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Speaker 1: Hey there, it's your host ed helms.

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Speaker 2: Here.

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Speaker 1: Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to remind you that my brand new book is coming

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Speaker 1: out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive

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Speaker 1: Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre

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Speaker 1: order it right now at snafudashbook dot com. Trust me,

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Speaker 1: if you like this show, you're gonna love this book.

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Speaker 1: It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we

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Speaker 1: just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker.

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Speaker 1: I am also going on tour to celebrate. That's right.

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Speaker 1: I'm coming to New York, DC, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago,

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, and my hometown Los Angeles. So if you've

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Speaker 1: ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q

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Speaker 1: and A or dramatically read about a kiddie cat getting

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Speaker 1: turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance again. Head

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Speaker 1: to snaffoo dashbook dot com to pre order the book

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Speaker 1: and check out all the tour details and day, or

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Speaker 1: just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's it, on with the chaos. This is Snaffoo Season

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Speaker 1: three Formula six last time on Snaffoo double tote and

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Speaker 1: two gun hearts, became a prohibition enforcement agent. If he

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Speaker 1: couldn't use his gun, he would use his fist to

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Speaker 1: apprehend these criminals and bootleggers and ended up killing an

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Speaker 1: innocent man. Back in DC, Mabel Walker willebrandt roped in

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Speaker 1: just about the last people who should ever be involved

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Speaker 1: in law enforcement. This is where the klan comes in. Actually,

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Speaker 1: so what was supposed to be a righteous moral crusade

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Speaker 1: was turning into a bloody, morally compromised debacle.

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Speaker 3: I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets

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Speaker 3: if they enjoyed that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: And even after all that, the dries weren't done yet.

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Speaker 1: On a cold, misty night in late November nineteen twenty six,

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Speaker 1: two Brooklyn cops stumble upon something extremely suspicious down by

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Speaker 1: the docks on the East River under the full moon.

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Speaker 1: A stooped man struggles to carry a big bundle of

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Speaker 1: something towards the water. When the cops holler out and

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Speaker 1: ask him what he's doing, he panics, kicks the bundle

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Speaker 1: into the water and runs away. The cops tackle him

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Speaker 1: and handcuff him, but even once they get him to

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Speaker 1: the precinct. He's still not talking. And this isn't just

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Speaker 1: a regular old I ain't saying nothing kind of silence,

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Speaker 1: more of a stupor. He looks ill, his face oddly flushed.

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Speaker 1: The police suspect he's had quite a lot to drink.

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Speaker 1: Eventually they identify him as Francesco Travia, a longshoreman who

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Speaker 1: lives in nearby Cobble Hill. They can't get a word

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Speaker 1: out of him, but they do notice his legs are

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Speaker 1: soaked in blood.

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Speaker 4: The police go back to his apartment they find this

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Speaker 4: dismembered body.

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Speaker 5: I love this story so much, and sorry I shouldn't

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Speaker 5: laugh about this.

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Speaker 1: That's historian Deborah Blum. Remember she's an expert on the

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Speaker 1: various ways chemicals can kill you. When you spend your

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Speaker 1: career talking about poisoned corpses, sometimes you just gotta laugh.

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Speaker 1: The police go to Travia's apartment find a woman's dead body,

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Speaker 1: well half of one.

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Speaker 5: And her hat is still theretor torso on the floor.

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Speaker 1: The scene in Travia's apartment is gruesome, so it's not

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Speaker 1: really a stretch to conclude that Travia murdered this woman,

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Speaker 1: chopped her up and is just disposed of her legs

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Speaker 1: in the East River. The body is identified as Anna Fredrickson,

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Speaker 1: Francesco's neighbor. Anna's family tells the police that she went

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Speaker 1: to Francesco to scrounge up some booze and left his

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Speaker 1: apartment in multiple pieces. To the NYPD, this looks like

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Speaker 1: an open and shut case. They'd caught Francesco Travia red handed,

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Speaker 1: or at least red panted. But then the city's chief

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Speaker 1: medical examiner arrives at the crime scene.

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Speaker 5: Norris is the on call medical examiner that night.

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Speaker 4: He goes all the way out to Brooklyn, driven by

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Speaker 4: his chauffeur, to the shabby little Black Worker apartment in

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Speaker 4: Brooklyn goes in.

