor Fern. And then I think we have a picture of the footlocker.

• 20:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 20:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And that headline says, "Explosion damages home. Husband questioned."

• 20:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why, when I think of an explosion, I think of it destroying everything. But there's so much left over.

• 20:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 20:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Interesting.

• 20:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I wonder also if it's like, he kills his wife and then he can just still go live. And he's the victim.

• 20:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Or insurance. I'm sure there's insurance somewhere in the story.

• 20:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Somewhere.

• 20:44Georgia Hardstark?

  House or, or wife.

• 20:46Karen Kilgariff?

  But the thinking is so beyond bad.

• 20:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 05

  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 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.

• 21:19Speaker 06

  Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.

• 21:29Karen Kilgariff?

  AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing, and where.

• 21:46Speaker 06

  Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.

• 21:50Karen Kilgariff?

  So Jim maintains to investigators the bomb was not meant for Fern. He claims that it was built with a different person in mind, a local man named George Hockenios. Love when a brand-new character

• 22:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 22:04Karen Kilgariff?

  comes into the investigation.

• 22:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I love this story because it sounds like we all know what's happening, but you've already told me something weird is happening. So I'm like, what's it gonna be? Everyone is a suspect.

• 22:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so according to Jim, your favorite TV show of all time, I wrote that down, about a year earlier, he'd become suspicious that his wife was having an affair with this man, George.

• 22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 22:25Karen Kilgariff?

  He was working in Toledo at the time, and he claims he began receiving anonymous letters to imply that Fern was cheating on him.

• 22:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 22:33Karen Kilgariff?

  The letters said cryptic things like, quote, "Saturday afternoon tea parties and luncheons can obviously become Saturday night dinners and breakfasts," end quote.

• 22:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Love the word luncheon.

• 22:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Luncheon, sex luncheon.

• 22:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Welcome to my sex luncheon.

• 22:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Welcome. Do you want any crab cakes? So gross.

• 22:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So gross. Sex crab cakes? They don't mix.

• 22:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you trying to do a title right now?

• 23:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell, no. We're not calling this Sex and Crab Cakes.

• 23:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so of course, Jim reads these letters. He's overcome with jealousy, but he wants definitive proof of his wife's infidelity. So every time he talks to her on the phone, and Fern tells him what she's doing and what her plans are, he takes careful notes and then secretly fact-checks what she's saying by calling up the people and places that she mentions to him. Vince does that to you, right?

• 23:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not a big deal to like, take notes on your partner's whereabouts, right? And like, write them in a journal and lock them up.

• 23:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Kara Clank who?

• 23:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Take a picture where you're at right now and show me.

• 23:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Show it right now. So Jim does this for months, according to the journal that police find in the footlocker, and he claims to have, at least on one occasion, caught his wife lying. Fern told him that she was going to a tea party, as was mentioned in the letter, but when Jim calls around to confirm it, he can't. He concludes that she made it up. When he returns to Portland, he notices that his wife is spending a lot of time with her coworker, George. We don't know too much about George. He was a private person. Records suggest he was a solid member of the community. He held his post at Union Pacific for more than four decades, and he's heavily involved in Portland civic organizations.

• 24:23Karen Kilgariff?

  We also know that in the 20s, he was married to a woman named Thelma, but she's not listed in his...

• 24:28Georgia Hardstark?

  George and Thelma are my grandparents' names.

• 24:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 24:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, that's why I'm named Georgia, is because of George.

• 24:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Is that right?

• 24:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And my grandma's name is Thelma. That's fucking weird.

• 24:35Karen Kilgariff?

  The combo?

• 24:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 24:37Karen Kilgariff?

  But we didn't...

• 24:38Georgia Hardstark?

  No, not the combo.

• 24:38Karen Kilgariff?

  But our clothes don't match. Like, what, if we're gonna do it, let's do it.

• 24:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, what? I don't understand that.

• 24:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, just like weird psychic connections of like this, your grandparents are here.

• 24:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That was a psychic connection you knew was gonna happen.

• 24:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Get ready, get ready.

• 24:54Georgia Hardstark?

  That's fucking weird, though. George and Thelma?

• 24:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It's super weird. George marries Thelma.

• 24:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 24:59Karen Kilgariff?

  This is where we are.

• 25:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 25:00Karen Kilgariff?

  But because she's not listed in his future obituary, nor do they seem to have children together, it seems likely this marriage was over by the time George and Fern worked together at Union Pacific.

• 25:14Georgia Hardstark?

  But he's a little older. She likes him a little.

• 25:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It seems like he's a little older. So they meet at Union Pacific in the 40s. Basically, after that, she starts driving him to work. Now, at the time, I was kind of surprised to learn this, but carpooling with coworkers got very common during the war because there was all these gas rations.

• 25:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 25:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Makes sense?

• 25:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Karen Kilgariff?

  It was strongly encouraged, and it seems Fern also drove other work colleagues as well.

• 25:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I feel like that was kind of a normal thing, is carpools of multiple people.

• 25:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, up until probably the 80s.

• 25:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And then we're all like, everybody's on their own.

• 25:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Peace, we want to take up as much room as possible.

• 25:50Karen Kilgariff?

  We hate the ozone.

• 25:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 25:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Get me a mix separated, or whatever those things were called.

• 25:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Mix separated.

• 25:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Remember this?

• 25:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Nick DLT.

