WEBVTT - Lovesick 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.560 You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:17.920 Grimm and Mild from Air and Manky. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.800 The letters continued to show up, just as they always had. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.320 They arrived in all sizes and colors, perfumed and sealed 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.319 with kisses. The male had always managed to follow Ted 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.960 from place to place. The envelopes were a welcome window 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.840 into another world, a vehicle for escapism for the amount 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.159 of time it took his eyes to scan the pages. 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.239 They were made up of gentle missives and sweet nothings, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:49.879 words of adoration and declarations of love, marriage proposals. They 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.919 were one of the most meaningful parts of his long days. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:58.680 He felt good reading them powerful. Even those who saw 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.800 him every day shook their head at this guy, they 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:07.440 thought were they envious? Perhaps to them all of his adoration. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:13.160 This reverence was a horrifying idea, indeed, but Ted loved 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.959 the attention. He had always been good at getting it. 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.760 People were drawn to him by all accounts. He was 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.720 a catch, a charismatic law school graduate, and a family 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.360 man to boot. And Ted's face greased the paper's front 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.840 pages and just about every magazine cover at the checkout line, 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.520 even from the page, His eyes were arresting, his face handsome, 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.200 But it was this same veneer of normalcy that chilled 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:46.400 the American public. He inspired obsession, yes, but also fear 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.720 he was a killer. Two hundred and fifty reporters showed 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.840 out to broadcast the first televised American murder trial, his 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.680 murder trial. But alongside these reporters were thrown of women 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.080 clamoring for his attention. And after Ted Bundy was sentenced 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.840 to die, his jailhouse confessions only made him more popular. 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:14.239 The stream of letters turned into a cascade. The terror 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.840 that Ted wrought across the nineteen seventies had been replaced 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:23.600 with a different emotion, desire. He was inarguably one of 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.000 the most popular inmates bound for the electric chair, but 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:32.359 he wasn't alone in stirring passions. This wasn't a new phenomenon, 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.120 but it was certainly noteworthy. For as long as people 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:41.200 have been incarcerated, they've had fans on the outside. But why. 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.160 Psychologists have long been fascinated by this question, and what 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.600 is it about these prisoners, men and women alike that 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:54.600 turned them from nightmare into fantasy? There are few hypotheses. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.800 They have to do with brain chemistry and the stories 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.919 that we tell ourselves about love. Romantic love is made 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.720 up of chemicals. It's a potent cocktail of oxytocin and 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.480 dopamine that hijacks our nervous system and throws our reality 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.800 into tumil effectively, when we fall in love, we're under 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.720 the influence of drugs. Scientists have watched it light up 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.079 brain scans of the newly in love and broken hearted alike. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.200 Some have even gone so far as to categorize love 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.440 as a kind of mental illness. Plato famously called out 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.280 all those years ago that love is madness. When we're 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.080 falling in love, we're overcome with potential, with the idea 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.040 of who someone is, or who we think they are, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.320 and who we might be with them. In the case 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.520 of jail house romances, especially one that will end in 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.400 the electric chair, there's little opportunity to move the relationship 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.520 beyond the courtship phase. It can be drawn out, installed 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.480 in this space for a very long time, longer than 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.600 a general would be on the outside. The senses are heightened, 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.640 Every exchange is loaded with meaning. Because this connection isn't 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.560 rooted in a collection of shared experiences. The participants engage 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:17.120 in elaborate world building. The relationship, then, is really a 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:22.880 fiction of the participant's design. It's a complicated approach to 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.360 finding love, but there are countless people every year who 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.360 choose this avenue through any number of dating services catering 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:35.280 to exactly this. And as history tells us, pining for 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.279 forbidden love is the raw material from which some of 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:43.839 history's greatest works have been born. But romantic love is 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:48.839 fleeting in any lasting relationship. It's the shortest lived phase. 