WEBVTT - We Think You'd Like 'Criminalia' 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.840 Hi, this is Ali Wentworth, host of Go Ask Galley. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.800 My listeners want more, so we are digging in. It's real. 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.880 It's honest, open and unexpected and sometimes amusing. He told 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.440 me you chased him with a butcher knife and tried 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.720 to cut off his penis. But that's his version, and 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.520 everybody has everybody has two two sides of every store exactly. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.759 All new episodes of Go Ask Galley release every Thursday. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.680 Listen to Go Ask Ally on the iHeartRadio app, Apple 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:32.560 podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Laverne 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.720 Cox and on my podcast, The Laverne Cox Show, we're 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.080 ripping the band aid off. Trauma, resilience, dating, diet culture dating, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.920 white supremacy dating. Okay, I'm not gonna get explicit, but 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.680 just because you're cute, like I'm not going you're gonna 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.320 say yes, girl, and honey. We have a lot of 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.920 fun along the way. You have a lot of lesbian 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.400 fans who love your femininity and glamour and they just 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.800 really really want you. I want us to talk openly 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.560 about the difficult things we all face as humans and 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.360 as humans in America. Racist white people in the United 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.120 States will sign their own death certificates. They will vote 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:17.040 for policies that crush them, no safety nets, no healthcare 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.320 because they feel too much like entitlements. And those are 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.000 folks of color, right. Listen to the Laverne Cox Show 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.319 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:32.080 your podcast Make sure you subscribe and share. Hi, this 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.040 is Ali Wentworth, host of Go Ask Gali. Season two 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.320 will be back soon with more new episodes. As always, 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:40.679 Go ask Alli is there for binging and catching up, 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.040 purpose and meaning in life or how you figure out 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.760 what life is all about. And that requires unhappiness. So 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.720 here's the great paradox. To be happy, you also have 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.840 to be unhappy. Don't miss a single episode. Listen to 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.080 Go Ask Ally on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:01.960 get your podcasts. Make sure you subscribe and share. Welcome 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:12.359 to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hello, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.160 and welcome to Criminalia. I'm Mariach from Marquis, and I'm 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.160 Holly Fry. We know that humans have always managed to 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.840 commit crimes, almost certainly before there was even recorded history, 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.400 so we decided that we would start looking at those 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.080 crimes and get our hands dirty. We wanted to dig 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.600 in and look at some of history's crimes and criminals 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.360 to understand them better, and in doing so, we're curious 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.160 if we can find commonality with our modern world and 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.680 our modern problems, and whether these crimes look different a 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.679 little bit of distance on the timeline, and whether any 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:47.320 of these perpetrators emerge as more sympathetic characters. This first 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.880 season is going to be all about poisoners, specifically women poisoners. 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:54.520 Poison is often called a woman's weapon, despite the fact 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.320 that roughly two thirds of the poisonings committed throughout time 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.400 have been the work of men. So let's start looking 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.200 at these women and their motivations and see if any 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.320 patterns develop. This week, we're looking into the life and 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.560 crimes of Tilly Clinic, a Polish immigrant who killed at 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.920 least one and possibly as many as twenty people and 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.520 at least one dog between the years nineteen fourteen and 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.320 nineteen twenty two. I will confess that when you were 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.480 telling me about the research you were doing initially on 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.160 this and you mentioned the dog, I was like, well, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.359 I hate her, Not that it wasn't terrible. It she 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.000 killed people, just you know, that was for me, the 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:44.320 worst thing that she could have done as well. She 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.560 was born Tiafila Burick to Michelina and Michael Burick on 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.040 October twenty second, eighteen seventy seven, and Tilly was probably 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.480 right around four years old when her family immigrated to 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.920 the United States. They moved from Poland to the Little 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.520 Poland neighborhood of Chicago, and of the seven children in 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.200 the family, at Tilly, as she was called, was the eldest. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.640 Chicago has a long history of Polish immigration, and Polish 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.600 Americans have lived in the area for well over a century. 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.200 In eighteen ninety, around the time Tilly was born, there 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.120 was a wave of immigration to the United States. At 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.039 that time, the number of Polish immigrants in the city 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.599 blossomed to more than twenty five thousand. By nineteen thirty, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.039 a few years before she died, that number had grown 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.640 to one hundred and sixty five thousand. Most they lived 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.520 below the poverty line. Is the tale of immigration in 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.640 so many ways. So let's set the scene of the 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:48.520 actual situation we're talking about today. So this is Chicago 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.760 in the early twentieth century. You couldn't necessarily count on 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.480 your food and drinks to be clean. Upton Sinclair started 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.520 publishing the serialized version of his groundbreaking X baz of 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.200 the meat industry in the US, The Jungle, in nineteen 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.120 oh five, and while that led to the creation of 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.839 the Meat Inspection Act in nineteen oh six, food safety 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.840 legislation was still in its infancy. But if you were 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:14.920 at a restaurant or a club or a hotel around 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:16.680 the city, there were other dangers when it came to 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.559 what you consumed at the table. In particular, wait staff 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.800 were known to target patrons who didn't tip well. Not 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.280 like the content of the chatter in Fight Club, although 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.680 honestly maybe a little of that. They usually chose poisons 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.479 and various other things you really don't want to be 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.320 in your food, So remember always tip well. But moreover, 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.159 it turns out that you couldn't really count on food 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.480 safety at home either, at least if you lived with 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.440 a Tilly Clinic. During the time that Chicago's most visible 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.240 criminal element was organized crime, Tilly was quietly becoming the 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.200 city's most prolific female serial killer. She'd allegedly killed between 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.000 six and twenty people. Like we said, but that was 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.840 all through arsenic poisoning. So we're gonna talk first just 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.400 about what arsenic actually is. It is a naturally occurring 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.279 element in the Earth's crust and in its raw state. 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.320 As much as it has this instant conjuring of poison, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.360 it's not actually harmful the way it naturally exists. Arsenic 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.480 only really becomes poisonous when it's converted into arsenic trioxide, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.240 which is better known as white arsenic. White arsenic not 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.080 only is odorless, but it's tasteless, and it's white or 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.839 transparent in form, so it's easily confused with sugar or flour. 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.320 But it's highly toxic when it's inhaled into your lungs 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.600 or when you ingest it. And it might surprise you 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.680 that even white arsenic is actually fairly benign in relatively 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.200 small amounts, because it is very lethal at higher doses. 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.000 In fact, doctors have actually prescribed white arsenic through the 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.520 years in its low dosage as a treatment for things 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:55.200 like asthma, typhus, malaria, even menstrual cramps, and it continues 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.800 to be administered intravenously as a chemotherapy for a specific 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.400 type of leukemia. When arsenic is ingested, initially it causes 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.640 symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea that's often being accompanied 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.600 by bleeding and vomiting. It's terrible. As the dose gets 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:12.440 more and more lethal in the body, though, the symptoms 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:17.440 also begin to include convulsions, cardiovascular problems, hair loss, liver 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:22.360 and kidney problems, and even organ damage. So not a 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.440 peaceful way to go. Definitely not sugar. No, and despite 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.080 its potency, it has been used in the production of semiconductors. 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.880 It's been used as wood preservative, and it's also sometimes 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.520 found in pesticides. Manufacturers in the nineteenth century started using 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.200 it for it's a green pigment in products like paint 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:46.160 and wallpaper, fabrics, beauty products, and as food coloring. The 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.600 list goes on because green is very beautiful color, so 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.600 sometimes those products would actually make people sick, but at 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.440 the time, no one was suspecting that the arsenic in 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.600 them was the problem that was causing their ailment. In 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.480 the early twentieth century, when Tilly was busy murdering people 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.160 in her community, the average Americans medicine cabinet was stocked 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.760 with all sorts of toxic things like radioactive radium for 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.200 acne and mercury as a topical antiseptic for cuts and 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.880 scrapes and burns. Morphine showed up in everyday products and 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.679 everything from teething medications to cures for heroin addiction. From 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.840 roughly the late eighteenth into the early twentieth century is 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.360 considered to be the golden age of poisoners, and during 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.960 that time, arsenic specifically caught the nickname the inheritance powder. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:40.840 And you can probably imagine why the police really didn't 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.600 have any of the tools to test the corpse for poison. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.960 Arsenic wasn't only easy to acquire, it was hard to 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.560 detect as a cause of death, which was win win 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.640 for the Golden Age of poisoners. It was common practice 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.320 for doctors to treat suspected poisoning with leeches bleeded out 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.520 or try to identify the poisons by sniffing the contents 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.120 of the person's stomach. Remember how we said arsenic was 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.280 odorless though, Yeah, so you just sniff those contents for nothing. 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.199 But it was also just unusual for a doctor or 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.160 a coroner to suspect arsenic as a cause of death, 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.840 mainly because the symptoms of arsenic poisoning that Maria just 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.600 talked about diarrhea and vomiting and abdominal pain are so 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.000 similar to a lot of other disorders. It's also really 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.280 hard to place a poisoner at the scene of the murder. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.280 Dying can typically take hours or longer if you administered 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.320 the poison gradually, such as with someone's meals, so the 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.439 perpetrator could easily have a seemingly airtight alibi for their 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.640 whereabouts because the window of time had such fuzzy edges. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.439 But it actually wouldn't be until the late nineteenth century 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.680 that a chemist named James marsh would come up with 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.160 a reliable chemical test for arsenic poisoning. Today, arsenic poisoning 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.880 is treated with chelation therapy, which uses special drugs that 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:03.840 bind to metal ions in your blood. So rough on 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.640 Rats was the product that became popular in the late 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.000 eighteen hundreds. It was composed mainly of arsenic and a 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.240 little black coal for masking the poison, and while i 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:18.240 was advertised for use in killing rats, mice, bedbugs, flies, roaches, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.840 it occasionally was used for the very off label purpose 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.800 of killing husbands. Believe it or not, the marketing slogan 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.680 for this poison rough on Rats was don't die in 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:36.000 the house, thinking, of course, being that the creature you 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.240 had poisoned would scurry away to die. It was also 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.360 really easily available at the local store, and Tillie actually 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.160 got her first bottle of rough On Rats from her 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.760 cousin Nellie Kulik, and Nellie, it would turn out, was 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:54.960 also a fellow poisoner murder and husbands. According to your 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.120 accounts from her neighbors, Tillie was sent to have precognitive dreams, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.760 meaning that she could predict the future in real life 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.280 through sort of a sixth sensish kind of way. She 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.400 began to predict the depths of neighborhood dogs, and she 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.560 was surprisingly accurate, but it turns out she was just 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.600 scheduling their depths. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves though, 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.920 in the progression of Tilly's activities with rough On Rats. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:26.320 So we're gonna back up to eighteen ninety five. Hi, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.839 it's Laverne Cox and on my podcast, The Laverne Cox Show, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.560 we're ripping the band aid off. Trauma, resilient dating, diet 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:38.240 culture dating, white supremacy dating. Okay, I'm not gonna get explicit, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.880 but just because you're cute, like I'm not going, You're 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.720 gonna say yes, girl, and honey, we have a lot 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.920 of fun along the way. You have a lot of 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.719 lesbian fans who love your femininity and glamour and they 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.320 just really really want I want us to talk openly 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.040 about the difficult things we all face as humans and 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.880 as humans in America, racist white people in the United 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.640 States will sign their own death certificates. They will vote 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.479 for policies that crush them, no safety nets, no healthcare 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.840 because they feel too much like entitlements. And those are 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.480 folks of color, right. Listen to the Laverne Cox Show 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.800 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:26.560 your podcast. Make sure you subscribe and share. Hi. This 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.520 is Ali Wentworth, host of Go Ask Gali. Season two 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.200 will be back soon with more new episodes, but what 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.320 you can do is binge the first half of season 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.720 two or revisit our first spectacular season. Everyone has to 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.240 deal with money, and typically like people don't talk about it. 