WEBVTT - We Think You'd Like 'Criminalia' 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:01.960 He'll forget about the video game you gave him on 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:05.760 his birthday. Wow, thanks Grandpa. But he'll never forget how 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:10.680 you invested in his future with the UNSTAP. Wow, thanks Grandpa. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.720 The UNSTAP makes it easy for grandparents and family friends 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.119 to give funds to a child's investment account for a 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.759 limited time. Download the uns stapp and use the code 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:20.920 I heart fifty. Had sign up to receive a fifty 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.200 dollar bonus when you find your account. That's code I 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.600 heard fifty. When you sign up at u n Est 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.880 dot coo for fifty dollars bonus. See terms and conditions 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.320 at UNEs dot coo. 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That's 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.880 something you have in common with Consumer Cellular's customer service, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.720 and Consumer Cellular customer service likes pizza and you like pizza. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.679 And Consumer Cellular has an acute fear of spiders, and 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.200 your fear of spiders is acute as well. So you 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.360 already have so many things to discuss when you call 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.840 Consumer Cellular to talk about our affordable and flexible phone plans. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.200 Consumer Cellular. When Freedom calls, We're here to answer. Call 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.959 us at one eighty to eight Freedom. Hi, this is 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.360 Ali Wentworth, host of Go Ask Galley. My listeners want more, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.960 so we are digging in. It's real. It's honest, open 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.480 and unexpected and sometimes amusing. He told me you chased 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.920 him with a butcher knife and tried to cut off 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.080 his penis. But that's his version and everybody has everybody 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.560 has two sides of every store exactly. All new episodes 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.360 of Go Ask Galley release every Thursday. Listen to Go 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.760 Ask Ally on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:04.360 you get your podcast. Hi, it's Laverne Cox and on 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.400 my podcast, The Laverne Cox Show. We're ripping the band 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:13.480 aid off. Trauma, resilience dating, diet culture dating, white supremacy dating. Okay, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.959 I'm not gonna get explicit, but just because you're cute, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:21.240 like I'm not going you're gonna say yes, girl and honey. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.880 We have a lot of fun along the way. You 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.919 have a lot of lesbian fans who love your femininity 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.960 and glamour and they just really really want I want 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.200 us to talk openly about the difficult things we all 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.480 face as humans and as humans in America. Racist white 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.160 people in the United States will sign their own death certificates. 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:47.120 They will vote for policies that crush them, no safety nets, 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.960 no healthcare because they feel too much like entitlements. And 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.440 those are folks of color, right. Listen to The Laverne 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.959 Cox Show and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:02.880 you get your podcast, make sure you subscribe and share. Hi. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.040 This is Ali Wentworth, host of Go ask Alli Season two. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.280 We'll be back soon with more new episodes. As always, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.680 Go ask Alli is there for binging and catching up, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.040 purpose and meaning in life or how you figure out 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.760 what life is all about, and that requires unhappiness. So 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.720 here's the great paradox. To be happy, you also have 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.840 to be unhappy. Don't miss a single episode. Listen to 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.040 Go ask Alli on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:32.960 get your podcasts. Make sure you subscribe and share. Welcome 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:43.360 to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hello, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.160 and Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria trom Marquis and I'm 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.160 Holly Fry. We know that humans have always managed to 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.880 commit crimes, almost certainly before there was even recorded history, 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.400 so we decided that we would start looking at those 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.080 crimes and get our hands dirty. We wanted to dig 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.720 in and look at some of history's crimes criminals to 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.600 understand them better, and in doing so, we're curious if 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.320 we can find commonality with our modern world and our 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.960 modern problems, and whether these crimes look different a little 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.800 bit of distance on the timeline, and whether any of 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:18.640 these perpetrators emerge as more sympathetic characters. This first season 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.840 is going to be all about poisoners, specifically women poisoners. 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.520 Poison is often called a woman's weapon, despite the fact 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.320 that roughly two thirds of the poisonings committed throughout time 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.320 have been the work of men. So let's start looking 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.200 at these women and their motivations and see if any 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.320 patterns develop. This week, we're looking into the life and 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.600 crimes of Tilly Clinic, a Polish immigrant who killed at 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.919 least one and possibly as many as twenty people and 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.520 at least one dog between the years nineteen fourteen and 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.320 nineteen twenty two. I will confess that when you were 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.480 telling me about the research you were doing initially on 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.160 this and you mentioned the dog, I was like, well, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.520 I hate her. Not that it wasn't terrible, it should 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.000 killed people, just you know, that was for me the 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:15.359 worst thing that she could have done as well. She 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.560 was born Tiafila Burick to Michaelina and Michael Burick on 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.000 October twenty second, eighteen seventy seven, and Tilly was probably 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.479 right around four years old when her family immigrated to 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.919 the United States. They moved from Poland to the Little 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.560 Poland neighborhood of Chicago, and of the seven children in 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.200 the family, oh Tilly, as she was called, was the eldest. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.640 Chicago has a long history of Polish immigration, and Polish 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.560 Americans have lived in the area for well over a century. 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.159 In eighteen ninety, around the time Tilly was born, there 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.120 was a wave of immigration to the United States. At 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.039 that time, the number of Polish immigrants in the city 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.599 blossomed to more than twenty five thousand. By nineteen thirty, 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.039 a few years before she died, that number had grown 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.640 to one hundred and sixty five thousand. Most they lived 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.520 below the poverty line. Is the tale of immigration in 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.640 so many ways. So let's set the scene of the 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:19.520 actual situation we're talking about today. So this is Chicago 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.840 in the early twentieth century. You couldn't necessarily count on 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.480 your food and drinks to be clean. Upton Sinclair started 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.640 publishing the serialized version of his groundbreaking expose of the 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.680 meat industry in the US, The Jungle, in nineteen oh five, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.520 and while that led to the creation of the Meat 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.760 Inspection Act in nineteen oh six, food safety legislation was 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.040 still in its infancy. But if you were at a 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.240 restaurant or a club or a hotel around the city, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:47.919 there were other dangers when it came to what you 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.960 consumed at the table. In particular, wait staff were known 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.080 to target patrons who didn't tip well. Not like the 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.680 content of the chatter in fight club, although honestly maybe 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.600 a little of that. They usually poisons and various other 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.239 things you really don't want to be in your food, 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.120 so remember always tip well. But moreover, it turns out 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.679 that you couldn't really count on food safety at home either, 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:16.960 at least if you lived with a Tilly Climic. During 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.280 the time that Chicago's most visible criminal element was organized crime, 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.559 Tilly was quietly becoming the city's most prolific female serial killer. 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.560 She'd allegedly killed between six and twenty people. Like we said, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.080 but that was all through arsenic poisoning. So we're going 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.800 to talk first just about what arsenic actually is. It 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.400 is a naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust and 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.480 in its raw state. As much as it has this 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.640 instant conjuring of poison, it's not actually harmful the way 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.040 it naturally exists. Arsenic only really becomes poisonous when it's 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:52.160 converted into arsenic trioxide, which is better known as white arsenic. 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.480 White arsenic not only is odorless, but it's tasteless, and 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.840 it's white or transparent informs, so it's easily confused with 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.680 sugar or flour. But it's highly toxic when it's inhaled 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:03.680 into your lungs or when you ingest it, and it 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.320 might surprise you that even white arsenic is actually fairly 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.080 benign in relatively small amounts, because it is very lethal 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:16.200 at higher doses. In fact, doctors have actually prescribed white 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.360 arsenic through the years in its low dosage as a 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.680 treatment for things like asthma, typhus, malaria, even menstrual cramps, 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.120 and it continues to be administered intravenously as a chemotherapy 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.839 for a specific type of leukemia. When arsenic is ingested, initially, 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.960 it causes symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea that's often 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:41.120 being accompanied by bleeding and vomiting. It's terrible. As the 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:42.880 dose gets more and more lethal in the body, though, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:48.120 the symptoms also begin to include convulsions, cardiovascular problems, hair loss, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.880 liver and kidney problems, and even organ damage. So not 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.880 a peaceful way to go. Definitely not sugar no, and 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.880 despite its potency, it has been used in the production 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.840 of semiconductors. It's been used as wood preservative, and it's 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:08.800 also sometimes found in pesticides. Manufacturers in the nineteenth century 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.800 started using it for its green pigment in products like 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:16.760 paint and wallpaper, fabrics, beauty products, and as food coloring. 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.000 The list goes on because green is very beautiful color, 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.320 so sometimes those products would actually make people sick, but 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.320 at the time, no one was suspecting that the arsenic 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.200 in them was the problem that was causing their ailments. 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.200 In the early twentieth century, when Tilly was busy murdering 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.800 people in her community, the average Americans medicine cabinet was 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.560 stocked with all sorts of toxic things like radioactive radium 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.079 for acne, and mercury as a topical antiseptic for cuts 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.760 and scrapes and burns. Morphine showed up in everyday products 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.000 and everything from teething medications to cures for heroin addiction. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.360 From roughly the late eighteenth into the early twentieth century 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.679 is considered to be the golden age of poisoners, and 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.960 during that time, arsenic specifically caught the nickname the inheritance powder. 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.840 And you can probably imagine why the police really didn't 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.600 have any of the tools to test the corpse for poison. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.960 Arsenic wasn't only easy to acquire, it was hard to 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.560 detect as a cause of death, which was win win 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.640 for the golden age of poisoners. It was common practice 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.320 for doctors to treat suspected poisoning with leeches bleeded out, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.040 or try to identify the poison involved by sniffing the 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.920 contents of the person's stomach. Remember how we said arsenic 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.800 was odorless though, Yeah, so you just sniff those contents 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.560 for nothing. But it was also just unusual for a 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.679 doctor or a coroner to suspect arsenic as a cause 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.280 of death, mainly because the symptoms of arsenic poisoning that 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.640 Maria just talked about, diarrhea and vomiting and abdominal pain 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.959 are so similar to a lot of other disorders. It's 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.400 also really hard to place a poisoner at the scene 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.439 of the murder. Dying can typically take hours or longer 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.760 if you administered the poison gradually, such as with someone's meals, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.080 so the perpetrator could easily have a seemingly airtight alibi 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.839 for their whereabouts because the window of time had such 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.480 fuzzy edges when it actually wouldn't be until the late 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.400 nineteenth century that a chemist named James marsh would come 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.120 up with a reliable chemical test for arsenic poisoning. Today, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.960 arsenic poisoning is treated with chelatition therapy, which uses special 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:34.360 drugs that bind to metal ions in your blood. So 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.200 rough On Rats was the product that became popular in 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.640 the late eighteen hundreds. It was composed mainly of arsenic 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.800 and a little black coal for masking the poison, and 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:49.240 while i was advertised for use in killing rats, mice, bedbugs, flies, roaches, 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.840 it occasionally was used for the very off label purpose 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.800 of killing husbands. Believe it or not, the marketing slogan 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.680 for this poison rough On Rats was don't die in 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:07.000 the house, thinking, of course, being that the creature you 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.240 had poisoned would scurry away to die. It was also 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.360 really easily available at the local store, and Tillie actually 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.160 got her first bottle of rough On Rats from her 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.760 cousin Nellie Kulik, and Nellie, it would turn out, was 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:26.440 also a fellow poisoner murder and husbands. According to accounts 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.120 from her neighbors, Tillie was sent to have precognitive dreams, 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.800 meaning that she could predict the future in real life 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:37.280 through sort of a sixth sensish kind of way. She 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.400 began to predict the deaths of neighborhood dogs, and she 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.560 was surprisingly accurate, but it turns out she was just 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.600 scheduling their deaths. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves though, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.920 in the progression of Tillie's activities with rough on rats. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:57.320 So we're going to back up to eighteen ninety five. Hi, 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.840 It's Laverne Cox and on my podcast Verne Cox Show, 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.560 we're ripping the band aid off. Trauma, resilience dating, diet 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:09.240 culture dating, white supremacy dating. Okay, I'm not gonna get explicit, 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.880 but just because you're cute, like I'm not going you're 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.720 gonna say yes, girl, and honey. We have a lot 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.920 of fun along the way. You have a lot of 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.719 lesbian fans who love your femininity and glamour and they 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.320 just really really want I want us to talk openly 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.040 about the difficult things we all face as humans and 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.880 as humans in America. Racist white people in the United 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.640 States will sign their own death certificates. They will vote 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:42.559 for policies that crush them, no safety nets, no healthcare 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.840 because they feel too much like entitlements. And those are 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.480 folks of color, right. Listen to The Laverne Cox Show 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.840 and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:57.520 your podcast make sure you subscribe and share. Hi. This 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.520 is Ali Wentworth, host of Go Ask Alli Season two. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.200 We'll be back soon with more new episodes, but what 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.320 you can do is binge the first half of season 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.720 two or revisit our first spectacular season. Everyone has to 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.320 deal with money, and technically like people don't talk about it. 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.360 It's like this quiet thing that everyone wants to avoid. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.120 But then everyone wants to live this life and doesn't 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.040 matter what how you define that life, but you need 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.560 money for it. Just a few of our fabulous guests 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.040 the season are former editor of People magazine Jess Cagel, 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.720 New York Times bestselling author Isabel Gillies, and writer and 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.400 Oprah's favorite life coach Martha Beck. And people come to 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.920 me now and they will say negative things, and I think, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.920 I respectfully do not give a crap what you think, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.600 because I'm a crazy old bat now and you can't 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.760 stop me. That's great. Our guests have so much to say. 