Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, producer Dave Interns did go to voicemail. We have
Speaker 2: to change the outgoing message from something other than just
Speaker 2: the sound of a truck backing up.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 2: We got caught again. The resort boys ran a pit
Speaker 2: maneuver on us on a country road and we flipped
Speaker 2: the airport shuttle. We're okay, We're okay, but they've taken
Speaker 2: us to a black site and an abandoned red roof
Speaker 2: in this place is dismal bleak. There's no HBO or
Speaker 2: MAX or whatever they're calling it. Now. We're gonna bust
Speaker 2: out tonight. We've been collecting bed sheets, tearing them into strips,
Speaker 2: braiding and weaving them like the ancients of the York.
Speaker 2: We have a really elaborate rope ladder built. I wanted
Speaker 2: to die in a fun color with some fruit punch
Speaker 2: crystal light in the bathtub from mustash. I keep in
Speaker 2: my shoe, But zaren say, we don't have time for
Speaker 2: the so we won't be in today, but.
Speaker 3: We should know the sweet taste of freedom.
Speaker 2: Very soon, and an action next week. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: remember that guy in Engram A long time Ago who
Speaker 2: escaped from jail a lot? Can you run that episode
Speaker 2: as inspiration for us? Appreciate you doing.
Speaker 3: Zaren Burnette.
Speaker 4: Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, what's up, Claude?
Speaker 3: Not much? How are you doing today?
Speaker 4: Doing pretty well? Doing pretty well? Thanks for asking? How
Speaker 4: are you?
Speaker 3: I'm great as always. I'm just scurvat so happy to
Speaker 3: hear that. Listen. You know it's ridiculous. Yes, I do
Speaker 3: give it to me.
Speaker 4: Okay, Elizabeth, all right, I'm not I want to preface this.
Speaker 4: I'm not making fun of the front part. I'm making
Speaker 4: part of the back part. Okay. Last year, there's this
Speaker 4: news story about this guy, Christian Montenegro okay, and he
Speaker 4: married a rag doll. Like not, that's not I'm not
Speaker 4: casting aspersions on this person. No, no, like his wife,
Speaker 4: Natalia is a rag doll, and uh, he broke up
Speaker 4: with his ex girlfriend, right, And so then he started
Speaker 4: dating Natalia, the rag doll, And then he decided, well,
Speaker 4: I'm happy with her. We can make a good life
Speaker 4: of this. So then he got married to the rag doll.
Speaker 4: And people are like this, this is not not right.
Speaker 4: People are like, no, no, he's it's fine. So they're debating, right, Anyway.
Speaker 4: This is the part that it gets me because I
Speaker 4: don't whatever you've been marry what bridge, marry a building out? Okay, Right.
Speaker 4: There was a video last year of him going to
Speaker 4: the doctors in which he's called paramedics because he was
Speaker 4: worried that his rag doll had fallen. Ill. Now keep
Speaker 4: in mind they have three rag doll children, so he
Speaker 4: was worried he was going to be a single rag
Speaker 4: doll father to their rag doll kiss.
Speaker 3: Where where is this?
Speaker 4: And it goes long enough that I do not think
Speaker 4: it's a prank. I have to believe that this is
Speaker 4: a compulsion. It is into South America. Why are you
Speaker 4: being like, what does it matter where he is?
Speaker 3: I want to go down there and slap them.
Speaker 4: It takes place in the land of magical realism.
Speaker 3: Colombia, Oh, Colombia, Oh, Columbia. So there you go, ridiculous, right,
Speaker 3: and spark three guess what three things ridiculous?
Speaker 4: Three rag doll kids, a rag doll wife. You know,
Speaker 4: when he gets sick, he goes to a people a
Speaker 4: people hospital, Elizabeth, I need to go to a rag
Speaker 4: doll hospital.
Speaker 3: I'm a progressive. Where is the.
Speaker 4: Fine taking a rag doll to a human hospital. It's
Speaker 4: like taking me to a vent that we come on,
Speaker 4: do you want to save your wife or not?
Speaker 3: Because we got the cops on her tail.
Speaker 4: That's why that I recommend it.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be like, you know, if he
Speaker 3: wants to love ad No.
Speaker 4: Three or something, I think we can afford another conversation.
Speaker 4: He sewed another kid.
Speaker 3: You don't get to do that kind of like, come on, now,
Speaker 3: come on now, that is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Do you
Speaker 3: know what else is ridiculous? No, but I'm here for it,
Speaker 3: escaping and then escaping and then escaping some more.
Speaker 4: I like the spirit.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 3: Heycin Cuns. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 3: one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Note you heard that.
Speaker 3: You've talked about escape artists before.
Speaker 4: Once or twice. Yes, I'm a fan.
Speaker 3: Those who break out of lock up and make it
Speaker 3: an absolute art.
Speaker 4: Yes, a statement, multiple attempts.
Speaker 3: A commentary on man's isolation amid the masses and desperate
Speaker 3: need for liberation. You know something high falutine like that
Speaker 3: that talk. I like that you focused on more recent
Speaker 3: ridiculous escapermen.
Speaker 4: Yes, and the ridiculousness of the artist.
Speaker 3: A postmodern analysis completely. I want to take us back.
Speaker 3: You heard I want to take his way back. Hey,
Speaker 3: I got two ogs for you to Oh wow, oh geez,
Speaker 3: all right, let's start in the seventeen hundred. This is
Speaker 3: like you starting everything going back to Dracula. Dracula.
Speaker 4: I'm always yeah, like when memed the second could have
Speaker 4: killed Dracula, Draca could have killed second goes back to
Speaker 4: the second and then he failed. Yeah, I glad Paler
Speaker 4: failed to kill Memod the second. You get America, that's
Speaker 4: when you're.
Speaker 3: Like, what caused the Cuban missile crisis? You're like, well, okay, well.
Speaker 4: It starts with me, you know, the second in the
Speaker 4: Fall of Constantinople in fourteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: Now every time, so I'm taking to the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 3: and I'm not going to mangle any French or Italian pronunciations.
Speaker 4: Oh man.
Speaker 3: Not because I've worked hard on my diction and my focus. No,
Speaker 3: it's because there aren't any nice hoorah. Okay, So the
Speaker 3: first dude is a fellow named Jack Shepherd. I can
Speaker 3: say that nice. You got that Jack Shepherds. Now I'm
Speaker 3: gonna screw hard. He's known as the eighteenth century's most
Speaker 3: notorious robber and thief. That's saying a lot. Is it
Speaker 3: purely in his home country of England, likely because he
Speaker 3: wasn't a global phenom, kind of a highwayman. Not really,
Speaker 3: you'll see, okay. He was also referred to as the
Speaker 3: most glamorous rogue in London.
Speaker 4: One of those kind of guy glamours ar yes, m
Speaker 4: a jigglow with deep pockets. He drops things in.
Speaker 3: He was born. He was born on March fourth? Yes,
Speaker 3: did you ever when when I was in high school
Speaker 3: we used to say to the nuns that he'd raise
Speaker 3: your hand and be like, what's today's date, and they'd
Speaker 3: say March fourth, and we'd all get up and walk forward.
Speaker 4: You're making that up. He did not really do that,
Speaker 4: Did you guys actually get up out of your seats?
