WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Kaspar Hauser 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.600 Hey guys, Steve here, you are listening to one of 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.600 our original twenty six episodes. If you listen to any 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.280 of our new episodes, you're gonna notice that we're sounding 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:11.600 a little different in these ones. Yeah, there's a reason 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.520 for that. There is they've been remastered. They have been 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.040 remastered because they had a really annoying hum. Yeah, I 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.480 mean a huge thanks to listener James for doing almost 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.880 all of the legwork on this thing. They'll also notice 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:25.880 if you had listened to what we're calling the last 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.639 twenty six episodes before and you're re listening now, the 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.160 music and sound effects are gone. Yes, we've we've gone 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.720 back to straight audio, so be warned. We sound a 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.000 little different today than we do in what you're about 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:47.159 to listen to. Yeah, bye bye, Thinking Sideways. I don't know, 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:57.160 I'm not You never know stories of things we simply 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:02.920 don't know the answer too. Well. Hello, welcome to the show, 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.280 and tonight we're going to talk about something extremely mysterious, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.400 something some of you may have heard about before, but 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.360 probably not. Um I'm Joe, I'm Steve, and this is 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.640 Thinking Sideways. Most of you have probably not heard of 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.640 the mystery of Casper Hauser, which is something that actually 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.920 occupied a good deal of Germany and even the rest 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.920 of Europe in the nineteenth century. So let's start from 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.039 the beginning, when from the from the very beginning, I'll 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.920 tell you how I heard the story. First years ago, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.440 I read in this book by this guy named Frank, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.160 somebody who wrote a lot of lurid a lot of 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.399 lurid books about crap that never really happened. He wrote 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.760 this very, very lurid account of the whole thing, which 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.119 is that this boy mysteriously shows up in the town 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.880 of Hamburg, Germany, and he was not able to say 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.360 anything except I want to be a soldier like my father, 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.960 and then uh and then uh. He sort of hiss, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.400 hangs around for several years, you know, picks up a 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.680 few social skills, you know, be on being able to 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.280 say I want to be a soldier like my father, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.520 but then eventually is murdered. He's come stumbling out of 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.720 this park in Hamburg and with a mortal knife wounded 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.520 his chest and he dies several days later. Most mysteriously 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.840 of all, this murder takes place in the middle of winter. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.200 There's snow on the ground and there's no footprints, but 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.920 his own in his park exactly acts. So that that 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.840 was my first exposure to Casper Hauser's mystery. So it's 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:31.320 a good way to make a living now, just like 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.840 picking up stuff like this and spending really lured tales 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.520 out of it and putting in these books and selling 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.440 them and making money. Well, it's gonna be my next 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.160 side job. That's kind of what we're gonna do here, 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.000 and we start getting advertisers. So anyway, so here's the 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.959 story as it happened, uh briefly, in a boy of 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:54.480 approximately sixteen years old appears in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. UM. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.640 He had a letter with him addressed to the captain 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.960 of the fourth Squadron of the sixth Cavalry Regiment, Captain Vaughn, investinating, 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.920 and he was taken He was taken to this captain 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.840 by a shoemaker who happened to spot him on the streets, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.160 and apparently, according to legend, he was Casper Hauser was 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:18.040 walking unsteadily, almost as if drunk, and so the shoemaker 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.720 takes an interest in him, and when he walks up 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:22.880 to him, he hands this letter to him, and the 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.360 letter is addressed to the captains, he is taken by 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.640 the shoemaker to meet the captain, who is apparently not 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.760 at home with the moment. So the servants have them 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:33.840 weight out in the garden and they give them some food, 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.360 which includes sausage and beer, which Casper spits out as 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.240 if he has never I'm not exactly here in sausages, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.880 also as if he has never had these things before. 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.000 But eventually he does eat some bread and water and 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.920 eats him as if he's quite hungry. Eventually, when the 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.480 captain comes home and he gets to read this letter, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.120 the letter says, quote from the Bavarian border, the place 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.600 is unnamed. The author said that was given into his 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.920 custody as an infant on seven October eighteen twelve. He extructed, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.400 instructed him in reading, writing, and Christian religion, but never 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.560 let him take quote a single step out of my 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.080 house unquote. H The letter state of the boy would 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.200 not like to be a cavalryman as his father was, 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.320 and invited the captain either to take him in or 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:25.279 to hang him. Oh that's that's nice, yes, yeah, he 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.880 actually well, you know, this was actually not the father 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.640 of the child, the father that this was somebody apparently 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.279 who supposedly was just a day labor or something and 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.080 and didn't have a lot of cash laying around. Uh. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.840 The infant was given to him by supposedly cash for 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.960 his mother, who's and the father had had actually apparently 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.400 according to her in this letter, been in this in 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:52.800 this cavalry infantry, and so the intention was that he 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.880 should be raised to the the age of seventeen or 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.559 sixteen or whatever the proper age is, and then become 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.400 a soldier in his cavalry. So anyways, so he came 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.120 with two letters. There was this one and there was 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.560 another one supposedly from his mother to the caretaker, who 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.760 at the other letter said his name was Casper, and 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:13.479 he was born on April twelve, and his father, a 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.200 cavalryman of the sixth Regiment, was dead. At this point, 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.680 he has taken into custody and put in what's called 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.400 the best nerd Gate Tower in care of a jailer. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.440 And so he essentially is being watched over by this 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:31.680 guy and his family's kids, and he's exhibiting some strange behaviors. Uh. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.880 And later on he wound up writing his own autobiography 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:37.560 and which he claimed that he had been kept in 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.159 a hole in the ground which was about two ms 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.800 wide by a meter and a half wide by meter 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.279 and a half tall, So convert that defeat. That's three 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.159 foot by six ft, that's about that's about six ft 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.760 by about six ft by about four five ft by 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.880 about five ft tall, with a straw mat to sleep on, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.760 and that's a very very small cell. Yeah, fed bread 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.320 and water, and the only thing he had to play 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:10.599 with was a carved wooden horse. Yes, so tis today 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.520 are way spoiled. All he had was a carved horse, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.200 and he was happy. I don't know happy is the 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.520 right word. All right, you got me there. Yeah, So 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.520 he was mostly in the dark and cell. He he 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.159 would find bread and water next to his bed every morning. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.159 Occasionally the water would taste bitter, and drinking it would 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.480 cause him to sleep more heavily because obviously have been roofied, 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.520 and and on on such occasions when he woke up, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.320 he find his nails had been trimmed, and his hair 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.480 had been cut, and his bed had been changed. And 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:47.800 so he was kept alone in this dark little cell, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.480 cording to himself for for many many years. And eventually 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.280 the guy that was keeping him his cell took him 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.560 out and they wanted a little road trip on foot 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.000 to Nuremberg. Well, this guy basically took him to the 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.800 signal and I said, it kind of leaves and he 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.560 wandered to the street, and and the rest is history. 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.360 So he's found by the shoemaker, taken to the captain, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.680 turned over to the jailer, who keeps him in custody 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.520 for a while. And he went to a period of 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:16.480 several years when he was under the care and tutelage 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.960 of various people, and he quickly learned to read and write. 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.960 In fact, especially so according to according to some people, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.880 because he came in basically being kind of a kind 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.480 of almost a feral child, barely able to speak, very 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.480 unable to eat, read and write. I probably didn't mention 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.920 that after the captain took him to the police station 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.560 when he was not able to get a coherent answer 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.160 out of him about anything, and one of the policemen 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:43.600 had this idea to hand him a pan and a 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.120 piece of paper, and so he wrote his name Casper 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.880 Hauser on on that. Other than that, he was not 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:50.840 able to say much other than you know, I don't know, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.040 and I want to be a soldier like my father. Wait, 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.240 so somebody took the time to so not hang out 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.680 with him, teach him how to sign his name. Yeah, 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:02.840 I know. It's a little weird, isn't that That That 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.400 that that smells a little fishing. Yeah, I know, I know. 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.480 There's there's that, and there's a lot about it, And 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.280 which is one of the things about the story. That's 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.280 one of the most interesting things about the story is 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.640 that it still captures so many people's imagination. Okay, well, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.000 let's let's hear what else happened, because I'm I'm I'm 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.480 still skeptical. Yeah, well exactly exactly. There's a lot about 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.680 it that's still a mystery. But you know, I mean, 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.080 we're here, we're all about solving mysteries. So all of 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.320 you out there who have been puzzling for decades over 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.839 this mystery, we're gonna solve it for you tonight. So 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.040 he as I said, and I'm not going to go 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.720 into great detail about this stuff. About the various people 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.920 