• 26:01Georgia Hardstark?

  That is the name of the episode.

• 26:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Hot side's hot and the cool side's cool. David Letterman talked about the Nick DLTs so much when that thing came out.

• 26:09Georgia Hardstark?

  The kids don't know what we're talking about.

• 26:10Karen Kilgariff?

  They don't, but please.

• 26:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Look it up.

• 26:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Look it up, you'll have a good time. So, over time, George and Fern do become close. While Jim is out of town, George helps her around the house with handiwork. Sometimes he stays for dinner with the family, and those dinners continue when Jim comes back to Portland, so it doesn't seem like Fern's acting like she has anything to hide.

• 26:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 26:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Still, Jim is consumed by jealousy.

• 26:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Do we think George was gay, maybe? And like, she became friends with him?

• 26:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, there's so many possibilities, or like, you're just, you're the kind of woman that in the 40s is like, no, I want to work, and I want to like, be outside of the house. So like, I bet she was great and the kind of person that had a bunch of friends, maybe. Boys and girls can be friends, can't they? So even though he has no proof, he's consumed with jealousy, so he starts accusing Fern of having this affair. So basically, he works out of town and he's having affairs, probably.

• 27:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And then coming back and being like, how dare you. So both Fern and George consistently and adamantly deny any affair between the two. They insist they're just good friends. So, he could have been gay.

• 27:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Even after Fern's death, George will continue to stress that their relationship was purely platonic. Although he does say that they had a strong bond, and he did admit he kept Fern's checkbook for safekeeping when her marriage started to fall apart.

• 27:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 27:34Karen Kilgariff?

  This now, it sounds weird, but back then, women weren't even supposed to have checkbooks.

• 27:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, so I wonder if it was like, can you make sure that the budget's balanced? Because I don't know how to do this.

• 27:45Georgia Hardstark?

  He was like, keeping it as in balancing it.

• 27:47Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what it sounds like.

• 27:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Interesting.

• 27:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Yeah, not like, here, it's in a drawer when you need it.

• 27:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's what I thought.

• 27:54Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I think it's like, she turned it over to him.

• 27:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 27:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Which makes me go, I wonder what he did at Union Pacific.

• 27:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. He could have been an accountant or something.

• 28:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Jim can't shake his feeling that George is a threat to his family. That's called paranoia. And the Bowdens start fighting constantly. Fern eventually reaches a breaking point, and that's when she files for divorce. And that's also when Jim comes up with this plan to get rid of his competition, or so he claims. But before he could plant it somewhere where George would be the one that would open the footlocker, Jim claims that he got cold feet, that he wasn't sure how to get rid of this bomb that he had built, so he locked it up and left it in his basement until he could think of a better plan.

• 28:37Georgia Hardstark?

  With his daughters just sleeping above.

• 28:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Just right upstairs. So, Jim Bowden is arrested and charged with his wife Fern's murder. The trial begins in December of 1946, and it seems like Jim's legal strategy is to double down on the claim that George was his intended victim, not Fern. Per reporting, Jim's lawyers seem interested in exploring the castle doctrine, which is the idea that you can defend your home with deadly force if need be. Right. So if Jim saw George as a threat to his home vis a vis his marriage, then a jury might be convinced to convict him of like a lesser charge like manslaughter.

• 29:15Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, fine.

• 29:16Karen Kilgariff?

  But prosecutors jump on this logic immediately. If that was the case, why did Jim go through the elaborate process of learning how to create a deadly bomb, only to leave it in his basement in a place that was accessible to his family?

• 29:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 29:31Karen Kilgariff?

  You said that already, like 20 minutes ago. Not only that, but the prosecution reveals that the lock Jim used to secure the footlocker was one they had used before, so Fern knew the combination.

• 29:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 29:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Standing in the kitchen going, "Do not go near the locked footlocker."

• 29:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Rest your case. That's it. Guilty.

• 29:52Karen Kilgariff?

  No, Your Honor.

• 29:53Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 29:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Prosecutors push back also on the idea that Jim didn't know how to dismantle or dispose of the bomb, when obviously he fucking built the bomb.

• 30:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 30:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It doesn't say that on that piece.

• 30:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Throw it in the lake that you're fucking fishing in.

• 30:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't build it in the first place!

• 30:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, that too.

• 30:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. He knew exactly what wires to cut.

• 30:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 30:12Karen Kilgariff?

  He could disarm that bomb anytime. He didn't do it.

• 30:14Georgia Hardstark?

  He could throw it in the lake. He was fishing that weekend, right?

• 30:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, that's right. It could have never threatened anybody, because you go snip, snip, like every great Keanu Reeves movie we've ever seen, and it's over.

• 30:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:25Karen Kilgariff?

  In the end, the district attorney, John R. Collier's case rests on the idea that Fern just as likely could have been the intended target, which suggests premeditated murder.

• 30:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Even the judge tells the jury, quote, "We have only the defendant's own statement that he intended the bomb for George Hockenios rather than his wife. It's a question of fact for the jury to decide."

• 30:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Karen Kilgariff?

  End quote. So it took that jury five hours to deliberate and come back with a murder conviction for Jim Bowden. He is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, and it seems like he actually did spend the rest of his life in prison.

• 31:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Imagine that.

• 31:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? The rare story where that's, he didn't get out on good behavior. Jim passes away sometime in the 50s. We don't know why. So whether the target of Jim's homemade bomb was Fern or George is something that we kind of can't ever know.

