Speaker 1: This episode includes stories of domestic violence. Listener, discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Death rarely stops a showman, quite the opposite. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: actually encourages them. You've heard about a few sideshow stars
Speaker 1: who were put on stage after they died, like Jumbo
Speaker 1: the Elephant or Julia Pastrana and her child. But recently
Speaker 1: it was some of the smallest oddities that caused a
Speaker 1: big scandal. Pickled punks, as they were known, had long
Speaker 1: been a sideshow standard, but by the nineteen seventies people
Speaker 1: were reconsidering the attraction of formal the hide suspended fetuses
Speaker 1: in a jar. The times were changing. You see, a
Speaker 1: cultural shift was happening, and you only had to look
Speaker 1: towards Gibson Town, Florida for proof. Sideshow performers have been
Speaker 1: flocking to Give Town, as they call it, for decades.
Speaker 1: It had been a small bit of coastal town southeast
Speaker 1: of Tampa, home to fisherman and a small lumber company.
Speaker 1: Grace and Eddie LeMay were the first carnival folk to
Speaker 1: visit in nine, a trip spent camping and fishing. They
Speaker 1: told their friends a lot of them actually, and by
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five the town had grown by hundreds of residents,
Speaker 1: many of which were from the side show. These new
Speaker 1: arrivals would change the DNA of the town. Special zoning
Speaker 1: laws allowed them to house and train elephants and lions
Speaker 1: in their gardens. The post office had a counter low
Speaker 1: enough for people with dwarf is um. The bar had
Speaker 1: chairs built perfectly sized for the comfort of large ladies
Speaker 1: and giants alike. Gibson Town had the air of a
Speaker 1: family reunion. When performers settled back in after a long
Speaker 1: season on the circuit, tongues would wag, beer would flow,
Speaker 1: and babies and business deals would be made. Gibson Town
Speaker 1: was their winter wonderland. It was home a refuge from
Speaker 1: the prime eyes of the outside world. But as the
Speaker 1: era of the American side show began to sunset, conflict
Speaker 1: began to arise between two worlds, those on the inside
Speaker 1: and those on the outside. The lights of the town
Speaker 1: began to dim and the cracks began to show. The
Speaker 1: broader world was beginning to question, reject, and outlaw much
Speaker 1: of what had been part and parcel of the side show.
Speaker 1: Elements that had in decades past drawn huge crowds willing
Speaker 1: to part with their hard earned money the cultural institution
Speaker 1: was fading, and those dollars were becoming more difficult to
Speaker 1: come by. It was at this moment, amidst all of
Speaker 1: this change, that the pickled Punks took center stage as
Speaker 1: a flashpoint for national controversy. You see, back in the day,
Speaker 1: it wasn't uncommon to find jarred human body parts in
Speaker 1: curiosity cabinets. There was still little known about the body
Speaker 1: for so long, and hungry minds wanted to know its secrets.
Speaker 1: Over time, these jars made the leap from private settings
Speaker 1: and into the hands of the public for tentilation and consumption,
Speaker 1: and of course, for profits. But by the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: several states had passed legislation banning transportation of human remains
Speaker 1: across state lines. Soon laws were on the books that
Speaker 1: eventually outlawed even the possession of them. And this is
Speaker 1: where we find legendary showman and Gibson Town resident Ward Hall.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, he was operating what he liked
Speaker 1: to call the Freak Baby Show, and it was exactly
Speaker 1: what you might imagine it to be. For seventy five cents,
Speaker 1: visitors had the pleasure of viewing malformed, jarred fetuses uh
Speaker 1: fish baby, a frog, boy and girl, a cyclopse baby,
Speaker 1: Siamese twins. You get the idea. There were warnings attached
Speaker 1: to each one suggesting that the abnormalities were a result
Speaker 1: of the mother's moral failings, and it billed itself as
Speaker 1: a nonprofit educational exhibit to boot Wards collection was being
Speaker 1: exhibited at a county fair in Illinois by his partner C. M. Christ,
Speaker 1: but the law would intervene. Police rated the exhibits and
Speaker 1: confiscated the punks. CM was arrested on charges of illegal
Speaker 1: possession of human remains and was questioned about where he
Speaker 1: had gotten them and who they were. He would later
Speaker 1: be acquitted, citing that a similar exhibit had appeared at
Speaker 1: the Chicago World's Fair in nineteen thirty three. But while
Speaker 1: CM was set free, the punks remained in police custody.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks later, in several hundred miles to
Speaker 1: the south, local police rated Wards storage facilities in Gibson Town.