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.280 The heat eventually cools as the mechanics of life set in. 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.920 The shine tarnishes, the sparkle dulls. The prolonged exposure between 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.800 people breeds famili filiarity. This familiarity breeds comfort, but it 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:09.159 can also breed something else, contempt. There's a lot of 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.240 disappointment in our quests for love. When the story that 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.359 lays out in front of you is different than the 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.800 one you had imagined, the one you had wished for, 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:25.560 the results can be devastating or even deadly. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:41.600 Welcome to American Shadows. Nanny was nursing another headache. She 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.000 stood at her kitchen counter, rubbed her temples and folded 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.200 her cake batter together. They had come to her ever 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.200 since her childhood accident. They had been with her for 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.680 decades now, plaguing her during her days and well into 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.560 her nights. She didn't sleep well. Even still, she really 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.600 tried hard to be a good mother, a good wife. 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.960 But sometimes and it still perplexed her as to why 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.200 it just wasn't enough. Maybe she thought she wasn't enough. 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:18.320 Her ideas about romance had been engineered early on her blueprint. 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.240 The way she had come to understand what real love 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.400 was was through romance. Literature, novels, and magazine columns were 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.120 her drugs of choice. For years, she had been studying 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.080 these stories, searching for some real proximity to the love 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.159 she dreamed of, the love that she hoped would someday 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:41.440 be hers. It certainly wasn't modeled well by her parents, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.360 and Nanny's father was a fearsome man, quick to anger 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.839 and didn't hesitate to show it. He was cruel to 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.320 his wife and children and kept the reins on his 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.839 family tight. It was surprising then that he allowed Nanny 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.240 to marry Charlie Bragg's, a local Alabama boy, when she 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:04.520 was fifteen. Her romance novels had set her expectations high 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.400 for what this love would be, what shape it would take, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.800 what it would feel like, and who she would become, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.760 But the practicalities of loving someone weren't something Nanny had 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.440 ever considered. The teenage couple started off happy, as most do, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.720 and in time started a family, But as the sparks 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.680 began to fizzle out and the mundanities of everyday life 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:32.560 began to set in, Nanny became agitated. Charlie's wandering eye 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:34.880 had started to get the best of him, but Nanny 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.640 was certainly no angel herself. Even with four children. She 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.600 began to wander off for periods of time. She was 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:48.520 searching for that state of limerence, that new relationship electricity 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.120 that would make her feel special. The love that she 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.680 had always yearned for never seemed to be an impossibility, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:01.320 if only she continued to make her own opportunities. Charley's mother, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.960 Peggy Jane, who lived with them for some time, loathed 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.200 her daughter in law. Nanny had never met her high 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.320 standards of care for her son, and less so when 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.280 she began seeing other men. Peggy Jane saw how Nanny 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.560 and Charley fought, but was still reluctant to admit her 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:23.720 son's complicity in his wife's unhappiness. Things only got worse 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:28.320 when two of their children died. Charlie would later say 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.800 that they were sleeping only to suddenly be dead. No 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.120 one could wake them. He claimed that their little bodies 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.000 had both turned black by the time the undertaker came 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:44.439 to get them. This horrified the household and shocked the community. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.200 What could have happened to two perfectly healthy children. Their 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.640 health insurance policies covered some, but not much, of the 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.680 expenses for the funerals and the upkeep of the rest 0:08:55.679 --> 0:09:00.160 of the young family. Charley didn't believe in such policies himself, 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.800 but it seemed that Nanny did. At the funerals, Nanny 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.040 cut a stunning figure in her mourning attire, a vision 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.560 in black. She had always been beautiful, but in this 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.520 moment of grief, standing calm surrounded by family, she was 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.720 almost admirable. But Peggy Jane, who had long been privy 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.600 to Nanny in her moods, wasn't buying any of it. 