Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. I'd like to think that everybody has an
Speaker 1: innate talent, something they can do that just comes naturally
Speaker 1: to them. It might be drawing, or playing a musical instrument,
Speaker 1: or picking up a new language, or how about walking
Speaker 1: out of prison not once, but four times? Now. That
Speaker 1: last talent belonged to Stephen J. Russell. Born in North
Speaker 1: Carolina in n and raised by a religious couple who
Speaker 1: had adopted him as a a by at the age
Speaker 1: of nine, he learned the truth, and he didn't take
Speaker 1: it well. His birth parents had had several other children
Speaker 1: and never attempted to make contact with their firstborn, which
Speaker 1: sent him into a spiral. By the time he was twelve,
Speaker 1: he was setting fires and getting into fights. As he
Speaker 1: got older, he discovered some things about himself though. For one,
Speaker 1: he was very smart, very very smart. He knew how
Speaker 1: to read people and gain their confidence quite quickly. He
Speaker 1: also had a knack for mimicking people's voices, skills that
Speaker 1: would come in handy later in life. However, before he
Speaker 1: turned to a life of crime, he worked on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the law as a police officer. He
Speaker 1: even married the Chief Secretary in nineteen seventies six, but
Speaker 1: he was also gay, and admission that ended his nine
Speaker 1: year marriage in Russell lost his job as a result
Speaker 1: of that admission, and his attempt to get a new
Speaker 1: one proved difficult because he was fired from one job
Speaker 1: after another. His desperation eventually turned to poverty, and then
Speaker 1: Russell came up with a plan. He started selling fake
Speaker 1: Rolex watches, eventually graduating to even bigger cons. He pulled
Speaker 1: off a slip and false scheme that earned him forty
Speaker 1: five dollars in payott. Unfortunately, once he got a taste
Speaker 1: for crime, he just couldn't help himself. Russell was arrested
Speaker 1: after applying for a fake passport, and while out on bail,
Speaker 1: he met someone special. His name was Jimmy Kempbell, and
Speaker 1: the two fell quickly in love. There was just a
Speaker 1: little issue in Russell's six month prison sentence. The con
Speaker 1: man couldn't wait that long to see Kempell again, so
Speaker 1: as soon as he got inside, he just started looking
Speaker 1: for a way to get back out. He paid attention
Speaker 1: to the guards schedules, watching when they'd take their smoke breaks,
Speaker 1: so that he could wander off and look around. He
Speaker 1: stumbled on a room where female inmates were being stripped
Speaker 1: of their regular clothes before receiving their prison uniforms. He
Speaker 1: swiped a pair of red sweatpants, a tie dyed shirt,
Speaker 1: and one of the guards walkie talkies. Wearing this ridiculous
Speaker 1: get up, Russell took an elevator to the first floor
Speaker 1: and walked out the front door, and nobody stopped him.
Speaker 1: And this was in nineteen He was arrested the following
Speaker 1: week at the airport before he and Kempbell could hop
Speaker 1: a flight to Mexico again. Russell was released on bail,
Speaker 1: and this time the two men managed to high tail
Speaker 1: itself of the border. Sadly, Kempell was dying from AIDS
Speaker 1: and in need of better healthcare than what he was
Speaker 1: able to get in Mexico. Russell was picked up again
Speaker 1: after coming back to the US and pulling another insurance
Speaker 1: scam to pay off his boyfriend's medical bills, but Kempell
Speaker 1: passed away a few weeks later. But love would bloom
Speaker 1: again for Stephen J. Russell in the form of Philip Morris,
Speaker 1: an inmate with the charming Southern accent who Russell had
Speaker 1: spotted in the prisons law library. The two men were
Speaker 1: parole the n and Russell took a job as CFO
Speaker 1: of a large company called North American Medical Management or NAM.
Speaker 1: The only problem he was completely unqualified. He'd pa did
Speaker 1: his resume without landish claims, and his references were all
Speaker 1: phone numbers belonging to him. He managed to embezzle almost
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand dollars from the company before getting caught
Speaker 1: a kind of robin hood scheme he'd undertaken as payback
Speaker 1: for how medical companies had treated his late boyfriend. Russell,
Speaker 1: as usual, was taken into custody. This time, his bail
Speaker 1: was set at nine hundred thousand dollars punishment for having
Speaker 1: made a fool of the justice system multiple times before,
Speaker 1: and an amount too high for him to pay himself.
