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Speaker 1: This is where we begin True Crime Tuesday.

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Speaker 2: The story is true right, No, it's down made up.

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Gary and Shannon present True Crime.

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Speaker 1: So it's eighteen eighty and there's a lot of questions

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Speaker 1: in this great land of ours. Would formerly enslaved people

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Speaker 1: enjoy full rights as citizens? Would this entrenched patronage system,

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Speaker 1: the doling out of federal government jobs to party faithful

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Speaker 1: instead of the most qualified candidates be reformed well.

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Speaker 2: An up and coming, smart, sharp congressman out of Ohio,

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Speaker 2: James Garfield, speaks at the Republican National Convention says we

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Speaker 2: need to fulfill our promise to everyone. Hundreds of delegates

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Speaker 2: hearing that speech stand up and say, that's our guy.

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Speaker 2: We want him to be the next president.

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Speaker 1: He didn't want that, James. He's like, no, no, no, no, I

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Speaker 1: don't want the nomination. I'm just standing up to say

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Speaker 1: my piece, which.

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Speaker 2: I probably made them want him even more.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, he had no desire for the presidency, but the

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Speaker 1: ground swelve support was too large. And this was somebody

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Speaker 1: who had risen out of poverty the same way Abraham

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Speaker 1: Lincoln had and also fought as a commander on the

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Speaker 1: Union side of the Civil War, so it was a

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Speaker 1: speeding train ahead he could not stop it. In November

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty, he was elected the United States's twentieth president.

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Speaker 2: Well, the problem is, obviously he was shot four months

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Speaker 2: after his inauguration eventually died from sepsis. And what we

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Speaker 2: know about who it was that shot him and the

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Speaker 2: things that happened after Garfield was shot kind of lend

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Speaker 2: itself to some weird conspiracies and also a lot of

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Speaker 2: strange yarns connecting different people within the government.

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Speaker 1: As all true crime stories have. Yes, you're right, it

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Speaker 1: was the guy who shot him with an interesting background,

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Speaker 1: as well as the man who treated him after the shooting,

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Speaker 1: both wanting some sort of prominence. Death by Lightning is

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Speaker 1: a four part drama that you'll find on Netflix. I

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Speaker 1: believe it's already streaming and they have adapted this for

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Speaker 1: Netflix and it's well acted. Michael Shannon stars as James Garfield.

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Speaker 1: Matthew mcphadon is the man who shot him. Charles Getu

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Speaker 1: Guitau Getu we'll find out together now the man who

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Speaker 1: adapted it, or excuse me, the author who first wrote

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Speaker 1: the book about it. Destiny of the republica tale of madness, medicine,

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Speaker 1: and the murder of our president. Candice Millard says that

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Speaker 1: I hope it's a reminder. She says, you don't have

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Speaker 1: to have a big event to change the course of history,

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Speaker 1: and that in this case, the combination of one one

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Speaker 1: man's madness and another's ignorance and petty ambitions devastated an

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Speaker 1: entire nation.

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Speaker 2: So it turns out that Charles Guiteau was a failed lawyer,

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Speaker 2: failed writer, failed evangelical preacher, failed at the Love Commune

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Speaker 2: that he joined because nobody wanted to have sex with him.

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Speaker 2: But he always had this belief that God had a

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Speaker 2: plan for him. God intended him for some grand purpose,

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Speaker 2: and he knew that he just didn' knew what the

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Speaker 2: purpose was. He becomes obsessed with Garfield after that convention,

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Speaker 2: after the nomination, and even travels to New York that

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Speaker 2: summer of eighteen eighty because he wants to make sure

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Speaker 2: that he's on the right team. He said, he wants

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Speaker 2: to make sure that he gets Garfield elected, and he

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Speaker 2: would harass the staff at the campaign office in New

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Speaker 2: York until he was allowed to give a speech to

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Speaker 2: endorse Garfield. Now, Garfield opposed the boils system, the patronage

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Speaker 2: system we were talking about, where you'd hand out lucrative

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Speaker 2: jobs to your supporters. But Guito believed in it, and

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Speaker 2: he expected that in exchange for his very vocal endorsement,

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Speaker 2: even though nobody knew who he was, this very vocal

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Speaker 2: endorsement of Garfield, that he would be rewarded with some

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Speaker 2: sort of a key job. He specifically wanted to be

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Speaker 2: the ambassador to France, which seems like a cushy job

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Speaker 2: even in eighteen eighty. So he travels to Washington. He

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Speaker 2: goes to the White House every single day with a

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Speaker 2: bunch of other people in that same place, even gets

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Speaker 2: into the room with President Garfield, hands him a copy

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Speaker 2: of his election speech and wrote the words Paris consulship

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Speaker 2: on it, connecting with a little line those words with

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Speaker 2: his name.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so this guy turning up the White House repeatedly

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Speaker 1: gets his gets him band. He's a weirdo, and everybody

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Speaker 1: knows that he's got these erratic outbursts. So he's blocked

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Speaker 1: from entering the White House. But he did start showing

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Speaker 1: up at the office of the Secretary of State James Blaine,

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Speaker 1: and one day he went after Blaine directly, only to

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Speaker 1: be told he would never be given a position in

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Speaker 1: the Garfield administration. Remember, this guy has no money, no prospects,

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Speaker 1: and no sex. And he goes back to his boarding

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Speaker 1: house where he has what he later called a divine inspiration.

