WEBVTT - S3E6: Signature Cocktail 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:02.960 Hey there, it's your host ed helms. 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:03.200 Here. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.400 Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.479 to remind you that my brand new book is coming 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.400 out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.000 Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.880 order it right now at snafudashbook dot com. Trust me, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.599 if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.680 It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.440 just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.880 I am also going on tour to celebrate. That's right. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.600 I'm coming to New York, DC, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.560 San Francisco, and my hometown Los Angeles. So if you've 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.760 ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.560 and A or dramatically read about a kiddie cat getting 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.960 turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance again. Head 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.600 to snaffoo dashbook dot com to pre order the book 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.120 and check out all the tour details and day, or 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.280 just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay, 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.040 that's it, on with the chaos. This is Snaffoo Season 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:15.319 three Formula six last time on Snaffoo double tote and 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.240 two gun hearts, became a prohibition enforcement agent. If he 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.840 couldn't use his gun, he would use his fist to 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.319 apprehend these criminals and bootleggers and ended up killing an 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.240 innocent man. Back in DC, Mabel Walker willebrandt roped in 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.560 just about the last people who should ever be involved 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.360 in law enforcement. This is where the klan comes in. Actually, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.200 so what was supposed to be a righteous moral crusade 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.760 was turning into a bloody, morally compromised debacle. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.640 I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:49.960 if they enjoyed that sort of thing. 0:01:50.400 --> 0:02:04.160 And even after all that, the dries weren't done yet. 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.640 On a cold, misty night in late November nineteen twenty six, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:14.480 two Brooklyn cops stumble upon something extremely suspicious down by 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.640 the docks on the East River under the full moon. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.000 A stooped man struggles to carry a big bundle of 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.840 something towards the water. When the cops holler out and 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.920 ask him what he's doing, he panics, kicks the bundle 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.919 into the water and runs away. The cops tackle him 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.360 and handcuff him, but even once they get him to 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.040 the precinct. He's still not talking. And this isn't just 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.280 a regular old I ain't saying nothing kind of silence, 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.359 more of a stupor. He looks ill, his face oddly flushed. 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.239 The police suspect he's had quite a lot to drink. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:54.760 Eventually they identify him as Francesco Travia, a longshoreman who 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.720 lives in nearby Cobble Hill. They can't get a word 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.240 out of him, but they do notice his legs are 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:02.440 soaked in blood. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.320 The police go back to his apartment they find this 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:06.520 dismembered body. 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.280 I love this story so much, and sorry I shouldn't 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:11.920 laugh about this. 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.600 That's historian Deborah Blum. Remember she's an expert on the 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.480 various ways chemicals can kill you. When you spend your 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.400 career talking about poisoned corpses, sometimes you just gotta laugh. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:27.200 The police go to Travia's apartment find a woman's dead body, 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:28.840 well half of one. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.960 And her hat is still theretor torso on the floor. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.200 The scene in Travia's apartment is gruesome, so it's not 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.760 really a stretch to conclude that Travia murdered this woman, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.440 chopped her up and is just disposed of her legs 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.840 in the East River. The body is identified as Anna Fredrickson, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.920 Francesco's neighbor. Anna's family tells the police that she went 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.360 to Francesco to scrounge up some booze and left his 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.760 apartment in multiple pieces. To the NYPD, this looks like 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.080 an open and shut case. They'd caught Francesco Travia red handed, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.880 or at least red panted. But then the city's chief 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.560 medical examiner arrives at the crime scene. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.440 Norris is the on call medical examiner that night. 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.560 He goes all the way out to Brooklyn, driven by 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.200 his chauffeur, to the shabby little Black Worker apartment in 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:23.479 Brooklyn goes in. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.320 Norris emerges from his car and strolls into the apartment, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.880 no doubt dressed in an outfit that cost an arm 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:35.320 in the lot of money. He takes a quick look 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.160 at the crime scene, here's what the cops have to report, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.760 and immediately blows up the entire theory of the case. 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:46.160 He takes one look at it and goes, you know, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.600 know that that woman was dead before he cut her up. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:55.200 Noras only needs to see two things. The unnatural flush 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.479 of the dead woman's skin and the lighting fixtures in 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.440 the tenement building where she was found. 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.279 A lot of people lived in buildings that were pretty 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:06.280 much equipped by. 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:07.880 What was called illuminating gas. 