William Morgan & Our Favorite Murder (with Karen and Georgia of My Favorite Murder)

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark are True Crime Royalty. They join Ed to unravel the mystery of William Morgan - one of the earliest American missing persons cases with massive political ramifications. Was it a case of bribery or... murder?? Listen to find out what the expert hosts of My Favorite Murder have to say about this eerie case. And stay tuned throughout the summer for updates on more SNAFU goodies! Watch today's episode on our SNAFU YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod http://www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  He was arrested one final time, this time for borrowing a shirt and tie from a local pub owner and just not giving it back.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  It's really rude.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Again.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  So rude.

• 0:10Speaker 02

  So arrested for being a bad friend?

• 0:12Speaker 00

  Not even a bad friend, just like a mildly annoying friend.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of typical friend. Can you just give it back?

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Typical friend.

• 0:30Speaker 03

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:34Speaker 04

  Pumpkin carving sounds fun, until you're elbow deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition: Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.

• 1:03Speaker 05

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• 2:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to Snafu, the podcast about history's greatest screw ups. I'm your host, Ed Helms, of course, and each episode I cover an enormous screw up from history. We talk through all the absurdity, have a few laughs along the way, and search for meaning in humanity's ongoing commitment to terrible decisions. My guests today are true podcast goats. They are podcast royalty. Their show launched in 2016. It is a top of the charts behemoth. This dynamic duo has covered infamous serial killers, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories, and important events throughout

• 2:46Speaker 00

  history. They've recorded over 1,149 episodes and counting. And to top it all off, you can now catch them on Netflix. If you're a self-professed murderino, then you already know precisely who I'm talking about. It is the co-hosts of my favorite murder. Welcome to Snafu, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Thank you. So glad to have you guys. I think we connected in Austin at an iHeart event. Is that right?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Karen, I think I met you a long time before that because I was going to see a lot of comedy and then before I started doing stand-up comedy in the very early 2000s in New York City, which is where you started. Am I wrong?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I actually technically started in Sacramento, California.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Then went to San Francisco, then came to LA. I've done stand-up in New York, but I never did it. I was not there.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  You never part of the New York scene?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  But you did like Luna Lounge. Do you remember that eating it show?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Yes, I got to do a couple of cool shows because I was friends with New York comics, and so I kind of lucked out in that way.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  But, but it was always such a nerve-wracking, like it was the real deal. Whereas like LA, you could be beautiful, you could be, you know, you could be all these other things and it would kind of add to your act and you could talk about local stuff and be like, hey, did you see that car chase? But New York was the realest. Tough.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Well, I remember you from back then and, and seeing that, that eating it show at the Luna Lounge was legendary and it was, it was a tough crowd.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Was that the show that Patrice O'Neal was on? If you can remember.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, Patrice was on it a lot. Marc Maron and Todd Barry and David Cross and so many, so many great people. Janine Garofalo.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, I'm so glad that you remember that show and positively, because I remember walking off the stage there and being like, thank God. Like, all I wanted to do is just not eat it and not be bad.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the name of the show was Eating It. The name of the show was Eating It. It's like a threat to the comics who are getting on stage.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  This is about to happen to you and just get ready for it.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  So, so cool. Yeah. Georgia, your background is not comedy per se, right?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Journalism, no. Comedy, no. I was in the audience for all those comedy shows. Like, I used to go in the early 2000s to like Largo and watch Karen and all the amazing comics. But yeah, I started writing about food and then my friend and I made up a fake cocktail, made a video for it called the McNuggetini and it went viral and I haven't had a desk job since. It's been 15 years. So that's just my hustle.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  I love that. I love that. So what was the origin of your friendship? How did you guys connect?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  It was like, the, the wide out version was I was working on a talk show at, at the time that Georgia's husband Vince, who is a stand-up also from New York, all of his friends were writers on it. So I kind of got into this writer friend group of all those people and then met Georgia basically at the hangouts there. And she was of course hilarious and fun to talk to, but then also it was the same time as like The Staircase, The Jinx, all those huge Making a Murderer were coming out. And we got into a conversation one night about The Staircase that it literally hasn't ended for 10 years. It's crazy, but it is that thing, like at the time, finding another person to talk

• 6:23Speaker 02

  to about it wasn't that common. It was, it was a little more of like a hidden hobby, especially for the ladies, I think.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  That's so funny. I, cause my next question was like, how, how did you discover in each other, this like affinity for murder? And, and I have this running joke with some of my comedy buddies from way back about like two serial killers at a party trying to like suss each other out if they're like, and they're like down to go commit a murder.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  So they're kind of like, hey, man, do you like to party? It's like, well, yeah, I like to party. No, I mean, party.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  You mean, you mean like go like do drugs and like, no, man, I mean, party. Like, and they eventually get to like, you mean murder? Like, yeah, man, let's go do.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's essentially what happened. If you, if, except, instead of murder, it's 10 years of podcasting, you know?