Speaker 4: You really did? Multiple kids?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just one time, one March wow. And then we
Speaker 3: looked at each other and we're like, oh God, I love.
Speaker 4: That for you know, do you actually have that? That's
Speaker 4: so precious and dear? He was, but this was March forth,
Speaker 4: Oh wow, coming back, mourning, coming back.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like better than when May the fourth, when
Speaker 3: people do the hell no, no, no, March fourth. So
Speaker 3: his family was terribly poor. They lived in Spittlefields in
Speaker 3: London in the east endeld Well know. The location gets
Speaker 3: its name from the fact that many of the original
Speaker 3: inhabitants had both poorly formed dentician and severe allergies. I
Speaker 3: don't leading them. Well, no, it led them to like
Speaker 3: produce abnormally large quantities of saliva, and those were expelled
Speaker 3: as they yelled at outsiders who crossed the area's large
Speaker 3: open meadow.
Speaker 4: Thus Spittlefields, the pollen rich meadow, the gas in their
Speaker 4: teeth and they yelled.
Speaker 3: At And you think this is funny?
Speaker 4: Do you think this is funny.
Speaker 3: Because it's not true. The land actually belonged to Saint
Speaker 3: Mary's Spittle, a hospital built in eleven ninety seven. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so spittle is a corruption of the word hospital. Okay,
Speaker 3: but I think my explanation is way better.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I told so much better. So they dropped
Speaker 4: the hoe and made spittle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, drop the hoe. Okay, So an earlier name for
Speaker 3: the area was Lallsworth. Lol, like laugh out loud. You
Speaker 3: did not you made It's true that's true. So in
Speaker 3: Jack Shepherd's time, it was an area notorious for highwaymen,
Speaker 3: as you said, bad men, yes, and prostitutes and so
Speaker 3: Jack he stayed away from all that. When he was
Speaker 3: fifteen he got an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Five years later,
Speaker 3: he's twenty years old. Because I can do math, and
Speaker 3: I also had to be hooked on phonics. He was
Speaker 3: an accomplished craftsman, of course, twenty years old. He was
Speaker 3: a small fellow.
Speaker 4: They don't have TV.
Speaker 3: No, he was all the time in the world. He
Speaker 3: was too poor for it. Everyone else had it.
Speaker 4: I was on your candle light. You can be working, kid.
Speaker 3: He was a litland. He was five four spine bone slight.
Speaker 3: But he had like this dazzling smile. He didn't have
Speaker 3: the Spittlefields dentician. He had a dazzling smile and a
Speaker 3: magnetic personality, and so that made him really popular in
Speaker 3: the neighborhood, especially in the pubs. And it was in
Speaker 3: those taverns that he fell in with the wrong crowd,
Speaker 3: the shady underbelly of Spittlefields. And so most notably was
Speaker 3: a prostitute named Elizabeth Lyon aka Edgeworth. Best Edgeworth, Edgeworth,
Speaker 3: Bestka District. Best. Best was a big, beautiful mama whole
Speaker 3: lot of ros, very popular with the fellas and Jack
Speaker 3: was sprung hubba hubba. And so the more time and
Speaker 3: money he spent with Best, the deeper into that dark
Speaker 3: side of things. He got. Lots of drinking, lots of carousing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this wasn't good for woodworkings.
Speaker 4: Are no will be selling his tools?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, as a one time man of the train,
Speaker 3: you know that you have to be able to focus
Speaker 3: and show up on time and get the work done.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and you have to have your tools.
Speaker 3: You can't send things just you can't like send things
Speaker 3: to voicemail and ignore the inbox. So his income took
Speaker 3: a dip and he wasn't getting the work he once
Speaker 3: was because he was spending all this money on booze
Speaker 3: and on the Best. Yeah, and so he had to
Speaker 3: make ends meet. He needed cash. He started stealing. In
Speaker 3: the spring of seventeen twenty three, he got busted for
Speaker 3: the first time shoplifting.
Speaker 4: Taking other people's tools.
Speaker 3: Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover, he yelled, Did
Speaker 3: he really that's no, that's a Smith's lyric.
Speaker 4: Oh, I thought they pulled it from him, like it's
Speaker 4: an old British story.
Speaker 3: I just have never heard he had. He was spinall
Speaker 3: over the I'm not going to believe anything. So soon
Speaker 3: enough he starts hanging out with a very bad ombre
Speaker 3: named Joseph Blake aka Blueskin.
Speaker 4: William Blake's little brother, Blueskin. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: No, one's really sure how he got that name.
Speaker 4: Colloidal silver, that's how he got that name.
Speaker 3: He had like a really swarthy complexion. He was also blue,
Speaker 3: super hairy, Okay, especially in the facial region. So maybe
Speaker 3: that was it. This is what they're speculating. Some thought
Speaker 3: maybe had a port wine birthmark.
Speaker 4: Okay, maybe more sense.
Speaker 3: He could have been part smurf.
Speaker 4: That's I'm going with that one. From the waist down, okay,
Speaker 4: like a mermaid or something. You know, it's like fish
Speaker 4: for the waist down, he's Smurf. From the waist down, Blueskin.
Speaker 3: Some of he doesn't wear pants a lot because everyone
Speaker 3: can see.
Speaker 4: Okay, well I thought his feet he can't. Yeah, his legs,
Speaker 4: they see his ankles. They go, they go out, they
Speaker 4: go all the way up.
Speaker 3: Blueskin. He shows Jack Shepherd the ropes takes him from
Speaker 3: an amateur shoplifter to a professional thief. He's good at it,
Speaker 3: but he's also not good at it.
Speaker 4: He was an interesting line there, professional thief amateur SHOPLIFTERA
Speaker 4: when someone else pays you enough, you.
Speaker 3: Get you get sponsorships.
Speaker 4: Okay, there your factory riders exactly.
Speaker 3: So he gets arrested and imprisoned five times between seventeen
Speaker 3: twenty three and seventeen twenty four. Of those five arrests,
Speaker 3: he got out four times. The poor folks in Spittlefields
Speaker 3: loved this, of course they loved it. They had no
Speaker 3: TV Cairo, they had no TV. The rich people intown did.
Speaker 3: So let's take a look at his first escape. Seventeen
Speaker 3: twenty three. He got sent to Saint Anne's Roundhouse for pickpocketing.
Speaker 3: That's where they invented the roundhouse.
Speaker 4: They had the roundhouse just for.
Speaker 3: Pickpocket It's where they invented it.
Speaker 4: Like all the cut pursons go here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bess came to visit him, and that was a
Speaker 3: bad idea because the jailers recognized her as a lady
Speaker 3: of the night and then she gets arrested. No, it's
Speaker 3: just in some position. Yeah, she wasn't out. I think
Speaker 3: she had like warrants. And so she and Jack they're
Speaker 3: sent together to new prison in Clerkenwell, and it was
Speaker 3: there that they were locked in a cell known as
Speaker 3: the newgate Ward.