he came under the tutelage of. One of them was 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.479 an English nobleman named Lord Stanhope, was a great philanthropist 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.080 and who actually once he took him under his wing 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.839 pages living expenses for the rest of his life, which 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.000 I actually didn't go on for very long. I'll I'll 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.000 run back a little bit. There was an incident where 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.719 he was cutting the forehead um and according to him, 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.640 he wants he somebody and he said it was the 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:10.080 same person, the same guy who took him to Nuremberg, 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.679 the person who arranged him. The person. Yeah, the same 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.559 man showed up slashed him with a knife on the 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.719 forehead and basically said if you leave, if you leave 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.480 this city, you are a dead man. It's still kind 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.560 of ambiguous as to whether this actually happened, to whether 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.880 perhaps he inflicted the wound on himself. Um. And so 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.520 there was that ang About eighteen twenty nine or so, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.920 there began to be speculation because word got out about 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.920 Casper that and people came from all over the city 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:43.959 to see him because he was such a curiosity, and 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.640 word got out. A rumor started that he was perhaps royalty, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.160 and that perhaps he had he was actually a prince 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.319 of the House of Boden, And I'm not a student 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.880 of European royalty. Apparently Boden is related to the Bodens 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.440 Edie to Napoleon etcetera. And so that's a long lineageer 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.240 a well known lineage. Yeah. And so anyway, I said, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.319 apparently there was a prince born in eighteen twelve who 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.000 died at the age of about two and a half 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:19.080 weeks and yeah, and the story goes that that perhaps 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.959 there was a competing tinggent contingent to the family that 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.679 because Casper, if he was indeed the prince, would have 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.640 been the last surviving line or less surriving person in 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.120 that line, or would have gone over to like the 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:38.439 father's brother and his descendants. And so the theory is 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.200 is that if Casper had been that baby, and if 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.079 they had, say, for example, swapped and I found a 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.480 baby that was already dying of natural causes, to a 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.760 quick swap sand Casper off to the sticks or whatever, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.480 who cares, you know, the baby dies and the kingship 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.439 passes over to you know, the uncle Casper. And so 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.079 that rumor started about eight and it persisted actually for 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.240 many years. Actually there were people up in the twenties 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:10.960 century doing d DNA analysis on what there are believed 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.520 to be remnants of Casper Houser's hair, for example, to 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.040 see if perhaps he is related to the House of 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.600 Bottom and they actually the results were inconclusive. It was like, yeah, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.960 there's there's a strong correlation, but not quite strong enough 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.280 to prove anything. And you know, so anyway, that's where 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.600 it's at. But so it's it's a tenuous theory at best. Yeah, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.240 and it's uh, and and and and it's not supported 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.480 by some of the other facts, which is that doing 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:41.839 a baby swapping in the House of Royalty is probably 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.440 not that easy. I wouldn't think so. I would imagine 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.360 that would be something that they would try to make 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.240 very hard, you would, thanks, So yeah, okay, But anyway, 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.599 that was that was a widely believed theory, and so 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.160 therefore that that's kind of like lens support to this 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.760 whole thing. That a guy shows up and threatened said 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.920 of the he ever leaves Nuremberg, you know, his life 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.439 is forfeit, and YadA, YadA, YadA, and slashes him with 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.640 a knife. And so anyway, a bunch of stuff went by. Um, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.839 he was living with out of the tutelage of various people, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.320 many of which he seemed to eventually alienate, and then 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.240 at the very end he wants up stabbed in the 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.800 chest fatally took him three days to die. But that's 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:29.600 not fun, not really now. So he so December eighteen 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.319 thirty three, so this is five days or five years, 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.520 excuse me? After he was actually found counsel with a 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.079 wound in his chest, and he claims that he was 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:43.200 lured to the Ansbach Court garden in Nuremberg and then 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.800 a stranger tried to hand him a purse and then 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.520 while handing the purse, stabbed him in the chest. And 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.600 the message there was a message in the purse because 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.199 the police want to the park and they found it, 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.599 and the message read and Hauser will be able to 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.280 tell you quite precisely how I look and from where 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.520 I am to save houses the effort. I will tell 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:11.360 you myself from where I come blank blank, I come 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:16.000 from like blank little Bavarian border blank blank on the 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.040 river blank blank blank. I will even tell you the 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.720 name Damn l SO initials. So a cryptic message. Wait, 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.920 I'm confused, what's the