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:12.159 Right. An illuminating gas was a cold derived gas. It 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.600 had hydrogenetics, so it was explosive, and it had carbon 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.080 monoxide in it, so it was poisonous. 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.720 As Noras knows, this gas is not only poisonous, it's 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:27.920 also colorless and odorless, a deadly combination he and Alexander 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.560 Getler know all too well from their work examining New 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:36.640 York City's dead. The presence of carbon monoxide also explains 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.920 why Travia has been in a stupor and the strange 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.120 hue of the alleged victim's skin. 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.080 When you are killed by carbon monoxide, your skin flushes 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.559 a deep pink. So here she is, she's bled out 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.960 completely right, she should be pale as a sheet. Instead, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.600 she's flush pink, because that's what carbon monoxide does. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.120 Anna Fredrickson's death was a tragic accident. At some point 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.160 as she got drunk with Francesco. One of them must 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:06.440 have caused the gas leak. 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.799 They knock a kettle or something over that's boiling away 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.280 on a gas burner, put out the flame, illuminating gas 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:19.080 which they don't smell, start seeping into the apartment. And 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.800 he and Getler have already shown that when carbon monoxide 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.839 gets to the kind of level he's looking at, it 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:25.440 kills you. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:26.880 So she has to have been dead. 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.680 Charles Norris feels compelled to testify in Francesco's case. He 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.160 knows this man is innocent, well innocent of murder anyway, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.640 and he has the scientific facts to prove it. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.720 And he goes actually into court opposite to the district 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.080 attorney and the police department and wins. 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.680 It wasn't the first time Norris and Getler took on 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.760 the political powers that be and won, and it wouldn't 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.440 be the last. Of course, Francesco did still get convicted 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.480 of him properly disposing of a corpse, and I'm gonna 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.760 give it to the prosecutor on that one. But he 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.200 did avoid the death penalty because Gettler and Norris investigated 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:11.800 and intervened. From gas leaks to lead pipes to radioactive watches, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.040 which is an actual thing you could buy. At the time, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.600 there was a lot that could kill you in nineteen 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:22.040 twenties America. Time and time again, Gettler and Norris cracked 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:26.080 cases that cops couldn't crack, and they were just about 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.000 the only ones in New York City capable of getting 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:34.280 to the bottom of the especially twisted mystery of Formula six. 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.160 I'm ed Helms and this is Snaffo, a show about 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.440 history's greatest screw ups. This is the story of how 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.840 Prohibition backfired so badly that the government chose to poison 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.800 thousands of a Mata Americans. Today, a string of mysterious 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:08.000 deaths presents Norris and Gettler with another mystery, even as 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:34.360 the culprit hides in plain sight. One thing we know 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.520 about Alexander Geittler is that he loved the Yankees, and 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:42.240 we also know that, as a workaholic, his thoughts were 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.040 never far from his work. So indulge me as I 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.720 paint a picture for us Gettler attending a real Yankee 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:54.920 game and piecing together a few work thoughts. Sunday, August second, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.560 nineteen twenty six, Alexander Getler, notorious workaholic, has given himself 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.640 a rare day off to enjoy Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.560 His beloved Bronx Bombers are facing the Chicago White Sox, 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.960 and they're off to a rough start. Right in the 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.040 top of the first, Chicago left fielder Bib Fuck hits 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.200 a weak ground ball off Yankee pitcher Wait Hoyt and 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.760 drives in a run. Bib Wait, come on, you gotta 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.880 love these old timey baseball names, right, But Getler, well, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.000 he's not loving it. By the time he's gotten into 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.839 his seat and lit up one of his White Owl cigars, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.760 his Yankees are already down by a run. Now, even 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.480 amidst all the peanuts and cracker jacks, Gettler's mind wanders 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.960 to what he's been seeing in his lab and in 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.600 the news. All over the city and all over the country. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:48.400 People are dying going blind. Remember that bootleg cocktail ginger Jake. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.920 There are people walking around town with a condition nicknamed 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.839 Jake Leg, which causes the legs to twitch uncontrollably. By now, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.640 it's common knowledge that lots of ill gotten hooch has 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.680 se even fatal side effects, but people are still drinking it. 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.280 The Yankees have their own formidable tag team, Lou Garrig 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.400 and Babe Ruth. They're both in the midst of incredible seasons, 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.679 smashing homers and breaking records. But in the bottom of 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.240 the first the Chicago pitcher gets Garrig to ground out 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.120 into a fielder's choice, intentionally walks the great Bambino, I'll 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.000 come on pitch to a scarty cut and retires the 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.240 side without letting up a run. Hitler puffs his cigar 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.600 and cogit dates. There's been a commotion upstate in Buffalo, 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.200 where the health commissioner is alleging that dozens of recent 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.640 deaths chalked up to heart disease or apoplexy were actually 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:46.240 the work of methyl alcohol. In his own lab at Bellevue, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.600 Alexander's been seeing some downright bizarre things in his test results. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:52.920 And I don't mean the sludge he makes out of 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.640 dead people. That's all in a day's work. But the 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.480 chemicals he's finding in that sludge, well, they're getting weirder 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:06.640 and weirder. Purody what the pyridine is colorless and highly flammable. 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:11.080 It's commonly found in herbicides and insecticides. In other words, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:17.040 it's poison. Geitler knows the mafiosos distributing tainted liquor aren't 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.040 afraid to get their hands a little dirty, but still 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.960 intentionally serving people insecticide. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:24.679 That's not good for business. 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:31.080 And it gets weirder. There's also kerosene and industrial benzene, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.480 commonly found in rubber and gas. Now you don't need 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.760 to be chief toxicologist of Bellevue Medical Center to know 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.920 kerosene and alcohol are a bad mix. But never one 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.240 to jump to conclusions, Gettler wonders if there's a way 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:50.520 these victims might have accidentally consumed these poisons, which sounds crazy, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.319 but he's actually seen a lot of it. The Radium Girls. 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.320 Back in nineteen twenty five, a dozen women died and 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.680 at least fifty more became ill with mysterious symptoms, including 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.439 necrosis of the jaw. Since they all worked at the 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.720 same watch factory, the cases were assumed to be connected. However, 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.880 the company doctors tried to sweep it all under the rug. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.160 That's when Getler was called in. He ran some tests 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.480 and figured out exactly what was going on. In order 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.440 to make the watchfaces glow in the dark, the workers 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:31.480 painted them with radium, which, just like it sounds, is radioactive. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.760 The Radium Girls, as they came to be known had 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.760 been licking their paint brushes to wet them as they painted, 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:44.600 unknowingly consuming toxic radium every time. So now back to 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.440 these latest poisonings by benzene and kerosene. Maybe all of 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.839 these victims worked at a rubber tire factory and they 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.079 were all roommates in a building heated by burning kerosene, 0:12:55.360 --> 0:13:00.760 but probably not. Gettler can't find any connection between them 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.319 apart from the unique blend of the poisons that killed them. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.080 Each of these chemicals is gnarly enough on its own, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.520 but when you put them together it becomes clear whoever 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:16.720 invented this cocktail at a deeply sinister intent. Benzene brings 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:21.480 on a seizure. Kerosene constricts the throat, Pyridine sends agonizing 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.680 pain shooting through the gut. Still, other additives would have 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.199 made the limbs go stiff. Methanol sears the optic nerve 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.080 after a few gulps, and nearly all the victims went 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:32.719 blind before they died. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:35.440 Out. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.199 Babe Ruth strikes out to lead off the bottom of 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.040 the fourth inning. The Yankees are still down and they 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.240 haven't even recorded a hit yet. Alexander is starting to 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.080 worry about the dollar he's wagered on this game, but 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.400 he's far more worried thinking about those noxious chemicals showing 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:52.880 up in his lab sludge. 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.079 Hey, nice to one hot dog, No nough. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.360 The Yankee pitcher Tommy Thompson keeps the White Sox in 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.400 check through the fifth inning, but his team is still behind. 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:07.679 The crowd is restless, especially Alexander Gettler, as his mind 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.360 turns to the most fucked up thing about all these poisonings. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.880 Since the dawn of Prohibition, the bootleggers and the mob 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.800 have been competing directly with the government, the Prohibition Bureau, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.840 Mabel Walker, Willebrandt, the Irs, James Duran, and all their cronies. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.120 They've been going back and forth, taking their swings at 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.320 each other. As the government keeps putting nastier things into 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:34.480 industrial alcohol and the outlaws keep hiring chemists to thwart them. 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:39.640 Gittler knows what he's seeing is no accident. Finally, in 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.160 the bottom of the sixth, with Garrig on base, Babe 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.880 Ruth gets a hold of one the Colossus of cloud 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.640 hammers his thirtieth home run of the season, and the 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.840 Yankees take the lead. Gettler rises to his feet with 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.200 the rest of the crowd as he watches two all 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.480 time greats cross home plate. Sorry to spoil it for you, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.280 but the score line will hold. The Yankees win two 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.440 to one. All in all, a bad afternoon for Gettler 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.160 has turned good thanks to a single swing of the bat. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:10.840 But as he joins the crowd streaming out of the 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.320 park and towards the one hundred and sixty first Street 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.320 subway station, Getler can't help but wonder how many of 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.560 these people would the government be willing to sacrifice for 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:26.040 this insane, failing strategy of deterrence. Getler knows better than 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:31.720 anyone this strategy isn't working. If denaturing industrial alcohol stopped 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.120 people from making drinks out of it, people would have 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.800 stopped getting drunk. But that's clearly just not happening. If 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.440 introducing more and more pernicious cocktails of poisons actually scared 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.600 people away from drinking, they wouldn't keep ending up on 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.800 a metal tray in Getler and Norris's lab. It's madness, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.960 Gettler thinks to himself as he boards a packed train 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.840 back to Brooklyn. Not only are Duran and his boys 0:15:55.920 --> 0:16:01.560 intentionally making industrial alcohol unsafe, but this latest concoction seems 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.200 to be a sign they're going to keep upping the ante, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.160 as if there's some magic formula, a perfect mixture so 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.720 deadly it could finally convince drinkers to give up the booze. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:18.920 Alexandre Getler knows this is folly, but he doesn't know 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:23.320 how much worse it's about to get. 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.520 This is a warning to all you drinkers tempting fate. 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.280 That's JW. Quillen, head chemist at the IRS. Now, I 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.480 know what you're thinking, and don't worry. Our old pal 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.880 James Duran is still around. In fact, he's moved up 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.400 in the world. Duran's now the Federal Prohibition Commissioner. Quillen 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.480 works for him, and on a hot August day, just 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.080 a week after Babe Ruth's game winning dinger, Duran has 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.880 sent Quillen to deliver a warning from the government to 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:02.320 drinkers everywhere. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.760 Alcohol found in speakeasies is not safe to drink. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.160 Okay, not exactly breaking news. The stuff has been blinding 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.760 and even killing people all over the country. And I 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.360 gotta say it's pretty twisted to even phrase this as 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.720 a warning, because Quillan isn't some passive bystander here, it's 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.800 his office doing this. In the first place, he lists 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.240 the chemicals the irs has been using. See if any 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:29.520 of them sound familiar. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.719 This product is compounded with benzene, kerosene, rusine, and various 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.360 other products which make it a very deadly poison. 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.919 That's the fucked up cocktail of poisons Getler's been seeing 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.960 in dead bodies at Bellevue. And it's a formula with 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.120 an official name. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.040 We call this concoction formula six. 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:57.840 And there it is Formula six. It's kind of snazzy sounding, 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:03.040 but still nigmat The important thing is one of these 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:08.119 toxic recipes has been given a public name. Here's Debrah again. 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.800 There were dozens of these formulas, each with a different number, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.320 each with a different mix of things. 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.239 Quillan reminds everyone what the plan for these formulas is 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:18.800 all about. 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.040 Specialty denatured alcohol is used for the manufacture of hair 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:28.320 tonic and toilet perfumes. This alcohol is unfit for beverage purposes. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.520 Sure that sounds like a warning, but a little PSA 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.840 to the speakeasy regulars, this ain't you see. There is 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.520 a second, much more sinister layer to this press conference 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.920 because Quilling goes on to say, the Treasury Department knows 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.520 that Formula six has not been effective enough, so they're 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.439 going to release even more formulas that will be even 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:56.160 more deadly. The really really fucked up thing here is 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.399 they know it's going to kill people. Just listen to 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.040 the words Quillen uses. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.240 The cup of tear is lined with death, either swift 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.320 and dramatic or slow and painfully sure. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:12.240 Kind of a weird way to talk about a public 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.160 health crisis, and a downright evil way to talk about 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:20.160 a public health crisis he himself was causing. I mean, 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.199 imagine how different those Smoky the Bear PSAs would go 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.840 over if we also knew that Smokey was an avowed arsonist. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.840 Quillen ended his press conference promising a. 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.600 Wave of alcohol poisoning. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.760 As Deborah Blum says. 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.400 The government is starting to go, Okay, this isn't working. 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:45.720 Let's supercharge poisons into the alcohol that the bootleggers are stealing. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.760 I wish I could tell you this shocked the nation, 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.680 but it didn't. The next morning, a couple hundred words 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.760 about the press conference appear on page twenty two of 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:01.119 the New York Times. Quillen's threat did not exactly start 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:06.119 a national conversation, nor did it convert boozehounds into teetotalers 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.960 from coast to coast. And honestly, did Quillen expect it to. 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.800 I mean, did he or James Duran, or Mabel Walker 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.240 Willebrand or anyone really think that announcing they were adding 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.040 a little more poison would finally do the trick Here. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.159 We don't know what was in their minds or in 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.399 their hearts, but we know they proceeded just as Quillen 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.919 said they would. Oh and even though Quillen is announcing 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.560 the FEDS are retiring Formula six, that doesn't mean it's 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:39.399 going to vanish overnight. Two months after Quillen's announcement, another 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.120 Bureau official casually tells the press he's aware of one 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:48.560 million gallons of denatured industrial alcohol poisoned with Formula six, 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.840 sitting in warehouses right around New York City. These supplies 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.520 belonged to companies who had permits to buy it legally 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.760 for industrial purposes, but everyone knows that most of these 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:05.040 companies are really just fronts for bootleggers, and all that 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.439 alcohol is heading for the holiday punch bowl. 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:10.919 I could take you down to a warehouse on the 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.080 East Side and show you five hundred thousand gallons of 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.480 this stuff, which I amsertion is being sold for beverage purposes. 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:20.720 The FEDS know how much tainted liquor is out there, 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.639 and they know that it's destined for human consumption. In 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.879 other words, one million gallons of poisoned liquor practically a 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.320 loaded gun pointed at the city of New York. 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:33.720 I know of a place in Newark where there are 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.399 three hundred thousand gallons. It will probably be cut and 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.480 made into all sorts of intoxicating liquors. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.199 But for the moment, since it's categorized as industrial, it's legal. 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.840 So in the minds of the Prohibition Bureau officials, well, 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.080 there's nothing they can do. It's like, gee, we'd really 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.600 love to do something about all that liquor we poisoned, 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.560 but gosh darn it, it's perfectly legal and privately owned. 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.400 Our hands are tied as Christmas ap roaches. Everyone from 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.600 Gettler to James Duran knows what's about to happen. The 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:14.919 only real question is how many lives will Formula six claim. 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:14.680 Say Frankie, what time is it? 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.120 I don't know. It's pitch dark in the clocks all 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:19.159 the way over there. 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:21.199 Not gee, now we'll never know. 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.000 Looks like you boys need Undark? 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:25.080 What the hell is that? 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:26.160 Call yourself? 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:26.639 Yes. 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.200 With Undark watches, you can tell the time, no matter 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.320 the time, even when it's dark, even. 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.920 When it's dark. What's the secret? How did you get 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:36.280 it here? 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.000 That's right? The secret is radium. 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.600 You see here, at Undark we've harnessed the benevolent power 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.199 of radiation to make watches that glow in the dark. 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.879 We use nothing but pure radium to deliver a watch 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.600 that glows and shines, so you know the time even 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:54.560 in the dark. 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.359 Christmas Eve, New York is a glow with holiday lights 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.159 as a soft rain falls over the city. The evening 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.200 starts off as a normal holiday shift. At Bellevue Hospital, 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:22.840 cheery music wafts through the halls. It's quiet for now. 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:28.520 Then the er doors swing open. A man barges in, 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.200 ranting and raving, gasping for air. He's terrified, he says, 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:36.000 Santa Claus is chasing him with a baseball bat. The 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.320 doctors are well aware that spoiler alert kids, Santa isn't real, 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.520 but the man who just burst into the er seems 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:48.000 pretty damn convinced. This isn't your normal holiday drunk. This 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:52.879 guy is straight up hallucinating, and he's not the only one. 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.560 As Christmas morning approaches, over sixty more people crashed through 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.280 the er doors, drunk, sweating and volomitting like the guy 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.200 being chased by Saint Nick. Many of them are seeing 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:08.160 things that aren't there, but others are already blind By 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.760 the time they get to the hospital that night, eight 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:15.560 of them die. Returning to his basement lab after the holiday, 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:21.400 Alexander Getler finds his Boxing day surprise eight new dead bodies, 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:24.920 not to mention the dozens more people elsewhere in the hospital, 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:29.199 blinded or hallucinating. He gets to work examining the man 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:32.239 who spent his final hours raving about being stalked by 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:33.360 old Chris Kringle. 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:40.800 Extremities, blue lungs, bloated, full of fluid, stomach lining, hemorrhaged. 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:43.560 Nothing out of the ordinary. Just taking a peek at 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:47.080 the organs of the recently deceased, and on first glance, 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:51.760 Gettler sees the hallmarks of death by alcohol poisoning the 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:56.760 ordinary kind, but that doesn't explain the hallucinations or the blindness. 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:00.560 Gettler knows full well that alcohol impairs vision, but it 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:03.400 can't blind you on its own, nor can it make 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:06.760 you see things that aren't there. Whatever killed these eight 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:12.200 people and poisoned dozens more, it contained some especially nasty chemicals. 0:25:12.960 --> 0:25:16.040 Gettler turns to his tried and true method. He takes 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:20.000 biopsies of the body's liver, brain, and blood. He blends 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:24.639 them into a sludge. He repeats the same process with 0:25:24.720 --> 0:25:27.880