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Speaker 1: Norris emerges from his car and strolls into the apartment,

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Speaker 1: no doubt dressed in an outfit that cost an arm

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Speaker 1: in the lot of money. He takes a quick look

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Speaker 1: at the crime scene, here's what the cops have to report,

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Speaker 1: and immediately blows up the entire theory of the case.

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Speaker 4: He takes one look at it and goes, you know,

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Speaker 4: know that that woman was dead before he cut her up.

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Speaker 1: Noras only needs to see two things. The unnatural flush

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Speaker 1: of the dead woman's skin and the lighting fixtures in

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Speaker 1: the tenement building where she was found.

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Speaker 4: A lot of people lived in buildings that were pretty

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Speaker 4: much equipped by.

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Speaker 5: What was called illuminating gas.

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Speaker 4: Right. An illuminating gas was a cold derived gas. It

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Speaker 4: had hydrogenetics, so it was explosive, and it had carbon

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Speaker 4: monoxide in it, so it was poisonous.

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Speaker 1: As Noras knows, this gas is not only poisonous, it's

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Speaker 1: also colorless and odorless, a deadly combination he and Alexander

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Speaker 1: Getler know all too well from their work examining New

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Speaker 1: York City's dead. The presence of carbon monoxide also explains

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Speaker 1: why Travia has been in a stupor and the strange

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Speaker 1: hue of the alleged victim's skin.

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Speaker 4: When you are killed by carbon monoxide, your skin flushes

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Speaker 4: a deep pink. So here she is, she's bled out

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Speaker 4: completely right, she should be pale as a sheet. Instead,

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Speaker 4: she's flush pink, because that's what carbon monoxide does.

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Speaker 1: Anna Fredrickson's death was a tragic accident. At some point

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Speaker 1: as she got drunk with Francesco. One of them must

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Speaker 1: have caused the gas leak.

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Speaker 4: They knock a kettle or something over that's boiling away

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Speaker 4: on a gas burner, put out the flame, illuminating gas

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Speaker 4: which they don't smell, start seeping into the apartment. And

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Speaker 4: he and Getler have already shown that when carbon monoxide

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Speaker 4: gets to the kind of level he's looking at, it

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Speaker 4: kills you.

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Speaker 5: So she has to have been dead.

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Speaker 1: Charles Norris feels compelled to testify in Francesco's case. He

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Speaker 1: knows this man is innocent, well innocent of murder anyway,

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Speaker 1: and he has the scientific facts to prove it.

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Speaker 4: And he goes actually into court opposite to the district

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Speaker 4: attorney and the police department and wins.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't the first time Norris and Getler took on

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Speaker 1: the political powers that be and won, and it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be the last. Of course, Francesco did still get convicted

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Speaker 1: of him properly disposing of a corpse, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: give it to the prosecutor on that one. But he

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Speaker 1: did avoid the death penalty because Gettler and Norris investigated

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Speaker 1: and intervened. From gas leaks to lead pipes to radioactive watches,

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Speaker 1: which is an actual thing you could buy. At the time,

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Speaker 1: there was a lot that could kill you in nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenties America. Time and time again, Gettler and Norris cracked

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Speaker 1: cases that cops couldn't crack, and they were just about

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Speaker 1: the only ones in New York City capable of getting

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Speaker 1: to the bottom of the especially twisted mystery of Formula six.

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Speaker 1: I'm ed Helms and this is Snaffo, a show about

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Speaker 1: history's greatest screw ups. This is the story of how

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Speaker 1: Prohibition backfired so badly that the government chose to poison

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Speaker 1: thousands of a Mata Americans. Today, a string of mysterious

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Speaker 1: deaths presents Norris and Gettler with another mystery, even as

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Speaker 1: the culprit hides in plain sight. One thing we know

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Speaker 1: about Alexander Geittler is that he loved the Yankees, and

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Speaker 1: we also know that, as a workaholic, his thoughts were

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Speaker 1: never far from his work. So indulge me as I

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Speaker 1: paint a picture for us Gettler attending a real Yankee

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Speaker 1: game and piecing together a few work thoughts. Sunday, August second,

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six, Alexander Getler, notorious workaholic, has given himself

