Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zi.
Speaker 3: What Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: How you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty well about you? How are you doing?
Speaker 3: You look good?
Speaker 4: Hanging in there, hanging in there?
Speaker 2: Listen. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh girl, I'm glad you asked because I asked you. Now,
Speaker 3: this is ridiculous, right, yes, it is?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: American elections like this one is? It's ridiculous. It's not
Speaker 3: like painful tragic. Is the Florida Senate District fifteen special election?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: So Florida Senate like the local state Senate, sure right,
Speaker 3: They have a District six fifteen special election on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: June twenty fourth, right, right now. The people running are
Speaker 3: replacing a longtime state senator after she passed. Okay. The
Speaker 3: person who initially announced was named Randolph Bracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then his leading opponent then announced and it was
Speaker 3: his sister, Lavon Bracy. His sister decided to go against him,
Speaker 3: and then his mother was there. People are like, well,
Speaker 3: this is got to be breaking up with the family.
Speaker 3: She's like, no, I'm going to run my daughter's campaign.
Speaker 3: So his mother's running his sister's campaign to beat him.
Speaker 3: It's awesome, and it's like he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: since he announced first. When his sister announced, he was like,
Speaker 3: it was disappointing a little hurtful. And people were like,
Speaker 3: well are you why are you doing? And they asked
Speaker 3: her lavon the sister. She says, I'm not, you know,
Speaker 3: running against any of them. I'm running for the people
Speaker 3: of Senate District fifteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So and the mom was like, you know, you can
Speaker 3: see why the mom supports her, And I think, uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know who wins, but I think she's got
Speaker 3: the advantage because if you if the people here in
Speaker 3: the local like mom took come.
Speaker 2: On, no, your mom's size was you They're like the
Speaker 2: family hears he's running, it's like we have to do
Speaker 2: it camp, bringing a team up to absolutely.
Speaker 3: She was like, I don't know if they had like
Speaker 3: a super pack for this Florida State Senate that's all
Speaker 3: the campaign adds would be about.
Speaker 2: That's incredible, and you know what it is ridiculous, ridiculous exactly.
Speaker 2: You know what else is ridiculous? Consu So, I don't know,
Speaker 2: this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 2: Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 2: and one h ridiculous. I know you've done I've done
Speaker 2: her that so many times. We've really delved into the
Speaker 2: mind of the con artist before. Yes, and there's like
Speaker 2: a certain psychology that allows people to manipulate others. What
Speaker 2: I find really interesting, because I'm the one talking right now,
Speaker 2: is that there are certain blueprints, like classic structures for
Speaker 2: the cons and they get used over and over and
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, yes, like there's con tropes, yes exactly, and
Speaker 5: so we talk about them in rather quick succession and
Speaker 5: like the grand scheme of things here, but it never
Speaker 5: ceases to amaze me the people who fall for the
Speaker 5: oldest scams in the book.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, and I think that's where like
Speaker 2: the magnetic personality comes in, right, tru con artists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they get you too distracted from your reasonable mind.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because like the con artist overrides all logic
Speaker 2: and self preservation in the mark in order for like
Speaker 2: the scheme to really kick it in that momentary gain,
Speaker 2: and people who are otherwise smart and savvy, they'll fall
Speaker 2: victims totally.
Speaker 3: The smartest possible can fall victims.
Speaker 2: And we've said it before that, like a lot of
Speaker 2: wealthy and or powerful victims, they never come forward because
Speaker 2: they're embarrassed. So that makes me wonder how many con
Speaker 2: stories are out there that will never know?
Speaker 3: How many drops are in the ocean, Elizabeth, this is.
Speaker 2: A really good question. Thank you Elizabeth for asking that.
Speaker 2: The ones you know, they say, they stay secret, they
Speaker 2: skirt the law. They've got to be going on right
Speaker 2: now if you're out.
Speaker 3: There, I'm running three four right now the same and.
Speaker 2: The situation that you're in mirrors the con stories we tell.
Speaker 2: Get help Yea.
Speaker 3: By the way, I'm not actually a Turkish shrimp merchant.
Speaker 3: You're not, so if you hear anyone asking about that,
Speaker 3: just to go.
Speaker 2: Fronting your operation for so long. The problem is when
Speaker 2: a Turkish shrimp merchant comes to you, like it feels
Speaker 2: like you're in it, and it feels unique to you,
Speaker 2: and like you tell yourself all these lies in order
Speaker 2: to have the good story and feel good about this
Speaker 2: Turkish shrimp merchant.
Speaker 3: That's exactly because like.
Speaker 2: Dashing comes in and it's like yeah, and so like
Speaker 2: you know, you see this on various advice subreddits, like
Speaker 2: when people are so deep into a story they don't
Speaker 2: get it. Yeah, Like someone posts about their partner or
Speaker 2: their spouse or like boyfriend girlfriend and they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have this great relationship except for just this one
Speaker 2: thing the art room, and no, this is no They'll
Speaker 2: they'll say, away, this great relationship, there's just one thing,
Speaker 2: and then they'll detail what sounds like an actual nightmare
Speaker 2: of being stuck with his total loser. So like a
Speaker 2: lot of times a poster finally sees the truth after
Speaker 2: having written and oh, I saw it in writing or
Speaker 2: I said it out loud, Others like have to have
Speaker 2: the red flags pointed to it to him.
Speaker 4: So like someone's like.
Speaker 2: My husband's really great except for the fact that he
Speaker 2: like pouts and refuses to eat whenever I make something
Speaker 2: he's not in the mood for for dinner, and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he controls the finances so I can't buy other food.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he also throws the food in the trash
Speaker 2: and kicks the doors, and he's always like saying really
Speaker 2: rude things to me and calls me stupid idiot. But
Speaker 2: we have a great relationships other than that. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: like those are the.
Speaker 3: Three times a day when I feed.
Speaker 2: Him, Those are the kind of everyday people who fall
Speaker 2: for scams, whether it be financial or romantic.
Speaker 3: That's the stories you tell yourself exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm not victim blaming here, no, No, it's always easy
Speaker 2: to judge from the sidelines because you don't know how
Speaker 2: you'll react.
Speaker 3: We're all susceptible to this dynamic completely.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I need to shift gears for a second, Sarah,
Speaker 2: let's talk about Edwardy in Britain.
Speaker 3: That's quite the downs, Yeah, it is. I like to
Speaker 3: keep you on your toes totally.
Speaker 2: Okay. So this was the period of time from the
Speaker 2: death of Queen Victoria nineteen o one to like beginning
Speaker 2: of World War one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the beginning of the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very short era, but it had these lasting effects
Speaker 2: and like people are still captivated, especially with the Coats. Well,
Speaker 2: it was all about conspicuous consumption and like crazy class stratification.
Speaker 2: So it's like that this glittering surface, but there's a
Speaker 2: rigid hierarchy outward. Respectability was a big thing, and so
Speaker 2: the newspapers at the time were filled with stories of
Speaker 2: like debutantes, extravagant weddings, heiresses coming into vast.
Speaker 3: Yes, look at their special children.
Speaker 2: Them and then all the middle class like shopkeepers, bankers,
Speaker 2: they wanted in on it, not that they could ever
Speaker 2: achieve it. I'm buying a suit, yeah, but they wanted
Speaker 2: to be in the orbit of total so they would
Speaker 2: like fall over themselves to cater to those whims, right,
Speaker 2: because they wanted long term paye you know, like they'll
Speaker 2: break for security. Yeah. So meanwhile, there are women of
Speaker 2: means who did this very like careful dance of social maneuvering.