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.360 It's like this quiet thing that everyone wants to avoid. 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.120 But then everyone wants to live this life and doesn't 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.040 matter what how you define that life, but you need 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.560 money for it. Just a few of our fabulous guests 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.040 the season are former editor of People magazine Jess Cagel, 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.719 New York Times bestselling author Isabel Gillies, and writer and 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.400 Oprah's favorite life coach Martha Beck. And people come to 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.920 me now and they will say negative things, and I think, 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.920 I respectfully do not give a crap what you think, 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.600 because I'm a crazy old bat now and you can't 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.560 stop me. That's great. Our guests have so much to say. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.720 One listen isn't enough Listen to go ask Ali on 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.400 the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Make 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:30.160 sure you subscribe and share. Hey, I'm Gabrielle Collins, Period 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.360 drama nerd and you're behind the scenes guide to Bridgerton. 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:39.000 On Bridgerton, the official podcast. We're learning how this fantasy 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.600 world dipped in history came to life. Daphanie. Her costume 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.280 design really is about the elegance of simplicity. It's just 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.960 color and shape. We went old school and we got 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.319 two scene cartists in who painted the backings for us 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.400 by hand. These dukes are all like in their late 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.560 twenties early thirties. Almost all of them were unmarried, really 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.040 good looking, and none of them have syphilis. Can you 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.080 imagine when he looks into your eyes and then he 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.960 dicts you we just heard this sort of ripping sound. Yeah, 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.680 I think that's just been a wardrobe malfunction. Listen to 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:23.040 Bridgerton the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:34.480 or anywhere you get your favorite shows. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.200 By eighteen ninety five, Tillie was married to John mckaywitz. 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.480 His name may have been Joseph not John. Records aren't 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.600 entirely consistent, but we're gonna go with John because that's 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.800 what the majority of records from the time referred to 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:51.040 him as. That is one of the delights word I'm 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.640 using ironically of doing historical research, particularly when you are 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.600 talking about immigrants, because there was not a vested interest 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:04.160 always in the government in keeping accurate records about them, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.880 So you often have these people's stories that get really 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:13.040 muddy because their names do shift around in the historical record. Anyway, 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.880 by all accounts this couple, Tilly and John were well 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.680 liked in their community, and their marriage appeared by all 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.280 accounts to be happy. Tilly made her life as a housekeeper, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.880 but it was also during this time that Tilly started 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.960 telling neighbors about some visions that she was having. She was, 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.640 as we mentioned before the break, an alleged psychic who 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.120 was skilled specifically at predicting deaths. This included predicting the 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.440 death of her own husband, John, who had left her 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.280 a thousand dollars When he died in nineteen fourteen. The 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.040 coroner's report listed his death as a result of heart trouble, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.240 nothing suspicious. There was no reason at the time to 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.400 suspect that John had been poisoned by his wife. The 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.000 nickname black widow, which is often given to women who 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.000 kill their lovers in order to inherit their wealth, would 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.520 eventually be bestowed upon Tilly, but not just yet. Here's 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.240 a little more in detail on John's sudden end. Okay. 