Speaker 1: Not to worry, though, because he had a plan. Of course,
Speaker 1: he had a plan. He called up the courthouse from
Speaker 1: jail and impersonated the judge's voice, telling the clerk to
Speaker 1: drop the bail to forty five THO dollars instead, and
Speaker 1: they did. Russell paid and went home. The following day,
Speaker 1: the authorities quickly realized what had happened and picked Russell
Speaker 1: up at Morris's home. Soon after the judge had stopped
Speaker 1: playing around, he sentenced the man who had strolled out
Speaker 1: of jail twice with a forty five year prison sentence.
Speaker 1: Russell wouldn't be caged that easy, though. While incarcerated, he
Speaker 1: bought a bunch of green magic markers from the prison
Speaker 1: commissary and emptied them into the sink and his cell,
Speaker 1: which he had filled with water. He soaked his prison
Speaker 1: whites until they were dyed a pale shade of green
Speaker 1: to match the scrubs of the visiting doctors, and once
Speaker 1: again waltz right out of the prison through the front door.
Speaker 1: He and Morris fled to Mississippi after that, but were
Speaker 1: soon found again, and Russell was sent right back to prison.
Speaker 1: Sometime after that. The press interviewed him about his numerous breakouts,
Speaker 1: but noticed that he wasn't his usual, happy, go lucky
Speaker 1: self anymore. He was sad despondent. Russell told them that
Speaker 1: he had been diagnosed with HIV and he was dying.
Speaker 1: He lost a lot of weight over the next year
Speaker 1: and was eventually moved to a secure nursing home to
Speaker 1: live out his final days. During his stay, prison authorities
Speaker 1: received a call from Russell's doctor. Apparently, there was an
Speaker 1: experimental trial for a new HIV drug, and Russell had
Speaker 1: been ozen to participate, but he had to act fast.
Speaker 1: It wasn't fast enough. The doctor's phone the prison again
Speaker 1: a few weeks later to tell them that Russell had died.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until a man walked into a Dallas bank
Speaker 1: and applied for a seventy five tho dollar alone that
Speaker 1: they realized that the King of cons was still alive
Speaker 1: and well and up to his old tricks. And how
Speaker 1: did he do it? He faked his medical records using
Speaker 1: a prison typewriter, then reduced his food intake, swallowing laxatives
Speaker 1: to move things along. By the end of ten months,
Speaker 1: he was half his old size. After all, he had
Speaker 1: watched a boyfriend succumb to the effects of AIDS and
Speaker 1: knew how to mimic the symptoms. Today, Stephen j. Russell
Speaker 1: sits in solitary confinements, the weight of a one forty
Speaker 1: four year prison sentence heavy on his shoulders. His spine
Speaker 1: is compacted from a lack of movements, and he fights
Speaker 1: every day to maintain his sanity in a six by
Speaker 1: nine cell designed to break him mentally and physically, but
Speaker 1: he hangs on, buoyed by the support of his friends
Speaker 1: and family who visit it on the weekends. He also
Speaker 1: writes and gives interviews to the press on occasion. However,
Speaker 1: his habits of breaking out of prison, well, that seems
Speaker 1: to have run its course, although someone should probably check
Speaker 1: and make sure. Most people hope to accomplish one great
Speaker 1: thing in their lifetime. It could be writing a novel,
Speaker 1: or learning the piano, or maybe just winning the lottery.
Speaker 1: A few of us will ever achieve such feats, and
Speaker 1: even fewer will go on to do more. One man, however,
Speaker 1: didn't learn to play an instrument, nor did he win
Speaker 1: the lottery, but he is remembered for his many great accomplishments.
Speaker 1: For example, he was the German robin Hood of his day.
Speaker 1: He was a poet, a warrior, and he was among
Speaker 1: the first cyborgs. Goods von Berlichingen was born to German
Speaker 1: nobility in four eight. Raised in what is now modern
Speaker 1: day Bavaria. He joined the military at the age of
Speaker 1: seventeen to fight for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian the First.
Speaker 1: He struck down enemies across Europe on behalf of the
Speaker 1: emperor for the next several years, but grew weary of
Speaker 1: fighting in service to a king. By he was on
Speaker 1: his own working as a mercenary. It was during a
Speaker 1: siege in the small Bavarian town of land Shoot when
Speaker 1: Goat's right arm was blown off by an enemy cannon.