Speaker 2: And so they had the right clothes, their accent was correct,
Speaker 2: they had the family pedigree, and everything was networking so
Speaker 2: that the rich stuck together and they'd cut each other
Speaker 2: a lot of slack. And so then into this world
Speaker 2: a gal named Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3: Floated, Wait, what was her name?
Speaker 2: Violet Charlesworth.
Speaker 3: You know that one of my best friends in life
Speaker 3: is named charles Worth. They grew up across the street
Speaker 3: from charles.
Speaker 2: Worth, the Charlesworth family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we used to talk about how rare that
Speaker 3: name is, like he has to be related to he has.
Speaker 2: To be so we're going to have to do a
Speaker 2: deep dog.
Speaker 3: Oh, this one's for you, Jese to Jay.
Speaker 2: So she exploited the swells with this astonishing audacity.
Speaker 3: I love this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Jay, I'll be proud love for him, So Violet.
Speaker 2: She was born May Charlesworth in eighteen eighty four in
Speaker 2: Stratford Shure, England. She had three older siblings, her mom Miriam,
Speaker 2: her dad David. He was an insurance agent and a
Speaker 2: modest like lower.
Speaker 3: Local class merchant.
Speaker 2: Insurance. I don't know, yeah, so just like every day
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But then I've also, here's the problem
Speaker 2: with this whole thing. For every fact, they're like alternate
Speaker 2: facts that get finding the truth in. This is difficult
Speaker 2: on stupid stuff like what's her dad's name? What did
Speaker 2: he do?
Speaker 3: David?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like he was Richard and he was a tailor. No,
Speaker 2: he was David, the insurance.
Speaker 3: Guy, Taylor insurance guy.
Speaker 2: He was like yeah. So violence early years totally average
Speaker 2: for just a working class kid. By in her teenage years,
Speaker 2: she was known locally for her beauty, like she has
Speaker 2: really lovely dark eyes, she had an appealing figure, and
Speaker 2: she had a gift for conversation. She had it all
Speaker 2: and so she and her mother they were very, very close.
Speaker 2: She's the baby and sometimes in like later press reports,
Speaker 2: they called it unwholesomely dependent.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so there was that kind of a great
Speaker 3: gardens thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, missus Charlesworth. She reinforced Violet's belief that she
Speaker 2: was destined for high society if you are worth more
Speaker 2: than this. Yeah. So in nineteen oh seven, Violet, her mom,
Speaker 2: her dad, her eighteen year old sister Eileen, and then
Speaker 2: a chauffeur named Watts who sometimes now people think that
Speaker 2: might have been Violet's husband. Okay, yeah, rolled into a
Speaker 2: town called Real on the north coast of Wales. It
Speaker 2: was like a pretty nice seaside resort town back then.
Speaker 2: After the chauffeur, I couldn't find anything about this supposedly
Speaker 2: being the husband, aside from I found this book about
Speaker 2: like the history of Real, Okay, so there's just like
Speaker 2: a side note about yeah. And then Violet Charlesworth came
Speaker 2: rolling through here and it's just but yeah, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh that's interesting anyway. So they're living at this manor
Speaker 2: house bod erw Yeah, and so like you, I think
Speaker 2: you can actually stay there now. So but she like
Speaker 2: they captivated and she quickly becomes like this local fashion
Speaker 2: icon in town, and she toodled around in these super
Speaker 2: fancy cars, like the nicest ones in the day. She
Speaker 2: wore this really eye catching red motor cloak. Motorcloak, why
Speaker 2: are we not all wearing motor cloaks.
Speaker 3: I do like all the early cars being convertibles because
Speaker 3: they're coming out of coaches and wagons and stuff, and
Speaker 3: so they're like, oh, yeah, of course we'll save money
Speaker 3: by not putting a top on. It used to that
Speaker 3: you to need a motor She.
Speaker 2: Always had her dogs in the car with her fun
Speaker 2: I bet she had a cool scarf game. She must have.
Speaker 2: She must have. So Miriam and Violet, the mom and
Speaker 2: the daughter, they concocted this backstory that she would then
Speaker 2: use to infiltrate the upper class. So violence mom people
Speaker 2: to believe that Violet was the god daughter of General
Speaker 2: Gordon of Khartum. Oh, that sounds believable, and everyone knew
Speaker 2: who he was. He'd been killed in action in eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty five while defending Khartum from rebel Muslims in Sudan Ah,
Speaker 2: So he served in Pembrokeshire early in his career, so
Speaker 2: it kind of made sense that he had like the
Speaker 2: real in the area. So she has this famous godfather
Speaker 2: and what's better, she had a one hundred thousand pounds
Speaker 2: inheritance from him coming to her on her twenty fifth birthday.
Speaker 2: That's like fourteen million dollars today. We've seen this before,
Speaker 2: like people will spot the con artist cash because they
Speaker 2: truly believe the con artist is about to come into
Speaker 2: some serious money, and the con has convinced the mark. Look,
Speaker 2: I'm totally good for it. I'll pay you back double,
Speaker 2: maybe trouble sometimes because like I'm so honorable, I'm such
Speaker 2: a good.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you looking out for me now when
Speaker 3: I don't have it special.
Speaker 2: To me because I don't know about you. But I
Speaker 2: don't lend my like I'll give someone money and be
Speaker 2: pleasantly surprised when they pay it back, but I always
Speaker 2: assume I'm never going to see it again.
Speaker 3: Do you tell them though, No? No, I mean, like, okay,
Speaker 3: so you lend them and you go through the active lending, sure,
Speaker 3: and you just think of it as like like I
Speaker 3: have to.
Speaker 2: Be okay with partying with that amount permanently.
Speaker 3: So you do kind of believe it'll come back, but
Speaker 3: you just don't expect it.
Speaker 2: Most of the time, I don't expect it okay, like otherwise,
Speaker 2: no dice, Like if I can't afford to just let
Speaker 2: it go, then like forget it.
Speaker 3: I just put the sharks on them. If they don't
Speaker 3: pay me back, the sharks are coming.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you. Yeah, people don't really
Speaker 2: ask me for money. Really, I don't have any.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't hang out with it, but I hang
Speaker 3: out with people who are poor. And they were like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: as we take turns barring for each other.
Speaker 2: The people of real though, they were fascinated by Violet.
Speaker 2: Everyone wanted to befriend this beautiful young heiress. So she
Speaker 2: starts up the con can you spot me? She has
Speaker 2: all these nice things, diamonds, cars for this manor house.
Speaker 2: So like you, you're good for it, and what a
Speaker 2: person to have owing you a favor, Harris. So she
Speaker 2: collected money from like a number of suitors and dupes,
Speaker 2: and then she used like the gifts or the loans
Speaker 2: to speculate thousands of pounds on the stock exchange, and
Speaker 2: then she used that to purchase more of the trappings
Speaker 2: of her luxurious lifestyle.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought she was trying to make up the
Speaker 3: fourteen mills.
Speaker 2: No, she's base but then she props up her con
Speaker 2: she looks the more she.
Speaker 3: Can take and you need a new fer.