Speaker 4: Okay, I think I've heard it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somehow Jack gets a hold of a file these things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so the couple they'd only been locked up overnight,
Speaker 3: but it was too much for Jack. He's like, I
Speaker 3: can't take this with Jack, he filed his way through
Speaker 3: his shackles. Then he used the file to gouge a
Speaker 3: hole in the wall right under the window, Not like
Speaker 3: a big hole that went all the way through, just
Speaker 3: one that like was placed as such that he could
Speaker 3: loosen one of the iron bars that blocked the wi
Speaker 3: window and wiggle it out of place. So they got
Speaker 3: the window open. Bess and Jack tied sheets and blankets
Speaker 3: together and did the old cliche rope out of the
Speaker 3: window escape. They lowered themselves to the ground and then
Speaker 3: they climbed over a twenty two foot high wall. Wow, freedom,
Speaker 3: how are you going to do that? They did it
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two feet.
Speaker 4: If they're standing on one shoulder and you get one up,
Speaker 4: the other one has to pull the other one.
Speaker 3: Five ft four. She's a she's.
Speaker 4: A big lady. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they did it.
Speaker 4: She threw them over and rope back over.
Speaker 3: Let's say that's how it happened, right, let me just
Speaker 3: say it. I'm going to go ahead and say it.
Speaker 3: Said she threw him over the wall.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 3: I like that wrote back over exactly.
Speaker 4: She climbed up, and she's got a baby.
Speaker 3: They went imprisoned. No more.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of filing too, and that you ever
Speaker 4: tried to file through metal?
Speaker 3: Can we just say cute couple alerts? Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I had a jail together.
Speaker 4: Oh dude, ship them forever.
Speaker 3: Seventeen twenty four. A year later, Jack's twenty two. He
Speaker 3: was still on his thieving bs. He gets caught. He
Speaker 3: was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death. It seems
Speaker 3: like a lot for theft. Yeah, So back to Newgate.
Speaker 4: What did he steal?
Speaker 3: I don't know. He stole the Declaration of Independence before
Speaker 3: it was written. The cell for the condemned at Newgate
Speaker 3: was at the end of a dark passage, and to
Speaker 3: get to the passage you had to go through this
Speaker 3: hatch that was like ringed with huge iron spikes.
Speaker 4: Are you kidding?
Speaker 3: No, that's August thirtieth, seventeen twenty four. Jack filed away
Speaker 3: at one of the spikes so that with a little
Speaker 3: push it would just snap right off. Okay, he got
Speaker 3: it almost through, and once again Bess comes to visit
Speaker 3: nice and I'm guessing she didn't have warrants this time,
Speaker 3: just like I'm good, and she brought the rope, and
Speaker 3: then she brought another prostitute with her, a gal named
Speaker 3: Mal Maggot, mall maggot, m o l l oh mall
Speaker 3: like Molly Maggot. Okay, And now I'm not of that world,
Speaker 3: but I would imagine that's not a name that drums
Speaker 3: up a lot of business.
Speaker 4: It depends very specific type of business. Maybe she's like
Speaker 4: going for the goth guys and she wants them to know, like.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you know a dead girl. Oh be sick. Okay,
Speaker 3: So Bess and Mal they waltzen to visit Jack on
Speaker 3: death Row, and they managed to distract the guard. How okay,
Speaker 3: magic trick, I you know, I can't imagine how. And
Speaker 3: so while the guard was otherwise occupied, Jack snapped off
Speaker 3: the spike and then he was able to squeeze through
Speaker 3: the space and make a break for it, and the
Speaker 3: girls helped him run off, and then they all went
Speaker 3: together bag at time magot so. But he only tasted
Speaker 3: freedom for a couple months then he gets locked up.
Speaker 3: His last escape was his most famous one. It was
Speaker 3: October fifteenth, seventeen twenty four, and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: footage of the escape available online. Keep doing that, you know.
Speaker 3: So the location was once again Newgate Prison. The jailers
Speaker 3: cuffed him while he was in the cell, hoping that
Speaker 3: would prevent him from getting out. Sometimes with cheese with
Speaker 3: he just always rope like loosely woven hemp rope. So
Speaker 3: at some point he managed to get his thin wrists
Speaker 3: out of the shackles, and then he pulled a loose
Speaker 3: nail out of the wall, which is why maintenance is important.
Speaker 4: Important things. Yeah, broken window, I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: So he used the nail to pick the lock on
Speaker 3: the chain that connected his ankle to the floor, and
Speaker 3: then he used the nail to pick the lock on
Speaker 3: the door. Yes, And then he used the nail to
Speaker 3: pick the lock in the area outside the block where
Speaker 3: he was kept, and then another lock and another lot.
Speaker 4: This is like the TV shows I watched like The Musketeers,
Speaker 4: Like this is so escape plane, totally get a nail,
Speaker 4: work it out of something.
Speaker 3: You know. He's on the roof of the prison. I
Speaker 3: love he still had a shackle around his ankle. Oh oh,
Speaker 3: I forgot And then he's like, oh, man, I forgot something.
Speaker 3: So he runs back to the cell and he grabs
Speaker 3: a blanket.
Speaker 4: He breaks back into the prison.
Speaker 3: Where's the staff? Where's the staff? Anyway, he runs back
Speaker 3: up to the roof with the blanket and he uses
Speaker 3: it to slide over to the roof next door, and
Speaker 3: then he pops into a top floor window. This place
Speaker 3: was someone's helm, okay, and snuck around and then out
Speaker 3: the front door. And he waited until the morning, and
Speaker 3: he went to a cobbler. Smart so being the local
Speaker 3: folk here. Yeah, well, he was able to convince the
Speaker 3: collbler to cut off the leg. Iron I feel like
Speaker 3: I would have gone to a blacksmith, but like you know, any.
Speaker 4: Port tools, they got similar tools.
Speaker 3: So he swanned around for two weeks just partying it up,
Speaker 3: and then the law caught up with him and when
Speaker 3: they went to make to get out of the oh,
Speaker 3: they went to arrest him dude was hammered. What Yeah,
Speaker 3: he was wasted, so he didn't run, he didn't resist,
Speaker 3: he's just all how dry Jack. Of course, he gets arrested,
Speaker 3: he's convicted, and once again sends to death. I told
Speaker 3: you he was a folk hero.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: When it was time to take him to the gallows,
Speaker 3: the road leading there was lined with women crying and
Speaker 3: like wailing and throwing flowers at his fee. Ladies man
Speaker 3: to the end. You know. Daniel Dafoe, author of Robinson Cruiser,
Speaker 3: not personally, but yes, big fan of Jack's. Earlier in
Speaker 3: the year, Jack Shepherd had written an autobiography, what a
Speaker 3: narrative of all the robbery's escapes, et cetera of John Shepherd.
Speaker 3: That was his book, except Jack didn't write it. Daniel
Speaker 3: Dafoe did. Yeah. They're pals called Ghost Road Book. Yeah so,
Speaker 3: and they were such pals that Daniel Dafoe and his
Speaker 3: publisher came up with a plan to wait fifteen minutes
Speaker 3: after Jack got the rope and then grabbed the body,
Speaker 3: and they wanted to revive him, which they heard had
Speaker 3: worked a couple of times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, back then, sometimes hangings you'd hear about this.
Speaker 3: It's the old equival of like one hack. They don't
Speaker 3: want you to know, like you can wait fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Well sometimes next Yeah, my cousin knows a guy who
Speaker 3: knows a guy who brought a handman back to life.