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  So that's interchangeable.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Thankfully, actual murder is not the interest and it's more.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  We hate it.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  No, no, that's, we're, we're completely against it. The, it was an ironic title that really bit us in the ass like three or four years later, when irony died entirely and people are like, well, it's wrong. It's wrong to have a favorite.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  But I knew that I was going to be friends with Georgia for a long time. The first time I was at like a Friendsgiving with her and forgive me for telling this story, but.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  No, I love it. I don't care.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  But Georgia did this thing where she, she doesn't like it when people are eating, but there's no conversation. So we're all just sitting in a guy's living room, eating Thanksgiving dinner, but kind of being quiet. And George is like, I can't take this. And then she, you basically kind of started belching as a joke, like a big belch. Do you remember that?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  I do.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  The first time you did it, I fucking started laughing. And then I was just like, yeah, it's that my people are here. Like, I don't have to be nervous because I didn't know the people that well. And I'm like, I'm with her. I'm with her.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll do anything for silent mastication not to be happening around me.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  That's a great bit to just start burping at dinner excessively. Uh, and I agree with you. When a large gathering kind of goes into just silent eating, it's, it's uncomfortable for everybody.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Hate it.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Way to go. I'm, I'm very impressed. And I wish I had been there to witness that. Well, let's dive in. Are you guys ready to snafu?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Good. I was very excited to have you on the show today because this story that we're going to get into, it kind of ticks all the boxes for both of our shows. It is both a snafu and it involves a murder. So it is what I like to call a snafurder.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  Which I think, I think is going to catch on.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Very, very catchy.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Really rolls off the tongue.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Well, today we're going back in time to the 19th century to unravel the unsolved kidnapping disappearance. And let's be honest, very likely murder of a man named William Morgan. Now, at first glance, this story feels like a pretty insignificant dusty little small town true crime oddity. Like it's just a drunk loudmouth who disappears after picking a fight with some powerful weirdos. But Morgan's disappearance actually detonated into one of the biggest public scandals in early American history, and it completely reshaped this country's political system in ways that we still feel today. But I am getting ahead of myself. Does the story of William Morgan ring any bells for either of you?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  I don't think we've done that.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Have we, Karen?

• 9:57Speaker 02

  No. And the second I heard political system, now I'm in a panic where I'm like, ooh.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  You know what? That's, that's not the story. That's just sort of like the aftermath. We don't have to get too, too deep into that.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  No, no, no quiz. Yeah, no testing on that.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  You just channeled all of America right now. All of America is just like civics, social studies. I got nothing.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Right now, all you need to know is that on the night of September 12th, 1826, William Morgan was locked in a jail cell, half drunk, and very much alive, it should be noted, in the town of Canandaigua, New York. Here's the reason Morgan was in the slammer. He owed an unpaid tavern debt of, drumroll please, $2.65.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Do we know today's money? That's her favorite bit. What is that?

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, so today's money, it's not even that much. It's $90, which is, which is pretty huge for a bar tab, I will say. But it's not like, it's not like put a guy in jail money. It feels like in the old days, people just like went to jail so frivolously. The whole premise of, of the musical Les Mis is that he stole a loaf of bread. The guy's being chased all over the fucking world.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  And it started the French Revolution. Wait a second, I do know something.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Hey, look at you.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Very well done. Well, the jails operator that evening was away and his wife, Mrs. Hall, was there to oversee the night shift. And that's when a handful of men showed up with a generous offer. They paid off Morgan's debt to bail him out. And they even threw in an extra five bucks, which is nearly double what he owed. And Mrs. Hall was like, all right, I'll take all this money. Sure. And she just let him go. And I'm wondering for you guys, is, is your true crime pattern recognition kicking in here? Like, like a bunch of guys just randomly bail out a dude from jail?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Or that somebody gets their wife to cover their shift?

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's like, I'm not gonna be there. I'm not gonna be there to answer for, for this. Like, maybe he was tipped off? Is that what you're saying? I hadn't, I hadn't even thought of that, but I like that angle.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  I mean, he's kind of like, here's the big ring of keys. You know, don't do anything I wouldn't do.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then he like, he walks around the corner and he's like, all right, guys, go for it.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Get in there, pay her off.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  If it's not already a neon blinking sign, like bad shit. About to happen. So William Morgan's spidey sense is very much also tingling at this moment and he tries to bolt. Uh, there was a brief scuffle and then he was lifted off his feet and thrown into a waiting carriage. Witnesses, including Mrs. Hall herself, later confirmed they heard him scream three times, murder, murder, murder, before the carriage disappeared into the night.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Do we know that he all, he didn't always yell that? That was just kind of his.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  We don't know that.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Thing.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Georgia, but I'm pretty sure I safely assume that.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  That's his bit. That's, that's that guy's bit.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. Everybody's just eating their food quietly. He's like murder, murder. This calls to mind the bystander effect, right? If somebody's screaming murder, um, and nobody's like intervening and you guys covered, didn't you talk about the Kitty Genovese story?

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Which is that horrible?

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Covered that.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  That's kind of like the, the, what everyone points to as the bystander effect example.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  The classic, like everyone thinks everyone, or everyone thinks someone else is going to take care of things.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  I guess you're supposed to yell fire because people will come a-running when there's a fire, but not when someone yells murder.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Should you say like, uh?

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Money?

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Money, free money.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Would that help? Free, free money everywhere.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Uh, that's a good one. I like that. Free kittens. All right. So after William Morgan was thrown into this carriage, he would never be seen or heard from again.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Ever. So what the hell happened to him in the dead of night? What was the motive? And who were these people who took him? Well, it turns out before this fateful night in jail, Morgan had recently announced his intention to publish a tell-all expose on a very old and extremely secretive organization, the Freemasons.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Oh shit. Yes. You can't say publicly that you're going to do that. You just have to do it, you know?