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Speaker 1: a rare day off to enjoy Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

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Speaker 1: His beloved Bronx Bombers are facing the Chicago White Sox,

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Speaker 1: and they're off to a rough start. Right in the

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Speaker 1: top of the first, Chicago left fielder Bib Fuck hits

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Speaker 1: a weak ground ball off Yankee pitcher Wait Hoyt and

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Speaker 1: drives in a run. Bib Wait, come on, you gotta

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Speaker 1: love these old timey baseball names, right, But Getler, well,

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Speaker 1: he's not loving it. By the time he's gotten into

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Speaker 1: his seat and lit up one of his White Owl cigars,

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Speaker 1: his Yankees are already down by a run. Now, even

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Speaker 1: amidst all the peanuts and cracker jacks, Gettler's mind wanders

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Speaker 1: to what he's been seeing in his lab and in

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Speaker 1: the news. All over the city and all over the country.

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Speaker 1: People are dying going blind. Remember that bootleg cocktail ginger Jake.

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Speaker 1: There are people walking around town with a condition nicknamed

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Speaker 1: Jake Leg, which causes the legs to twitch uncontrollably. By now,

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Speaker 1: it's common knowledge that lots of ill gotten hooch has

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Speaker 1: se even fatal side effects, but people are still drinking it.

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Speaker 1: The Yankees have their own formidable tag team, Lou Garrig

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Speaker 1: and Babe Ruth. They're both in the midst of incredible seasons,

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Speaker 1: smashing homers and breaking records. But in the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the first the Chicago pitcher gets Garrig to ground out

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Speaker 1: into a fielder's choice, intentionally walks the great Bambino, I'll

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Speaker 1: come on pitch to a scarty cut and retires the

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Speaker 1: side without letting up a run. Hitler puffs his cigar

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Speaker 1: and cogit dates. There's been a commotion upstate in Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: where the health commissioner is alleging that dozens of recent

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Speaker 1: deaths chalked up to heart disease or apoplexy were actually

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Speaker 1: the work of methyl alcohol. In his own lab at Bellevue,

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Speaker 1: Alexander's been seeing some downright bizarre things in his test results.

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Speaker 1: And I don't mean the sludge he makes out of

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Speaker 1: dead people. That's all in a day's work. But the

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Speaker 1: chemicals he's finding in that sludge, well, they're getting weirder

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Speaker 1: and weirder. Purody what the pyridine is colorless and highly flammable.

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Speaker 1: It's commonly found in herbicides and insecticides. In other words,

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Speaker 1: it's poison. Geitler knows the mafiosos distributing tainted liquor aren't

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Speaker 1: afraid to get their hands a little dirty, but still

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Speaker 1: intentionally serving people insecticide.

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Speaker 6: That's not good for business.

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Speaker 1: And it gets weirder. There's also kerosene and industrial benzene,

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Speaker 1: commonly found in rubber and gas. Now you don't need

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Speaker 1: to be chief toxicologist of Bellevue Medical Center to know

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Speaker 1: kerosene and alcohol are a bad mix. But never one

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Speaker 1: to jump to conclusions, Gettler wonders if there's a way

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Speaker 1: these victims might have accidentally consumed these poisons, which sounds crazy,

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Speaker 1: but he's actually seen a lot of it. The Radium Girls.

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Speaker 1: Back in nineteen twenty five, a dozen women died and

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Speaker 1: at least fifty more became ill with mysterious symptoms, including

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Speaker 1: necrosis of the jaw. Since they all worked at the

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Speaker 1: same watch factory, the cases were assumed to be connected. However,

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Speaker 1: the company doctors tried to sweep it all under the rug.

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Speaker 1: That's when Getler was called in. He ran some tests

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Speaker 1: and figured out exactly what was going on. In order

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Speaker 1: to make the watchfaces glow in the dark, the workers

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Speaker 1: painted them with radium, which, just like it sounds, is radioactive.

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Speaker 1: The Radium Girls, as they came to be known had

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Speaker 1: been licking their paint brushes to wet them as they painted,

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Speaker 1: unknowingly consuming toxic radium every time. So now back to

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Speaker 1: these latest poisonings by benzene and kerosene. Maybe all of

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Speaker 1: these victims worked at a rubber tire factory and they

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Speaker 1: were all roommates in a building heated by burning kerosene,

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Speaker 1: but probably not. Gettler can't find any connection between them

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Speaker 1: apart from the unique blend of the poisons that killed them.