• 31:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you as frustrated right now as I usually am?

• 31:20Georgia Hardstark?

  No, because I think it's her. I think she was the target.

• 31:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 31:23Georgia Hardstark?

  It's kind of logical.

• 31:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's kind of clear.

• 31:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And we only have his claims to go on.

• 31:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 31:29Karen Kilgariff?

  The indisputable fact is that he was the only genuine threat in the Boden home. And as DA John Collier said during Jim's trial, quote, "Did you ever once hear this defendant say, 'I'm sorry, I wish I had my wife back.' His silence resounds louder than his words."

• 31:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh, all he did was defend himself, not a moment of...

• 31:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. It's not me and I wanted to kill him. Or it's like, still a killer. "His wife's death was premeditated, intentional, and deliberate. This man is a good poker player." End quote.

• 32:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 32:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And that's the story of Portland's so-called Pandora's Box murder.

• 32:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 32:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't understand in the beginning, and it's so much more chilling, that he wanted someone to open it, and she did. I thought it just accidentally blew up at some point.

• 32:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-mm. It was like the thing of him standing around being like, do not...

• 32:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 32:21Karen Kilgariff?

  He thought he was using reverse psychology.

• 32:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 32:23Karen Kilgariff?

  But that's what's creepy about it to me is, his daughters easily could have... They all talked about maybe going down and snooping. So was he like a half-family annihilator?

• 32:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I wonder what the daughters thought of these poor girls.

• 32:37Karen Kilgariff?

  So sad.

• 32:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Wow, well, great job. I've never heard of that one.

• 32:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. It was hard to not pick that one for Portland.

• 32:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but the one you did in Portland is incredible. I think we're putting up the live episode soon. It's the one of the high school...

• 32:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 32:51Georgia Hardstark?

  The high school scam.

• 32:52Karen Kilgariff?

  The high school bank robbers.

• 32:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, that'll be on a couple of episodes, so make sure you check out that live episode from Portland.

• 32:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  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 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.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Your business operates under pressure and you need control over your data. But IBM Research shows only 9% of companies have real oversight of their technology. IBM's Open Hybrid Cloud approach is designed to give you visibility. With built-in governance tools, data Sovereignty and compliance reporting is another way IBM helps you stay in control of your data. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Visit IBM.com to learn more.

• 33:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, my story is a little wild, too, in that a what actually happened kind of a thing.

• 34:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Perfect.

• 34:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Which I think we're gonna solve it, as I always say, although I know it. We know what happened, and it sucks.

• 34:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Can I just say this really quick?

• 34:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Karen Kilgariff?

  In terms of cold cases, I was getting ready to come here today, and I was like, they caught the Gilgo Beach Killer. That's a reality.

• 34:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Cold case anymore, yeah.

• 34:21Karen Kilgariff?

  As hard as things are these days.

• 34:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Karen Kilgariff?

  We must focus on things that are true progress.

• 34:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 34:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That thing was like, he's, he's behind bars.

• 34:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, he can't kill another person.

• 34:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 34:32Georgia Hardstark?

  My god. So this one, you see sometimes as headlines, like clickbaity headlines. I saw this one on an Instagram account called History Feels with the headline that was kind of, it makes you laugh at first. It's along the lines of, man in Illinois sentenced to prison for causing the 1993 great flood to keep partying. That's like the idea behind it. It's this guy.

• 34:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Whatever, whatever you're about to tell me, I'm so here for it.

• 34:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, you are. And the local story goes that this catastrophic flood was almost entirely preventable were it not for the town ne'er do well, who basically wanted to strand his wife on one side of the flood plain so he could keep drinking and partying and fishing on the other side of it. So he purposely caused the levee to break. That's the story. That's the headline.

• 35:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 35:20Georgia Hardstark?

  But of course, as truths so often tend to be, the real story is a little darker and much more complex than the folklore and clickbait headlines would lead you to believe. This is the story of James Scott, the man who authorities claim caused a massive natural disaster so he could strand his wife on one side of the river while he partied on the other.

• 35:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody can relate to that.

• 35:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 35:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I just want to party a little bit more and someone's gonna stop, stop me from doing that, so I'll flood the zone.

• 35:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So you see that headline and you're like, I know that guy.

• 35:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 35:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I used to party with him in high school.

• 35:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I am that guy.

• 35:52Georgia Hardstark?

  I get it.

• 35:55Georgia Hardstark?

  The main sources for the story are a Vice documentary and a 2017 episode of Criminal, the podcast Criminal called Catastrophe. Also, the Dollop covered this one as well. It's just such a perfect Dollop story that I'm gonna now cover, and the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So, let's talk about the flood. It's July 16th, 1993, exactly 33 years before this story airs on the day.

• 36:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 36:18Georgia Hardstark?

  To the day.

• 36:19Karen Kilgariff?

  God, that's upsetting. I was like, where was I? And then it's just like, you mean,

• 36:24Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so upsetting.

• 36:25Karen Kilgariff?

  A whole person ago?

• 36:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Karen Kilgariff?

  33 years ago?

• 36:28Georgia Hardstark?

  When I realized what high school reunion I would be coming up on recently, I kind of disassociated from my life.

• 36:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you go like this backwards?

• 36:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Whoa. So 33 years, and we're on the banks of the Mississippi River.

• 36:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm so old. How did I make it this far?