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Everyone I think has an association with the Freemasons. Um, there are Masonic temples still around that we see. They get rented for movie locations a lot. But apart from that, I don't have a ton of association. I'm curious where you guys connect with the Freemasons.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I mean,

• 14:55Speaker 00

  and please, one of you tell me that you are a Freemason.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  I'm on the fifth degree. I'm, I've killed many people for the, for the group.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  You're just an in-house hitman for the Freemasons.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  I'm in for all of it and more. Like, the idea that people figure out ways to get together and be secretive and like meet in a cave and just start, start doing like dastardly things is my favorite. I think that's like my favorite part of hu- human, the human habit where it's like, we'll all be in a society where we're hunter, hunting and gathering and that'll be great. But pretty soon, like six people are going to go off over there and start doing weird shit. And that is what I'm, I love it all.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  And try to exclude all the rest of us. Let's figure out a little bit more about William Morgan himself. Who was he? Well, there's not a ton of information on his early life, but we know he was born in Virginia around 1774. He worked as a stone cutter and a bricklayer. In 1819, he married Lucinda Pendleton, who at age 19 was nearly 25 years younger than William. They, they had two children and eventually moved to York, Upper Canada in search of job opportunities. York, of course, was a bustling little town that would eventually become Toronto. Up north, William opened a brewery and for a quick canok minute, he was thriving.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  But tragedy befell old Willie when his brewery caught fire and burned down, forcing him to sell off most of his possessions to clear his debt. Eventually, he relocated back into the United States in Batavia, New York, where he found work again as a bricklayer and stone cutter. Morgan was apparently a heavy drinker and by some accounts, a gambling addict, maybe. He was thought to indulge in the occasional tall tale as well. For example, he claimed to have served as a captain in the War of 1812, even though this was never corroborated or confirmed.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  I do say that a lot at like dinner parties.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  It's honestly, it's a great flex and it's, and it's even better when it can't be corroborated.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Before the internet.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Right. There's no internet in the, in the 1800s. So it's like, you can just say shit and people are like, whoa. And if you're confident enough, like, yeah, it just, it works.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  You're like, hey, it's me from upper Canada and.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  I think that was, I think where he did come from was a site of heavy fighting during the war of 1812. So it's not, it's not impossible. Maybe it's true. There, there were historical records show that there were a number of William Morgans that served in during the war of 1812, although none of them had the rank of captain. But who knows, you know, the record keeping.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think the gambling, the drinking and the tall tale telling is just like, we know who this guy is.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Yes, right.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  He lived nearby. He would tell the story himself about those guys. And after a while he was in the story too.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Totally, totally. So, but to your point, accounts of Morgan's personality vary depending on the source. Some claim that he was, you know, pretty gregarious and friendly, maybe even a bit charismatic. A bit of a good time Charlie. Others say that he was nothing but pathetic alcoholic and a liar. And a con artist. So it's hard to know what's really accurate here. Probably a little from column A, a little from column B.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Aren't we all though, you know?

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  We contain multitudes.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  We do.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  He probably.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  We are so multitudinous. I agree. He, this guy strikes me as one of those guys who's super fun for like three hours.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  And only while you're drinking too, as much as he's drinking.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  That's right. He won't be quiet at a, at a fucking Thanksgiving dinner. I'll guarantee it.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Well, his penchant for tall tales must have garnered him some sympathetic ears. In 1825, Morgan began telling his neighbors that while he'd been up in Canada running his brewery, he had also been initiated into the Freemasons as a master mason. He had no documentation to prove this, but again, people believed him, or at least they believed him enough. And he was soon granted an advanced royal arch degree at the Western Star Chapter Number 33 in Leroy, New York. Okay, now let's talk about the Freemasons. Like, let's get a little bit of context on these guys at this time. They trace their origins back to 17th century England and Scotland.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  I think it actually goes way back even before that to like when Gothic cathedrals were being built and the masons would kind of form these, uh, these very tight, uh, communities. But the Freemasons as a, as a concept sort of goes back to the 1600s in England and Scotland, where they, uh, they began as a guild for the craftsmen who built the castles and cathedrals, of course. Now, working far from home and alongside so many strangers, these tradespeople developed secret handshakes and private rituals and coded signals to verify who was trustworthy and to protect their trade knowledge. There's something really interesting too about this, which is that cathedrals at that

• 20:20Speaker 00

  time were so mind blowing. It's like, if you're a peasant and you come into a town and you see a fucking cathedral, it's like, who put this here? God put this here?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  And then they're like, actually, it was those guys over there. And then you're like, those people are magical! And then that sort of narrative locks in and then the masons themselves kind of co-opt that intrigue and that mystery and-

• 20:51Speaker 01

  They run with it.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Also, anyone that's ever had a really good contractor understands that that is from God, right? Where you're just like, you can fix this thing that's been sitting in my house broken for four years.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  That's so funny because you've just opened up a huge, um- Cognitive dissonance for me because I'm so frustrated and angry at contractors like so often. And yet I'm also, just to your point, I'm like, you guys are magical. Like, how do you do this?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  It's the withholding.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  That's right. And if you just knew that secret handshake, they would do the job for you correctly in two days.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  And probably for free.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  And for free.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Hence the Freemasons.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  What's interesting is, over time, the actual stone mason work stopped being a requirement, and the organization evolved into more of a fraternal brotherhood built around shared values: philanthropy, moral character, and brotherhood. In other words, it was, as Slate Magazine called it, "a social club for the well-to-do." By the mid-1700s, Freemasonry had become a genuine status symbol and a way to gain entrance into high society. The membership list reads like a who's who of Western history: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, 13 of the 39 men who signed the Constitution, a third of all

• 22:13Speaker 00

  US presidents, Winston Churchill, Buzz Aldrin, Harry Houdini, the founders of Wendy's and JCPenney, Steve Wozniak. We're getting so random now.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Love those guys.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  Steve Wozniak and Shaquille O'Neal.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Interesting detail there.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Wow. And also Nicolas Cage.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yes, of course.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  He's a man.