Speaker 3: That kind of thing totally works. They saw it on
Speaker 3: the hit ABC show nine one ps nine one one
Speaker 3: got even campier after moving from Fox to ABC. It's
Speaker 3: amazing and I love it, but I don't watch TV anyway. Jack,
Speaker 3: he didn't make it, and Daniel Dafoe is unsuccessful. This
Speaker 3: is like my one percent where it's murdered by the state. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's up for debate anyway, Rip to that man. Plays
Speaker 3: were written about Jack and performed after his death. In
Speaker 3: eighteen forty, William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel called Jack
Speaker 3: Shepherd and it was crazy popular, and the authorities didn't
Speaker 3: care for that, so much so that they refused to
Speaker 3: license any plays in London with Jack Sheppard in a
Speaker 3: title for forty years after the publication. That takes it
Speaker 3: to one hundred and fifty year years after his damn Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's take a break, dude.
Speaker 4: Wait before we take a break, Harry Styles, get on this.
Speaker 4: You can get back from Timothy shallow May all the
Speaker 4: riz He's stolen from you. This is it? Yeah, now
Speaker 4: get it? And also a David Bowie soundtrack.
Speaker 3: You got It's perfect. When we come back, I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you about a guy who was often compared
Speaker 3: to old Jack. Yeah, escaper boys, Yes.
Speaker 4: I'm digging this dude, That Jack Sheppard was dope.
Speaker 3: What else you got, Well, we're having a lot of fun,
Speaker 3: Yes we are. And I've already killed a man off.
Speaker 4: You tap with the state, no less.
Speaker 3: So this new Henry Moorese Smith is his name, Henry
Speaker 3: Morrisemith m o r E. Like just how much Smith Morse? Yeah,
Speaker 3: Henry More Smith. He was the North American Jack Shepherd,
Speaker 3: an escape artist, sort of a folk hero. This all
Speaker 3: goes down about like one hundred years after Jack Shephard
Speaker 3: eighteen thirties, twenties eighteen early eighteen teens. Okay, Smith is
Speaker 3: a con man, horse thief, burglar, and most importantly and
Speaker 3: escape artist. He had a bunch of aliases Frederick, Henry Moore,
Speaker 3: Henry J. Moon, William Newman. You know whatever those.
Speaker 4: Are good forgettable it sounding really.
Speaker 3: Good names exactly. So eighteen twelve, he arrives in Halifax, Nova,
Speaker 3: Scotia Canadian. He was vague about where he'd come from
Speaker 3: or like where he was born. There are no records
Speaker 3: of him prior to this time. He was well dressed
Speaker 3: and polite in his mid twenties. He said he was
Speaker 3: a tailor and then he'd just arrived from England.
Speaker 4: So one local, pretty good story, because there's a lot
Speaker 4: of makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a local said quote. He was perfectly inoffensive, gentle
Speaker 3: and obliging, used no intoxicating liquors, refrained from idle conversation
Speaker 3: in all improper language, and was apparently free from every
Speaker 3: evil habit.
Speaker 4: That's weird, Correct me if I'm wrong, But you describing me?
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, you've never said a bad word in
Speaker 3: your life.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, is that weird? We're reading it?
Speaker 3: You no intoxicating liquors, wild, doesn't smoke weed. Yeah, never
Speaker 3: like the zaren Burnette story.
Speaker 4: I never bad language.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Smith though. He said he went to Cambridge and
Speaker 3: so just like you. Of course, fancy is what I'm
Speaker 3: trying to He also said he said he could speak
Speaker 3: five languages. It's basically the zaren Burnettes. He said he
Speaker 3: had a small fortune held in the Bank of England, bingo.
Speaker 3: Here's where it's like I was reading this and I
Speaker 3: was like, is this Zaren or is this this Smith?
Speaker 3: Because he carried a Bible with him all the time,
Speaker 3: and he could recite whole chapters of scripture.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you want to ruth, I'll tell you right now,
Speaker 4: lays the ruth, the whole thing. Lay up some kings
Speaker 4: to next maybe judges, what do you got how much
Speaker 4: time you would?
Speaker 3: They would ask this guy about his spiritual past, like
Speaker 3: tell us about your spiritual that's a question, right, I'm
Speaker 3: going to start asking. And he said he ran a
Speaker 3: Methodist prayer meeting back in England just like this. Here's
Speaker 3: one that actually I could see you doing.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: One time someone asked him where he was from, and
Speaker 3: he just laughed and pointed at the full moon.
Speaker 4: That's very like that's going in the act.
Speaker 3: And so you know, all these people like they're kind
Speaker 3: of captivated by him. One person was John Bond, not
Speaker 3: John Bond, Jovie John Bond, John Bond exactly double O six.
Speaker 3: He thought that Smith was the beasknees. So we hired
Speaker 3: him to work on his farm near Windsor, just northwest
Speaker 3: of Halifax, and Smith he fit right in with the family.
Speaker 3: He joined them for meals and prayers. He was like,
Speaker 3: hold on, I need to pray before I eat this scrule.
Speaker 3: So he also romance to the daughter. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of Elizabeths going on here today.
Speaker 4: God's a big fan of.
Speaker 3: And so ministers. As was the custom of the day,
Speaker 3: Smith married Elizabeth. Within the year. There you go, hey, quick, dude.
Speaker 4: It happened.
Speaker 3: The couple moved out and Smith started his own tailor shop.
Speaker 3: He's like, you know what, I'm just going to go
Speaker 3: out on my own.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 3: Things were blissful, and until they weren't. In Halifax, at
Speaker 3: the big fancy mansions, things started going missing. Someone was
Speaker 3: slipping in during the night and stealing silver, jewelry, anything
Speaker 3: else of values, virtues. And it wasn't just palatial homes.
Speaker 3: Offices and stores got it, and it wasn't just expected
Speaker 3: high ticket items. The Chief Justice of the British Colony
Speaker 3: of Nova Scotia Samson Salter Blowers. Samson Salter Blowers or
Speaker 3: Salter Blowers. Yeah, he had three law books taken from
Speaker 3: his chambers. So the judge He's like, I kind of
Speaker 3: need those, you guys. He offered a reward for their
Speaker 3: return and a few days later, Henry Moore Smith shows up.
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm here to take the reward. He heard
Speaker 3: the book. He's like, I bought these from a stranger,
Speaker 3: you know, as you do, don't. I don't practice the law,
Speaker 3: but I'd like these expensive law books please.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: He's like sitting minding his own business, sitting on a
Speaker 3: bench reading the Bible, just like sunning himself. Dude comes up.
Speaker 3: You look like you're into big books. You want to
Speaker 3: buy some lawbooks. So the townsfolk weren't fools, so like
Speaker 3: where Smith is living in Windsor, they start thinking, like,
Speaker 3: hold on a second. He he goes to Halifax a lot,
Speaker 3: and he leaves early in the morning, and he doesn't
Speaker 3: come back to like the next day he returned those books.
Speaker 3: Why would he buy them when he comes back to.
Speaker 4: Law before?
Speaker 3: And he always has stuff with him when he gets
Speaker 3: back from Halifax, like random stuff and sometimes a lot
Speaker 3: of cash. And then there was a break in the case.