• 36:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, we did it. We've done it.

• 36:44Karen Kilgariff?

  We've done it. High five.

• 36:45Georgia Hardstark?

  So, we're on the banks of the Mississippi River. We're in two towns on opposite sides of the Mississippi River. One side is Quincy, which is in Illinois, and the other side is West Quincy, which is actually in Missouri.

• 36:56Karen Kilgariff?

  They love to do that back there. Kansas City, Kansas.

• 37:00Georgia Hardstark?

  You can stand on both sides, and then you touch either side. Right. We're only about 20 miles upstream from Hannibal, Missouri, which, as you know, is where Mark Twain was born and is the basis for the setting of Tom Sawyer and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Just to give you and your brain an idea where we are.

• 37:14Karen Kilgariff?

  I've always gotta go literary like that.

• 37:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I thought you were gonna say, "Birthplace of Hannibal Buress." Hilarious comedian Hannibal Buress.

• 37:21Georgia Hardstark?

  So this summer, the Mississippi is looking particularly mighty. The previous winter had been very snowy. Of course, there's, you know, climate change, even in 93, guys, imagine that. And it's also been a very rainy spring and early summer. So the river is worryingly high. In the days leading up to July 16th, it's been raining buckets, that summer rain. All up and down the Mississippi, the river has been breaking through its levees, washing out houses, neighborhoods, towns, and wiping out harvests on thousands of acres of farmland. And I read that during this great flood of 1993, more than 1,000 levees were basically breached along the Mississippi and the area. So, 1,000 levees.

• 38:04Karen Kilgariff?

  1,000.

• 38:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So that's all fucking a town. It looks like a river, but see, that's a town. That's a bunch of people's livelihoods and houses underwater.

• 38:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Not supposed to be there. We need to do a before and after.

• 38:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I love a before and after.

• 38:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I love a before and after.

• 38:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God. I just click, click, click, click over and over. Okay.

• 38:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially when it's a haircut. But the river's good too.

• 38:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Talking about like, natural disasters. Same, though, right? Sometimes.

• 38:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Things can be a natural disaster.

• 38:31Georgia Hardstark?

  It can be a natural disaster. If you do it yourself, it's a natural disaster. So, for the week preceding July 16th, there's been an all hands on deck effort to come down to the levees and help sandbag. It's kind of this like, feel good, get the community together to help. Pretty much everyone in town is there. They use bulldozers to try to scrape the dirt upward to make the levee taller. And then put sandbags on the top of that, just to make the, make it taller. That's how the water, you know, you get it. And so by the afternoon of the 16th, the river is at 31.9 feet high. And the levee is supposed to keep out water up to 32 feet. So we're not

• 39:11Karen Kilgariff?

  How?

• 39:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Close enough.

• 39:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 39:13Georgia Hardstark?

  At this point, it's not really safe for most volunteers to be out working on the levees, but there are a few up and down the river keeping watch for breaks, along with the National Guard. At 2:00 PM, from a quarter mile away, guardsmen and volunteers on a bridge hear trees cracking and realize the levee has broken in an area that wasn't being directly watched, because it had thought to be one of the strongest points. Instantly rushing water creates a 100-foot gap in the levee and water comes pouring through, washing out roads and bridges, flooding farmland, and essentially cutting off access to West Quincy. And we have a photo of that levee breach, just to give you an idea. So that is the point of where it breached.

• 39:55Georgia Hardstark?

  And just opened up and all this water that had been held back just flowed in and took everything out.

• 40:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 40:00Georgia Hardstark?

  It's pretty fucked up. A barge gets sucked through the hole, like a fucking ship.

• 40:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh my god.

• 40:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Like a long ship.

• 40:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Them long, flat ones that they like to have on those rivers?

• 40:09Georgia Hardstark?

  And crashes into a gas station, causing an explosion and a fire that burns into the night. It's just mayhem. But miraculously, no one is killed in that accident, or hurt, or in this instance of flooding at all. So no one's hurt, just a lot of damage. That evening, on the local news, an interview airs from just after the levee had broke. They show up and they're just trying to interview whoever's there. And they find this 23-year-old man who is a volunteer, who's trying to help, you know, put the sandbags up and stuff. His name is James Scott. He said he had seen the weak spot where the levee wound up breaking, and he had tried to patch it up. Everyone else had left. In the interview, he says, quote, "Everybody else left." I decided I'd stick around till the next crew came, end quote.

• 40:54Georgia Hardstark?

  He says that he had seen a spot where the water was seeping in and he had moved some sandbags to that spot and then had gone to get help. And while he was doing that, the levee had broken. So James, who most people call Jim or Jimmy, we're gonna call him Jimmy, is from Quincy on the higher up Illinois side, so his town is fine. But his wife Suzie works at a restaurant on the Missouri side where it just flooded. And so he, like many other Quincy residents, had been out helping to prevent a flood for his neighbors across the river. When that interview with him airs, it catches the attention of a lot of people in Quincy who know who he is, but particularly a police detective. And this is because the detective knows Jimmy very well.

• 41:36Georgia Hardstark?

  The thing is Jimmy and his brothers, but especially Jimmy, are a bit notorious around Quincy for various crimes, but particularly for arson. So I'm gonna show you a screen grab from that news report that's from the Vice documentary because I want to show you, he's got that, he listens to Slayer probably.