Speaker 2: It was unusual at that time for a woman to
Speaker 2: invest in the stock market completely, and one of the
Speaker 2: money one of the money guys she worked with at
Speaker 2: the time, said that she had a quote masculine grasp
Speaker 2: of business compliment. One one of her victims was a
Speaker 2: former neighbor from before she moved to Wales. This widow
Speaker 2: named missus Smith. She loaned Violet four hundred pounds, which
Speaker 2: was pretty much all the money she had in the world,
Speaker 2: saved up over a life and Violet was like, look,
Speaker 2: the money's gonna come back plus some. I just you know,
Speaker 2: got to turn twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just hope nothing happens to me in my
Speaker 3: twenty fourth year.
Speaker 2: Another victim was doctor Edward Hughes Jones, and.
Speaker 3: She come to Jones Jones.
Speaker 2: She cozied up to him. They even became engaged to
Speaker 2: be married. Oh yeah, he asked her, asked her for
Speaker 2: her hand before he knew about the twenty five years old.
Speaker 3: He really did like her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really did. He liked her, Yeah, smitten. They
Speaker 2: were like going together. He liked her so much. That
Speaker 2: he loaned her five thousand pounds and she promised to
Speaker 2: pay it back as soon as she turned twenty five
Speaker 2: and then like today, that'd be like half a million dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh snap, make sweetheart, can you loan me that's.
Speaker 3: More than that's an investment?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then he watches her just spend the money
Speaker 2: and other funds like water. The average wage at the
Speaker 2: time was like one pound a week. Oh wow, Violet
Speaker 2: was spending four thousand pounds a year. Oh yeah, she's
Speaker 2: just reckless. So he called off the wedding.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say, people are going to find that offensive.
Speaker 2: Sets there's absolutely no way like saddling with.
Speaker 3: This totally, you're going to waste all my money.
Speaker 2: You're beautiful, but you're toxic and so but he's like, ps,
Speaker 2: you still got to pay me back, like my cash,
Speaker 2: and she comes no surprise that she didn't pay him back,
Speaker 2: had no intention to do so. She also extorted ten
Speaker 2: thousand pounds from a London stockbroker and you know, so
Speaker 2: ten thousand pounds, Wow, it's a lot.
Speaker 3: Now is using new suitors to get rid of old suitors,
Speaker 3: like tell him to go away.
Speaker 2: She's like flitting around she's not just in will she
Speaker 2: goes to London Liverpool. Yeah, so they don't know about each.
Speaker 3: Other, but if they do confront her, then she can
Speaker 3: have somebody perhaps, Oh, dare you go step away?
Speaker 2: The lady is mine. So over the next three years,
Speaker 2: like she expands dramatically, and she had this like really
Speaker 2: sophisticated system where she had letters from fake lawyer that
Speaker 2: said that her fortune would be released, and she had
Speaker 2: references from people that she'd already deceived and used those
Speaker 2: to dupe the next group Ponzi style. She like would
Speaker 2: go to these local dances and charity teas and like
Speaker 2: reinforce this aura of status, like I have to go
Speaker 2: do all this charity work, always around, always at the
Speaker 2: right places. One of the things she'd done was rent
Speaker 2: a country house near Inverness. It's beautiful up there. The
Speaker 2: property is like it was pure Highlands Monarch of the
Speaker 2: Glen stuff like Tartan everything. Wow, she's absolutely gaga over Scotland,
Speaker 2: but like chirsty version of Scotland. She bought bagpipes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's like.
Speaker 2: She wore traditional Highland dress and I was like, she
Speaker 2: had a player piano in the home.
Speaker 3: What's that game? You run with the log and you
Speaker 3: try to flip it.
Speaker 2: Caber tossing giant hot dog. She had this player piano
Speaker 2: only played Scottish music on an endless loop and wow,
Speaker 2: Scotland stuff in your head twenty four sevens. So about
Speaker 2: those docs.
Speaker 3: And they did that in Abu Grabe. I mean that's
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind that, like at this time, identity documents
Speaker 2: totally rare, and there are no credit scores.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's hard to confirm. You have to have
Speaker 3: somebody to go. I know who they are, right.
Speaker 2: So a letter that had like respectable letterhead, real or.
Speaker 3: Forged, Yeah, exactly, good for credit line.
Speaker 2: So by late nineteen oh eight, her scheme is beginning
Speaker 2: to unravel, Like merchants who had been promised repayment after
Speaker 2: her birthday realized that like months had gone by and
Speaker 2: they're like, wait, when is this Galsberd.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anybody knows. They're like a big calendar in town.
Speaker 2: So people are finding out it's like nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: January nineteen oh nine, she's gonna turn twenty five, and
Speaker 2: so some of them took out writs for unpaid debts,
Speaker 2: and like gossip starts to swirl in this upper middle
Speaker 2: class circles in Edinburgh, uh, London, Liverpool. She's resourceful, she
Speaker 2: just moves on. But then like the volume of unpaid
Speaker 2: obligations reached a scale that was just like absolutely impossible
Speaker 2: to avoid. Okay, and so she's up against all.
Speaker 3: This spiders going to the home office, to the home office,
Speaker 3: but whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the and they're all everyone's talking and pretty
Speaker 2: soon like someone's gonna file exactly, So they have all
Speaker 2: this pressure. Violet and her mom are like, Okay, we
Speaker 2: need to come up with a plan. They're desperate, but
Speaker 2: this this is so crazy. It just let's take a break. Oh,
Speaker 2: you got to sit through some ads first. Okay, there's
Speaker 2: some well, there are plenty more than when we come back,
Speaker 2: we're going to ask and answer the question. Will Violet
Speaker 2: ever turn twenty five?
Speaker 3: Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're in the final days of December nineteen oh eight,
Speaker 2: oh and.
Speaker 3: Everyone's counting them down. Charles Christmas for everybody, Oh buddy Christmas.
Speaker 2: She's cornered. She's got this elaborate web of credit that's collapsing.
Speaker 3: Around, and is she preparing as cover like a big
Speaker 3: party for herself because she should be excited. No, she's
Speaker 3: just she should be like doing a debutante ball. She
Speaker 3: should be planning like the biggest fever.
Speaker 2: But at this point she's like trying to keep her
Speaker 2: head down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's like buying tickets America.
Speaker 2: Everyone had been charmed by her elegance, you know, merchants
Speaker 2: and bankers. They're like, no, pay.
Speaker 3: Me, yeah exactly, I want to be third in line.
Speaker 2: And they're starting to get the real rumblings about court action,
Speaker 2: bankruptcy petitions. They're like following her from city to city.
Speaker 2: She's bound. Oh so she's creeping up on nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: the years she's going to turn twenty five. In desperation, Violet,
Speaker 2: her mother, her sister Eileen, and their chauffeur Watts a
Speaker 2: ka potentially her actual husband or somebody. They all head
Speaker 2: up to penn mine war In Uh this like village
Speaker 2: on the Welsh coast. It's known for its rugged cliffs
Speaker 2: bracing sea air. They checked into the penn mine Wir
Speaker 2: Hotel on the pretext of like we just want to
Speaker 2: quiet New Year's holiday.
Speaker 3: Everybody, Yeah, get away, pill forget about.
Speaker 2: I like to use old fashioned Edwardian terms, the old terms,
Speaker 2: the old Chilaxations. It's I'm going to open a shop Chilaxations,
Speaker 2: and it's just always closed, like.
Speaker 3: That popcorn kettle corn shop and the kettle corn shop.