• 22:37Speaker 04

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• 25:07Speaker 00

  It's worth noting, in the sort of late 1700s, when we're talking, when like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were prominent Freemasons, it really was more of a, it wasn't so bent on secrecy, and it was more of this social fraternal organization that really espoused good values and leadership. And it really, it really was something that I think members were like, here's a set of values that we think we should all strive for, even though obviously no one's perfect. It's sort of like, we want to just be meaningful members and contributors to our society. That evolved over time, and the secrecy and the rituals

• 25:51Speaker 00

  and all that sort of became a little more prominent and a little more dodgy. And so by the, by the, like, where we are now in the 1820s, it had gotten, I don't know, maybe a little bit more...

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Sexy?

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Sketchy?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Sexy and sketchy?

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. A little from column A, a little from column B. Exactly. Now, what never changed through it all is the Freemasons' absolute commitment to this secrecy and ritual, which helped to keep their disparate members united in their shared pack. And some of those early rituals were pretty, you know, ritualistic, shall we say. There was one where they drank wine from a human skull, and, which sounds kind of almost quaint from a ritual standpoint now, but, but given like, health and safety standards of the time.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  You're holding up this skull. Who rinsed this? Did anybody rinse it or go over it?

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Well, also, rinsing is the equivalent to what we now would think was like, did anyone disinfect this? And like, back then, they're just like, did anyone rinse it out?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  How fresh? How fresh is it? And like, do we want it to be fresh? Or do we want it to, who knows?

• 27:06Speaker 00

  So, it's no surprise, a lot of intrigue and suspicion surrounded these guys. You've got high-profile members, all the secrets, the links with the social elite. It's just ripe for conspiracy theory. Do you think these kinds of rituals, these kind of hazing rituals, obviously fraternities are now very much associated with this kind of thing. And the theory is that when you, when you sort of put someone through... Or put a group of people through something very sort of toxic and difficult, that it has a bonding effect, and that that's the value that you get out of it,

• 27:47Speaker 00

  even when it's just intentionally degrading, or violent, or brutal. I don't know, what do you, what do you, is there, is there any-

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Kind of like this podcast that Karen and I have bonded over, my favorite murder.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  The difference there, though, is that in the list that you gave, Ed, there's no girls listed. So I think this is a thing where it's like, not to get super gendery, but I think if you, you leave too many boys alone in a room together, they go a little crazy. If no mom opens that door and goes, everybody get down from there, they just will keep getting up on stuff to the, to their own detriment. And I think that's, like, that's the beauty of secrets and secret societies, where it's like, we share a thing, no one else knows, that feels very like you belong somewhere. But it can go wrong so easily and quickly, because the whole idea is you don't get to tell anybody. So then you're, then, and also, I think for men, it's like, you have to be tough.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  You can't not like things, you can't have a problem with things, you're the toughest one. So then everybody's like, having to expand their levels of torture. You've heard those stories of like, what fraternities do to haze, and they're absolutely insane.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  And meanwhile, sororities are like, let's hug each other and like, paint our nails, and be friends with people.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  My five-year-old this morning, I don't know how or why, but for some reason, she just launched into a list of reasons why women are better than men. And I was like, you know what?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  All of the things you just said are true. You're making a real good case.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love it. Sort of morally.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  And secret societies might be the, one of the biggest arguments against dude leader, like, just constant dude leadership. I'm not against dude leadership as like, a thing that, that happens everyone, but like, does it have to be always that? No. Okay.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  I checked, yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Somebody, get somebody in there that is, when you start doing your weird secret society stuff, they're gonna go, I'm sorry, what? Hold on. You need a loud lady.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Or just someone who's gonna be like, ew, ew. No, that's gross. Like drinking wine out of a scum and skull in the 1800s. Ew.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Put that down.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Put it down.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Wash your hands. What's happening?

• 30:08Speaker 00

  By 1826, just a year after being welcomed into these Masonic circles, he had turned on them entirely, announcing his plan to publish a book exposing their secret rituals to the world. Naturally, the Freemasons were not thrilled about this, and that's right where our story starts to get super dark. Here's the thing about William Morgan. He didn't set out to burn the Freemasons down, at least not at first. When he initially joined, Morgan wanted to expand access to the organization. He started trying to establish new Masonic chapters around Batavia, which to the senior members who'd spent years carefully cultivating this exclusive brotherhood, that came across as a bit presumptuous and maybe a little wrong-headed.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  It's sort of like the secret society equivalent of showing up at your first day at a new job and being like, "You know what? We gotta change some stuff around here."

• 31:01Speaker 02

  For real.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Especially in a secret society where you're just like, "I've got big ideas mostly about expansion and optics. Let's get out there in the public."

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude. We just let you in."

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Bro.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  I mean, you're a good time. You're fun, but like...

• 31:21Speaker 02

  You tell a good story, but shut up.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, but shut it. So, the men who mattered within the lodge never really warmed up to old William Morgan. Now, whether that was due to his grandiose personality, his drinking, the general sense that he was overstepping, or the fact that he may have been lying about his Masonic credentials in the first place.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  You've just gotta admit, this guy had audacity. And he may have been the guy you want to just grab by the shoulders and be like, "Yo, Morgie, read the room, buddy."

• 31:56Speaker 02

  It feels like that proves that his credentials are fake because it's how did you get into a secret society when this is the kind of personality that you're coming in with?

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, although I do kind of like his angle, like maybe he's sort of like, what's, why we got to be so secret? Like, come on, let's have, let's open this up.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  I think most guys like that start their own little cult, though, you know, instead of trying to expand on someone else's, maybe?