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.120 She warned Charlie that something was amiss. This woman, who 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.960 had played an iron fisted role in Nanny and Charlie's 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.000 marriage began to shrink. Peggy Jane began to fear her 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.800 own daughter in law and warned her son to be careful. 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.120 Though Nanny was an excellent cook, maybe he should be 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:48.080 careful about eating what she fed him. Charlie wouldn't have 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.160 to be careful for long, though, as they soon divorced. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.480 Nanny had started going off further and for longer, and 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.040 after eight years, they decided to permanently part ways. This 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:05.239 was a choice Charlie later said that probably saved his life. 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.320 Nanny reached for a baking dish and dusted it with 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.640 flour into it, she poured the batter for one of 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.520 her signature cakes, slices of which won her many hearts. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.240 In recent times, she had gotten into the habit of 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:23.040 romancing with sweets. A way to a man's heart is 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.240 through his stomach, they say, and she liked to include 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.720 pretty paper wrapped baked goods in her correspondence. The mailman 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.440 had recently begun delivering fat stacks of letters again now 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.600 that she was back on the market. The Lonely Heart's 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.480 personal ads and the men who she found there were 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.480 never in short supply, and Nanny figured all she needed 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.240 to do was keep looking for her soulmate. He was 0:10:48.280 --> 0:11:00.920 out there, and she would find him, no matter the cost. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.400 In nineteen twenty nine, Nanny received a letter signed by 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:09.440 a man named Frank Harrelson. It said that he sent 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.160 her a poem and a photo of himself, and she 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.000 sent a photo back in kind. He replied by showing 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.840 up at her doorstep. And what he found, it's believed, 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.920 was better than he could have imagined. There was beautiful Nanny, 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.720 a cherubic face with dimples on her cheeks, and she 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.480 was sweet and gentle, a young, responsible mother looking for 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:37.160 her match. He began sending chocolate and flowers, sweet notes, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.439 and big promises. Within two months, she and her girls 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.800 had moved with him to a plot of land in Alabama, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:49.280 where Nanny intended to begin anew Nanny was utterly besotted. 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.920 Here was the gentleman, a real prince charming. It seemed 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.319 that she had always deserved. She had finally found him. 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.840 If Charlie was a trial run, he had indeed prepared 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:06.000 her for Frank. Frank's old habits didn't take long to 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.120 catch up to him. It had had a lifelong affinity 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.120 for the bottle a habit that came back full force 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.360 after the two had become legally bound. His heavy drinking 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.880 soon began to tarnish the luster of Nanny's perfect vision 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.040 for herself. For her entire life, she had felt like 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.800 an afterthought, prone to the company of neglectful and often 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.720 abusive men. He would arrive home breath hot with whiskey 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.040 and make slurring demands of her. He was hansy. He 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.800 would prowl at all hours and not come home for days. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.880 She was living with a jekyline hide right in her 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:47.160 own bed. So Nannie did what she knew. She threw 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:51.080 herself into parenting her remaining children under her in Frank's roof. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.240 She was especially close to her daughter, Melvina, who was 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.920 her first born. Nanny had big dreams for the girl, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.960 a life better than the one she had had, far 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.600 beyond the limits of their small Alabama town, But it 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.439 soon became clear that the apple didn't fall far from 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.719 the tree, and Melvina began repeating her own mother's same mistakes. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.240 Melvina would eventually grow up to welcome not one, but 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.880 two children. Her marriage didn't work out, so they came 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.120 back to live with her mother. Nanny felt that she 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.560 was flighty and disobedient, and careless with her life, and 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.199 flagrantly dismissive of the love Nanny gave her. Nanny felt 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:37.920 once again powerless. It's here that Nanny could have been 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.240 the savior in her own story, had both of the 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.240 children not died. The baby girl was the first to go, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.560 passing in the hospital shortly after her birth. The older child, Robert, 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.719 died some months later. In her post birth haze, Melvina 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.680 would later remember something so shocking she wouldn't dare say 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.079 it out loud. It had all felt like one strange, 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.240 bad dream, But in the fog of her memory, she 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.640 recalled seeing her mother take a hat pin and push 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:16.319 it through her newborn baby's skull. And after two year 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.480 old Robert died suddenly some months later, Melvina's father, Frank, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.440 and his brother Ernest went to visit the child's grave. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.480 Ernest would recall that Frank pointed to the grave and said, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:35.800 I'll be next. He wasn't wrong. Two months later, Frank 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.520 was dead, his body cold and contorted in his backyard. 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.720 The police who came to investigate the scene quickly decided 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.200 that his demise was attributed to some bad moonshine, which 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.000 they could still smell on his body. At the funeral, 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.400 Nanny's children stood far away from her what they suspected 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.680 cast an even darker pall over the day, as Frank 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.600 was lowered into the dirt, their mother, their sweet mother, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.400 was beginning to look less like a cherub and more 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.400 like an angel of death. They decided that they would 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.800 never again speak to her, out of sheer horror and 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:18.800 fear that she would have no reason to spare their lives. Nanny, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.560 for her part, set about recovering from her grief rather quickly, 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.520 a thanks to Frank's smart thinking early in their marriage. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.000 She now had a sizeable life insurance payout but allowed 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.480 her to move and buy a new little cottage. It 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.520 would be all her own, and for the first time 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.960 in her life, she would be indentured to no one. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:45.080 But still something in her recoiled. She so desperately craved 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.360 enmeshment with another person, even when her own history told 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.800 her this was a very dangerous thing. So Nanny took 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.880 to the rails, traveling all over to visit suitors who 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.520 she met in the Lonely Heart's ads, but in all 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:04.640 of this, Nanny couldn't escape her own darkness. She married 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.200 for a third time in nineteen forty seven to a 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.640 man named Arley, but failed to stay sated for long. 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.880 During their marriage, her sister ended up dying after a 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.840 short visit, as did Nannie's new mother in law. Then 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:23.359 Arley died in nineteen fifty two. His passing was attributed 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.240 to a coronary condition, but it looked suspiciously like the 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.200 other deaths that Nanny had seen across the decades of 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.840 her life. Not to be deterred, Nanny bought more stamps, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.960 signed more letters, licked more envelopes, and got back out 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:49.560 on the road. When Richard Elmorton wrote to the Diamond 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.400 Circle to remove his name from their list, he told 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.520 them that thanks to them, he had met a sweet 0:16:55.560 --> 0:17:00.720 and wonderful woman. It was an exclusive club for romans seekers, 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.760 one which could be opted into by paying top dollar, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.199 and Nanny thought that maybe this would result in her 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.800 finding a top caliber mate, a high value man who 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.560 would finally appreciate her. He was a tall, tan and 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:20.119 handsome fellow with enough swagger and reputation around Emporia, Kansas 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.399 to make tongues waggle, but when he found Nanny she 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.159 would be the only one for him, at least for 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.320 a little while. She moved there to be with him, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.840 reveling in his adoration and avalanche of gifts. But when 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.879 Nanny discovered that she wasn't the only one receiving his 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.760 gifts and his affections, the scales fell from her eyes 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:45.719 once again. He became sick while working at a billiard's parlor, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.600 was sent home and died the following day, and their 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.160 family dog got sick and their home burned. Morton's son 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.119 became suspicious of all of this, but police investigations slim 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:03.080 as they were turned up no evidence. Off to North Carolina, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.679 Nanny went to care for her mother. During her stay, 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.160 she would correspond with Samuel L. Dass, who became her 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.320 fifth and final husband, and joined him in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.639 in the wake of her mother's death. He was a 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.040 widower and a preacher, Having lost his entire family to 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.240 a tornado, He now ministered to his Baptist flock and 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.919 lived out similar principles in his home. He came to 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:34.440 loathe Nanny's love of romance novels and considered them wicked things. 