• 41:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 41:54Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure, right? And Motley Crue, maybe, I don't know.

• 41:57Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what all the boys who were seniors when I was a freshman, that's what they looked like in the 80s.

• 42:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 42:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, now this is the 90s, but there was an adultness to young men back then.

• 42:07Georgia Hardstark?

  With their little mustaches and stuff? Absolutely. Yeah, I totally dated a guy that looked like that from rehab. Like, it's just, he looks, you know, he looks like a bad guy, but...

• 42:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I would think that he would have a pack of cigarettes rolled in one of those sleeves.

• 42:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 42:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 42:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely smokes and drinks a lot of beer.

• 42:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and wants to go to the lake.

• 42:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, but tried to help.

• 42:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Tried to help.

• 42:28Georgia Hardstark?

  His neighbors.

• 42:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Or so we thought. Also, that was my hair from the 90s. It just kind of needs some hair oil and...

• 42:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Weird, wavy.

• 42:37Karen Kilgariff?

  We're on TV, yet we don't seem to care.

• 42:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Just kidding.

• 42:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It was tough back then. There was no products.

• 42:43Georgia Hardstark?

  No, just like harsh ones. Basically, in 1982, when Jimmy is 12, he and his two brothers, who are 11 and 13, they sneak into their old elementary school at night. And the elementary school, I think at this point, isn't in use anymore, but they sneak in and they're already known as local troublemakers. But that night in school is when they cement their reputation. They wind up in the auditorium, smoking cigarettes. Basically, the youngest brother ends up with a lighter, and Jimmy dares him to set one of the curtains on fire. They're just fucking... And I can't judge. If I were judged based on shit that I lit on fire when I was that age, I would be in prison.

• 43:24Karen Kilgariff?

  But I'm just guessing. Did you light things on fire indoors?

• 43:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 43:30Georgia Hardstark?

  No, we were bad fucking kids.

• 43:31Karen Kilgariff?

  But did you light things like curtains on fucking fire? Where it's like, this is the second step to every Christmas tree fire you've ever seen.

• 43:39Georgia Hardstark?

  We didn't know that. There was definitely vandalism. I refuse to implicate myself.

• 43:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 43:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Or my family. But...

• 43:45Karen Kilgariff?

  But there was some?

• 43:46Georgia Hardstark?

  But there was some vandalism.

• 43:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you Banksy?

• 43:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That'd be amazing. I wish.

• 43:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I told you how, as a... I think I was in 4th grade.

• 43:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 43:58Karen Kilgariff?

  With my fingernail, I carved the word fuck into the back of the chair.

• 44:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 44:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I'd seen it. It was spray painted on our school wall, and everyone was like...

• 44:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Well, I did that. I spray painted it. That was me when I was 6.

• 44:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And then I processed it in a borrowed car.

• 44:13Georgia Hardstark?

  But just to say, like, they targeted him because he had done bad stuff in the past. And it's like, so have I, so let's not... We can't do that.

• 44:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Many kids do.

• 44:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 44:22Karen Kilgariff?

  But then if you're getting older and you look like you're 39.

• 44:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 44:26Karen Kilgariff?

  How about you don't light the fucking curtains on fire?

• 44:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, but he was 12 when that happened.

• 44:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 44:31Georgia Hardstark?

  He's still not a good guy. He still did some crimes.

• 44:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 44:34Georgia Hardstark?

  He's still...

• 44:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, the fact that the crime is arson as opposed to vandalism, those are wildly far apart in terms of the what's going on with the 12-year-old.

• 44:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally, totally.

• 44:44Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a...

• 44:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 44:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Firebug.

• 44:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so he lights the curtain on fire and... And it immediately ignites as curtains do when you light them on fire.

• 44:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially old ones at grammar school.

• 44:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. This is an old fucking school, too. The boys try for a few seconds to put it out, but they realize the fire is spreading to the whole curtain, so they try to get out of the school through the window that they climbed through. On their way out, Jimmy realizes his brother is holding a stolen gradebook, so he's worried about fingerprints. So Jimmy takes the gradebooks, lights it on fire, and throws it back into the classroom, and they get out of there.

• 45:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, so they, like, basically, they're getting Fs, and they went and took the book that said that?

• 45:23Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. From what I've read, the school's already closed, so maybe they were just, like, closed down.

• 45:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, just find-

• 45:28Georgia Hardstark?

  So I don't know.

• 45:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Stuff to burn.

• 45:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 45:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 45:29Georgia Hardstark?

  By 2:00 in the morning, the whole town smells like smoke. The fire keeps burning into the morning as firefighters work to put out the blaze, but the 100K square foot school is ultimately burned to the ground.

• 45:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god.

• 45:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, this old, brick, beautiful building.

• 45:45Karen Kilgariff?

  And it was a couple 5th graders that did it?

• 45:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 45:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Or 5th, 6th, 7th?

• 45:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Investigators immediately suspect that kids had been involved and ask local teachers to keep an eye out for any kids who are behaving strangely, which is smart. Doesn't take long for teachers to hone in on the Scott boys, who are behaving very weirdly and who have made a few cryptic, you know, allusions to their friends about having started the fire.

• 46:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, because they want that credit.

• 46:09Georgia Hardstark?