Speaker 1: They found two punks that had not previously been confiscated
Speaker 1: in Illinois, so a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Speaker 1: According to newspaper articles from the time, a total of
Speaker 1: and I quote thirteen unborn babies and embryos floating in
Speaker 1: jars of for malde hyde were discovered and confiscated at
Speaker 1: his property, which the article described as a carnival man's backyard.
Speaker 1: He was able to get the charges dropped, but similar
Speaker 1: raids kicked off across the country. As these exhibits were
Speaker 1: forced to close, people found themselves without livelihoods. One seized
Speaker 1: collection was estimated to be worth well over one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. It was just getting harder and harder to
Speaker 1: make a living in the side show. By the end
Speaker 1: of that year, the issue was put to a close,
Speaker 1: well sort of. On a November day, and under a
Speaker 1: blue sky, a single vault was opened. People stood somberly
Speaker 1: in black in the thick of that quiet, Tiny foam
Speaker 1: caskets were lowered into the ground a funeral for these
Speaker 1: so called carnival babies. The reverend presiding proclaimed that with
Speaker 1: the burial, and I quote, we also bury the idea
Speaker 1: that human life should be a grotesque spectacle, that human
Speaker 1: life is cheap or to be exploited. Ironic then that
Speaker 1: the funeral itself was meant to be a spectacle. You see,
Speaker 1: the event was photographed and highly publicized in national newspapers.
Speaker 1: They got a lot of lawmakers talking. Even in shutting
Speaker 1: down these exhibits, it seems a glimpse of such specimens,
Speaker 1: or at least their caskets, still attracted a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: for better or for worse from the American public. It
Speaker 1: seems that despite the very public outcry, we still couldn't help.
Speaker 1: But look, I'm Aaron Manky and welcome to the side show.
Speaker 1: Grady Styles was perched on his bar stool, content he
Speaker 1: had killed a man and gotten away with it. In fact,
Speaker 1: it seems that he had gotten away with a lot
Speaker 1: in his life. He drained his glass down his throat
Speaker 1: and felt his body grow warm. Grady had nowhere to be.
Speaker 1: He had no where he wanted to be. Really, He
Speaker 1: signaled for a fresh round with his claw, and the
Speaker 1: bartender poured him another stiff drink. The other bar flies
Speaker 1: didn't like him much. He was a mean drunk, but
Speaker 1: he was also a legend. As famous as he was infamous,
Speaker 1: he had a reputation that reached far beyond Florida's stormy
Speaker 1: spring skies and bleak expanse of US Route forty one,
Speaker 1: Gibson Town, where we find Grady Here was once a
Speaker 1: spectacle itself, but by the nineteen nineties GiB Town had
Speaker 1: faded in grade along with many of its stars. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just that some had faded, some had been
Speaker 1: overshadowed by darkness. Grady Styles Jr. Had been born into
Speaker 1: a sideshow family in nineteen thirty seven. His body was
Speaker 1: home to extrodactyl ly, a rare congenital deformity that fused
Speaker 1: his fingers into claws and gave him truncated legs that
Speaker 1: ended at his knees. You see, the Styles could trace
Speaker 1: their claws back generations and had become something of a
Speaker 1: sideshow circuit legend. And for his family, more offspring meant
Speaker 1: more dollars. The Lobster Family, as they were known, moved
Speaker 1: to the Gibson Town area in n around the same time.
Speaker 1: Young Grady left school to join the family act. But
Speaker 1: his role on stage as Lobster Boy wasn't much. He
Speaker 1: just sat in a chair and waved his claws as
Speaker 1: spectators when they came to see him. It's hard to
Speaker 1: know exactly what made Grady mean, what turned him. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was ostracized when he was small until he found
Speaker 1: home in Gibb Town. There, he was just like any
Speaker 1: other sideshow kid, and his family was just like everyone else.
