Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: History is everywhere in the ground, in our landscape, even
Speaker 1: in our skin. That was the lesson Adrian target hoped
Speaker 1: to impart to his newest class project. The forty two
Speaker 1: year old teacher had been looking for a way to
Speaker 1: immerse his students in the history of the local area.
Speaker 1: He'd spent his entire life in the sleepy county of
Speaker 1: Somerset in England, and had long ago given himself over
Speaker 1: to its rustic charms. But his student's eyes glazed over
Speaker 1: whenever he told them that their home was the birthplace
Speaker 1: of cheddar cheese, or that it laid claim to Great
Speaker 1: Britain's oldest road. As much as these facts fascinated him,
Speaker 1: engaging younger minds required something a bit more personal, and
Speaker 1: that's when the perfect opportunity fell into his lap. In
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen ninety seven, mister Target learned that
Speaker 1: a documentary film crew was in the area, dredging up
Speaker 1: a century old mystery for a new television show. It
Speaker 1: was a story that he knew well ninety four years before.
Speaker 1: The skeleton of a young man had been discovered in
Speaker 1: nearby Cheddar Gorge. Damage to the skull suggested a violent death,
Speaker 1: but due to the advanced state of decay, it was
Speaker 1: difficult to discern much more. The man's name was still unknown.
Speaker 1: Around Summrset, people called him cheddar Man, after the area
Speaker 1: where he'd been found. The mystery of his death remained unsolved,
Speaker 1: but the documentary filmmakers hoped to change that. Using new techniques,
Speaker 1: they manage to extract DNA samples from the skeleton's molar.
Speaker 1: Then they posted ads around the local area asking for
Speaker 1: volunteers to send their own samples in for comparison. It
Speaker 1: was a long shot, but the filmmakers thought Cheddarman might
Speaker 1: still have relatives living in the area. Finding those relatives
Speaker 1: could transform the case and offer new insights into the
Speaker 1: dead man's history. For mister Target, that was the perfect
Speaker 1: way to get his class involved in a local legend.
Speaker 1: He showed them how to gather DNA samples by scraping
Speaker 1: flakes of skin from their cheeks, and then mailed the
Speaker 1: samples to the filmmakers. It didn't take long to get
Speaker 1: a reply. The results were surprising. Cheddarman was not related
Speaker 1: to any of mister Target's students, but he was a
Speaker 1: close genetic match for mister Target himself. The pair shared
Speaker 1: a common ancestor through their maternal line, and this meant
Speaker 1: that mister Target was likely a direct descendant of Cheddarman's
Speaker 1: mother or grandmother. As you can imagine, for a middle
Speaker 1: aged teacher, this was a startling discovery. He had known
Speaker 1: Cheddarman's story all his life, but he never guessed that
Speaker 1: he had such a close connection to the skeleton, and
Speaker 1: more discoveries soon followed. Modern analysis of the skeleton showed
Speaker 1: that Cheddarman had died in his twenties and that the
Speaker 1: damage to the skull was probably caused by disease, not
Speaker 1: blunt trauma. In other words, he wasn't murdered after all,
Speaker 1: And years later, DNA analysis allowed experts to reconstruct what
Speaker 1: Cheddarman even looked like. They produced a lifelike three D
Speaker 1: printed bust, complete with hair and silicone skin in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: mister Target encountered that bust for the first time while
Speaker 1: visiting a local newspaper agency doing a story on Cheddarman.
Speaker 1: It was his first time coming face to face with
Speaker 1: his dead relative, an unnerving experience, to say the least.
Speaker 1: Despite their connection, the pair didn't look all that similar.
Speaker 1: The retired history teacher, now in his sixties, was white
Speaker 1: with rugged, classically British features. Cheddarman had dark skin, apache beard,
Speaker 1: and pale blue eyes, the only visible feature that they shared.
Speaker 1: And yet mister Target couldn't help but feel a powerful connection.
Speaker 1: He'd been given the extraordinarily rare opportunity to look into
Speaker 1: the eyes of a distant ancestor. Because while Cheddarmans skeleton
Speaker 1: was discovered in nineteen oh three, the remains were much
Speaker 1: older than that. The man had lived and died around
Speaker 1: eight thousand BCE. To this day, his remains are the
Speaker 1: oldest complete modern human skeleton ever found in Britain, which
Speaker 1: means that mister Target's family had lived in the area
Speaker 1: for far longer than anyone could have guessed. And when
Speaker 1: the teacher looked Cheddarman in the eyes, he wasn't just
Speaker 1: meeting a relative for the first time. He was staring
Speaker 1: into the face of history. It was another busy day
Speaker 1: at Macy's department store in New York City. The depression
Speaker 1: had put a damper on the usual crowds that flocked
Speaker 1: to the Herald Square stalwart, but by the mid nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: the people had begun to come back, and so had
Speaker 1: the pickpockets. As the shoppers crowded the perfumed apartment, a
Speaker 1: young woman started screaming. A man had snatched her purse,
Speaker 1: and she was shouting for somebody, anybody, to stop him.