• 32:19Speaker 02

  He was too early. He had that Starbucks energy and it didn't make sense back then. You know, one on every corner, let's do this thing.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  He would have thrived today, today in a Starbucks, in a Starbucks world.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  The final blow for Morgan within the Masonic establishment came without warning. There was a petition to establish a new lodge that was formally presented to the Freemasons' Grand Chapter by other more prominent Batavian Masons. Morgan's name had been quietly removed from this petition and then to add insult to injury, he was just cut off from the chapter entirely. Now, at this point, a reasonable person might reflect on the cold shoulders and the closed doors and the, and, and just conclude like this particular secret society was just not the right fit. And William Morgan was not that person. He was not that guy.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  That's not our guy.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  I think he may, I think he may have been like pissed or, or hurt or some combination of, but there's a lot of, there's shame and rage going on here.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's an 1800s Karen, it sounds like. He's just gonna get in there and ask to see the manager of the Masons.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  Exactly. He's a Chad.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Our boy is not going down that a fight.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. By summer of 1826, Morgan had partnered with a newspaper publisher named David Cade Miller, and together they announced plans to publish a tell-all exposé called Illustrations of Masonry, a detailed account of everything Morgan had witnessed in the lodges. Priced at a dollar a copy and promoted heavily, the book would, according to historian A.P. Bentley, writing in 1874, disclose the, quote, "secrets of masonry in hopes to make a fortune out of the gaping curiosity of the vulgar."

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  That's me.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Right. That's kind of a harsh term for just being like a curious member of society.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  I just want to know what weird shit you're doing behind closed doors with those outfits on.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Why does that make me vulgar?

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you make some stuff up along the way, like, how would we know?

• 34:29Speaker 02

  All the better.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, that does, that's an interesting connection, Georgia. Like, maybe the Masons weren't just afraid of their secrets getting out. They were afraid of Morgan making shit up.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Because that's the problem with secrets. If no one knows, you can pretty much say anything you want.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. And that's, that's, that's really the, the, the freeway for conspiracy theories, right? Like, that's why, that's why there's conspiracy theories are just so, so damn fun.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  For people. Because you can't prove them wrong.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Right. And it taps that thing of like, imagine if, imagine if when these doors close, all these weird old 60 year old men are doing like, are doing like witch spells or something where it's like, what? It's like goes into the realm of fantasy almost.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. There's always something a little bit sassy and fun about the whistleblower who's also like, like, I'm gonna burn it down and I'm gonna profit off of this. So.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Enjoy. Just watch, watch the bonfire.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  He is like, you, you do have to be in a true iconoclast to do that where you're just like, it's, I'm, I'm here, I'm a visionary, I'm gonna be the one. No one, everyone else is a joiner. I'm a, I'm an exploder kind of vibe.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Maybe they should have like, you know, waited a little bit to confirm that someone wasn't a snitch. Before they told them everything about skulls and, yeah, you know.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Hey, guys, maybe in our vetting process, we filter out the, the drunken gambling addicts. Like, that feels like a liability.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  I mean, then everyone would be gone.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Totally. That's really, that's what makes him one of us. I mean, let's be honest. Needless to say, the uber influential Freemasons were pissed.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  About all of this, almost immediately, things started going sideways. Miller's print shop was hit by a series of mysterious fires. Miller blamed the Masons for sabotage. Others, however, suspected Morgan himself was setting these fires convinced that a little chaos might drum up some buzz ahead of the book's fall launch. Uh, which, how funny is that? Like, that's so modern.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  That's so modern, yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Um, and the fact that people would call him out and be like, "That's fake, you're faking it."

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  You're just trying to get, get your name in the papers.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Uh, maybe it's based on how big were the fires? Was it just in the corner of the shop? And then it's like, it was definitely him. It's like, how much burned, how much loss was there?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Right. Did any of your books get burned? No, not a single one?

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Although the Freemasons also had like, serious motive here.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  So, yeah, it's, so, so if it was a false flag, it was a damn shrewd one. It was, it was very well thought out.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Those Masons are protecting, like, hundreds of years of, of that ritual.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  By September, Morgan had become what the Masons considered a serious liability. And it turns out, when you anger a fraternal organization with deep ties to local law enforcement, minor inconveniences start finding you at an impressive frequency. Uh, old Morgie was arrested multiple times that month on a rotating carousel of small charges. And, uh, nobody was lining up to vouch for him. He was always released, however, this was clearly like a harassment campaign. That is, until September 11th, 1826, when he was arrested one final time, this time for borrowing a shirt and tie from a local pub owner, and just not giving it back.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  It's really rude.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Again.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  So rude.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  So arrested for being a bad friend?

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  That doesn't make sense.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Honestly, honestly, not even a bad friend, just like a mildly annoying friend.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of typical friend.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Can you just give it back?

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Typical friend. Are you guys, are you calling each other out in this moment? Does someone have somebody else's scarf?

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Georgia has my tie and I'm furious about it.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  All right. This larceny charge was quietly dropped, but that is when this separate bar tab of $2.65 since materialized just in time to keep him there overnight. And then the following day, September 12th, shit got gray. That is the night of the aforementioned abduction when he screamed murder, murder, murder. And we actually have an artistic rendering of this moment.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Let's take a look.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  See, did you draw this?

• 39:04Speaker 00

  No.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. They're really hustling him into that carriage, aren't they?