Speaker 1: He often got around in a wheelchair, but just as
Speaker 1: easily used his upper body strength to move across the
Speaker 1: floor at an alarming speed. He grew strong and dextrous,
Speaker 1: rough housing with his friends, charming the girls, and even
Speaker 1: learning to fire a pistol. And like check Off, Grady
Speaker 1: always liked his guns, a passion that would come back
Speaker 1: to haunt him. He got married a few times and
Speaker 1: started a family with one of those wives. His marriage
Speaker 1: to marry Teresa had always been volatile. He ruled his
Speaker 1: house with an iron claw. His wife and his children
Speaker 1: were often on the receiving end of his rage, though
Speaker 1: so when his eldest daughter, Donna announced at fifteen that
Speaker 1: she was pregnant and marrying her bow, Grady had some
Speaker 1: opinions and an idea. The day before their wedding and
Speaker 1: twelve whiskey doubles later, Grady invited his future son in
Speaker 1: law Jack into the house for a chat. Jack obliged
Speaker 1: the last decision he would ever make. Donna was the
Speaker 1: first to hear the shots ring out in a moment
Speaker 1: Jack was stumbling out of the house, blood pouring from
Speaker 1: his chest, and fell down right in the doorway. Grady
Speaker 1: had shot him. Donna ran to him and looked up
Speaker 1: to find Grady gloating. I told you I would, he said,
Speaker 1: and then Donna screamed. To his credit, Grady waited patiently
Speaker 1: for the police to arrive take me. I'm ready, he
Speaker 1: told them, surrendering his wrists and his gun to them.
Speaker 1: He went to trial, and there he readily admitted to
Speaker 1: his deed. He carried no remorse for him. This was
Speaker 1: wholly inactive practicality. He simply didn't want his daughter marrying
Speaker 1: that guy. The jury deliberated for three hours, and after
Speaker 1: that Grady was sentenced to only fifteen years probation. You see,
Speaker 1: the authorities believe that because of Grady's compounding set of
Speaker 1: physical conditions cirrhosis from drinking and physema from smoking, and
Speaker 1: his ectrodactually he wouldn't be able to receive the adequate
Speaker 1: care behind bars. They thought keeping him locked up would
Speaker 1: be cruel. He quickly skipped down and took the money
Speaker 1: that he owed to his lawyer and used it to
Speaker 1: assemble his own ten in one side show. But he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be gone for long. All side show roads lead
Speaker 1: back to GiB Town, after all, and that's exactly how
Speaker 1: he found himself atop his familiar bar stool on that
Speaker 1: humid May night. With this tab running up and the
Speaker 1: night winding down, Grady closed out and took his leave.
Speaker 1: He headed home to his brown trailer on Inglewood Drive,
Speaker 1: his family's least favorite time of the day. They would
Speaker 1: never truly grow accustomed to his inevitable drunk arrival. He
Speaker 1: and Mary Teresa had been divorced at one time the
Speaker 1: abuse had become too much, but at this point they
Speaker 1: were one year into their second marriage to each other.
Speaker 1: Grady had promised to change. You see, he had managed
Speaker 1: to charm her again. He had been on his best behavior,
Speaker 1: and she hoped that these changes were real. But old
Speaker 1: habits die hard, as they say, and within two weeks
Speaker 1: of their new union, Grady had turned back into a
Speaker 1: monster m It's not every day that someone gets cut
Speaker 1: up and reassembled, but Mary Teresa Herzog lived for it.
Speaker 1: She got her side show start as a ticket seller,
Speaker 1: but soon graduated to the Zigzag Girl act, where she'd
Speaker 1: while audiences by getting sliced up into thirds. But this
Speaker 1: was harmless fun, after all an illusion. There was not
Speaker 1: a drop of bloodshed nor any band aids needed. It
Speaker 1: was off stage, though, away from the bright lights and
Speaker 1: the carnival barkers, that she took on her most fearsome role.
Speaker 1: She was a wife. You see, to be a woman
Speaker 1: is a very dangerous thing. The statistics tell us as much.
Speaker 1: Current studies say that one in four women will be
Speaker 1: the victims of severe physical violence at the hands of
Speaker 1: their intimate partner, one in five will experience sexual violence,
Speaker 1: one in seven will be stocked, and studies tell us
Speaker 1: that the presence of a gun in a domestic violent
Speaker 1: situation increases the risk of homicide by five That isn't
Speaker 1: to say that people who aren't women don't experience abuse.