Speaker 3: A Halifax man got pinched for stealing a coat, but
Speaker 3: he swore up and down that he'd bought the coat
Speaker 3: from Smith, so the authorities issued an arrest warrant. They
Speaker 3: headed out to pick Smith up in Windsor, but he
Speaker 3: was already in the wind That was his first escape,
Speaker 3: with many more to come. He disappeared for almost two years.
Speaker 3: There you go, yeah, and so what of Elizabeth, right,
Speaker 3: She's just probably go back to the farm. I feel
Speaker 3: for the Elizabeths of.
Speaker 4: The world, Yes, you do. So.
Speaker 3: Two years later, eighteen fourteen, he popped back up in
Speaker 3: Saint John, New Brunswick, and he was making friends. So
Speaker 3: he budied up with an officer of a local regiment,
Speaker 3: Colonel Daniel, and Old Danny wanted a horse, but not
Speaker 3: just Danny horse. He wanted a black horse that would
Speaker 3: match the team that pulled his carriage. Was all about
Speaker 3: the aesthetics of it. You know, you know, you might
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 4: Be get the horse you can get.
Speaker 3: So his new pal Smith is like, look at me,
Speaker 3: I'm coming to the rescue. I know exactly where you
Speaker 3: can get one. That's exactly what you want. So Daniel
Speaker 3: gives him the money go buy the horse for me,
Speaker 3: like you know, orders him around. That's your new friend,
Speaker 3: you make him go to your chores military and so
Speaker 3: Smith gets the money and you can guess what happened.
Speaker 3: He took off never see him again. He took the
Speaker 3: money and ran no horse, no horse, So he still
Speaker 3: wanted a horse for himself though. Smith, he got it
Speaker 3: in my head when someone's like, you know, they suggest something,
Speaker 3: you know, do.
Speaker 4: You want a burrito? And you're like, I didn't, but
Speaker 4: now you do.
Speaker 3: Now I think I could go from.
Speaker 4: Now I've got the money for a burrito exactly.
Speaker 3: So he wants a horse. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: he didn't want to use all this cash that he had,
Speaker 3: so he stole one that belonged to Will's Frederick Knox,
Speaker 3: a magistrate, and he likes sticking it to the legal establishment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so why not right to the man who's going
Speaker 4: to bust you.
Speaker 3: Will's Frederick not rob from him. Yeah, the magistrate, he
Speaker 3: was the son of a British Undersecretary of State and
Speaker 3: he really loved his horse and he wanted him back.
Speaker 3: So he gets word of this and like a description
Speaker 3: of Smith, and he chased after Smith for four days
Speaker 3: trying to catch him and get the horse back. Like
Speaker 3: he wanted justice. He cold justice.
Speaker 4: I'm surprised you didn't hire like some Scottish klan to
Speaker 4: hunt him down or something.
Speaker 3: He found Smith four days later, three hundred miles away
Speaker 3: and picked two Nova Scotiah and.
Speaker 4: I will take old Nova scost Oh not pick two? Yeah,
Speaker 4: I thought I just take any two novascosts you were offering.
Speaker 3: Sorry, go on, So they he gets arrested. He tries
Speaker 3: to escape a handful of times from this, but he's
Speaker 3: eventually brought back to New Brunswick for trial. So while
Speaker 3: he's locked up, Smith meets a guy who will change
Speaker 3: his life. And the man was named Walter Bates, and
Speaker 3: he was the county sheriff. They actually wind up changing
Speaker 3: each other's lives. Bates became obsessed with Smith. Wait what
Speaker 3: the sheriff. The sheriff fascinated.
Speaker 4: But he's not behind bars. He's not a dirty sheriff.
Speaker 4: He's running the person running the prison.
Speaker 3: He's like a straight ahead. He later wrote about Smith
Speaker 3: quote as a character singular and unprecedented. He was just
Speaker 3: fascinated by him. Really yeah. So as the trial approached Smith,
Speaker 3: he keeps moaning about a pain in his side. Real bad.
Speaker 3: He said, like, real bad, I got big bad booboo.
Speaker 3: Bates is like, how did that happen? That's how he talked.
Speaker 4: We've heard tapes, I've.
Speaker 3: Seen video He's like, how did that happen? And Smith
Speaker 3: told him that when Knox caught him, he hit Smith
Speaker 3: in the side with the butt of his pistol and
Speaker 3: that whether he broke a rib or damaged an oregon,
Speaker 3: who knows, but he's just in complete agony. Baits is like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, that's terrible.
Speaker 4: You got guts man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he gets worse and worse, and they Bates
Speaker 3: brings in a bunch of different doctors to look at him,
Speaker 3: but they couldn't seem to make it any better. And
Speaker 3: when it got to the point where he could like
Speaker 3: hardly lift his head, he asked for someone to come
Speaker 3: and take down his will as he was going to
Speaker 3: dictate it to sure. So Bates he wrote to call
Speaker 3: on Smith's lawyer. He said, quote, I fear we shall
Speaker 3: be disappointed in our expectations of the trial of the
Speaker 3: prisoner more Smith at the approaching court. I presume from
Speaker 3: his appearance he will be removed by death before that time.
Speaker 4: Death is a coming on a coling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not going to make it to trial. And
Speaker 3: that afternoon Smith screams out in pain and he asks
Speaker 3: the guard to heat up a brick and bring it
Speaker 3: to warm his feet. Okay, brick you know, yeah?
Speaker 4: Can they put it in like a blanket, And.
Speaker 3: Like the tender hearted guard, he's like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Of course he ran to get him the brick, and
Speaker 3: then he accidentally left the cell door open, and like
Speaker 3: the guy can barely move. You're not thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: his eyes are rolled back in his He's on his stepbed.
Speaker 3: The guard comes back with the brick and Smith is gone.
Speaker 3: He played the long game. Yeah that was a long
Speaker 3: so Bates and the brick Toning Guard. They wound up
Speaker 3: facing charges of negligence for allowing the prisoner to escape,
Speaker 3: and New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore, he put up
Speaker 3: a reward for Smith's capture. It wasn't like he was
Speaker 3: laying low and hiding out there. He started burgling on
Speaker 3: the regular. He lifted a silver watch, cash, like a
Speaker 3: bunch of other stuff from a house near the jail.
Speaker 3: Off again, he's like, I know where I need to go.
Speaker 3: I'm going west to Maine. Oh right, So he's like,
Speaker 3: he stopped for food at a tavern and while he
Speaker 3: was there, he stole a bunch of silver teaspoons. I
Speaker 3: just can't control himself. He stayed at an inn near Fredericton,
Speaker 3: the colony's capital, of course, and stole a bunch of
Speaker 3: expensive clothes out of someone else's luggage. Like he went
Speaker 3: into their roominsze.
Speaker 4: My hands, everything sticky.
Speaker 3: Like the fellow travelers. They didn't suspect him of anything.
Speaker 3: They he told him he was a businessman, one of them.
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm a bounty hunter chasing an army deserter.
Speaker 3: Here's the best. He's like, I'm a law man on
Speaker 3: the trail of a notorious horse thief who broke out
Speaker 3: of Kingston jail, chasing myself. All of his tall tails
Speaker 3: and small steps caught up with him. He was busted
Speaker 3: just as he was about to enter the United States.