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Speaker 1: Each of these chemicals is gnarly enough on its own,

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Speaker 1: but when you put them together it becomes clear whoever

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Speaker 1: invented this cocktail at a deeply sinister intent. Benzene brings

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Speaker 1: on a seizure. Kerosene constricts the throat, Pyridine sends agonizing

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Speaker 1: pain shooting through the gut. Still, other additives would have

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Speaker 1: made the limbs go stiff. Methanol sears the optic nerve

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Speaker 1: after a few gulps, and nearly all the victims went

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Speaker 1: blind before they died.

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Speaker 6: Out.

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Speaker 1: Babe Ruth strikes out to lead off the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the fourth inning. The Yankees are still down and they

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Speaker 1: haven't even recorded a hit yet. Alexander is starting to

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Speaker 1: worry about the dollar he's wagered on this game, but

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Speaker 1: he's far more worried thinking about those noxious chemicals showing

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Speaker 1: up in his lab sludge.

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Speaker 2: Hey, nice to one hot dog, No nough.

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Speaker 1: The Yankee pitcher Tommy Thompson keeps the White Sox in

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Speaker 1: check through the fifth inning, but his team is still behind.

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Speaker 1: The crowd is restless, especially Alexander Gettler, as his mind

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Speaker 1: turns to the most fucked up thing about all these poisonings.

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Speaker 1: Since the dawn of Prohibition, the bootleggers and the mob

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Speaker 1: have been competing directly with the government, the Prohibition Bureau,

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Speaker 1: Mabel Walker, Willebrandt, the Irs, James Duran, and all their cronies.

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Speaker 1: They've been going back and forth, taking their swings at

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Speaker 1: each other. As the government keeps putting nastier things into

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Speaker 1: industrial alcohol and the outlaws keep hiring chemists to thwart them.

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Speaker 1: Gittler knows what he's seeing is no accident. Finally, in

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the sixth, with Garrig on base, Babe

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Speaker 1: Ruth gets a hold of one the Colossus of cloud

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Speaker 1: hammers his thirtieth home run of the season, and the

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Speaker 1: Yankees take the lead. Gettler rises to his feet with

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Speaker 1: the rest of the crowd as he watches two all

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Speaker 1: time greats cross home plate. Sorry to spoil it for you,

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Speaker 1: but the score line will hold. The Yankees win two

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Speaker 1: to one. All in all, a bad afternoon for Gettler

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Speaker 1: has turned good thanks to a single swing of the bat.

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Speaker 1: But as he joins the crowd streaming out of the

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Speaker 1: park and towards the one hundred and sixty first Street

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Speaker 1: subway station, Getler can't help but wonder how many of

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Speaker 1: these people would the government be willing to sacrifice for

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Speaker 1: this insane, failing strategy of deterrence. Getler knows better than

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Speaker 1: anyone this strategy isn't working. If denaturing industrial alcohol stopped

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Speaker 1: people from making drinks out of it, people would have

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Speaker 1: stopped getting drunk. But that's clearly just not happening. If

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Speaker 1: introducing more and more pernicious cocktails of poisons actually scared

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Speaker 1: people away from drinking, they wouldn't keep ending up on

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Speaker 1: a metal tray in Getler and Norris's lab. It's madness,

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Speaker 1: Gettler thinks to himself as he boards a packed train

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Speaker 1: back to Brooklyn. Not only are Duran and his boys

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Speaker 1: intentionally making industrial alcohol unsafe, but this latest concoction seems

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Speaker 1: to be a sign they're going to keep upping the ante,

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Speaker 1: as if there's some magic formula, a perfect mixture so

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Speaker 1: deadly it could finally convince drinkers to give up the booze.

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Speaker 1: Alexandre Getler knows this is folly, but he doesn't know

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Speaker 1: how much worse it's about to get.

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Speaker 3: This is a warning to all you drinkers tempting fate.