  They want the credit, and they're children. In juvenile court, a judge determines that Jimmy was the ringleader and sends him to a juvenile detention center for the rest of the school year, which is about four months. The youngest brother is sent to live with a foster family, and the oldest brother gets probation. By the summer, the whole family is reunited, but the Scott boys, especially Jimmy, get a reputation around town that they can't seem to shake or don't want to. And they don't do much to shake it, because Jimmy does set a few other fires, mainly abandoned cars and dumpsters this time.

• 46:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Jimmy's got something to say.

• 46:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, in his late teens. And he also gets arrested a few times for petty theft. I mean, he's not, you know, our perfect innocent victim. He does set a fire at one occasion, according to police, to an occupied apartment of a girl who turned him down for a date. So it's not good that he's a-

• 46:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not good.

• 46:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not good.

• 47:01Karen Kilgariff?

  George.

• 47:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It's a, he's a, he's a troublemaker.

• 47:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure.

• 47:05Karen Kilgariff?

  But fires, next level.

• 47:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, fire's not good. It's not good.

• 47:10Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not good.

• 47:12Georgia Hardstark?

  When Jimmy's 18, he is charged for several arsons at once, and he is sentenced to seven years in prison. He serves three, and he's released when he's 21, and he gets a job at Burger King. And of course, because this always seems to happen, he marries a woman who wants to marry him.

• 47:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 47:29Georgia Hardstark?

  You know.

• 47:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, coming in hot off of like a jail stint.

• 47:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, the bad boy.

• 47:35Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a McConaughey vibe to him.

• 47:37Georgia Hardstark?

  There is.

• 47:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Georgia Hardstark?

  He's got cigarettes rolled up in his.

• 47:40Karen Kilgariff?

  You're up on the cash register at Burger King. This guy comes rolling in.

• 47:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, he's got Schlitz, cold Schlitz, ice cold Schlitz.

• 47:46Karen Kilgariff?

  On the breath.

• 47:47Georgia Hardstark?

  So he marries a woman named Suzie, and he's known to party a lot at his friend's house. But it does seem like he's calmed down with the arsons and mostly with the thefts, too. Two years pass, and that brings us to those rainy days in July leading up to the levee breaking on the 16th.

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So we met him as like a concerned citizen.

• 48:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 48:07Karen Kilgariff?

  But when the cops find out and see him, they're like, oh, our boy's.

• 48:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Our boy was at the scene of, was it a crime? That's the thing.

• 48:15Karen Kilgariff?

  It was a natural event.

• 48:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, or was it a crime? That's what they think.

• 48:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Or was it a crime?

• 48:20Georgia Hardstark?

  So on October 1st, James is arrested on unrelated burglary charges. But once at the station, it turns out the police have warrants for five different crimes, most prominent of which is intentionally breaking the levee that caused the July 16th flood. So they immediately are like, you did this. It wasn't an accident.

• 48:36Karen Kilgariff?

  You did it on purpose.

• 48:37Georgia Hardstark?

  You did it. Jimmy vehemently denies this. He denies all the charges. He says he did pass a bad check. That's the only thing he did. And he stole a backpack out of a truck. He admits to those two things.

• 48:48Karen Kilgariff?

  What if he did both of those things while he was piling up those sandbags? He just got it done.

• 48:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Do, do, do.

• 48:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Georgia Hardstark?

  But he says he had nothing to do with this flood. He is ultimately convicted under an obscure Missouri law that makes it a felony to, quote, knowingly cause a catastrophe. A catastrophe is defined as an explosion, fire, flood, collapse of a building, or the release of poison, radioactive material, bacteria, viruses, or other difficult to confine forces.

• 49:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm. My story is a catastrophe story as well.

• 49:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So this event must result in the death or physical injury to 10 or more people.

• 49:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 49:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Or substantial damage to five or more buildings. But that's what he gets fucking, that's the law. It's like an old obscure law that they're like, great, let's use this.

• 49:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Which sounds like there's like a sheriff that knows that boy and I'm gonna get him this time, like.

• 49:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, it does, doesn't it?

• 49:40Karen Kilgariff?

  It does.

• 49:40Georgia Hardstark?

  But again, no one was killed in the flood, but of course, many buildings were substantially damaged. But here's the thing, we have discussed all the evidence the police have that showed that Jimmy broke the levy. That's it. It's like a hunch and he was there.

• 49:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 49:56Georgia Hardstark?

  That's it. Their case is basically that he was there and that he has a history of setting fires and thefts. And there's-

• 50:02Karen Kilgariff?

  But this is water.

• 50:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. He controls water.

• 50:05Karen Kilgariff?

  He can now can.

• 50:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't tell you that?

• 50:07Karen Kilgariff?

  He gave up fire for water.

• 50:09Georgia Hardstark?

  But it's water, not fire. That is a really good point. It's like, if it caught fire, sure, maybe.

• 50:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe, but he's taking it in a totally different direction now.

• 50:18Georgia Hardstark?

  There's only one other piece of evidence and it's this. In the days leading up to the levy break, when everyone had been helping to sandbank, Jimmy included, he had said, or a teenager he knew that he was playing basketball with, said that he said, quote, "If that levy breaks, I hope it strands Suzie over in Taylor so I can party here without her," end quote.

• 50:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Doesn't sound like a teenager talking.

• 50:41Georgia Hardstark?

  It doesn't sound like a teenager talking and it also doesn't sound like a threat.

• 50:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 50:46Georgia Hardstark?

  As much as it is a hope.

• 50:48Karen Kilgariff?