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.720 One liston isn't enough. Listen to Go ask Ali on 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.400 the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Make 0:14:54.440 --> 0:15:01.160 sure you subscribe and share Hey, I'm Gabrielle Collins, period 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.360 drama nerd and you're behind the scenes guide to Bridgerton. 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:10.000 On Bridgerton the Official Podcast, we're learning how this fantasy 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.600 world dipped in history came to life. Daphanie, her costume 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:19.280 design really is about the elegance of simplicity. It's just 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.960 color and shape. We went old school and we got 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.280 two scene cartists in who painted the backings for us 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.400 by hand. These dukes are all like in their late 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.560 twenties early thirties. Almost all of them are unmarried, really 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.040 good looking, and none of them have syphilis. Can you 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.080 imagine when he looks into your eyes and then he 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:44.960 dips you. We just heard this sort of ripping sound. Yeah, 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.720 I think this has been a wardrobe malfunction. Listen to 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:54.040 Bridgerton the Official Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:16:02.880 or anywhere you get your favorite shows. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.239 By eighteen ninety five, Tillie was married to John mckawitz. 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.480 His name may have been Joseph not John. Records aren't 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.600 entirely consistent, but we're gonna go with John because that's 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.800 what the majority of records from the time referred to 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:22.000 him as that is one of the delights word I'm 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.640 using ironically of doing historical research, particularly when you are 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.640 talking about immigrants, because there was not a vested interest 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.360 always in the government in keeping accurate records about them, 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.560 So you often have these these people's stories that get 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.760 really muddy because their names do shift around in the 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:47.960 historical record. Anyway, by all accounts this couple, Tilly and John, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.440 were well liked in their community, and their marriage appeared 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.400 by all accounts to be happy. Tilly made her life 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.840 as a housekeeper, but it was also during this time 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.480 that Tilly started telling neighbors about some visions that she 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.280 was having. She was, as we mentioned before the break, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.240 an alleged psychic who was skilled specifically at predicting deaths. 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.520 This included predicting the death of her own husband, John, 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:13.800 who had left her a thousand dollars When he died 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.959 in nineteen fourteen. The coroner's report listed his death as 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.959 a result of heart trouble, nothing suspicious. There was no 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.560 reason at the time to suspect that John had been 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.399 poisoned by his wife. The nickname black widow, which is 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.400 often given to women who kill their lovers in order 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.639 to inherit. Their wealth would eventually be bestowed upon Tilly, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.399 but not just yet. Here's a little more in detail 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.960 on John's sudden end. Okay. In the beginning of nineteen fourteen, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.320 Tilly began telling friends and those in the community that 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.680 she dreamed that John was ill. She expected he would 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.040 be on his deathbed in just a few weeks, and 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.320 when he died in January thirteenth that year, the cause 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.760 of death was listed as heart trouble, and Tilly collected 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:00.000 a thousand dollars in life insurance. I guess after nineteen years, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.480 she just didn't want to gun it to twenty. She's 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.880 like enough. After receiving that payout on John's life insurance policy, 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.959 Tilly actually remarried pretty quickly. See, now, that's the thing. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.760 She remarried quickly often, And I have to I always 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:16.520 sort of wonder, like if she would follow in love 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:18.679 with someone new and be like, oh, I'll kill my 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.760 husband and we'll start out fresh with like this new 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.800 thousand dollars. It's just my own personal theory. Yeah, I 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.520 think there's merit to it. But her new husband, Joseph Raskowski, 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.320 died just three months after they got married. And he 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.240 happened to leave his widow twelve hundred dollars in cash 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:41.399 and seven hundred twenty two dollars in insurance money. Not 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.720 only did Tilly predict Joseph's death, she went on to 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.159 predict the deaths of her third husband, although they may 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.000 or may not have been married, it's a little sketchy. 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.400 And her fourth husband, as well as children, she cared 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.320 for a few neighbors and possibly some other family members. 