Speaker 2: There's a kettle corn shop in Oakland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's never opened.
Speaker 2: The holidays open, Yeah, two hours exact day.
Speaker 3: Why I have a storefront for four days?
Speaker 2: Not a lot of store for kettle corn.
Speaker 3: I don't know another front. I'm suspicious, Yeah, I know
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: I'm suspicious about my.
Speaker 3: What mob Son fails onn Is this you used to
Speaker 3: have a kettle corn business?
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Let's go break in, yeah, and then make
Speaker 2: an episode about her. Okay. So January second, nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: Violet got herself all dressed up for like a seaside walk. Okay,
Speaker 2: she's looking good. She had this gray walking suit on,
Speaker 2: like a dark hat. Pins had a pearl brooch, a broach.
Speaker 2: She's in a great moody.
Speaker 3: Your family can dress.
Speaker 2: She was telling people it's my birthday next week. And
Speaker 2: so she Watts and Eileen, the sister, they were like,
Speaker 2: let's go for a drive. Why not? Sounds fun?
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 2: So they wanted to go to Colwan Bay, but the
Speaker 2: day was absolutely gorgeous, So they just kept going all
Speaker 2: the way to bangor okay, sure, I don't know what
Speaker 2: that means.
Speaker 3: Just like like the old Bang, they did not go
Speaker 3: to me old Banger.
Speaker 2: Old Banger and mash. So all the way back, Violet
Speaker 2: was like begging, wants please let me drive, and he's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, you're almost the birthday girl. You go
Speaker 2: right ahead, and he's like, I'll sit next to you,
Speaker 2: Eileen backseat. So they like toodled around all day and
Speaker 2: then they decided to head back and like about nine
Speaker 2: o'clock that night, tragedy strag Oh yes seven.
Speaker 3: Yes, close, Oh, tragedy.
Speaker 4: I want you to pickure it.
Speaker 2: It's January second, nineteen oh nine, a cold, dark night.
Speaker 2: You are a sixteen year old boy. You're out for
Speaker 2: a stroll in the countryside with your dog, a Corgi
Speaker 2: named Kevin. Of course it's the Welsh spelling ce f
Speaker 2: i n what. You've worked hard all on your family's farm,
Speaker 2: and after dinner and arrest, you and Kevin want to
Speaker 2: take in the night air before you settle down for
Speaker 2: the night. You're sensitive type, but you're strong confident. You're
Speaker 2: wise beyond your years, and your dog is super smart,
Speaker 2: and when no one's around he.
Speaker 4: Talks to you.
Speaker 2: As you crust a small rise, you see something in
Speaker 2: the distance. It's a woman in fancy clothes. She's obviously
Speaker 2: in distress. She runs up to you and breathlessly tells
Speaker 2: you there's been an accident. A car almost went off
Speaker 2: the cliff. She's on her way to the end to
Speaker 2: go get help. You tell her to head over there
Speaker 2: and ask for your dad. He's having a pint with
Speaker 2: his mates. Tell him to come quick, you say. You
Speaker 2: and Kevin run toward where she said the accident happens.
Speaker 2: Your feet are swift on the ground. Kevin houffs along
Speaker 2: next to you, his little corky legs pumping away. He
Speaker 2: calls up to you in excitement. How bad do you
Speaker 2: think it is? You tell him it must be very bad.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the car left the road at the
Speaker 2: point everyone around calls the devil's thumb. It's where a
Speaker 2: jagged piece of rocks spikes up between the roadway and
Speaker 2: the cliff below the roiling Irish sea. Very bad, indeed,
Speaker 2: Kevin says. You both sprint on. You reach the roadway
Speaker 2: and spot the car. The windshield has been smashed out
Speaker 2: and lies cracked on the ground. It looked as if
Speaker 2: the driver lost control of the car and swerved toward
Speaker 2: a narrow opening in the boundary wall and knock part
Speaker 2: of the wall down. Jumped through the gaps and came
Speaker 2: to a rest about eighteen inches from the edge of
Speaker 2: the cliff. On the ground by the edge of the
Speaker 2: road is a man in a chauffeur's outfit. You run
Speaker 2: to him. He's dazed but not bleeding. You ask what happened,
Speaker 2: and he tells you he wasn't driving. The lady was
Speaker 2: the one I saw? You ask him, no, He says
Speaker 2: it was Violet. He tells you she was thrown from
Speaker 2: the car. The waves crash on the rocks below, but
Speaker 2: you see a flat outcropping. Wait here, you tell the man.
Speaker 2: Then you head for the cliff and begin to scramble
Speaker 2: down the slope. What are you doing, whispers Kevin. I
Speaker 2: need to see if I can save the lady. You answer,
Speaker 2: what's that? The chauffeur asks you, Uh, nothing, you say,
Speaker 2: Then you start down the precipice. The water there's only
Speaker 2: a foot or so deep, and there's a steep drop off.
Speaker 2: After that, you wade into the shallows and you look
Speaker 2: around no body. You do find two things. There's one
Speaker 2: of those tartan Scottish caps, a tam O'Shanter, and then
Speaker 2: there's a journal. You flip through the pages, reading by
Speaker 2: the dim light of a full moon on the inside
Speaker 2: of the covert, says Violet Charlesworth. The pages are in
Speaker 2: a neat script, notes about road trips made to places
Speaker 2: like Sheffield and Edinburgh. You hear someone call your name.
Speaker 2: It's your dad. He's returned with the other lady. The
Speaker 2: local police superintendent and a doctor. Get up here, son,
Speaker 2: your father shouts. You scramble back up the rocks. Anything
Speaker 2: the policeman ask you, You hand him the hat and
Speaker 2: the notebook. No sign of the lady, you tell him.
Speaker 2: He nods grimly. Kevin sits to the side of the scene,
Speaker 2: taking it all in. You sit on a low, smooth
Speaker 2: rock next to him. This whole thing is fishy, he
Speaker 2: tells you. Oh, that's for sure, you respond. That driver,
Speaker 2: he tells you he was silent until everyone got here,
Speaker 2: then he started that moaning again. I don't trust any
Speaker 2: of them, you tell him. Then the two of you
Speaker 2: sit silently and ponder the scene, looking out at the
Speaker 2: moonlight on the rough sea beyond, watching the good people
Speaker 2: of your town do the best to find the body
Speaker 2: of a woman taken all too soon. Kevin, Kevin the corky.
Speaker 3: What a tragedy on the eve of her birthday, where
Speaker 3: she's about to get great wealth. She's the only victim
Speaker 3: of a car, a single car accident, just the classic
Speaker 3: fell off the.
Speaker 5: Clue, don't casket, it's why, God, God, where is your
Speaker 5: dark sense of humor taking?
Speaker 2: Please? Kevin, tell me some answers here? So is there
Speaker 2: The initial story was that the car almost went over
Speaker 2: the cliff. Yeah, Violet gets thrown through the windshield into
Speaker 2: the water. Watts was also thrown thrown through the window. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what they're saying, is that she just burst through.
Speaker 3: The top splash, just like that was That's.
Speaker 2: What it sounded like. And then Watts he went, he
Speaker 2: fell through the windshield the same time, and then he went,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, he he almost went into the water, but
Speaker 2: he managed to land on the edge of.
Speaker 3: The heped the earth. Yeah, she didn't have that.