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Speaker 1: That's JW. Quillen, head chemist at the IRS. Now, I

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Speaker 1: know what you're thinking, and don't worry. Our old pal

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Speaker 1: James Duran is still around. In fact, he's moved up

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Speaker 1: in the world. Duran's now the Federal Prohibition Commissioner. Quillen

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Speaker 1: works for him, and on a hot August day, just

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Speaker 1: a week after Babe Ruth's game winning dinger, Duran has

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Speaker 1: sent Quillen to deliver a warning from the government to

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Speaker 1: drinkers everywhere.

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Speaker 3: Alcohol found in speakeasies is not safe to drink.

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Speaker 1: Okay, not exactly breaking news. The stuff has been blinding

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Speaker 1: and even killing people all over the country. And I

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Speaker 1: gotta say it's pretty twisted to even phrase this as

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Speaker 1: a warning, because Quillan isn't some passive bystander here, it's

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Speaker 1: his office doing this. In the first place, he lists

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Speaker 1: the chemicals the irs has been using. See if any

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Speaker 1: of them sound familiar.

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Speaker 3: This product is compounded with benzene, kerosene, rusine, and various

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Speaker 3: other products which make it a very deadly poison.

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Speaker 1: That's the fucked up cocktail of poisons Getler's been seeing

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Speaker 1: in dead bodies at Bellevue. And it's a formula with

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Speaker 1: an official name.

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Speaker 2: We call this concoction formula six.

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Speaker 1: And there it is Formula six. It's kind of snazzy sounding,

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Speaker 1: but still nigmat The important thing is one of these

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Speaker 1: toxic recipes has been given a public name. Here's Debrah again.

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Speaker 4: There were dozens of these formulas, each with a different number,

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Speaker 4: each with a different mix of things.

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Speaker 1: Quillan reminds everyone what the plan for these formulas is

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Speaker 1: all about.

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Speaker 3: Specialty denatured alcohol is used for the manufacture of hair

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Speaker 3: tonic and toilet perfumes. This alcohol is unfit for beverage purposes.

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Speaker 1: Sure that sounds like a warning, but a little PSA

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Speaker 1: to the speakeasy regulars, this ain't you see. There is

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Speaker 1: a second, much more sinister layer to this press conference

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Speaker 1: because Quilling goes on to say, the Treasury Department knows

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Speaker 1: that Formula six has not been effective enough, so they're

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Speaker 1: going to release even more formulas that will be even

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Speaker 1: more deadly. The really really fucked up thing here is

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Speaker 1: they know it's going to kill people. Just listen to

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Speaker 1: the words Quillen uses.

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Speaker 3: The cup of tear is lined with death, either swift

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Speaker 3: and dramatic or slow and painfully sure.

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Speaker 1: Kind of a weird way to talk about a public

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Speaker 1: health crisis, and a downright evil way to talk about

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Speaker 1: a public health crisis he himself was causing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: imagine how different those Smoky the Bear PSAs would go

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Speaker 1: over if we also knew that Smokey was an avowed arsonist.

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Speaker 1: Quillen ended his press conference promising a.

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Speaker 3: Wave of alcohol poisoning.

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Speaker 1: As Deborah Blum says.

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Speaker 4: The government is starting to go, Okay, this isn't working.

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Speaker 4: Let's supercharge poisons into the alcohol that the bootleggers are stealing.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you this shocked the nation,

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Speaker 1: but it didn't. The next morning, a couple hundred words

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Speaker 1: about the press conference appear on page twenty two of

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Speaker 1: the New York Times. Quillen's threat did not exactly start

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Speaker 1: a national conversation, nor did it convert boozehounds into teetotalers

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Speaker 1: from coast to coast. And honestly, did Quillen expect it to.

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Speaker 1: I mean, did he or James Duran, or Mabel Walker

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Speaker 1: Willebrand or anyone really think that announcing they were adding

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Speaker 1: a little more poison would finally do the trick Here.

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Speaker 1: We don't know what was in their minds or in

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00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,399
Speaker 1: their hearts, but we know they proceeded just as Quillen

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Speaker 1: said they would. Oh and even though Quillen is announcing

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Speaker 1: the FEDS are retiring Formula six, that doesn't mean it's

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Speaker 1: going to vanish overnight. Two months after Quillen's announcement, another

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Speaker 1: Bureau official casually tells the press he's aware of one

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Speaker 1: million gallons of denatured industrial alcohol poisoned with Formula six,

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Speaker 1: sitting in warehouses right around New York City. These supplies

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Speaker 1: belonged to companies who had permits to buy it legally

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Speaker 1: for industrial purposes, but everyone knows that most of these

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Speaker 1: companies are really just fronts for bootleggers, and all that

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Speaker 1: alcohol is heading for the holiday punch bowl.