Speaker 3: They locked him up ankles and wrists, and they sent
Speaker 3: him back to Kingston to stand trial. The whole wrists
Speaker 3: and ankle thing wasn't enough, though, because like once again,
Speaker 3: he slips the shackles and he finds sweet sweet freedom.
Speaker 3: He'd only been in custody a few hours when he
Speaker 3: took off into the night. So he heads back to Fredericton,
Speaker 3: and once he's there he steals choice. He steals another horse. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's like the hot wire of to day, Like he
Speaker 3: steals them from stables at night. But it'd be funnier
Speaker 3: if he horse jacked him. Like you know, someone's riding
Speaker 3: up and like get a stop. He shoves off the
Speaker 3: saddle and rides off, but there's no plates to So
Speaker 3: remember New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore, the one who
Speaker 3: announced the rewards leading to his capture. So on the run.
Speaker 3: This time Smith broke into his house and while Wetmore
Speaker 3: was having a dinner party.
Speaker 4: Yes early dinner gang energy.
Speaker 3: Completely and so he didn't crap on the drapes like that.
Speaker 3: Instead he grabbed a bunch of the guests coats and
Speaker 3: scurried away, like that'll show up.
Speaker 4: I love in Canada stealing coats the.
Speaker 3: Like. This time the cops found him, they hauled them away.
Speaker 3: Where was he hiding in a barn? Okay, I think
Speaker 3: he was probably All his loot, including the coats, was
Speaker 3: hidden under the hay in the lost and so you
Speaker 3: know they like, he's like, fine, fine, you got me,
Speaker 3: you got me. Let's take a break, we come back.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you about his next adventure. And
Speaker 3: it's a doozy Elizabeth Zarin, Hey, hey, I got I
Speaker 3: got first time you did you gave in first? Good job.
Speaker 3: So Henry Moore Smith? How much Smith?
Speaker 4: More Smith? R?
Speaker 3: Smith? They brought him back to Kingston, the one in Canada,
Speaker 3: not in Jamaica. Ah, and they locked him up.
Speaker 4: Yeah that one has not as good as music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Jamaica. So back with he's back with Sheriff Bates.
Speaker 3: He loves him and Bates. Yeah, Bates is fooling around
Speaker 3: this time though. They well, they gave Smith the full body,
Speaker 3: sirch and then they chained him to the floor by
Speaker 3: the leg. So it wasn't long before a sound was heard.
Speaker 3: Not Smith crying in agony over a created ailment. It
Speaker 3: was the sound of filing.
Speaker 4: Metal, of course.
Speaker 3: So the guards run to the cell and they find
Speaker 3: him halfway out the window, just like.
Speaker 4: Find Baker working for him. Let me get that for.
Speaker 3: You, baits baits Baker. So they find him hanging halfway
Speaker 3: out the window. They grab his legs, they ink him
Speaker 3: back into the cell. They demanded that he hand over
Speaker 3: the tools that he'd used, and so he passes them
Speaker 3: this little saw that he made out of a knife blade.
Speaker 3: He's like and I don't know how he got that
Speaker 3: one in there, but he didn't want to know. I
Speaker 3: don't want to know. Like maybe he started sporting a
Speaker 3: huge pompadour. Probably probably, So the guards they got a
Speaker 3: new chain and they locked him up again, and then
Speaker 3: they heard a noise, the same metal filing noise. Now
Speaker 3: you and I have learned that modern day bank employees
Speaker 3: would probably assume it was rats or a short in
Speaker 3: the candles corners. Yeah, they'd shrug it off and then
Speaker 3: they get cleaned out.
Speaker 4: Yea, that can't be filed the file.
Speaker 3: So luckily these guards were on it. So they dashed
Speaker 3: back to the cell and they find Smith sitting there
Speaker 3: kind of like a kid who was just doing something
Speaker 3: and then ran back to the bed to sit on
Speaker 3: it like a good, god fearing child when.
Speaker 4: Absolutely nothing, absolutely just sitting there staring back at you.
Speaker 3: Totally. So the guards tell him stripped down. Oh and
Speaker 3: so he's like, what is this? Three doors? So he obeyed,
Speaker 3: and the guards discovered a ten inch saw blade tied
Speaker 3: to his thigh with a string. Wow that's comfortable, Yeah
Speaker 3: sounds wow. Okay, Sheriff Bates outraged. He's just livid.
Speaker 4: I thought, I could trust he's always been through.
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm not about to be embarrassed again. So
Speaker 3: he calls a blacksmith and he orders the guy to
Speaker 3: craft an eye in collar for Smith and leg irons
Speaker 3: and handcuffs, and then he wants each of those chained
Speaker 3: to the floor. The whole get up wound up weighing
Speaker 3: forty six pounds. Wow, can you imagine that?
Speaker 4: I know who hired the kinkster to run the prison?
Speaker 3: Like? Ca can you picture it? Zarren?
Speaker 4: No, I don't think I can.
Speaker 3: To close your eyes. Oh, I'm gonna have you picture it.
Speaker 3: You are a jailer at the lock up in Kingston,
Speaker 3: New Brunswick. You're sitting in your quiet opposite the jail,
Speaker 3: reading the paper and softly whistling to yourself. You started
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, and it's not a bad gig.
Speaker 3: You've heard lots of stories though about Henry Moore Smith.
Speaker 3: He's a thief, but more importantly, he's an escape artist.
Speaker 3: He really got Sheriff Bates good last time, and the
Speaker 3: sheriff didn't take kindly to that. But you've also noticed
Speaker 3: that the sheriff talks about Smith in weirdly reverential tones.
Speaker 3: He's kind of in awe of him, and is for
Speaker 3: sure fascinated by him, and is desperate to know what
Speaker 3: makes the sky tick. Smith is back now, and you've
Speaker 3: been told to keep a tight eye on him. Yesterday,
Speaker 3: the blacksmith came and locked it up like you've never
Speaker 3: seen before. Chains, shackles, cups. He looks afright, and you
Speaker 3: can't imagine what it would feel like to be bound
Speaker 3: like that. Last night they had to call the locksmith
Speaker 3: back to shorten the chains after he tried to wrap
Speaker 3: the ones he had around his neck. Suddenly you hear
Speaker 3: a commotion. It's Smith, for sure, and he's shouting chains rattle.
Speaker 3: Smith calls out Bible verses in between screeches and moans.
Speaker 3: He's off his rocker, you think to yourself as you
Speaker 3: run to the cell. He's in the cell, bashing his
Speaker 3: hand against the walls, slamming the chain into the bricks.
Speaker 3: With a clink, the chain snaps, Smith stops and you
Speaker 3: stare at each other in silence. The broken link clatters
Speaker 3: to the ground. You tell Smith to stay right there
Speaker 3: while you shout down the hall for someone to get
Speaker 3: the blacksmith again. You're thankful for the four other chains
Speaker 3: that hold Smith there against his will. Although no one
Speaker 3: would get hurt if he escaped again, just Sheriff bates
Speaker 3: his pride in your career. You walk into the cell
Speaker 3: and you sit on the floor beside Smith. His hands
Speaker 3: and ankles are bloody. He has a crazed look in
Speaker 3: his eye. You've seen that before. Once you were walking
Speaker 3: in the woods with your father and you came upon
Speaker 3: a wolf with its leg caught in a trap. The
Speaker 3: wolf snarled at you, but its eyes showed deep terror.