Speaker 2: Willpower, and she's just light as a feather and breezy
Speaker 2: and just carried on the wind. Aileen safe in the
Speaker 2: back seat. Yeah, Violet was presumed dead. Now they just
Speaker 2: had to find her body. So generally when there's this
Speaker 2: type of accident, the body washes up not too long after,
Speaker 2: as I've learned, a couple of days, a couple of
Speaker 2: days at most hers didn't show up.
Speaker 3: I thought sharks and like you know, crabs would handle more.
Speaker 2: The press was on it. It wasn't even a week
Speaker 2: after the accident and they were crying feul the Canarvin
Speaker 2: and Denby Harold. They brought the heat on January for real.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, here's the headline. Mystery of the North Wales
Speaker 2: Coast ladies. Remarkable disappearance, wild rumors, strange stories, fresh clues.
Speaker 2: So good. The very long article begins quote it is
Speaker 2: difficult to know what to believe and what to write
Speaker 2: about the pennmind mar Motoring mystery. The police offer no
Speaker 2: explanation of the disappearance of the young lady, and English
Speaker 2: journalists and photographers have visited the spot and played the
Speaker 2: part of amateur detectives to very little purpose. In fact,
Speaker 2: the more one penetrates into the affair, the more problematic
Speaker 2: the solution becomes. But let the story be related. Oh
Speaker 2: so I love they're bagging on journalists coming in from
Speaker 2: England and playing amateur sleuth. But then they go on
Speaker 2: and dedicate an incredible number of column inches to playing
Speaker 2: amateur sleuth and quoting the English papers in their amateur sloothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like, look, I'm going to amateur sloth. Don't
Speaker 3: get in the way.
Speaker 2: Are all amateur sluic? That's okay, Yeah, it's okay, Let
Speaker 2: go into it. Okay. So the paper details what's known
Speaker 2: about the accident and how the family was informed, and
Speaker 2: they were all upset and they left for a home
Speaker 2: in Reel, but yet they didn't request a search of
Speaker 2: the water. They mentioned that a reporter from the Liverpool
Speaker 2: Post interviewed the doctor who said that Eileen and Watts
Speaker 2: were super upset but not really injured. Okay, And they
Speaker 2: try and go interview Violet's parents at the manor house
Speaker 2: in Reel, but they refused to speak with anyone. Most
Speaker 2: of the people they talked to in the reporter him
Speaker 2: or herself say the car didn't really look like it
Speaker 2: was in that bad of an accident. In fact, a
Speaker 2: family friend came and drove it home for them.
Speaker 3: But it was they hit the front of the car
Speaker 3: enough to be thrown through the windshield.
Speaker 2: But there's no damage.
Speaker 3: Works, yeah, and no commensary damage, and the radiator suddenly works.
Speaker 2: One just started up driving, just missing a windshield or
Speaker 2: a windscreen. That's gonna say. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: speculation in the article about the body. Where is it?
Speaker 2: How in the world does it not turned out you.
Speaker 3: Got to be at least be willing to flip a cart.
Speaker 3: You're gonna pull this star.
Speaker 2: And you were talking about how everything's a convertible, right,
Speaker 2: So they talk about how the cap was found, but
Speaker 2: it didn't add up because a woman out for a
Speaker 2: drive would securely pin such a hat to her head.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't fall off like that. Like this is early
Speaker 2: CSI going deep.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: And then here's the kicker. There's a section in the
Speaker 2: middle of the article with the subheading financial affairs. This
Speaker 2: is when we start to see it.
Speaker 3: It's like a Wikipedia page.
Speaker 4: Oh I know.
Speaker 2: Quote. Thursday's post adds that Miss Violet Charlesworth was to
Speaker 2: have been the defendant at the Real County Court on
Speaker 2: the fifteenth of this month, and an action for the
Speaker 2: recovery of a sum of five hundred pounds in which
Speaker 2: she was indebted, and that a leading tradesman in the
Speaker 2: South of England obtained judgment in the High Court against
Speaker 2: the missing young lady for the sum of one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety four pounds. Inquiries by a correspondent of The
Speaker 2: Star show that during the last twelve months Miss Violet
Speaker 2: Charlesworth incurred liabilities running into several thousands of pounds, and
Speaker 2: that quite recently a London tradesman obtained a judgment against
Speaker 2: her in the County Court for a considerable sum. It
Speaker 2: goes on, they're talking about the trail, yeah, and so
Speaker 2: they also say that one of the tradesmen got telegram
Speaker 2: seven forty five pm Miss Violet Gordon Charlesworth killed in
Speaker 2: motor accident near Conway on Saturday night. That's it. So
Speaker 2: they're like, you know, sorry, and they they're constantly just
Speaker 2: like summarizing what all these other papers say. So it's like,
Speaker 2: well that's you know, it's not us, it's doing this
Speaker 2: crazy slipping. It's them.
Speaker 3: So they're all like pointing at the Daily Mail. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're the ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they talk about how like she leased a house,
Speaker 2: this big hall and she paid and she paid all
Speaker 2: these people to come and decorate it and they she
Speaker 2: never paid any of them. So basically she's in huge
Speaker 2: financial trouble. She also apparently had a big life insurance policy.
Speaker 2: Really huh, And but there was checked Oh yeah, there
Speaker 2: were sightings of her all across England into Scotland, Ireland.
Speaker 3: With the disappearance back of the christ it was.
Speaker 2: Similar, but like no one was buying the story. Everything
Speaker 2: was hanky. Kevin the Corgy totally correct. Kevin new in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool.
Speaker 2: Her creditors are like stunned by this because like some
Speaker 2: were thinking, well, you know, maybe the estate will pay
Speaker 2: the debts, you know, maybe it'll come through. But like
Speaker 2: the smart people they're like, this is all a big fraud.
Speaker 2: There were no clear witnesses accident Philadelphia. Yeah, the local
Speaker 2: constables like they saw the where like the hat and
Speaker 2: the journal were found, and they're like, that's awfully convenient,
Speaker 2: like just to toss off the edge. It looked like
Speaker 2: it was placed there, like not really scattered about. Scotland
Speaker 2: Yards sent detectives to Wales and then there was a
Speaker 2: break in the case from a beautiful windswept town on
Speaker 2: the west coast of Scotland. Let's take a break, fill
Speaker 2: up on some ads, and when we return will head
Speaker 2: to the highlands. All right, Saren Elizabeth Zaren, I'm over here. Hey,
Speaker 2: those ads were good. Huh oh my god, bottomless, bottomless
Speaker 2: ads so good.
Speaker 3: All you can eat.
Speaker 2: All you can take. January ninth, nineteen o nine, a
Speaker 2: telegraph arrived in Real Wales from a village near Oban
Speaker 2: on the Scottish West Coast.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know where any of that is.
Speaker 2: But seems like well to me. It seems like it'll
Speaker 2: get there. But the Scots they're not going to be
Speaker 2: the ones to have a wool pulled over their eyes.