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.200 In the beginning of nineteen fourteen, Tilly began telling friends 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.600 and those in the community that she dreamed that John 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.480 was ill. She expected he would be on his deathbed 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.800 in just a few weeks, and when he died in 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.040 January thirteenth that year, the cause of death was listed 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.680 as heart trouble, and Tilly collected a thousand dollars in 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.560 life insurance. I guess after nineteen years she just didn't 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.880 want to gun it to twenty. She's like enough. After 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.880 receiving that payout on John's life insurance policy, Tilly actually 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.600 remarried pretty quickly. See now that's the thing. She remarried 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.680 quickly often. And I always sort of wonder like if 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.120 she would follow in love with someone new and be like, oh, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.240 I'll kill my husband and we'll start out fresh with 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.760 like this new thousand dollars. It's just my own personal theory. Yeah, 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.200 I think there's merit to it. But her new husband, 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.320 Joseph Raskowski, died just three months after they got married, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.360 and he happened to leave his widow twelve hundred dollars 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.560 in cash and seven hundred twenty two dollars in insurance money. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.600 Not only did Tilly predict Joseph's death, she went on 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.000 to predict the deaths of her third husband, although they 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.119 may or may not have been married, it's a little sketchy. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.400 And her fourth husband, as well as children, she cared 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.320 for a few neighbors and possibly some other family members. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.920 And not only did she joke with neighbors that her 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:34.520 fourth husband, Frank, had quote two inches to live, which 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:41.840 is a really interesting, fascinating turn of phrase. She allegedly 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.439 taunted him on his deathbed and said things like it 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:50.320 won't be long now, and you'll be dying soon, which 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:56.040 is in my own home. You got two inches to live. 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:00.360 I don't know, right, it's like callous on a level 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:08.600 that's hard to comprehend, right right. She also, in an 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:13.199 act of both cruel and creative, knitted herself a morning 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.080 hat as she sat by his bedside while he was dying. 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.680 She even so far as to purchase a thirty dollars 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.280 bargain coffin to keep in the basement of her house 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.120 waiting for his death. That storage areatment was a little 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.760 unsettling request made of her landlord, who began to be 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:35.439 a little suspicious of Tilly after that came in. Frank 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.119 did die on April twentieth, nineteen twenty one, and it 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.560 is said that when it happened, Tillie played dance music 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.480 in the room. The coroner listed Frank's cause of death 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:52.520 as bronchial pneumonia. Tillie's poisonous predilections unnoticed. She once again 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.600 collected on his life insurance, this time in the amount 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.959 of six hundred seventy five dollars nearly as much as 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.000 the last two. I know she's downgrading the insurance situation 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.320 with each one. They're going faster now, you know. There's 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.560 just not enough time to like build up to the thousand. 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.640 That's another theory I have. It's interesting and grimly fun 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.000 to note that Frank An Tillie's home at nine twenty 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.120 four Winchester. It's a house in East Dillige in Chicago, 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.960 shows up on the Old Fourth Square social networking site 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:28.439 as Old Lady Tilly Climic's Haunted House. Even today, Tilly 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.639 was still not arrested, though that didn't happen until after 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.439 she botched an attempt at poisoning husband number five, that 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.520 was Joseph Clemick. She and Joseph had gotten married in 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.000 July of nineteen twenty one, again not long after Frank's demise, 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.320 just a few and Clemmick is said to have been 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.000 a relatively wealthy man, but Tilly did not like that. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.600 He also apparently had a wandering eye, and by October 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.000 of nineteen twenty two he was in the hospital experiencing 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.920 arm numbness, leg paralysis, and other symptoms consist with severe 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.959 arsenic poisoning. So while he was in the hospital, Tillie's 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.840 husband recalled that his food had tasted strangely lately, and 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.400 here's one big red flag. He remembered, the dog dying 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.040 after eating scraps of food till he had cooked. Her 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.720 husband also stated he'd planned to press charges against her 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.240 and till he kissed him. Such a strange dynamic at play. 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.840 But it was not poisoning Joseph that she went on 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.760 trial for. While Tilly was arrested initially for the attempted 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.639 murder of Joseph Klemick, who would survive her poison his 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.600 hand after an investigation into the deaths of her previous husbands, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.359 the crime Tilly was eventually tried for was the murder 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.159 of Frank, her third husband, but even as she was 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.080 taken in, she appeared completely indifferent to the whole situation. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.600 It is said that she told the arresting officer, who 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.800 was Lieutenant William Malone, the next one I want to 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.080 cook dinner for is you. You made all my trouble. 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.840 After eighteen hours of interrogation, Tilly confessed her crimes, admitting 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.560 to mixing rat poison into her victim's food and drink 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:08.160 note plural. It's interesting, right, Like eighteen hours of interrogation 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.720 is considered extreme, it is, and she just gives it 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.680 all up. Then there's that whole thing of like is 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.359 this a coerced confession at that point? But her later 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:23.199 behavior makes it seem like she she's pretty down with 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.400 this information being one true and part of public records. Yeah, 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.600 she's a badass. Just two grains of arsenic is enough 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.440 to kill almost anyone, and as much as eight grains 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.919 were found in Frank's organs, so enough to kill four people. 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.480 Authorities decided to exoom Tillie's other husbands and found their 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:48.800 stomachs each contained lethal doses of arsenic, and although evidence 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.119 existed to convict her of as many as twenty murders 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.920 by arsenic, only one charge resulted in a conviction. Although 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.040 she was not the only woman and wife in her 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.359 community to be arrested for suspicion of poisoning, she was 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.520 the only one of them who was sentenced. Yeah. Remember 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:08.800 how we mentioned her cousin earlier. Yeah. Authorities went on 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.959 to investigate a possible poison ring in the Little Poland neighborhood, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.520 arresting other local women. In what the Assistant state Attorney 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:18.879 at the time. That was A man named William McLaughlin 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:25.040 called quote the most astonishing wholesale poisoning plot uncovered. He 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.280 wanted the death penalty for Tilly, but without better evidence, 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.080 the other women who had been rounded up just had 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:36.520 to be released. As Tilly's story unfurls, it becomes apparent 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.480 that it wasn't just husbands that she poisoned. She played 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:41.959 fast and loose with rough on rats, poisoning people who 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.679 irritated her and dogs who barked too much in the neighborhood. 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.639 Life was especially risky if you were one of Tillie's cousins. 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.399 In nineteen twelve, Tilly's cousin, Stanley Zaczuski, died at the 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:56.080 age of sixteen. Tilly, who was in her mid thirties 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.680 at the time, tended on him while he was ill. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.320 Their cousin, Stanley's sister, Stell, died in nineteen thirteen. She 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:08.080 was twenty three at the time, and again Tillie played 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.000 the role of caregiver. After her husband Frank's death, Tillie 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:16.040 started seeing a man named Joseph Grandkowski, like lovers before him. 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:20.240 Joseph died in nineteen fourteen after jilting her and back 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.760 to cousins. In nineteen fifteen, Tillie's cousin Helen died at 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:28.520 age fifteen. Another cousin, Nick Micko, became sick from arsenic poisoning, 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.120 but he was lucky enough to actually recover. In nineteen nineteen, 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:37.879 Tillie's cousin Rose died after attending Tillie and Frank's wedding party. 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:40.879 In nineteen eighteen, Tillie may have been involved in the 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.680 poisoning of woejek Strummer, who was the husband of her 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:47.840 cousin Nellie, the same Nellie from she procured her rat poison. 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:51.240 It turns out that Tillie wasn't only cooking arsenic in 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.719 two meals, she was also a confectioner. Twizzlers may make 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:58.719 mouse happy, but you definitely want to skip Tillie's streets. 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:05.000 So Stella Guskowski, sister of Tillie's former boyfriend Joseph, got 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.439 sick after she ate a candy that was given to 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:10.400 her by Tillie after the two women had an argument. 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:15.400 Joseph died from tainted candy as well. Rose, split had 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:18.680 also stayed un Tillie gave her arsenic confused candies after 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.440 Joseph Klinik talked to her. So a jealous Tillie was 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:24.840 willing to go after innocent women who her husband even 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.240 dared to converse with. So let's keep going because we're 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:31.359 only about halfway through the body count. There was also 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.120 a woman named Bessie Kupzick's sister in law of Tilly's 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.760 husband Frank, who fell sick after eating Tillie's cooking, but 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:44.040 Bessie recovered. Children, primarily relatives, were also on Tillie's hit list. 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.359 At least four children in Tillie's sphere were poisoned between 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:51.800 nineteen seventeen nineteen eighteen. Dorothy Spara died at age two. 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:55.600