Speaker 3: You asked your dad if he was going to shoot
Speaker 3: the wolf put it out of his misery. He assessed
Speaker 3: the beautiful beast's leg from afar and determine it was
Speaker 3: something that could heal if it were free. He got
Speaker 3: a big stick and approached the wolf. The wolf lashed
Speaker 3: out and snarled some more, but its eyes just showed desperation.
Speaker 3: Your father was able to ledge the stick into the
Speaker 3: trap and free the wolf. It sprinted away from you
Speaker 3: without a second glance, no limp or yelp. As pained
Speaker 3: as it was, it wasn't interested in hurting you. It
Speaker 3: just wanted to be free, even if it meant to
Speaker 3: die in the woods on its own terms. That's what
Speaker 3: you see as you look into Henry Smith's eyes. He
Speaker 3: is raving, he is shouting, he is quoting the Bible
Speaker 3: and flailing against his shackles. But his eyes showed terror.
Speaker 3: He just wants to be free. You go to the
Speaker 3: corner of the cell and you get a wet rag
Speaker 3: from a bucket. You softly wipe the blood from his arms,
Speaker 3: from his neck. He writhes against you, but you can
Speaker 3: see in his eyes that he knows you mean him
Speaker 3: no harm and you don't fear him. You have nothing
Speaker 3: but compassion for him. Society and circumstance have driven him
Speaker 3: to this state, just like the wolf. So Smith's horse
Speaker 3: theft trial kicked off May eighteen fifty.
Speaker 4: That was beautiful. I mean, I gotta say honestly, normally
Speaker 4: they're pretty darn funny, but that one was beautiful. I
Speaker 4: loved my father.
Speaker 3: The wolf, Oh, I.
Speaker 4: Was deep, and the snow I was there, Yes, I
Speaker 4: was there.
Speaker 3: And then I had.
Speaker 4: Compassion for my fellow human. I mean, it's just amazing.
Speaker 3: But threw a lot together.
Speaker 4: I'm a better person. That was a journey.
Speaker 3: He is human. So Smith's horse Trial, Yes, May eighteen fifteen,
Speaker 3: He gets brought into the per's dock for trial, and
Speaker 3: he kept up this wild behavior. He like, rip it
Speaker 3: his shirt and snap his fingers.
Speaker 4: Like I've waited on people like that before. I have
Speaker 4: had vibe.
Speaker 3: Yeah so, and he like At one point he kicked
Speaker 3: at the wooden railing until they had to bring leg
Speaker 3: irons and bind him up again, just flailing around. The
Speaker 3: prosecutor was Attorney General Wetmore, the guy whose dinner party
Speaker 3: guests said their coat still totally. I will not recuse
Speaker 3: your honor. I have a personal interest in this. I
Speaker 3: don't think they had an insanity defense.
Speaker 4: Then that's what I was just about asking when that comes.
Speaker 3: I don't know, and I was too lazy to look
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 4: I don't really know if they even would acknowledge it.
Speaker 4: It's the same thing we recognized it as.
Speaker 3: Then I looked it up and I wondered to myself
Speaker 3: today did they have it? And I thought, should you
Speaker 3: look it up? And I thought, yeah I should. Am
Speaker 3: I going to know?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: Who knows? Who cares? If you want to find it out,
Speaker 3: there's Google exactly exactly, said.
Speaker 4: Burnett, typing, okay, is it the cheese?
Speaker 3: So but the lawyer, he's like, I've got it. He
Speaker 3: points out that when Smith was arrested, he wasn't on
Speaker 3: the horse. He was just so there's no way to
Speaker 3: prove possession. He's just near it. It seems like a
Speaker 3: sound argument worked out exactly. So it went to the
Speaker 3: jury and they discussed it for two hours, and then
Speaker 3: they came back guilty and they him to be hanged.
Speaker 3: Damn right. So Attorney General Wetmore he asked for a
Speaker 3: report on Smith's state of mind and behavior before he
Speaker 3: could set a date for the execution. Not the century
Speaker 3: to be stealing horses, No, and so Bates he goes
Speaker 3: to Smith's cell to try to talk to him about
Speaker 3: the whole situation. But apparently Bates said quote he paid
Speaker 3: no attention, patted his hands, saying and acted the fool
Speaker 3: as usual.
Speaker 4: Bits is real hard after all the time. To him,
Speaker 4: he plays.
Speaker 3: And he's just slapping himself. In what were to be
Speaker 3: his final days, he made a bunch of puppets using
Speaker 3: fabric from his clothes, puppets straw from his bedding, and
Speaker 3: then he called them his family man. He would put
Speaker 3: on puppet shows for the staff or like any visitors,
Speaker 3: that would come in.
Speaker 4: Did he marry one of them because.
Speaker 3: He's very and then he was, oh, my wife. So
Speaker 3: by August things are looking bleak that they're looking and
Speaker 3: then they weren't. His lawyer had been working around the
Speaker 3: clock to save him and it worked. He was pardoned.
Speaker 3: He was crazy, but maistrate was like, yeah, they were like,
Speaker 3: look at this behavior. He does not know anything about
Speaker 3: what's going on.
Speaker 4: So they would rather feed him than put him in
Speaker 4: the rope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 4: I just don't understand it. That type of morality sometimes,
Speaker 4: like what you're gonna punish him this way? Like keep
Speaker 4: him alive.
Speaker 3: They took pity on him and compassion. Bates goes to
Speaker 3: Smith in the cell and is like, homie, you've been pardoned.
Speaker 3: Smith doesn't understand or care. He's just like what he
Speaker 3: said something about wanting potatoes for dinner. So one condition
Speaker 3: and they're not going to actually have to pay for
Speaker 3: his upkeep, because one condition of the release was that
Speaker 3: he had to get the h double hockey sticks out
Speaker 3: of wondering about someone else's.
Speaker 4: Go be crazy down in Newfoundland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to go to the United States. They got a
Speaker 3: lot of you guys down there, so baits Bates was
Speaker 3: sad to see him. Bates is like, we've spent a
Speaker 3: year together. Of course I feel bad really like Bates
Speaker 3: is like trying so hard to connect with him that
Speaker 3: he can't. So he buys Smith a whole brand new outfit,
Speaker 3: like a first day of school outfit, and buys him
Speaker 3: a ticket on a ship headed for Nova Scotia. Wow,
Speaker 3: and like he mumbles and shuffles. Smith mumbles and shuffles,
Speaker 3: and he looks all dazed as he gets on the boat.
Speaker 3: And like Bates stands there and watches the boat sail
Speaker 3: away with his little wounded wolf on board, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure he is like a hanky. So the boat docks
Speaker 3: in Nova Scotia, and Smith made like Kaiser, so say,
Speaker 3: and lost the limp on his way off the boat
Speaker 3: walked off a fully seen man.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was Kaiser.
Speaker 3: When straighten up, it straightens out at Nova Scotia. The
Speaker 3: act worked. He weaseled his way to Yeah. A few
Speaker 3: years went by. He really is willing to commit long,
Speaker 3: long game every time.
Speaker 4: Incredible.