blanks? Were those dashes in the 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.640 letter or what's going on there? I'm I'm a little 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.800 confused because I've seen that I've seen something on this 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.240 story and that's never made sense to me. I am 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:43.920 blank is yeah, are you telling us they're not? Yeah, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:46.720 I will tell you. And now now I'm not going 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.520 to tell you. I wrote this out ahead of time 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:52.400 so that when I got there, I could tell the 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.280 coast clearance. Going to write it in myself. It seems 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:00.079 weird that there's these pre made blanks. Yeah, yeah, and 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.480 so and so. Anyway, but again this deepness of mystery 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:06.599 because even though that, even though there's a lot of 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.880 absurdities and inconsistencies, people want to believe what they want 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.719 to believe, you know, and so there's a lot of 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.520 people after he died, we was thinking, all he was 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.080 murdered because he was a rightful prince, you know in 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.240 YadA YadA um. Why was he at the park? Do 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:24.760 we know? Uh? He later said that he was tricked 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.400 into going to the park with the promise of information 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:33.280 about his mother. But you know, he didn't say who. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.200 I mean. Obviously, he had three days to die, so 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.160 plenty of times to spill the beans about everything, but 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.760 he didn't give up out any useful information. Apparently, he 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.560 didn't say, for example, whether he was like sent a 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.440 note or somebody who told him this in person or what. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.680 So he uh waited by the artesian well in the park. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:52.960 No one came, so we went across to a monument 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.440 in the park where a man was waiting for him. 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.360 They walked together in the freezing cold. The man made 0:14:57.360 --> 0:14:59.760 as if to give him a document and suddenly stabbed 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.240 him the side, puncturing his long piercing his liver, and 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.560 then ran off. He goes back his naggers back home, 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.480 saying that stab knife out, gave purse. Go the quickly 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:12.880 they go and they find the person. They find this 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:17.200 note inside the purse. But this is the thing is 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.920 that the note was written. It was written in mirror scripts. 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.520 So essentially you're hold a piece of papers in the 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.760 mirror and you right backwards. So and okay, I got 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:26.360 I got I got it. And it was folded in 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:32.240 a in a way that was apparently characteristic of Casper 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.440 Hauser himself. How was it folded? It was folded diagonally 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.160 stuff he instead of folding it like this, so it 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:43.120 was square corner a corner instead of edge to edge. 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.000 So you fold a diagonally basicly, got it? Yeah, So 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.120 it was folded in a in a manner. And so 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.920 this guy, even though he was a clever huckster in 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.400 my opinion, Uh, you know, a very good con man 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.440 was not that bright about you know, like covering his 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.040 tracks when he did in those sticks like porge murder notes. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.960 Um so anyway, so so I'm sorry, we do or 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.640 do not know if it was just left blank or 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.320 they just never released that information or no, it was 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.400 left blank. It was left blank. Yeah, yeah, And he 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.240 was stabbed, Joe. You said the left chest, the left 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:19.760 side of the chest, the left side of the chest, 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.240 through the lung and into liver. Yeah. Is that a 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.680 direct or an upward stroke or a downward stroke. Well 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.200 that's the thing that's kind of mysterious about the whole thing, 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.400 because you know, if it needed is true that his 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.520 liver was punctured. As you know, your liver is on 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.840 the right side of your chest. I mean it's like 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.520 it's not all on the right side. But but in 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.920 order to stab somebody too, the long into the liver 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.720 and into the liver, that's that you know, you're talking 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:52.440 about at least four or five inches not longer. And 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.480 so is it and is it an easy way to 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.680 stab yourself? Well, that was the thing is a speculation, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.080 is that he stabbed himself to get attention. Uh. And 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.359 the same thing with the not the slashing of the 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.000 forehead incident where this guy threatened that if he ever 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:09.960 left the city of Nuremberg then he would be his 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.960 life with fortfit. And that is that he was just 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.720 trying to keep his little legend alive because he liked 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.360 the attention, and also by the way that that kept 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.040 people coming to him, like Lord Stanhope, who were benefactors 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.200 who would actually pay for his pay for his expenses 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.080 and stuff like that and keep them want to keep them, 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:32.440 you know, going. So essentially he screwed up. And the 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.000 first time he slashed himself it wasn't that deep, so hey, 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.600 I can do it again. But now I have this 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:41.639 knife and oh that went way deeper than I expected, 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.720 and that hurts a lot more. Yeah, and that's that's well, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:46.800 that's the thing about it that is a little mysterious though. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.600 It's because like if you want to if you want 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.000 to like stab yourself, you know, I mean, I mean, 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.480 driving an if that deep into your body, even by accident, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.600 is pretty difficult. I mean, for forensic specialists, did that 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.879 did that? They agree that it's entirely possible that he 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.639 could have afflicted the wound on himself. But if you 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.000 think about it, if you're gonna puncture your lung and 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.440 your liver, you're gonna drive that knife been pretty damny. Yeah, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.200 so maybe somebody is seven. But at the same time, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.200 there are people around who didn't like Casper, because apparently 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.119 the guy was a really major flaming jerk, and he 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.800 was widely regarded as a huge liar by the people 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.439 that knew him very well. So it's like the public 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.040 who didn't know him, well, we're all enraptured by his story, 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:33.439 but the people that actually spent a lot of time 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.480 with them all uniformly seemed to come away convinced that 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.960 the guy was a massive liar. Well, I I can see, okay, 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.439 I can see that somebody did it, but I can 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.639 also see a guy who isn't that smart about things. 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.520 We've all seen movies where somebody's gonna fake that they 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.680 got beat up, and so they run their head into 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:59.240 the door frame and then go, oh wow, that really 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.600 hurts more than I thought. And I could just see 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.119 him going, I need to jab this in, but I 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.920 know that as soon as I stab myself, it's gonna 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:10.760 hurt and I'm gonna pull it out and it's not 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.520 gonna be credible enough himself against the wall. Yes, yeah, exactly, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:20.680 I mean, okay, okay, one too. Three. Oh oh, I 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.280 shouldn't use the eight teenage knife. Oh that's more than 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.680 I expected. Yeah, I can see that happening because people 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.520 have poor judgment and poor pre planning about these kind 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:33.879 of things, as we well know. You see things like 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:35.840 that in the news all the time. Did they ever 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.920 find the knife? No, actually it didn't, and it's it's 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:40.399 actually one of those things too. Where it was he 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.640 was lying on his death, Patty was probably thinking, wow, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:49.800 I really should have sterilized that blade before he read ask. Yeah. Now, 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:51.800 they didn't find the purse with the note in it, 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.359 of course, getting back to the beginning, the letters he 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.040 carried with him, one of which was wrong supposedly his mother, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.080 the other one was from the guy who raised him 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.440 in the dark little cell on the ground, were written 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.640 in the same handwriting. So that but wait, wait wait, 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.359 wait say that again. They were written in the same handwriting. Yeah, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.439 and so yeah, are those notes still I mean, did 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:16.639 are they still around at all? You know, that's a 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.000 good question. I don't know I really don't know, because 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:26.440 if Casper is so nefariously devious, he's so nefarious but 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:31.199 so devious about making things for himself, then I would say, well, 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.720 let's compare the quote unquote mirror script handwriting letter to 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.159 the ones that say I want to be in the 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.760 cavalry and see if they're the same handwriting, because that 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:45.360 would prove if he did it himself or not. Yeah. Yeah, 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.280 the note, the none the purse. They're not specific about this, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.679 but the note that was found had a spelling air 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.919 and a grammatical error, both of which were fairly typical 0:20:55.080 --> 0:21:00.119 for him. So the writing wasn't necessarily a smoking a 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.720 smoking gun, but apparently those errors were kind of a 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.520 little bit of smoking gun. You know. Again, it's hard 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:08.720 to say, but it appears to me that the guy 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.119 was just a fraud and that I made up this 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.639 weird stick that would get him some attention and get 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.159 him I'm getta taken care of, versus just being this 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.240 peasant kid who's a homeless kid living in streets of 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.600 Germany and whatever. And it seemed to work really well 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:29.280 for him, except you know, his like megalomania sort of 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.639 like you know, took over and eventually killed him. He 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:37.440 killed himself with the knife accidentally, accidentally, or somebody stabbed him. 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.040 It could we be maybe somebody just didn't like him 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:46.000 and decided to stabb When was he stabbed? December? So 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.680 it's it's December in Nuremberg, which means it covered in snow, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.800 cold snow. Okay. So they went back to find where 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:55.960 he was at and follow his blood trail from where 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.440 he came from, absolutely to go to the park, and 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.280 they found they found his foot prints and no other footprints. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.639 Was there paths in the area They were kept up 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:07.920 to be clear that he could have been walking on 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:12.280 if there was the second person. Yeah, exactly. You know, again, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.320