  A fun husband's concept about getting away from his wife.

• 50:52Georgia Hardstark?

  You know a divorce is coming. And this is pretty much the only basis for the motive of wanting to cause a flood in order to party that the prosecution uses. Like, they didn't have a motive. This guy who, who knows if he got anything out of saying that, as they tend to do.

• 51:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 51:08Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's it. The only other real evidence the prosecution has is a federal expert saying that the levy had failed at one of its strongest points and had been inspected two hours earlier. Like, it should not have failed where it did.

• 51:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 51:20Georgia Hardstark?

  But at the same time, two soil experts who testified for the defense said that the levy was very likely to break and that the spot where it did was where they would have predicted it would have broken.

• 51:30Karen Kilgariff?

  But those are soil experts.

• 51:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, because, here's the thing.

• 51:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it's a very narrow point in the river, which creates a bottleneck. So the river's flowing, it goes to here, and then suddenly there's a ton of pressure on the levee.

• 51:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 51:46Georgia Hardstark?

  And the effort to build the levees taller by pushing the dirt up with bulldozers actually may have undermined the levees by thinning them out. And it was like really soft sand, so they pushed it and made the wall thinner.

• 52:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 52:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And also, it went, it was 31.9 inches and the water was 32.

• 52:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's like an inch too much.

• 52:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Did I say inch? Do I mean something else?

• 52:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I think you mean feet.

• 52:11Georgia Hardstark?

  And I mean feet.

• 52:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And I mean...

• 52:14Georgia Hardstark?

  And when I say inches...

• 52:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Feet pics.

• 52:15Georgia Hardstark?

  You should know. So basically, the experts testified that. They also say that it's highly unlikely that anyone would be able to intentionally break a levee holding back a raging river without being swept away themselves.

• 52:27Karen Kilgariff?

  What if they're a bad kid? Could they do it then?

• 52:29Georgia Hardstark?

  They could then hold on tight. And remember, most people had left the levees by that point because they were basically at their maximum level at the time they failed. They were dangerous.

• 52:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, why didn't he? He was hanging out till the next people got there?

• 52:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I think he later says something about feeling like, you know, this is my way to prove myself and I'm gonna be, you know, they're all gonna see me and know that I'm like, you know, I'm gonna get the accolades I've always wanted, kind of a thing.

• 52:53Karen Kilgariff?

  But in truth, he's just down there with a lighter trying to light the levee on fire?

• 52:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Trying to light the river on fire, bro.

• 53:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Over and over?

• 53:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, there's also evidence about, and we're not gonna get into levees, not actually doing anything in the first place, but exacerbating flooding. I don't want to argue with you today about that.

• 53:10Karen Kilgariff?

  We will go back into our Katrina argument.

• 53:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah. So here's the thing. Jimmy is found guilty and he's given a life sentence.

• 53:21Karen Kilgariff?

  What? No one died?

• 53:22Georgia Hardstark?

  A life sentence.

• 53:24Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a sheriff behind all of this or someone that's mad.

• 53:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And when the judge convicts him, he says to Jimmy, like, basically, you did this because you got a sense of, quote, excitement or power or sexual arousal or all of the above, end quote, from his alleged crimes. So basically saying like, he's a pyro destroyer. He gets like... Off on all of this, which isn't even, wasn't even part of the prosecution's argument. He just kind of.

• 53:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, it makes sense for fire, because that's like a psychologically studied.

• 53:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 53:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Thing. How would the opposite thing give him?

• 53:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, no, totally.

• 54:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, that would, he would have had to do it before to know that that turns him on.

• 54:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 54:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It's such a weird gigantic.

• 54:07Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not, it doesn't make any sense.

• 54:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It makes no sense.

• 54:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Missouri law enforcement officials themselves speak on the record and say that the sentence feels out of step with the severity of the crime. So everyone's like, wait a second.

• 54:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Get in here, hurry up.

• 54:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Assuming there was a crime, child predators routinely get much shorter sentences. For murder and fucking pedophiles and rapists get shorter sentences than this. So, this raises the question, why are the authorities so keen to charge anyone for breaking the levee if it's not anything clear that it was broken?

• 54:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, scapegoating?

• 54:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Like I said, the levees have been breaking over a thousand times, up and down the river, all throughout the early summer of 93. It had been happening. This was one, the only one. And it's like, oh no, this is the one. It must be someone who did it. And no one had been criminally charged for those breaking of levees.

• 54:54Karen Kilgariff?

  They couldn't get them.

• 54:56Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a contingent of people, yes, I said a contingent of people, led by a journalist named Adam Pitluck, who's the guy who did the Vice documentary, who believed that Jimmy was a convenient scapegoat. Okay, here's, this is just gonna blow you away.

• 55:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 55:10Georgia Hardstark?

  The local farmers do not have federal flood insurance that covers flooding. They don't have insurance for that. They do have homeowners' policies that cover damage due to criminal vandalism.

• 55:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 55:25Georgia Hardstark?

  So in every other instance of flooding on the Mississippi River in the summer of 1993, there are no insurance payouts because of that. But in West Quincy, Missouri, most farmers and business owners are made whole again after Jimmy is convicted for causing the flood. So, out of the people who get that insurance payout because it was vandalism includes the civilian chair of the levee district commission.

• 55:52Georgia Hardstark?

  He's the largest landowner in the area and he is one of the people who had testified in Jimmy's trial that the levee had broken at its strongest point.