Speaker 3: He a few years later, he's going by the name
Speaker 3: William Newman. He gets arrested in new Haven, Connecticut for
Speaker 3: stealing jewelry silver. Oh yeah, he's like stealing from innkeepers
Speaker 3: at this point. And then he worked the oh my
Speaker 3: side is killing me con there for a bit, but
Speaker 3: like striking out with that gambit. He then decided to
Speaker 3: saw his way through the cell door. He gets recaptured.
Speaker 3: He was convicted of burglary at trial and he got
Speaker 3: three years of hard labor and investigators discovered his previous
Speaker 3: identity and contacted Sheriff Bates, and Bates rushed, Yeah, he
Speaker 3: goes down there. Bates goes to his cell and Smith
Speaker 3: acts like he's never seen Baits before in his life. Wow,
Speaker 3: He's like, who are you?
Speaker 4: Would you love to see like Matt Damon and Philip
Speaker 4: Seymour Hoffman play that same right, I know we can't
Speaker 4: get that.
Speaker 3: But would oh god? Yeah. So Bates he's baffled, but
Speaker 3: he's like a little crushed and so after doing devastated.
Speaker 3: So he you know, Smith does his time and he
Speaker 3: gets sort of lost in the shuffle. He's hard to
Speaker 3: track in this era, but that didn't stop Bates. He
Speaker 3: spent the rest of his days trying to track Smith down.
Speaker 3: He said that he could connect Smith to thefts in
Speaker 3: Boston New York, Connecticut, Ontario, Canada. Bates heard about a
Speaker 3: preacher named Henry Hopkins in the South who got arrested
Speaker 3: in eighteen twenty seven and was sentenced to seven years
Speaker 3: in prison. He was sure that that was Smith, but
Speaker 3: he couldn't make it down there, and he wasn't able
Speaker 3: to physically confirm it. But basically, any time there was
Speaker 3: a report of a clever thief, Bates was like, it's Smith.
Speaker 3: It's my boy, It's there. He goes, there's that beautiful boy.
Speaker 3: I want to buy him another suit, and Smith sous eye.
Speaker 3: Smith so captivating him that Bates joined the Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: Book Club, and he really a corker of all time.
Speaker 3: Called The Mysterious Stranger, or Memoirs of the Noted Henry
Speaker 3: Moore Smith Guess what.
Speaker 4: You're Getting for your Birthday?
Speaker 3: It was published in Connecticut, then it gets republished in England.
Speaker 3: The Halifax newspaper, The Acadian Recorder.
Speaker 4: A great Acadian paper.
Speaker 3: Serialized it in eighteen seventeen and they sold the book
Speaker 3: for a shilling a copy. And The Mysterious Stranger had
Speaker 3: seven printings.
Speaker 4: I bet it did.
Speaker 3: The last one was in It appeared in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3: That was one hundred years after Smith.
Speaker 4: Got to a chin of money.
Speaker 3: Christ's Cloud Story certified hit. The combined sales at that
Speaker 3: time topped forty thousand copies.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I can make this.
Speaker 3: That's a lot even today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can make this into a movie. And how
Speaker 4: immediately a new.
Speaker 3: Edition of it was published in nineteen seventy nine. Wow. So.
Speaker 3: At the end of The Mysterious Stranger, Bates wrote, quote,
Speaker 3: in all the adventures, we are not called upon to
Speaker 3: witness any acts of violence and blood. And it is
Speaker 3: perhaps owing to the absence of this repulsive trait, that
Speaker 3: we do not behold him in a more relentless light.
Speaker 3: So basically, he didn't hurt nobody. Yeah, yeah, so, and
Speaker 3: that's what makes him a ridiculous criminal, perfect, ridiculous, totally.
Speaker 4: The only person you heard was Baits, really, my man, Bait? Yeah, yes,
Speaker 4: he just bruised it repeatedly.
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous takeaway? Oh man?
Speaker 4: I okay, I gotta admit I think we should dip
Speaker 4: our toes more into the Canadian waters because some of
Speaker 4: those crimes up there are just so filled with a
Speaker 4: bizarre passion. You know, it's like it's not like that.
Speaker 4: I don't. I'm not trying to like fall into like
Speaker 4: the oh it's the Great White North and they're cold
Speaker 4: and lonely. But I think they're cold and lonely up
Speaker 4: there in the Great White North, Elizabeth, because we always
Speaker 4: hear that these stories of like couples going across the country,
Speaker 4: people being committed to like in Canada is always he's
Speaker 4: very big and grand and long lasting and like this
Speaker 4: guy commits to the bit. There's something about it that
Speaker 4: has like a Texas quality of bigger than life, but
Speaker 4: but but the old but humble. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: a humble and kind version of the we're bigger than
Speaker 4: life but Canada. So anyway, that's mine. What's yours? Elizabeth?
Speaker 4: What's your ridiculous takeaway? Thank you for asking of course
Speaker 4: every time you know why I got your back.
Speaker 3: For once you asked me. I I'm just into the
Speaker 3: long game of it all, Like I think, if you're
Speaker 3: gonna do it, commit like wow, And that's that's putting
Speaker 3: a lot of trust in your your your long game.
Speaker 4: Totally and that all things would go out but work
Speaker 4: out your benefit. Also, he didn't take the moment to
Speaker 4: like when the boat's pulling away to break then and
Speaker 4: kind of wave because then someone could chase the boat down.
Speaker 4: He waited until the boat got to the next nation.
Speaker 4: Then he's like, Okay, I think I'm free.
Speaker 3: I respect that. I know you too. All right, that's
Speaker 3: what I have. Oh oh you know what we do
Speaker 3: need I talk about?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, when you queue that up?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I want.
Speaker 5: Heyes, Erin and Elizabeth. I wanted to update you on
Speaker 5: something totally ridiculous going on on the internet right now.
Speaker 5: If you need any industrial glarade glycine, uh dong Hua
Speaker 5: gene Long is your man. You see, there is a
Speaker 5: manufacturer of industrial grade glycine in China that made a
Speaker 5: TikTok advertising their product and it has gone absolutely viral.
Speaker 5: And I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, I don't have the TikTok no, but glycine.
Speaker 4: That is this is I like that someone can go
Speaker 4: viral pushing glycine.
Speaker 3: I know, right.
Speaker 4: That's now I want to know what that.
Speaker 3: Is ridiculous, that is certified. I gotta find the video.
Speaker 3: Don't send us the video, the interns will find it.
Speaker 4: Video.
Speaker 3: That's all I have for today. You can find us
Speaker 3: online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. You can find us
Speaker 3: on social media, but not TikTok. Do you have TikTok?
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get rid of all of them, one
Speaker 4: at a time. One or two I think I've gotten
Speaker 4: I think I still have accounts, but I only look
Speaker 4: at like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have the TikTok. Email Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com, but most importantly, leave us a talk
Speaker 3: back on the iHeart app reach out BIBBI. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and
Speaker 3: edited by Traveling Shackle salesman Dave Cousten. Research is by
Speaker 3: Horse Borrower, Marissa Brown and Horse A Jason Andrea song
Speaker 3: Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Fired prison guards
Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by
Speaker 3: Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and
Speaker 3: Mister Andrea. Executive producers are Coatless Dinner guests Ben Boleen
Speaker 3: and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Disquime Say It One More Times Crime. Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts my Heart Radio,
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