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Someone has a lantern, the horses.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  How can he yell murder if he's gagged? Hmm. It's like every Scooby Doo episode where it's like, oh yeah, that doesn't completely silence the person, just put some cloth right there.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  And although, unless there's a ball in there. In which case this got real saucy.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, then it goes crazy.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  You can tell the horses are agitated.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  They're very upset.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  And they know, they have that sixth sense.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  The horses are like, this guy's a bullshitter. Don't let him in this carriage.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  After the abduction, Morgan's wife Lucinda and his publishing buddy Miller demanded an investigation. Go Lucinda. All right. And what followed?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  19 year old Lucinda.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, at this point, she's a little older, but what followed was one of the most damning public scandals the Freemasons had ever faced. 54 lodge members were indicted for Morgan's kidnapping, 10 were convicted, and at least four were handed prison sentences ranging from one month to two years. But because no one could confirm exactly what happened to Morgan, there were no consequences for his likely murder. The question of whether he was even dead remained technically unanswered. The Masons had stayed quiet. The trail had gone cold and the court's hands were tied.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  That's an interesting thing of that it's all the powerful people and then he gets arrested and actually brought to trial where it's like the judge is here, then the judge is overseeing the trial, now the judge is on trial because it's like those are all, that's why that's such a good system is like all the power, the power retains itself. So like

• 40:51Speaker 00

  You mean good for them?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Good for the Masons.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Good for the Masons, it's good for the good old boys.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  They got someone on every, you know.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, they run all of the institutions.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  So like whether it's the courts, the prisons, the legal system, the, you know, the banks, like they got, they had all the, all the cheddar, it's all working for them.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  They get all the secrets.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Maybe they just threw him on a ship though to like Europe and

• 41:18Speaker 02

  He went and started a new life.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Take a vacation.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Right?

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, who knows? It's interesting, the, the level of institutional discipline that was on display here, like they never, the Masons were so tight lipped about all of this and the people who did actually serve time, that was for the kidnapping, it was not for the murder. They couldn't, there was no, no way to verify he was murdered. So all of this, all of this crazy effort on the part of the Freemasons did not manage to stop the book from being released. Miller, Miller published it anyway in 1827. Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Can we get that book? I want that book so bad.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  You can.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  You can.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, illustrations of, of Masonry.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  I got so excited.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  You can get that book. I think it's, it's, the contents are fairly lame by 21st century standards, but at the time it was, this book was extremely scandalous and it was a bestseller, which only fanned the flames of speculation around Morgan's disappearance. So again, like we're in way upstate western New York, around the Finger Lakes of New York, which is like, like rural today. So at that time, it's kind of the hinterlands of American settlement and, and yet this, so you would think this is like kind of like a local dispute, a local crime.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  But it's blowing up, in part because this book really catches fire. And in the months that followed, two competing theories emerged. The first circulated by several masons was that Morgan had been taken across the border into Canada and paid $500 to disappear permanently and never return to the US. Georgia, you nailed that. The second theory was a lot darker. According to this account, the New York masons had attempted to hand Morgan off to their Canadian counterparts, who refused to get involved and left with no other option. The New York men weighted Morgan down with stones and dropped him into the Niagara River. This was not just an idle rumor. Several masons maintained it was the truth until their dying days, including a man named

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Henry L. Valance, who claimed direct knowledge of Morgan's fate and named the Niagara River as his final resting place.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Got Hoffa vibes.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  It's so extreme, though. It's like, you guys are, you got together because you're bricklayers and plasterers, and you can build amazing stuff. Now you're knocking people off to keep your secret handshake a secret. It just is so, it's, they're out over their skis. I'm sorry to be judgmental of the masons, but I don't like this at all.

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• 46:21Speaker 00

  Apparently they were having lots of meetings in the lead up to this. There's accounts of these meetings where they had really cryptic conversations where they, so they weren't like on the record as being like, let's murder this guy. But it was very clear what they were talking about. It's just like, wasn't there someone there to just be like, ew, guys, ew.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Come on. Bad.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Also, when the book comes out, like, nothing really interesting comes to light. So maybe they just didn't fucking, excuse me.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Well, it was interesting at the time.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  It was like, again, it was a very salacious, top-selling book at the time.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  And maybe they knew the secret that they thought he was gonna be, like, maybe the secret that they thought he was gonna expose was way worse. He just didn't know it. So it isn't in the book.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  I like that there, ooh.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Right? There's a little, maybe this is origins of baby eating, I'm sorry to say. But like, something real creepy that, you know, culturally comes up every 20 years, where it's like, you know, the satanic panic or these things that happen culturally. The witch hunts.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Freemason files.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Karen, you just, you just birthed a conspiracy and I'm here for it.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Be careful, Karen. Watch your back. All of a sudden, I'm just, you know too much.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Needless to say, the courts failed to deliver justice, but the court of public opinion was a different story. The trial and the rumors surrounding it had done real damage to the Freemasons' public perception, and not just in New York, but all across the country. Suddenly, they were no longer chic, and their integrity was widely questioned. But this anti-Masonic sentiment wasn't just a flashpoint in time. We're about to see how far-reaching this would become, and how it would change America's political landscape forever. You ready for this part? Okay. This is gonna get a little civics-y, I'm just gonna warn you, but not too much.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Not too much. So William Morgan's book wasn't the only anti-Masonic book to be released, and this next one caused a serious stir. In 1829, a minister named Elder David Bernard became the Freemasons' next great headache. Bernard had climbed 15 degrees within the organization before his own investigation into Morgan's disappearance left him so disturbed that he walked away entirely, and then wrote a book about it, complete with a posthumous portrait of William Morgan. Say what you want about this man's methods, but he understood marketing. William Morgan's murder had become very sensational. So, what really set this book apart were Bernard's