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Speaker 2: I could take you down to a warehouse on the

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Speaker 2: East Side and show you five hundred thousand gallons of

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Speaker 2: this stuff, which I amsertion is being sold for beverage purposes.

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Speaker 1: The FEDS know how much tainted liquor is out there,

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Speaker 1: and they know that it's destined for human consumption. In

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Speaker 1: other words, one million gallons of poisoned liquor practically a

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Speaker 1: loaded gun pointed at the city of New York.

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Speaker 2: I know of a place in Newark where there are

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Speaker 2: three hundred thousand gallons. It will probably be cut and

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Speaker 2: made into all sorts of intoxicating liquors.

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Speaker 1: But for the moment, since it's categorized as industrial, it's legal.

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Speaker 1: So in the minds of the Prohibition Bureau officials, well,

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Speaker 1: there's nothing they can do. It's like, gee, we'd really

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Speaker 1: love to do something about all that liquor we poisoned,

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Speaker 1: but gosh darn it, it's perfectly legal and privately owned.

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Speaker 1: Our hands are tied as Christmas ap roaches. Everyone from

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00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 1: Gettler to James Duran knows what's about to happen. The

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Speaker 1: only real question is how many lives will Formula six claim.

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Speaker 5: Say Frankie, what time is it?

350
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Speaker 7: I don't know. It's pitch dark in the clocks all

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Speaker 7: the way over there.

352
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Speaker 5: Not gee, now we'll never know.

353
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Speaker 7: Looks like you boys need Undark?

354
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Speaker 5: What the hell is that?

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Speaker 1: Call yourself?

356
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Speaker 5: Yes.

357
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Speaker 7: With Undark watches, you can tell the time, no matter

358
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Speaker 7: the time, even when it's dark, even.

359
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,920
Speaker 5: When it's dark. What's the secret? How did you get

360
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Speaker 5: it here?

361
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Speaker 1: That's right? The secret is radium.

362
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Speaker 7: You see here, at Undark we've harnessed the benevolent power

363
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Speaker 7: of radiation to make watches that glow in the dark.

364
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 7: We use nothing but pure radium to deliver a watch

365
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Speaker 7: that glows and shines, so you know the time even

366
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Speaker 7: in the dark.

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Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, New York is a glow with holiday lights

368
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Speaker 1: as a soft rain falls over the city. The evening

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Speaker 1: starts off as a normal holiday shift. At Bellevue Hospital,

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Speaker 1: cheery music wafts through the halls. It's quiet for now.

371
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Speaker 1: Then the er doors swing open. A man barges in,

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Speaker 1: ranting and raving, gasping for air. He's terrified, he says,

373
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Speaker 1: Santa Claus is chasing him with a baseball bat. The

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Speaker 1: doctors are well aware that spoiler alert kids, Santa isn't real,

375
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Speaker 1: but the man who just burst into the er seems

376
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Speaker 1: pretty damn convinced. This isn't your normal holiday drunk. This

377
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: guy is straight up hallucinating, and he's not the only one.

378
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: As Christmas morning approaches, over sixty more people crashed through

379
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: the er doors, drunk, sweating and volomitting like the guy

380
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: being chased by Saint Nick. Many of them are seeing

381
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: things that aren't there, but others are already blind By

382
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Speaker 1: the time they get to the hospital that night, eight

383
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Speaker 1: of them die. Returning to his basement lab after the holiday,

384
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Speaker 1: Alexander Getler finds his Boxing day surprise eight new dead bodies,

385
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Speaker 1: not to mention the dozens more people elsewhere in the hospital,

386
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Speaker 1: blinded or hallucinating. He gets to work examining the man

387
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Speaker 1: who spent his final hours raving about being stalked by

388
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Speaker 1: old Chris Kringle.

389
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Speaker 7: Extremities, blue lungs, bloated, full of fluid, stomach lining, hemorrhaged.