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Speaker 2: We'll tell you what he thinks God said to him.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about one of the oldest true crime

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Speaker 1: stories in American history on this True Crime Tuesday. It

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Speaker 1: is the murder of US President James Garfield, the twentieth

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Speaker 1: President of the United States, a reluctant president who came

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Speaker 1: to power in eighteen eighty. And there was a crazy

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Speaker 1: person that was left around the White House, let around

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Speaker 1: the White House and then finally banned from the White House,

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Speaker 1: and wanted.

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Speaker 2: To get his voice heard.

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Speaker 1: And he was one of those guys who we that

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Speaker 1: we know. He wasn't really good at anything. He tried

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Speaker 1: to be a lawyer, he tried to be a journalist,

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Speaker 1: he tried to be a preacher. He tried free love.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't. He was an in cell back in the day.

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Speaker 1: He could not find anyone to have sex with him.

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Speaker 1: He started getting obsessed with politics, and he was finally

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Speaker 1: told listen, stop coming around here, and you're not going

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Speaker 1: to have a position in James Garfield's administration. It's not

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Speaker 1: going to happen for you. So he goes back to

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Speaker 1: his shabby boarding house where he says he had a

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Speaker 1: divine inspiration. Garfield was not a true Republican unlike his

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Speaker 1: vice president.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Chester Arthur had been imposed upon him basically as

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Speaker 2: the vice president, which is a guy that Guiteau Guiteau,

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Speaker 2: Charles Guiteau had liked.

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Speaker 1: But on.

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Speaker 2: This idea that came to him or God spoke to him,

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Speaker 2: whichever term he wanted to use, he concluded, I have

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Speaker 2: to kill James Garfield so that Chester A. Arthur could

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Speaker 2: become the president.

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Speaker 1: So the president at the time was not difficult to target.

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Speaker 1: They learned nothing from Abraham Lincoln. Garfield walked everywhere unprotected,

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Speaker 1: even though it was just sixteen years before the Abraham

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Speaker 1: Lincoln was shot and killed. Garfield wrote in a letter

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Speaker 1: at the time, assassination can no more be guarded against

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Speaker 1: than death by lightning, and it is best not to

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Speaker 1: worry about either.

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Speaker 2: Which explains the title of the Netflix series that documents

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Speaker 2: all of.

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Speaker 1: That, right, death by lightning. So this guy follows Garfield

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Speaker 1: for a few days finally shoots him at the Baltimore

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Speaker 1: and Potomac Railroad station in DC. It was July second,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one. Now it gets it gets worse because

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Speaker 1: he did survive the shooting. At first.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's that's not the bad part. It's the doctor.

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Speaker 2: It's the doctor that was taking care of President Garfield,

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Speaker 2: doctor Wilfred Bliss. He thought he knew everything. And we're

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Speaker 2: talking in eighteen eighties when medical technology was just sort

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Speaker 2: of beginning and our understanding of what goes on in

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Speaker 2: the body was just forming. He scoffed at the idea

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Speaker 2: of antiseptics for treating wounds. He used unsterilized instruments. He

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Speaker 2: even stuck his bare finger into the gunshot hole near

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Speaker 2: Garfield's spine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he his death was officially sepsis, and that's definitely

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Speaker 1: because of all the things you just mentioned. He was

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Speaker 1: in pain, fevers, constant discomfort under this guy's disastrous care,

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Speaker 1: and he began to wonder what the future might bring.

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Speaker 1: Apparently he asked a friend, do you think my name

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Speaker 1: will have a place in human history? Now, Garfield's death

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Speaker 1: did make a difference. The nation, as you can imagine,

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Speaker 1: was torn apart. By this he was only forty nine

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Speaker 1: at the time, and galvanized demands for civil service reform,

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Speaker 1: the public recognizing that this crazy guy's rage began when

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Speaker 1: he was denied a job he believed he was owed. Arthur,

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Speaker 1: now President, mourning his able and likable predecessor, renounced the

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Speaker 1: corrupt spoils system that had elevated him, And when Congress

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Speaker 1: passed a Pendleton Act in eighteen eighty three creating those

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Speaker 1: merit based standards for federal government employment, Arthur signed into law.

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Speaker 1: Whatever happened to that, Whatever happened to that that merit

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Speaker 1: based federal government thresholds, what.

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Speaker 2: Happened to that old fashioned Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now you can be a bump on a log and

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Speaker 1: get a job with the federal government. I shouldn't say that,