Speaker 1: They do, but the majority of the world's social and
Speaker 1: economic systems have long favored cis men with female partners,
Speaker 1: putting women who pair with men into vulnerable situations. We
Speaker 1: can trace the precedent for men's physical domination over women
Speaker 1: back to Hammarabi, back to the Koran, back to the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, back to Old English common law that suggested
Speaker 1: a lane of hands as a corrective measure. Historically, there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of rules that have spelled out
Speaker 1: what was allowed to go on in the home and
Speaker 1: what was going on and Married Teresa's home had been
Speaker 1: for years. It was something people knew but only whispered about.
Speaker 1: She had been wooed by the Lobster Boy one spring
Speaker 1: day in Trenton, New Jersey, back in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: Sparks flew, and their lives were set on a course
Speaker 1: from which they would never turn back. If their trailer
Speaker 1: was Gradi's castle, it was married Teresa's prison. It was
Speaker 1: here she both labored to raise a family and to
Speaker 1: protect them from their father. She loved him fiercely at times,
Speaker 1: and we can wonder if he loved her too. What
Speaker 1: we do know is that he wanted to control her,
Speaker 1: a desire exercise through his use of fists and threats
Speaker 1: to kill again. But this time he threatened that it
Speaker 1: would be her. So when Grady ambled home from the
Speaker 1: bar that night sufficiently inebriated and agitated, Mary, Teresa and
Speaker 1: their daughter Cathy found themselves directly in his line of fire. Kathy,
Speaker 1: also born with extrodacty ly and seven months pregnant, had
Speaker 1: long positioned herself as the protector of her mother. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't have continued to stay with the sideshow if not
Speaker 1: for the need to keep her mother safe. Unprovoked, Grady
Speaker 1: flew into a whiskey soaked rage. He started beating Mary Teresa.
Speaker 1: Kathy tried to intervene from her wheelchair, yelling that her
Speaker 1: father preferred the bottle to his family, and then he
Speaker 1: turned his anger on her. Grady started in on her heart,
Speaker 1: pummeling her in the arms, the jaw, and eventually knocking
Speaker 1: her around so much that she fell from her chair.
Speaker 1: The fleshy thuds knocked the wind from Cathy's lungs and
Speaker 1: felt like hammer is coming down on her bones. The
Speaker 1: pain was white and blinding, the shocks reverberating through her
Speaker 1: entire skeleton. She fought back, of course, but nothing could
Speaker 1: be done until Grady decided that he was finished. Kathy
Speaker 1: barely slept after the attack that night. She didn't say
Speaker 1: anything about the pain until she started hemorrhaging. The next morning.
Speaker 1: She rushed to the hospital. Kathy told the doctor who
Speaker 1: performed her emergency c section that she had simply fallen
Speaker 1: out of her wheelchair. Did he believe her Probably not.
Speaker 1: The baby's placenta had separated from the umbilical cord and
Speaker 1: Cathy's water had broken as a result of the violence.
Speaker 1: Baby Misty came into the world on May six, and
Speaker 1: she was healthy, and she too was born with lobster claws.
Speaker 1: It's hard to know exactly when Mary Teresa decided that
Speaker 1: enough was enough. What we do know, though, is that
Speaker 1: there was an immense amount of courage and strength that
Speaker 1: it took on the part of both of these him
Speaker 1: in to stand up for each other in the face
Speaker 1: of such terror. After decades of torment, of living in
Speaker 1: a vortex of violence, with bloodshed just as likely as tears,
Speaker 1: Mary Teresa knew at some point that this had to end,
Speaker 1: and she didn't want to be the one who went first.
Speaker 1: It all culminated on a fairly normal day, as the
Speaker 1: most pivotal moments of our lives often due. It was
Speaker 1: November and the Styles family was back home in give
Speaker 1: Town and ready to settle in for a quiet winter.
Speaker 1: Mary Teresa and her teenage son Glenn, decided to make
Speaker 1: an evening visit to Kathy and Misty, who are living
Speaker 1: just across the way. The child was too, by now
Speaker 1: small and mighty, toddling around and just beginning to come
Speaker 1: up with her own opinions about life. They were all
Speaker 1: together in Cathy's trailer when the sound of gunshots split
Speaker 1: the night for just a few moments. The crickets and
Speaker 1: bullfrogs were stunned into silence. Everyone looked at each other,
Speaker 1: their pulses quickening. There was a chill in the air
Speaker 1: where there hadn't been before. Some quick thinking neighbors called
Speaker 1: the cops. Mary, Teresa, and Glenn ran back in the
Speaker 1: direction of the sounds. Their home. The trailer's sliding glass
Speaker 1: door was a jar. In light from the living room
Speaker 1: spilled onto the concrete outside. The stench of whiskey and
Speaker 1: cigarettes lay thick, a smell that was now mingled with
Speaker 1: the acrid, metallic odor of blood and brain matter. And there,
Speaker 1: slumped over in his brown armchair was Grady Styles Jr.