390
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: Nothing out of the ordinary. Just taking a peek at

391
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Speaker 1: the organs of the recently deceased, and on first glance,

392
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Speaker 1: Gettler sees the hallmarks of death by alcohol poisoning the

393
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 1: ordinary kind, but that doesn't explain the hallucinations or the blindness.

394
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Speaker 1: Gettler knows full well that alcohol impairs vision, but it

395
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 1: can't blind you on its own, nor can it make

396
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: you see things that aren't there. Whatever killed these eight

397
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: people and poisoned dozens more, it contained some especially nasty chemicals.

398
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: Gettler turns to his tried and true method. He takes

399
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Speaker 1: biopsies of the body's liver, brain, and blood. He blends

400
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: them into a sludge. He repeats the same process with

401
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,880
Speaker 1: each of the fresh bodies, eight livers, eight brains, eight

402
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: blood samples, twenty four beakers of human chemicals slurry. As

403
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: he waits for the results, news of more grisly yule

404
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: tide fatalities come in from around the country. One hundred

405
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: and fifty dead in Philadelphia, seventy one dead in Baltimore,

406
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty eight in Chicago. Gettler knows he'll

407
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of it sooner or later. He'll

408
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: figure out what's in Duran and Quillen's latest formula. But

409
00:25:55,080 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: the more pressing question is will anyone stop them. We

410
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:16,640
Speaker 1: began this season with the story of Bix bider Beck,

411
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 1: the virtuoso cornetist who quote cracked up and collapsed while

412
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: on tour in Cleveland. It's time to come back to

413
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: his story. See Bis survived that nineteen twenty eight incident,

414
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 1: but he never really recovered. To be clear, Bix was

415
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: already a full blown alcoholic, which certainly didn't do wonders

416
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: for his health. But ever since that night, he had

417
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: trouble breathing, he had pains in his legs, and he's

418
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: convinced he was poisoned. Paul Whiteman, leader of the orchestra

419
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: in which Bix was a member, keeps hoping his star

420
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,200
Speaker 1: cornetist will recover. For more than a year, he keeps

421
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: Bix's chair empty. Nobody knows what exactly happened to Bis,

422
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: but most chocolate up to drunkenness. Maybe he just needs

423
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: to dry out first. Bix goes to his parents' place

424
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: in Iowa to recuperate. Then he checks into rehab. I'm

425
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: not sure what rehab was like in the nineteen twenties,

426
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 1: but let's just say it was less than fully effective.

427
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 1: When he returns to his apartment in New York City,

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00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:20,360
Speaker 1: Bix is still in pain and still drinking heavily. When

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00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: Paul Weitman comes through town. He invites BIS to join

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00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: them on stage. Whip through those old solos again, buddy,

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Speaker 1: even if it's just for one performance. But Bix is

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00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: racked with mysterious pain and struggling just to Breathe sadly

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00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: his playing days are over. It's not long before Bix

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00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: is a patient at Bellevue Hospital. He was so close

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00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: to Alexander Getler. Do you think they ever met their pads?

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00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: Did actually cross? Kind of see? While undergoing treatment at Bellevue,

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00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: Bix crashes with his friend, the legendary jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden.

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Speaker 6: There's a story about him taking Jack Teagarden to the

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00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 6: more Get, the famous hospital in New York that's still there.

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Speaker 1: That's Randy Sanke, renowned musician and an expert on BIS.

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00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 6: And he writes this letter where he talks about how

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00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 6: the poison is settled in his legs and he can't

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Speaker 6: get up without falling over. His signature is just so scratchy.

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00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 6: I mean, you can tell that he's shaking. He's not

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00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 6: in good health, good control of you know, of his

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Speaker 6: motor abilities.

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00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: He's got pneumonia. His eyes are still bloodshot. It's a

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00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: struggle to keep food down. His breath is so shallow

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00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: it's starting to seem unlikely he'll ever be able to

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00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: hit those great core netlicks he's so well known for again.

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Speaker 1: So one day Jack helps him out of bed and

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Speaker 1: down to the street. Anything to preoccupy him, maybe help

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Speaker 1: him regain a bit of his strength. But today Bix

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00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:01,719
Speaker 1: is overcome by a strange impulse, a morbid curiosity. Something

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00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: in his gut, still ravaged by the poison, tells him

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00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: to take the elevator down to the basement level.