• 56:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh shit.

• 56:02Georgia Hardstark?

  He testified against Jimmy and got the biggest payout of anyone.

• 56:06Karen Kilgariff?

  He lied.

• 56:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And even he, he's in this documentary for a minute being all like sheepish and he's like, well, I think he served his time. You could tell. He's like, oh shit, I did not think he would get stuck in prison.

• 56:15Karen Kilgariff?

  A life sentence. So that, oh.

• 56:18Georgia Hardstark?

  He does not disclose his financial stake in the outcome of the trial when he testifies. So that immediately is.

• 56:25Karen Kilgariff?

  This smells like making a murderer.

• 56:26Georgia Hardstark?

  It does, but nobody died. So Jimmy's granted a new trial when it comes to light that the prosecution had not shared all of their witnesses with the defense in advance, but Jimmy's conviction and sentence are both upheld at the new trial. I think the town and the people in the surrounding area were so angry and so upset that they wanted to blame someone.

• 56:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 56:45Georgia Hardstark?

  They found him. Yeah, he's a scapegoat.

• 56:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And I mean, even if no one died, the amount of, of damage and cost.

• 56:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Devastation.

• 56:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so devastating.

• 56:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Personally, I don't think he did anything. To cause a huge levee to collapse has to be more than one person could do.

• 57:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. I mean, I just tried to picture it where I'm like, so if he has like a box cutter and he's slicing open the sandbags, like how would he single-handedly do it?

• 57:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Yeah. So while he's in prison, his two biggest advocates are his mother and the journalist Adam Pitluck that I mentioned. He writes a book laying out the case for Jimmy's innocence and appears in the Vice documentary. And also the other one is his mother Sharon. On the criminal episode, she says, quote, "There's only two that know what happened that night and nobody's going to change my mind. That is God almighty and Jim. Everything happens for a reason. But me and the river don't get along. As far away from the river I can stay, I'm happy," end quote. And she just talks to him every day and is just like on his side, trying to get him back.

• 57:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you telling me he's still in jail?

• 57:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh. He's 56 years old now, when he was 23, and he's been in prison since 1993. He's taken every class available to him and trained service dogs.

• 58:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 58:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Come on. After a few delays, he's finally scheduled to have his first parole hearing at the end of this month.

• 58:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wow.

• 58:11Georgia Hardstark?

  July 2026.

• 58:12Karen Kilgariff?

  God.

• 58:13Georgia Hardstark?

  As of the Vice documentary, which was made in 2019, he did not plan to apologize for causing the flood at his hearing, which would, he takes responsibility and they'd be more likely to parole him, especially because nobody was hurt. But he refuses to do it because he's adamant that he didn't do anything wrong and he will not take blame for something that he didn't do.

• 58:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 58:33Georgia Hardstark?

  "I have a past that I am not proud of, but when it comes to the West Quincy levy, I'm sorry for what people lost. I'm sorry for what we went through as a community, but for me to go in there and say, I'm sorry for something I've never done, I can't do it," end quote. Jimmy's biggest advocate, his mother Sharon, passes away in 2019 without getting to see her son free. And that is the story of Jimmy Scott and the great 1993 Mississippi River Flood. So clickbait.

• 59:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 59:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Behind the clickbait.

• 59:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Behind the clickbait and the real story.

• 59:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, because what the fuck is the partying thing? He did it to party and so he goes to jail for life.

• 59:13Georgia Hardstark?

  The whole argument too is like, okay, if he did it, which a lot of people, including me, don't think he did, that's too long of a sentence. That doesn't make any sense.

• 59:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 59:23Georgia Hardstark?

  But I really don't think he had anything to do. You know, there's no proof that he did. They couldn't prove he did anyways.

• 59:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 59:30Georgia Hardstark?

  So he shouldn't even have been sentenced.

• 59:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, it's that if it is what you're saying, it's like corruption at the highest and most kind of evil level.

• 59:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 59:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Just let that guy go.

• 59:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And be in jail forever.

• 59:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 59:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Whew. Good one.

• 59:45Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not a good one. I was excited to do that one.

• 59:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that was great.

• 59:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, thank you.

• 59:50Karen Kilgariff?

  This is, I would say in our top 7,000 episodes, wouldn't you?

• 59:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I hope I have an update for you at the end of the month that he like

• 59:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 59:59Georgia Hardstark?

  gets out or something.

• 1:00:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. I can't wait to hear.

• 1:00:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Karen Kilgariff?

  That's very exciting.

• 1:00:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, thank you for listening to that.

• 1:00:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, listener and watcher, thank you for listening. We genuinely have gratitude.

• 1:00:13Georgia Hardstark?

  You're like a levy, an unbreakable levy to us.

• 1:00:16Karen Kilgariff?

  To us.

• 1:00:17Georgia Hardstark?

  In our hearts and souls.

• 1:00:18Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. Stay sexy.

• 1:00:21Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:00:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:00:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:00:34Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right Production.

• 1:00:35Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:00:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lassaveto.

• 1:00:41Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 1:00:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:00:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:00:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 1:00:52Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:00:56Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

• 1:00:59Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:01:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  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 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star trust pilot 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.

• 1:01:37Speaker 07

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from an original Medicare loan, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest.

• 1:02:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh, I scammed them.

• 1:02:20Speaker 07

  What?

• 1:02:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 1:02:22Speaker 07

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