• 49:03Speaker 00

  firsthand accounts of confronting his superiors about Morgan's fate. What they told him was chilling. According to Bernard, one Mason had informed him five weeks before the abduction that multiple meetings had already been held to decide what to do about Morgan, that his writing was, in the Mason's words, "The greatest piece of depravity he ever knew, that some measures must be taken to stop it, that he would be one of a number to put him out of the way." So, America had quite a response when this book came out, and again, not favorable to the Masons. Mason-owned newspapers were boycotted. Political candidates with Masonic ties watched their numbers collapse. The backlash was swift.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Swift and massive. By 1828, anti-Mason candidates were winning elections across the board, and even sitting President John Quincy Adams felt compelled to publicly declare that he had never been and would never be a Freemason, which I, I just think it's so funny when a president has to publicly distance himself from a social circle.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Right? It feels, it's like the 1830s version of, "I have never met Jeffrey Epstein or hung out with him in any way."

• 50:20Speaker 01

  It's making me really sad, honestly, that these people are getting all these consequences for things that like, aren't that bad by today's standards, you know?

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  We've gone consequence free.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, there, there's, I mean, one of the things that might set our shows apart is that a lot of murders go unsolved and whatnot, but in a lot of murders, like, people go to jail. In the stories I cover, accountability is virtually nonexistent. Like, snafus, big blunders, the big mistakes throughout history, like, people just bury it.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  They walk away.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  Or walk away, or they're just people who have such extraordinary power already that, that they can't be held accountable.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Which kind of feels like part of it, because when it's like a secret society where they have all the power, but it's such a small group, doesn't society always kind of want to get rid of those? It's like they're waiting for that, you know, that takedown. It's also very modern day, the internet attack or whatever, where it's like...

• 51:20Speaker 00

  We love a good, a good collapse.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  The OG cancel culture.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Right. Well, and that's what happened. The lodges, the Masonic lodges started to close, and there had been roughly 450 of them in 1825. By 1830, fewer than 82 remained in the country. And out of the wreckage emerged something that would permanently alter the architecture of American politics. Anti-Masonic sentiment grew so large that its proponents formed their own political party called the Anti-Masonic Party.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  It's pretty on the nose, right? But it is actually still very, very significant to this day. The Anti-Masonic Party was the first official third party in our nation's history. It was a genuine alternative to Andrew Jackson's Democrats and the National Republicans, soon to be the Whigs. They even organized the country's first ever presidential nominating convention in 1830, which is now a tradition that both major parties follow and have followed ever since. I'm pretty sure William Morgan would have been psyched about that.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Right?

• 52:28Speaker 02

  He made, he made a lasting effect.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Maybe he was, from Canada, really excited about it.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just up there in Canada, watching all this, like, yeah. Right on. Well, the Anti-Masonic Party had a remarkable run. It was also short-lived. As it turned out, shared outrage over the Freemasons was not quite enough to hold a political coalition together. Once the initial fury began to cool, the party found it had little else in common, and it fractured accordingly. The Anti-Masonic Party technically still exists today, but it has never again come close to the influence it held in those early years. This is also very modern, in a way. The Anti-Masons were wildly successful at channeling public rage, less successful at

• 53:14Speaker 00

  the whole forming a coherent political identity beyond hating others, which feels like also a moment we're in, right?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 53:25Speaker 00

  Rage is a very powerful, powerful force. It's also driving our social media, like, the big tech companies basically are exploiting our rage, right?

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's how they get you, and then you're somehow, you're immediately paying for something or buying something, or that reaction is like getting you in that way.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Exactly. Well, as for old Willie Morgan himself, nobody ever found out what truly happened to him. In the years that followed his disappearance, unverified sightings trickled in. Some claimed to have spotted him traveling through the Ottoman Empire. Others, others swore, "I saw, I saw him, I saw him."

• 54:02Speaker 02

  He was on top of an elephant.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  He had a thread, he had a string in his mouth, and he was yelling murder.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was walking along the top of the Great Wall, I swear, I saw him. Uh, that's so funny to me. Just like they saw him in the Ottoman, traveling through the Ottoman Empire. Others swore he'd turned up in the Cayman Islands, living as a pirate. Of course, this is the famed Captain Morgan.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  I mean, it's not. That actual pirate, that is a real pirate who, who has an actual story, uh, but.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  And some nice rum.

• 54:36Speaker 00

  I think some people, yeah, so yummy rum. But I think, I think this sort of got convoluted with, into that. And then there's of course the Niagara River Theory, which, um, which several people actually maintained to their death. And, uh, in, in my very amateur historian view is prob, is the most plausible, right? He was just dumped in the river.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  You don't think they would have found some trace of him? I mean.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Well, I, you know, I skipped over this before, but they, they, a body did wash up. Um, and Lucinda, it was like a year later, so badly decomposed. But, um, but Lucinda said, yeah, that is him. I can tell by his teeth. And, uh, but then another woman was like, eh, no, sorry, honey. That's my husband. Uh, I can tell by the clothes he's wearing and the fact that he has a full head of hair. And, um, and our guy was bald. So, um, that's not very conclusive. I don't know. The Niagara River is huge.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  Also, what if it's the like stone mason, bricklayer thing where they knew, they know exactly what kind of stones to weight a body down with to make it disappear forever mafia style?

• 55:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. This is so my favorite murder of you. Like I love how you're thinking.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  I'm just like.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  You're like, they knew how to do it.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  They knew. And you're acting like they didn't get together every Tuesday night to talk about how to murder. That's what the secret was.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  But I carry it. I love that you also said like, they knew what stones to use.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Right?