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Speaker 4: What floor, sir?

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00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: They take the elevator down to the lowest level. The

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00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: temperature drops about ten degrees as they step out. It

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00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: might just be a bad case of the chills, but

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00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: Bick swears he can see his breath. They slowly teeter

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Speaker 1: towards a heavy iron door clearly marked with the word mortuary.

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Speaker 1: A watchman idols by the entrance to the morgue. Turns

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Speaker 1: out he's a jazz fan. That, along with a five

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00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: dollars bill, is enough to get them inside.

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Speaker 3: Bis you sure you want to do this?

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Speaker 1: Jack and Bix are the only living souls in the morgue.

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00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: No doctors, no students, but there is a lone body

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00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: lying on an examination table in the middle of the room.

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00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: She's bloodless, as cold, and smooth as marble. Soon she'll

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00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: be embalmed, redressed, and placed in a pine box a

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00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 1: modest funeral. More than likely, she comes from a family

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00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: who can only afford the bare minimum. With one foot

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00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: in the grave himself, Bix must have wondered what he'd

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00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: look like when it came time display him out on

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00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: a cold steel table. When Randy told us this story,

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00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: it really hit me because Big stands out to me

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00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: is the kind of person Getler was trying to help,

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00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: trying to save. And the fact that Bis visited the morgue.

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00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: He literally walked the halls where Getler was doing his

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00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: important work. It has a kind of sad irony to it,

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00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: like Getler was working to put the pieces together and

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00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: stop the poisonings. He was desperate to save as many

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00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: people as he could, but it was too late for Bis.

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00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: And it's almost like Bix knew it.

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Speaker 6: You know, whether there was this death wish concurrently, It's

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00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 6: hard to say, but it seems like things developed pretty

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00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 6: fast in the last few days.

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Speaker 1: Bix's last few days are hot. It was August in

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00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: New York. So hot and already addled, Bix can't get

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00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: to sleep. His neighbor's hear him playing his piano in

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00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: the wee hours of the morning. He's seeing people and

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00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: hearing things that aren't there. Understandably, he's fixated on death.

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Speaker 1: It comes August sixth, nineteen thirty one, while Bis is

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00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: still in his apartment. He's sweating, shouting that there are

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00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: men under the bed. They have knives, they want to

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00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: kill him. The building supervisor tries to call him Bicks

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00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: down by playing along. He gets on all fours and

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00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: looks under the empty bed. Suddenly, Bix dives down from

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00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: the bed and slams into him. The man struggles to

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00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: catch him. Hell, oh, we need a dot. A nurse

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00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: who lives across the hall runs into help, but the

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00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: commotion is over. Bix goes slack and crumples to the floor.

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00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 6: And if officially prounced Bis dead. But you said this

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00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 6: boy is dead.

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00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: Big Spider. Beck's obituary listed his death officially as pneumonia,

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00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: lungs filled with fluo spasms, shooting pains, hallucinations. Formula six

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00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: had done its.

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Speaker 3: Job slow and low in sure Sure poor who.

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00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: But the bigger question was would anyone face consequences? SNAFU

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00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment and Pacific

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00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. It's executive

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00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo, Whitney Donaldson,

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00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagan. Our lead producers are Carl Nellis and

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00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: Alyssa Martino. This episode was written by Nevin Calopoli and

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00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: Stephen Wood, with additional writing and story editing from Alissa

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00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: Martino and Ed Helms. Additional production from Stephen Wood, Olivia Canny,

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00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: and Kelsey Albright. Torry Smith is our associate producer. Our

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00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: story editor is nicki Stein. Our production assistants are Nevin

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00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: Callapoly and a kimmedy Ekpo Fact checking by Charles Richter.

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00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Editing music and sound

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00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: designed by Ben Chug, Engineering and technical direction by Nick

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00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: Dooley Andrew Chug is Gilded Audio's creative director. Theme music

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00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: by Dan Rosatto. The role of Mabel Walker will Brandt

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00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: was played by Kerrie Bische. Special thanks to Alison Cohen,

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00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: Daniel Welsh and Ben Ryzak,