Speaker 3: Thank you very That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2: So here's the Northern Daily Telegram at January eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: oh nine, quote Miss Violet Charlesworth, the principal figure in
Speaker 2: the Welsh motorcar mystery, is reported to have been discovered
Speaker 2: in Oben, the tracing of her whereabouts being due to
Speaker 2: the clever work of a Scottish policeman with true Sherlock
Speaker 2: Holmes instincts. He is stationed at Tomberbory, a remote fishing
Speaker 2: village with fifteen hundred inhabitants on the northeast coast of
Speaker 2: the Isle of Mull, which forms part of the County
Speaker 2: of Argyllshire and is only accessible by steamer A four
Speaker 2: hours run up the Sound of Mull from open and
Speaker 2: the story of his essay in real detective work is
Speaker 2: told in the following letter received by Superintendent Ivor Davies
Speaker 2: of the flintsher police. I would watch the heck app
Speaker 2: on the Isle of Mull like love. Please BritBox Acorn,
Speaker 2: get on this. I need this.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: The letter goes on to detail that the cops saw
Speaker 2: this lady show up the small village and rent a
Speaker 2: room at one of the hotels there. He'd read about
Speaker 2: the crash in Whales. He was suspicious. I think this
Speaker 2: is Violet, he told the guy who ran the hotel
Speaker 2: keep an eye on her correspondence. The letter continues, quote
Speaker 2: she engaged rooms at a farmhouse near this town and
Speaker 2: was to have taken possession of this the same week.
Speaker 2: While engaging these rooms, she asked the farmer's wife if
Speaker 2: she would be allowed to keep a Saint Bernard dog.
Speaker 2: She left here yesterday for Oben without paying her bill,
Speaker 2: saying she'd be back on Saturday. The hotel keeper kept
Speaker 2: some of her luggage. When she arrived at this hotel,
Speaker 2: she signed her name in the visitors book as Margaret MacLeod.
Speaker 2: After she left yesterday, the page was found to have
Speaker 2: been cut out of the visitor's book. From the description
Speaker 2: of this lady and the finding of the telegram in
Speaker 2: her bedroom, I am fully convinced this is the missing
Speaker 2: Lady Motorist. Interesting now, the telegram in her bedroom was
Speaker 2: addressed to Violet Charlesworth. Exactly Lady Motorists. I'm the lady host,
Speaker 2: the lady host who needs to keep her opinions to herself.
Speaker 2: I'll never let that review. So anyway, the lady host,
Speaker 2: Lady Motorist and dear Violet telegram. Okay, So Violet, she
Speaker 2: gets picked up at the Palace Hotel in Oben. So
Speaker 2: she's like, I want to rent a farmhouse on this island.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. Can I have a Saint Bernard? But then
Speaker 2: she's like, I'll be right back, and then she just
Speaker 2: goes and picks up. I don't know, but I need
Speaker 2: to talk about how much I love open Please. I've
Speaker 2: been curious about beautiful. They make fabulous whiskey there. Oh
Speaker 2: it's the seafood Capital of Scotland, Zeron, is it really?
Speaker 2: It really is? In putting together my outline for this story,
Speaker 2: on my little bullet points, I went on a big,
Speaker 2: open side quest and it just made me want to
Speaker 2: go back. I love I love it. If Scotland had
Speaker 2: more sunny days, I'd move back in a heartbeat. I
Speaker 2: bet it's really the only reason I left. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm a California girl. I need sunshine. I go into
Speaker 2: seasonal effective destort her very easily. I wonder if they'll
Speaker 2: take me as an asylum seeker.
Speaker 3: You know they have those sun visors. You can just
Speaker 3: like hook up on the SAT.
Speaker 2: I could, I totally could, But I need like real
Speaker 2: global warming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, it's stuff's moving, It's I don't make the
Speaker 3: sunlight's changing its latitude, but.
Speaker 2: Whatever it might, who's to say, Zaren, I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 3: I'm not either.
Speaker 2: I just leave it to the experts.
Speaker 3: So I just play one in my bedroom.
Speaker 2: Your bedroom, sciences, yikes, Why did I put this in that?
Speaker 3: And I drink it at the voltage no one can
Speaker 3: see me. I gotta make a note of my journey
Speaker 3: invisibility teachers.
Speaker 2: Okay, So open Violet, She's going by miss Margaret McLeod
Speaker 2: and open. The cops come to her, she sticks to
Speaker 2: her story. They're like, we found this telegram addressed to
Speaker 2: Violet in your room. She's like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: that's about. Yeah, who's where am I? Where's my saint?
Speaker 3: I'm Maggie McLeod, her sister and Watts.
Speaker 2: They go to Glasgow, I mean, because like, hello, why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you And then they go up to Oben to
Speaker 2: verify that it's her. So Eileen sits with her, talks
Speaker 2: to her and goes to the authorities and is like
Speaker 2: that's not right. Gasps go up across the lands and
Speaker 2: that's awesome. Yeah, and like.
Speaker 3: No one thinks to question the one that's coming in
Speaker 3: to confirm her, and she goes.
Speaker 2: She's like, well, let me talk to her again. They
Speaker 2: go and have lunch. She goes, actually, like my sister.
Speaker 2: They kept this up for a few days. Like she
Speaker 2: and her sister, who she claimed not to know, went
Speaker 2: back to Glasgow. Then they go to Edinburgh together.
Speaker 3: I really wanted to test this.
Speaker 2: Each stop she's harassed by journalists looking for confession, Like
Speaker 2: they get the rooms across the hall right, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and they pointed out that Miss McLeod, who claimed to
Speaker 2: be Scottish, had a Northern English accent, and like she's
Speaker 2: like whatever, she just kept up through She's like, that's
Speaker 2: not me. I don't know what you're talking about. She
Speaker 2: would constantly know it's not me. Then, on January twenty third,
Speaker 2: the Liverpool Weekly Weekly Mercury ran this heading confession, Oh yeah, quote,
Speaker 2: it is no use my denying it any longer. I
Speaker 2: am Miss Violet Charlesworth of in these words uttered to
Speaker 2: a special representative of the Daily Chronicle in Edinburgh, Miss
Speaker 2: Margaret MacLeod, Oben and Tomer Bory finally threw up the
Speaker 2: game of bluff. She's been playing with such superb assurance
Speaker 2: during the past few days. I suppose I may take it,
Speaker 2: Miss Violet. I said that the incident at Pembermer Point
Speaker 2: was invented in order that you might escape the liabilities
Speaker 2: which were pressing upon you. Invented, she exclaimed, raising her
Speaker 2: eyebrows in astonishment. Nothing of the sort. Do you say
Speaker 2: that you were in the car when it started on
Speaker 2: the return journey from Bangor? Was my next question? Of course,
Speaker 2: I was what my sister and Watts told you was
Speaker 2: perfectly true, it was a genuine accident, then how came
Speaker 2: you to disappear wild? When the accident happened, Watts pulled
Speaker 2: me from the seat, I was at the wheel and
Speaker 2: then he slipped down the cliff. My sister Eileen, as
Speaker 2: she has told you, open the door and was thrown
Speaker 2: to the ground. And what happened to you, miss Violet?
Speaker 2: I asked, Ah, you would like to know? I dare say,
Speaker 2: she replied with a playful nod of the head. All
Speaker 2: I can tell you is that I got away from
Speaker 2: the scene of the accident without anyone knowing.
Speaker 3: That's all you can tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So she goes on. She tells the reporter that
Speaker 2: she realized the crash was like a perfect cover to
Speaker 2: make a run for it.
Speaker 3: Okay, but she didn't go with the whole I hit
Speaker 3: my head and have any you know.
Speaker 2: She's like, she's like everything's collapsing around you. And she
Speaker 2: said she loved reading the coverage that she generated, just
Speaker 2: so entertained by it. So her story didn't just take
Speaker 2: over the UK press?