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.840 And not only did she joke with neighbors that her 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:05.520 fourth husband, Frank, had quote two inches to live, which 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:12.840 is a really interesting, fascinating turn of phrase, she allegedly 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.439 taunted him on his deathbed and said things like it 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.320 won't be long now and you'll be dying soon, which 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:26.560 is hard in my own home. You got two inches 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.879 to live? I don't know, right, It's like callous on 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:38.800 a level that's hard to comprehend, right right. She also, 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.639 in an act of both cruel and creative, knitted herself 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.400 a morning hat as she sat by his bedside while 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.959 he was dying. She even so far as to purchase 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.639 a thirty dollars bargain coffin to keep in the basement 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.560 of her house. Waiting for his death. That storage areament 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.879 was a little unsettling request made of her landlord, who 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.399 began to be a little suspicious of Tilly after that 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:09.360 came in. Frank did die on April twentieth, nineteen twenty one, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.680 and it is said that when it happened, Tillie played 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:17.080 dance music in the room. The coroner listed Frank's cause 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:22.840 of death as bronchial pneumonia. Tilly's poisonous predilections unnoticed. She 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.080 once again collected on his life insurance, this time in 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.679 the amount of six hundred seventy five dollars, nearly as 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.760 much as the last two. I know she's downgrading the 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.159 insurance situation with each one. They're going faster now, you know. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:38.919 It's just not enough time to like build up to 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:44.400 the thousand. That's another theory I have. It's interesting and 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.359 grimly fun to note that frank An Tillie's home at 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.480 nine twenty four Winchester It's a house in East Dillige 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.159 in Chicago shows up on the Old Fourth Square social 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:58.680 networking site as Old Lady Tilly Clinics Haunted House. Even today, 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.320 Tilly was still not arrested, though that didn't happen until 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.200 after she botched an attempt at poisoning husband number five, 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.440 that was Joseph Clemack. She and Joseph had gotten married 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.200 in July of nineteen twenty one, again not long after 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.399 Frank's demise, and Clemack is said to have been a 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.199 relatively wealthy man, but Tilly did not like that. He 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.680 also apparently had a wandering eye, and by October of 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.879 nineteen twenty two, he was in the hospital experiencing arm numbness, 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:32.960 leg paralysis, and other symptoms consistent with severe arsenic poisoning. 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.639 So while he was in the hospital, Tilly's husband recalled 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.440 that his food had tasted strangely lately, and here's one 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.200 big red flag. He remembered the dog dying after eating 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.640 scraps of food till he had cooked. Her husband also 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.240 stated he'd planned to press charges against her and till 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.440 he kissed him. Such a strange dynamic at play, But 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.280 it was not poisoning Joseph that she went on trial for. 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.240 While Tilly was arrested initially for the attempted murder of 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.960 Joseph Klemick, who would survive her poison his hand. After 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.679 an investigation into the deaths of her previous husbands. The 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.879 crime Tilly was eventually tried for was the murder of Frank, 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.840 her third husband, but even as she was taken in, 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.240 she appeared completely indifferent to the whole situation. It is 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.440 said that she told the arresting officer, who was Lieutenant 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.359 William Malone, the next one I want to cook dinner 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.720 for is you? You made all my trouble. After eighteen 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.960 hours of interrogation, Tilly confessed to her crimes, admitting to 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.560 mixing rat poison into her victim's food and drink note plural. 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:41.240 It's interesting, right, Like eighteen hours of interrogation is considered extreme, 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.280 it is, and she just gives it all up. Then 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.520 there's that whole thing of like is this a coerced 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:51.239 confession at that point? But her later behavior makes it 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:56.520 seem like she's pretty down with this information being one 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.120 true and part of public records. Yeah, she's a badass. 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.880 Just two grains of arsenic is enough to kill almost anyone, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.240 and as much as eight grains were found in Frank's organs, 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:13.080 so enough to kill four people. Authorities decided to exhume 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:17.280 Tillie's other husbands and found their stomachs each contained lethal 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:21.240 doses of arsenic, and although evidence existed to convict her 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:24.640 of as many as twenty murders by arsenic, only one 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:27.800 charge resulted in a conviction. Although she was not the 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.200 only woman and wife in her community to be arrested 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.479 for suspicion of poisoning, she was the only one of 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.280 them who was sentenced. Yeah. Remember how we mentioned her 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:41.440 cousin earlier. Yeah. Authorities went on to investigate a possible 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:45.359 poison ring in the Little Poland neighborhood, arresting other local 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.080 women in what the assistant state attorney at the time 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.240 that was, a man named William McLaughlin called quote the 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:56.840 most astonishing wholesale poisoning plot uncovered. He wanted the death 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.359 penalty for Tilly, but without better evidence, the other women 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:02.879 who had been rounded up just had to be released. 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.160 As Tillie's story unfurls, it becomes apparent that it wasn't 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.160 just husbands that she poisoned. She played fast and loose 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:13.879 with rough on rats, poisoning people who irritated her and 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:16.320 dogs who barked too much. In the neighborhood. Life was 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.399 especially risky if you were one of Tillie's cousins. In 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:23.680 nineteen twelve, Tillie's cousin Stanley Zaczuski died at the age 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:27.239 of sixteen. Tillie, who was in her mid thirties at 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:31.600 the time, tended on him while he was ill. Another cousin, 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.959