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.000 Samuel proved himself to be a godly and domineering man. 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.800 Her father simply cut from a different set of genetics. 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.480 It seems that the blueprint of Nanny's childhood was inescapable. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.840 For across her years, she continued to inadvertently fall into 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:55.080 the old cycles of her childhood. Trauma. History continued to 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.600 repeat itself, and her home would prove to be unsafe 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.919 for everyone involved. So Nanny would do what she had 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.840 always done, dispose of this next person who stood in 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.080 her way of finding what she was owed. She knew 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.240 the recipe well at this point. A little rat poison 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.360 went a long way, especially when administered over a long 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.040 period of time. It had worked for all of her 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.760 other husbands and tangential people in her orbit. So into 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.439 the pot of stewed prunes she stirred the chemical, knowing 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.080 full well that the sticky, earthy fruits would cover any 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.400 traces of bitterness. It was one of his favorite foods 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.879 and he ate them often. In time, Samuel began to 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.880 suffer from nausea. He lost sixteen pounds and was sent 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.280 to the hospital. It took him weeks to recover, but 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.480 he was finally released and allowed to go home. Nanny 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:56.680 had misjudged her dosage, but she wouldn't this time, and 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.480 when Samuel arrived back home, she made a big show 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.000 of cooking his favorite dinner. She finished the meal with 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.200 strong cups of black coffee, another one of his favorites, 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:12.000 and smiled. He was dead in two days. She already 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.280 had another plan lined up. She had been corresponding with 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.240 a dairy farmer in North Carolina and had even sent 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.640 him one of her famous cakes. But Nanny Doss's time 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.720 was running out. She had gotten away with literal murder 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.960 for so long and across so many states that a 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:35.560 cloud of suspicion was coalescing around her. Her big misstep, 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.240 the fatal move if you will, happened when she was 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.399 cornered at Samuel's funeral by his attending doctor. There was 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.399 no way Samuel would have so suddenly died after leaving 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:51.040 the hospital in such good shape. In this very public setting, 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.560 with crying eyes all around, the good doctor pressured Nanny 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.359 to allow him to perform an autopsy. Whatever it was 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.320 he in sinnea, it might be deadly to the larger community. 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:08.560 Nanny was trapped. She shifted her weight uncomfortably and looked 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:12.240 at the faces around her. I want to find out 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.600 what killed my husband, she said, because it might kill 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:30.960 someone else. It didn't take long for Samuel's body to 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.080 incriminate Nanny. Upon inspection, he had enough arsenic in his 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:40.240 Organs quote to kill a horse. She was put under surveillance, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.440 in which time she began working as a living housekeeper 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.080 with a family. In a strange twist, they knew of 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.240 her alleged crimes and kept police abreast of her movements 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.359 each day. The mother assured the papers that even though 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.360 she knew what Nanny was accused of, and that yes, 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.480 they were a bit nervous about eating her cooking, she 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.520 didn't think the grandmotherly woman would harm any of her 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.440 three children. She told the papers. All I can say 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.320 about Nanny was that she was a good woman. In 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.040 that time, more bodies were exhumed, and Nanny was finally 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:20.720 brought in for questioning. After countless cigarettes, she calmly confessed 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:25.080 to killing four husbands, but claimed no responsibility for any 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.919 of the other deaths around her. According to one paper quote, 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.840 she actually seemed to be enjoying her interrogation by police. 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.399 Her eyes sparkled merrily. She blamed the impulse on a 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.919 head injury she had received in childhood, and also blamed 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:46.439 her victims. For Frank husband number two, she claimed to 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.000 have poured rat poison into his whisky. He drank all 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.560 the time and wasn't much of a loss, she said. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.359 As for Arlie, husband number three, she claimed she was 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.359 jealous of how popular he was with other women and 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.040 angry that he threw a wild party at their home 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.520 while she was away. She was a bit remorseful that 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.960 she had poisoned him because, according to her, he otherwise 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:14.720 was quote a pretty good husband. When she was accused 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:19.000 of killing Richard, husband number four, she initially denied having 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.879 even known him, but when police showed her evidence of 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.120 the small life insurance policies she had collected after his death, 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.880 she came clean. I didn't want any one to know 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.879 I had been married to a man that old, she explained, 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.440 And Nanny told police that she hadn't liked him running 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.120 around with other women and that he had even purchased 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.800 an engagement ring for some one else. As for Samuel, 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.399 she said, he was just mean to me. He denied 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:49.560 her the simplest pleasures of life, and for this he 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:54.000 had had to go Nanny denied killing any of her 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:58.520 blood kin. She said, I dealt strictly with men, and 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:03.199 when the time comes, I can justify every act. But 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.240 this wasn't the case. When the bodies of her mother, sister, 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.600 and grandson were exhumed, they were also found to be 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:15.360 pumped full of arsenic. Nanny was spared the electric chair 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:19.800 because the judge deemed her a quote mental defective. Her 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:24.600 eyes sparkled, but looking closely enough, they seemed hollow. Her 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:29.359 spontaneous giggling would ring a trifle too long, as she 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:33.159 explained that she wished everyone could be nice and happy 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:36.800 and kind. She told the newspapers that all of her 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.440 husbands had failed her in some way, and that those 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:43.520 failings were often denied by her family and her husband's families. 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:50.399 In her search for connection, Nanny never felt anything but alone. 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.119 In nineteen fifty four, she was interviewed on television. The 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:58.320 newscasters suggested she'd take off her glasses and smile. He 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.679 told her teasingly that you might get another husband if 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:06.520 you look nice. Nanny giggled and replied, ain't that the 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:16.760 dying truth? There's more to the story. Stick around After 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:33.800 this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. By 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:37.879 the light of the moon, Carl and Elena danced. A 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.400 breeze came through the window and carried their two entwined 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:45.760 bodies across the floor. Together they stepped and spun, with 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:49.480 Carl leading. Of course, he was a gentleman, and he 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.560 loved a good waltz. It was a peaceful night, a 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:57.800 carefree one, even with the Florida heat hanging heavy and right. 0:25:59.240 --> 0:26:03.320 So Kata saying, and thunder rumbled across the coastline. The 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:06.840 beads of sweat appeared on Carl's brow. He felt alive. 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:10.920 He was in a good mood, as he almost always 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:14.400 was when he was near his beloved. He adored Elena 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:17.639 more than anyone he had ever met. After all of 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:21.800 these years, the singsong cadence of her full name, Maria 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:26.840 Elena Malagro the Oios still made his stomach flip. He 0:26:26.880 --> 0:26:30.919 had been married once before, but this was different. This 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:34.560 was a love far bigger than him. He almost couldn't 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:38.560 stand the magnitude of it, and it was all theirs. 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:44.119 Carl Panzer had loved Elena for years, so many years. 0:26:44.119 --> 0:26:46.520 She was young when they first met in nineteen thirty, 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:49.879 much younger than him, but he felt the electricity in 0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:54.679 the space between them. She reanimated his world, infusing it 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:57.960 with technicolor and a verve in his spirit that had 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:03.679 long been dormant. And she was beautiful. But she had 0:27:03.720 --> 0:27:07.920 gotten sick. It was tuberculosis, a bad case of it too. 0:27:08.760 --> 0:27:12.880 She tried everything. He tried everything, a blood testing, radiation, 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:18.359 electroshock therapy. It all took a toll on her. Carl 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:23.000 remembered those hard days and held her tighter. He could 0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:25.680 barely bring himself to think of them. Those times were 0:27:25.720 --> 0:27:30.920 so dark, so hopeless, so filled with fear. But life 0:27:31.000 --> 0:27:34.080 was different now, and he was grateful for that, and 0:27:34.119 --> 0:27:36.240 there was a levity in the air, and their home 0:27:36.359 --> 0:27:39.560 felt brighter. He kissed the top of her head and 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:45.480 ran his fingers down her neck. It was rough and cold. 0:27:46.359 --> 0:27:50.640 You see. Elena's skin had started decomposing and falling off 0:27:50.800 --> 0:27:54.919 years ago, so Karl had replaced it with plaster. He 0:27:54.960 --> 0:27:58.360