Speaker 3: Would you be entertained by that? I know you would
Speaker 3: never like fake your death and run away. But if
Speaker 3: you what's say you did? Do you think you would
Speaker 3: read the press. Would you be the ted.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I think I might know
Speaker 2: it might how about you?
Speaker 3: No, definitely not. I wouldn't. I think we get in
Speaker 3: my head. I would. I'd maybe have somebody like read
Speaker 3: it for me and tell me if they have anything
Speaker 3: key in there that's a giveaway, like, oh no, they've
Speaker 3: got a very important bit of evidence. I'd have somebody
Speaker 3: monitoring it, but it wouldn't be mean, like an actor
Speaker 3: not reading my reviews. This again, Yeah, yeah, I got
Speaker 3: to keep I need my confidence. How about the run?
Speaker 2: The first day would bother me, and then you get
Speaker 2: used to it totally.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to manage my head too much.
Speaker 2: What's a good thing to do. I don't. There's no management.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 2: We are without Rudder up top. So she's super entertained
Speaker 2: by the coverage. It's all over the globe because one
Speaker 2: paper said it was big news anywhere that people spoke English.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, but the perspective was a little different.
Speaker 2: So here's the Detroit Free Press in the US of
Speaker 2: A telling it as of February seventh.
Speaker 3: Let's hear a Detroit.
Speaker 2: Headline England upset over one girl, whole country and hysterics,
Speaker 2: says to Violet Charlesworth, the missing motorist. Newspaper hunt through
Speaker 2: Great Britain for her discovered in Scotland seventeen days after
Speaker 2: she quote disappeared to escape creditors. And then here's the
Speaker 2: opening paragraph, London, February sixth. If the myth of British
Speaker 2: phlegm had not been exploded long ago, the history of
Speaker 2: the first eighteen days of January would go far toward
Speaker 2: doing it. During that time, the British press and people
Speaker 2: have devoted themselves with an enthusiasm bordering on the hysterical,
Speaker 2: to the affairs of a young woman who ran away
Speaker 2: January second to escape from her creditors and managed more
Speaker 2: or less to hide herself until January nineteenth.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't have the sand over.
Speaker 2: There, flem as in like Calmn September. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, like the old four temperaments.
Speaker 2: Like me, Yeah, what a piece.
Speaker 3: They're going to hysterics and I know what that means.
Speaker 2: Yeah at that time, like a bunch of ladies. But
Speaker 2: you're also running the big headline Detroit Free Press like me.
Speaker 2: Look in the mirror. Okay, guys, everybody think about that,
Speaker 2: so the papers covered absolutely every development. I do need
Speaker 2: to point out that someone got cheeky about that time
Speaker 2: and named a racehorse Violet Charles Ruth, which made for
Speaker 2: very interesting newspapers dot com perusing. It was just like
Speaker 2: the like betting lines of like twelve to one.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're getting the headlines of like yeah Charles.
Speaker 2: So while waiting to go to trial, she made sure
Speaker 2: to stay in the spotlight. She gave interviews with national
Speaker 2: papers Daily Mail got to do it. She wrote a
Speaker 2: song about her faked death called Goodbye Girly what and
Speaker 2: then had the lyrics printed in the paper Hell.
Speaker 3: Yes, rights you do.
Speaker 2: Zodiac never did that. There was a stage show written
Speaker 2: about her, and then she debuted at the London Hippodrome
Speaker 2: playing herself.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? She did the Jackie Robinson I'll Play Myself.
Speaker 2: A silent movie deal in which she was going to
Speaker 2: play herself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did agree to direct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was right there.
Speaker 3: Well he was in the twenties and Britishilman.
Speaker 2: It wasn't him. Now people refer to her as an
Speaker 2: a Dwardian influencer. Really yeah, because that was basically what
Speaker 2: she's doing. Well, the police investigation continues. They discovered that
Speaker 2: she owed a grand total of twelve thousand pounds to
Speaker 2: people from whom she'd borrowed money, and another twelve thousand
Speaker 2: in stock market liabilities, and she was eventually declared bankrupt.
Speaker 3: I mean naturally obvious physically.
Speaker 2: Her social currency was also running out, so she had.
Speaker 3: Terrible had any left.
Speaker 2: She had a terrible stage fright, and like doing the
Speaker 2: play that's about her, And then she kept getting booed
Speaker 2: off stage by audiences night after night.
Speaker 3: That would getting booed playing yourself. She was not meant
Speaker 3: for this, meant for the stageless.
Speaker 2: I can see how like that would give you stage
Speaker 2: right if they're just constantly booing you.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll give you more than stage You could play
Speaker 3: me better.
Speaker 2: Than me, dumb dumbs and they're like anyone else.
Speaker 3: Stage that's like confirmation stage confirmation. You don't belong here.
Speaker 2: You're bad at you. February nineteen ten, she and her
Speaker 2: mom appeared at Derby Police Court on three separate charges
Speaker 2: unlawfully incurring a certain debt and liability to Martha Smith,
Speaker 2: the widow Smith oh Right Good to the amount of
Speaker 2: four hundred and one pounds by means of fraud other
Speaker 2: than false pretenses. They got charged with obtaining by false
Speaker 2: pretenses in November nineteen oh eight, the same sum of
Speaker 2: money from Martha Smith with intended to fraud, and the
Speaker 2: last one fraudulently conspiring to obtain from Martha Smith and
Speaker 2: Edward Hughes Jones, the Doctor the Bow certain large sums
Speaker 2: of money. So Miriam the mom was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I was the one conned. Violet conned me the mom
Speaker 2: her mom. Yeah, I think we now know the mom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we always knew.
Speaker 2: There was a huge care the one who coached. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought she was getting that cartoon money. Yeah. Come on.
Speaker 2: So there's this huge crowd there. They all want to
Speaker 2: get in see the circus in the courtroom. Missus charles Worth.
Speaker 2: She comes in dressed in black and wears like a black.
Speaker 3: Bonnet, mourning the loss of her own life, yes.
Speaker 2: And of course and the loss of her trust and
Speaker 2: her daughter who conned her. According to the papers, she
Speaker 2: seemed very distressed. She had to be assisted to her
Speaker 2: seat by a police matron. Violet was reported to be
Speaker 2: like very pale and appeared to be ill, and she
Speaker 2: just cried the whole time, she wore like a really
Speaker 2: big black hat, you know, kind of subdued.
Speaker 3: Big at okay, yeah, and then a.
Speaker 2: White feather boa get it girl, like just go for it.
Speaker 3: You need a little bit.
Speaker 2: Let's do it, Mama and I guess like they both
Speaker 2: were like sick in some way, Like the Mom's like
Speaker 2: I've heard trouble stressed. Violet, it's like I have the
Speaker 2: Sunday scaries, you know. So February twenty third verdict is
Speaker 2: in the jury thirty minutes of deliberations. That's bad, found
Speaker 2: them both guilty of conspiracy and false pretense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like we just need enough time to go
Speaker 3: around the room.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the judge is like, guess what, Mom, I
Speaker 2: got your number. You were the mastermind. But also Violet,
Speaker 2: you were a willing participant, so you're both terrible people.