Speaker 1: The thief tried to disappear into the crowd, but a
Speaker 1: firm hand grabbed him by the shoulder. He whirled around
Speaker 1: to find a middle aged woman in a summary dress
Speaker 1: and large, broad brimmed hat. She looked, for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, like a middle class housewife out on a
Speaker 1: shopping trip. Or at least she would have if it
Speaker 1: weren't for the revolver in her hand pointed straight at
Speaker 1: his heart. Instead of finding an easy payday, the thief
Speaker 1: had run a foul of dead shop Mary, the Scourge
Speaker 1: of the NYPD. Mary's life might read like a hard
Speaker 1: boiled detective novel, but it hadn't started that way. Born
Speaker 1: Mary Shanley in eighteen ninety six in Ireland, Mary and
Speaker 1: her family immigrated to New York City in the early
Speaker 1: days of the twentieth century. Mary was a loud, opinionated,
Speaker 1: and fearless woman, meaning that she struggled to fit into
Speaker 1: New York society. She finally found her place at the
Speaker 1: age of thirty five when she became one of the
Speaker 1: few women to join the New York Police Department. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one. Mary started out on the pickpocket squad.
Speaker 1: Each morning, she dressed in playing clothes of a middle
Speaker 1: class shopper and wandered the streets, monitoring the crowds in
Speaker 1: department stores, theaters, and train stations. She kept an eye
Speaker 1: out for suspicious characters looking to steal purses or shoplift.
Speaker 1: Other days, Mary might go undercover to doctor's offices or
Speaker 1: private chapels. She was looking out for criminals taking advantage
Speaker 1: of women, like crooked doctors or people who issued fake
Speaker 1: marriage licenses. One of her foremost duties, though, was taking
Speaker 1: down fortune tellers, whose trade was illegal at the time.
Speaker 1: Fortune tellers were thought to swindle women out of their money,
Speaker 1: and while some might have tried at least to appear legitimate.
Speaker 1: Others were crooked as a three dollar bill. In one instance,
Speaker 1: Mary had her fortune read by a mystic named Princess
Speaker 1: Juniata Flynn. Mid reading, Mary reached over and grabbed the
Speaker 1: woman's elaborate head wrap. She untied it to reveal a
Speaker 1: whole telephone handset bound to the woman's ear, through which
Speaker 1: her assistant was feeding her information about her clients. While
Speaker 1: Mary was already making a name for herself as a
Speaker 1: crack woman detective, it wasn't until nineteen thirty four that
Speaker 1: she gained her famous moniker. That year, female officers were
Speaker 1: issued revolvers for the first time, and Mary quickly gained
Speaker 1: a reputation for using hers. In the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: Mary was chasing a criminal on foot down fifty third Street.
Speaker 1: Sensing she was going to lose him, she raised her
Speaker 1: pistol into the air and fired a warning shot, bringing
Speaker 1: him to a screeching halt. This in incident marked the
Speaker 1: first time an NYPD policewoman used a gun during an arrest.
Speaker 1: This soon became Mary's mo for particularly dangerous criminals. In
Speaker 1: multiple cases, Mary would be facing an attacker or chasing
Speaker 1: down a purse snatcher and fire her pistol into the air.
Speaker 1: The sound was enough to make them stop, and although
Speaker 1: she was often much smaller than her male criminal targets,
Speaker 1: her bulldogged determination made her a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1: For the next twenty years, until nineteen fifty seven, Mary
Speaker 1: stocked the streets of New York, using her unassuming appearance
Speaker 1: to stop crooks. She often brought her young goddaughter along
Speaker 1: as a decoy, making her appear like a mother out
Speaker 1: for the afternoon, and in nineteen thirty nine she received
Speaker 1: the rank of first grade detective, the fourth woman in
Speaker 1: history to ever achieve it. She was personally congratulated by
Speaker 1: Mayor LaGuardia himself. Looking back, it really did seem like
Speaker 1: Mary lived for the chase. She never married, preferring the
Speaker 1: company of cops and crows to a spouse. She absolutely
Speaker 1: loved the way that she lived her life. In one interview,
Speaker 1: she quipped, it's exciting. I would die if I had
Speaker 1: to go back to working in an office. It sounds
Speaker 1: like Mary was living her best life right on target.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.