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Cause like, like if you want to hold down a body, you gotta use granite. You can't use sandstone. It's not gonna work.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  No promise. You can't have holes in the stones. We know that.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  All of our-

• 56:29Speaker 00

  Forget it. It's gotta be igneous. It can't be volcanic. Whatever it is.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  Geologists, back us up here. Georgia does cold cases a lot and I've been trained to be like, well, maybe I'll fix it. Maybe I'll solve it or whatever. Cause it's just like, it's so frustrating when you don't get to have that kind of like, and then these four stones were found near this thing, whatever. You don't get to have that nice, solid ending.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Well, the truth in this case is disappeared with William Morgan. We can never know for sure what happened. The only clear lesson of all of it is if you borrow a shirt and a tie from a bartender, make sure you return it.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Truly.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  There's a lot of people right now who are packing up their shirt and ties that they borrowed. I love the idea that you're in a, you're in a tavern somewhere and you're getting so drunk that your shirt and your tie are gone and you have no idea how to get them back. And you're just like, please just give me one of yours. I have to go outside.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  That's the story. I just have a couple of like wrap up questions for you. In a kind of a weird way, it appears the Masons may have pulled off what was functionally a nearly perfect crime.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  Witnesses intimidated, local power structures aligned, no body, no murder conviction. From your perspective, what actually makes a perfect crime possible? Is it the, is it like the planning and the intelligence? Or is it all luck? Is it having those levers of institutional power? Timing, like what, what is it? What, what makes a perfect crime? And I'm not asking because I want to commit one. I'm just saying theoretically.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  We know firsthand.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  If you wanted to write it down, step by step, that'd be great.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Telling as few people as possible because people talk.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  You can't get people to shut up, even in the Masons, I'm sure. You know, there's always a loose thread.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  But these are the people, they're so good at keeping secrets.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, they are. This is like part of their culture. So in that sense, like if you're gonna have a group onboard something like make sure it's one that already values secrecy, right?

• 58:44Speaker 02

  And already has the handshakes pre-choreographed. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I also think there's like back then, well, compared to now, obviously, but much easier because I think those like, first of all, they had the, they were centered in the power as the Masons. They had like, hey, I know the mayor, I know the judge, I know this lawyer, whatever. So they had those people kind of in place. So it's like, I know a guy, I own the lumber mill and we have an incinerator there. We have this, like those kinds of things. Now I'm planning them.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. This gets real specific.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Thrown in theories.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, just making it up off the top of my head.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  That idea where there's like, you've got people with connections willing to all be in on the secret.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Right. And then when everyone's a little bit responsible, no one's gonna speak. I'm going back on what I said. You get everyone, everyone to like do a little bit.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  When everyone has like some skin in the game, there might be more beholden to the secret. Is that something you see a lot in these murder stories that you guys talk about?

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Well, that's why I love cold cases. I'm so fascinated by them and want to talk about them is when it's not solved, it becomes this like legend and becomes bigger than what it really is, which is some horrible person. Who isn't that interesting did something awful. It's not like a legend. It's not powerful in any way. And so like making it into some kind of, you know, fairy tale, it just gives it more power. But solving it and showing how sad and simple it is, I think, takes that power away from it.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  Right. Interesting. Well, Karen and Georgia, that is today's snafu. And this has been an absolute delight. Thank you for coming on.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  So fun. I love that story. That was really fascinating.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a cool one. It's a cool one, you know, in part because I just love how the scale explodes after it happens. It's like it turns into this national crisis.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  I gotta say, I think he went to Canada. I think he was offered a new life.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  I like that take.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  He said, fuck it.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. He's like, I got loose ends are really getting on my nerves.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  He's not 19 anymore.

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  I got two kids going to college. Forget it.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  And the book came out. So there's a chance that he like made the money off the book and was up in Canada. Like it all did happen.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  Was like kicking him some dividends. Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Maybe. We'll have to do a part two.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  I love it. Well, thanks again, guys. This was super fun. Man, that was fun. I love Karen and Georgia. They're just awesome, delightful guests. And do definitely check them out on My Favorite Murder. Now, my dear listeners, friends and snafulegans out there, I have a bittersweet announcement, which is that season four has come to a close. That was our last episode of season four. I'm going on a short hiatus for the summer, but we have a lot of treats still in store for you. So stay tuned and keep checking your feed. I've got more fun clip episodes coming up, featuring a lot of my favorite moments with so many

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  of the great guests from this season. I'm also going to revisit some of the earlier seasons. Able Archer 83, Medburg. I mean, there's just been so much great stuff over the years. So that's coming later in the summer. And for those of you who haven't listened to that stuff, I'm really excited to share it with you. You will be hooked, I promise. And finally, I know a lot of you will be psyched to hear a quick teaser of what's coming next on Snafu. Okay, so I'm coming back with more guest episodes like I did this season, which is because they're so damn fun. But I'm also working on something else super special. I know a lot of you have missed our long form storytelling from prior seasons. And I gotta be honest, so have I.

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  I miss that stuff. And I've been looking for a Snafu worthy of your attention and also worthy of the insane amount of work it takes to put those seasons together. And I recently stumbled across a fascinating story that I can't wait to dive into and share with you. So more details on that coming soon. For now, just stay subscribed so you won't miss anything. And I just want to say a huge thank you. I appreciate you as fans of Snafu so much. I love doing this podcast and I'm so grateful that you love listening to it. So a huge and heartfelt thank you to all of you and I'll see you again soon.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Post-production and creative support from Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gosson and The Collected Wurfs. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Hall. Allison and Caroline Johnson.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, and Nikki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

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