Speaker 2: They get sense to five years penal servitude. Miriam like
Speaker 2: literally swooned. The police matron on hand had to tend
Speaker 2: to her like dab her brow and keep it falling.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Viole. Violets sat there like in a daze,
Speaker 2: like completely still as the verdict was read and like
Speaker 2: kind of staring off into the distance. And then she
Speaker 2: gets up to leave the courtroom and she sees her
Speaker 2: sister and like gives like a faint smile and then
Speaker 2: is escorted out and kind of creeped everyone up. They
Speaker 2: later had their sentences reduced to three years. They tried
Speaker 2: to appeal that got denied. They were sent to Aylesbury Prison,
Speaker 2: which is one of the few ones that was equipped
Speaker 2: to hold women for long sentences. The prison registers described
Speaker 2: Violet as quote healthy, neat in person, reserved in manner,
Speaker 2: it was good, and that a prison inspector's report said
Speaker 2: that she quote bears her sentence with unusual calm, engages
Speaker 2: in no misconduct, but converses little with her fellow inmates
Speaker 2: and like a lot of people thought she was just
Speaker 2: relieved because it was so exhausting. Yeah, there's that too.
Speaker 2: So records show that she got out after serving two years,
Speaker 2: likely for like a good behavior, and people don't really
Speaker 2: know what happened after that. So there are some reports
Speaker 2: that she went to live on the Isle of Man.
Speaker 2: Most say she went to Scotland to live out her
Speaker 2: days because she was so obsessed. But the UK Genealogy
Speaker 2: Service find My Past they believe that her mother, Miriam
Speaker 2: died in Lancashire in nineteen twenty and then they pulled
Speaker 2: a death record for a May Charlesworth in Stoke on
Speaker 2: Trent in nineteen fifty seven. So her legacy does live on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the spot where she crashed the car is now called
Speaker 2: Violet's Leap. Wow, there you go, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: My friend Jay's family's crazy. That's why you know Jay,
Speaker 3: I had no idea you had it like that. Now.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed that. Also, it was the you said earlier,
Speaker 3: the Edwardian influencer, and I kind of like poop poo
Speaker 3: died at first. I thought about it while you were
Speaker 3: telling the story, and I think your spot on in
Speaker 3: terms of it, she really was like an early influencer.
Speaker 3: But like she would have been a huge star. She
Speaker 3: would have been able to have a TV show or
Speaker 3: some kind of streaming series or like a podcast that
Speaker 3: everybody talks about. You don't call her violin.
Speaker 2: You know, all the right outfits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you said she was stylist, she said, you know,
Speaker 3: and she's well trained by her mother. So we see
Speaker 3: that Kardashian like, oh, like, my mother is a celebrity
Speaker 3: and she trained me to do this lifestyle.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, she's an a dwarding Kardashian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, I think she would have been. She's she's okay,
Speaker 3: the same way that Woody Allen is lucky that he
Speaker 3: was born when he was born, she's unlucky that she
Speaker 3: was born and she was born. She just had like
Speaker 3: another century.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, huge.
Speaker 3: She might not have ever even had to do any
Speaker 3: of this getting married. All this behavior would have been rewarded,
Speaker 3: and that we would all talk about her marrying one
Speaker 3: of the most richest people in the world.
Speaker 2: Totally good points.
Speaker 3: You'res Elizabeth. You see how he did. That's all smooth
Speaker 3: like it It was really clever. You didn't see it coming.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: I can tell I again go back to my thing
Speaker 2: about it's the same like blueprint every time. And so again,
Speaker 2: if someone's like I'm going to come into an inheritance
Speaker 2: or like my stocks will realize at a certain time,
Speaker 2: I don't believe them. If it's other people's money too.
Speaker 3: Definitely that and also things that don't exist don't exist. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so someone said tells you it's about to happen, it
Speaker 3: doesn't exist exactly what it does exist, Then you can
Speaker 3: do something about it.
Speaker 4: Until that point.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 3: I'm a simple man, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I need a talkback. I'm simple, I need a talkback.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I love.
Speaker 6: Hey's Aaron and Elizabeth listening to the Minor League episode.
Speaker 6: I couldn't help but remember the minor league team in
Speaker 6: my hometown, New Orleans. For a long time, they were
Speaker 6: the Zephyrs, and they had two giant nutrient as their mascots.
Speaker 6: But now they're the baby Cakes and they have the
Speaker 6: most scary haunt you in your nightmares mascot. It's a
Speaker 6: kincake baby that looks like it drove around with chewy
Speaker 6: meth raccoon.
Speaker 2: The Baby Cakes like T shirt. I love that. Oh
Speaker 2: that's so good. Thank you for that.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I do need to mention too that we have a
Speaker 2: special award, the a Ridiculous Crime Heroes Award, that we
Speaker 2: don't really ever give out, but something that you know,
Speaker 2: we talk about the emails, right, We do appreciate that
Speaker 2: and we greatly We don't no one answers them, but
Speaker 2: we do read them totally. And so Beth from Western
Speaker 2: Massachusetts is a ridiculous crime hero. Yes, because Beth started
Speaker 2: listening to the show a couple of weeks ago and
Speaker 2: powered through Binge listens yes, all the way through, Like
Speaker 2: I'm talking like seventy eight episodes every day. I don't
Speaker 2: know how I didn't annoy her.
Speaker 3: I can't believe voice.
Speaker 2: But she she was loving it, and she gave us updates.
Speaker 2: We got like nine emails from Beth the like daily updates,
Speaker 2: and it was we we been binge the emails. You know.
Speaker 3: We figured if she's going to binge, just we should
Speaker 3: binge her. It was awesome.
Speaker 2: So, Beth, we do read the emails.
Speaker 3: You read all your email.
Speaker 2: No one ever answers. We read all the emails that
Speaker 2: come in get read. They just don't get and they.
Speaker 3: Don't always get read aloud. But we read allowed to
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Beth, it was so much fun.
Speaker 3: We started looking forward to them. We're like, oh, we
Speaker 3: got a new one, Beth.
Speaker 2: Best crime hero.
Speaker 3: There you are.
Speaker 2: Let's see. That's it for today. You can find us
Speaker 2: online at Ridiculous crime dot com. Did you know we
Speaker 2: just won the American Chemical Society's Garvin Olin Metal for
Speaker 2: the website.
Speaker 3: I'm so proud.
Speaker 2: It's for achievement in Women in Chemistry.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to tell my mother.
Speaker 2: God, she be so excited. She's she loves coding, shes
Speaker 2: chemistry too. Everything is always like metals, you should.
Speaker 3: Learn to chemistry. I'm like, you mean learn to coade.
Speaker 3: She's like, no, learn to chemistry.
Speaker 2: American Chemical Societies, Garvin Olin Metal. I love that's going
Speaker 2: on my resume. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue
Speaker 2: Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime, pod
Speaker 2: Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Please and then
Speaker 2: leave us at talkback. I think that's my most important part.
Speaker 2: I want to hit that up the hardest. Leave it Talkback,
Speaker 2: download the free iHeart app, do It, do It, do
Speaker 2: It reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
Speaker 2: and Sarah Burnett, produced and edited by Prince of Wales
Speaker 2: and Dolphins Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutgers.
Speaker 4: Judith.
Speaker 2: Research is by Mysterious Heiress Marissa Brown. The theme song
Speaker 2: is by duped Love Struck, Welshman Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
Speaker 2: Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
Speaker 2: and makeup by Sparkleshot Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Bolensworth.
Speaker 2: And Noel Brownsworth WHI Say It one more Time Ridiquious Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.