Speaker 1: Such an injury would have sidelined other soldiers, forcing them
Speaker 1: away from battle and back home to nurse their wounds,
Speaker 1: but not goods. He saw the expertise of local blacksmiths,
Speaker 1: who provided him with a replacement arm. They fashioned for
Speaker 1: him a rudimentary prosthetic made of metal and leather. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to do much with it, so he
Speaker 1: had a better, more advanced arm constructed instead. His new
Speaker 1: prosthetic limb had fingers that could bend at the joints.
Speaker 1: Berlick and Gen would use his left hand to operate
Speaker 1: the unique spring loaded rod system inside that was so
Speaker 1: precise he could curl the metal fingers around something as
Speaker 1: sturdy as his sword or as delicate as a quill pen.
Speaker 1: Once again able to wield the sword, he went back
Speaker 1: to work as a mercenary. He carried out vicious acts
Speaker 1: on behalf of those who hired him, as well as
Speaker 1: people and even whole towns who had wronged him. In
Speaker 1: fifteen twelve, he let his beef with the city of
Speaker 1: Nuremberg get the better of him when he attacked several
Speaker 1: merchants returning home there after selling their wares in Leipzig.
Speaker 1: His former employer, Emperor Maximilian the First, got wind of
Speaker 1: the raid and issued an imperial ban, which meant that
Speaker 1: he lost all his rights and was free to be
Speaker 1: killed by anyone else without consequence. He spent two years
Speaker 1: as an outlaw after that, before paying the steep fine
Speaker 1: of fourteen thousand golden for his freedom. He used his
Speaker 1: newfound freedom to continue his one man war against the
Speaker 1: people and places who had offended him. He traveled to hess,
Speaker 1: home of the Hessian people nineteen thousand of whom fought
Speaker 1: for the British during the Revolutionary War, and carried out
Speaker 1: his next attack are. This time he kidnapped Philip, the
Speaker 1: fourth Count of Valdak, the head of states under Emperor Maximilian.
Speaker 1: His new crime earned him another price on his head
Speaker 1: and another banishment. He had no interest in sitting by
Speaker 1: while fight carried on without him, though he came to
Speaker 1: the aid of Uric, the first Duke of Wurtemburg in
Speaker 1: fifteen nineteen, when the duke's town of Mackmule was under
Speaker 1: attacked by a peacekeeping outfit known as the Swabian League. Berlikingen, however,
Speaker 1: lacked these supplies needed to defend mack Mool properly, and
Speaker 1: was soon captured by the opposing army. It was too
Speaker 1: bad that he'd made so many enemies during Mercenary days,
Speaker 1: since he was given over to the town of Heilbron,
Speaker 1: which he had rated quite a few times in the past.
Speaker 1: But Berlickingen had also made some friends too, and two
Speaker 1: of them fellow knights themselves, came to his defense. With
Speaker 1: their help, he was only forced to pay two thousand
Speaker 1: golden and he was free to go. Oh and he
Speaker 1: had to promise not to go after the Swabian League
Speaker 1: for revenge, which he didn't, but he did Yd a
Speaker 1: new cause to fight for after that, in fifteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: he and his metal arm fought alongside hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of poor German farmers in what came to be known
Speaker 1: as the German Peasants War. They had risen up against
Speaker 1: the aristocracy for better land rights and more freedom, and
Speaker 1: Berlkingen himself, being a man of means and born to
Speaker 1: a wealthy family, had no problem joining their cause. His
Speaker 1: participation is what earned him the nickname the robin Hood
Speaker 1: of Germany. But he eventually deserted them once he saw
Speaker 1: that they were less invested in the challenge and merely
Speaker 1: after blood goats. Van Berlikingen died in fifteen sixty at
Speaker 1: around eighty years old, leaving behind an impressive legacy as
Speaker 1: a one armed, iron fisted knight who fought for the
Speaker 1: poor and was hated by almost every town he met.
Speaker 1: All of this was discussed in his memoirs, which were
Speaker 1: adapted into a popular play in seventeen seventy three. Today,
Speaker 1: both of his prosthetic arms, Mark one and Mark two,
Speaker 1: are on display in his birthplace of youngs thousand, German
Speaker 1: me The town even boasted depiction of his metal hand
Speaker 1: on their shield, making it a true coat of arms.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,