Speaker 1: Dead from not one but three gunshot wounds to the head.
Speaker 1: His reign of terror had finally come to an end,
Speaker 1: and he had gone out wearing only his boxer briefs.
Speaker 1: All was quiet in the house. The police arrived, quickly,
Speaker 1: securing the perimeter and confirming that Grady Jr. Was in fact, very,
Speaker 1: very dead. Then they began interviewing everyone in the immediate vicinity.
Speaker 1: They deduced that nothing was stolen and there was no
Speaker 1: sign of a struggle. A neighbor said that he had
Speaker 1: seen a shadowy figure run from the trailer shortly after
Speaker 1: hearing the gun go off. How far could the perpetrator
Speaker 1: have gotten on foot? Mary, Teresa, Glenn, and Cathy stood
Speaker 1: obediently and answered questions, but the police thought something was off. Oddly,
Speaker 1: they all seemed fine, so fine in fact, that the
Speaker 1: detectives took notice. Yes, shock does interesting things to a person,
Speaker 1: but this just felt a little strange. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: until members of the family were brought down to the
Speaker 1: station for more official questioning. Glenn was the first to
Speaker 1: take a lie detector test about the whole affair, and
Speaker 1: with the childlike innocence, was eager to do. Well, then
Speaker 1: can you blame him? When the detectives revealed that he
Speaker 1: had failed some questions, mostly those referring to his knowledge
Speaker 1: about Grady's killing, he crumbled. They soon wore him down
Speaker 1: and he signed away his rights to have a lawyer present,
Speaker 1: and then the confession came spilling out. He talked about
Speaker 1: Gradie's abuse of his mom, how he was always threatening
Speaker 1: to kill her and get it over with. They just
Speaker 1: couldn't take it any longer. Mary Teresa had devised away
Speaker 1: to finally teach him a lesson. Gradie the third, who
Speaker 1: was asleep in the back bedroom of the trailer when
Speaker 1: all of this took place, later stated that his mother's
Speaker 1: only intention was to hire someone to scare his father,
Speaker 1: or maybe just rough him up a little. What we
Speaker 1: know now, though, was that Chris Wyant, a neighborhood punk,
Speaker 1: took the job for a cool fifteen hundred dollars. Mary Teresa, Glenn,
Speaker 1: and Chris all got their separate days in court in
Speaker 1: January of n It was ruled that Chris was guilty
Speaker 1: of conspiracy in the first degree and murder in the second.
Speaker 1: Mary Teresa's trial began that July, with heart wrenching testimony
Speaker 1: spilling into the pages of the newspaper. My husban been
Speaker 1: was going to kill my family, she testified, I believe
Speaker 1: that from the bottom of my heart. Her attorney attempted
Speaker 1: to use the battered spouse defense, a position never before
Speaker 1: tried in Florida in a murder for higher case. Tears
Speaker 1: rolled down her cheeks as she was sentenced to twelve
Speaker 1: years in prison. On first degree murder charges. Glenn, who
Speaker 1: was on trial for hiring Chris, received a life sentence.
Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you something different. We all
Speaker 1: love a happy ending, a story that can tie neatly
Speaker 1: into a bow, but this isn't one of those. It
Speaker 1: was probably never going to be one. This situation was
Speaker 1: one of true horror. But maybe in what happened, we
Speaker 1: find the lesser of all the evils. Through the death
Speaker 1: of one of them, there would be something a bit
Speaker 1: closer to peace for everyone else. The same year that
Speaker 1: all of this happened, President Bill Clinton signed the Violence
Speaker 1: Against Women Act into law. It allocated over one point
Speaker 1: six billion dollars towards the investigation and prosecution of violent
Speaker 1: crimes against women. The initiative was the result of the
Speaker 1: feminist movement's collective grassroots efforts, work that had spanned decades.
Speaker 1: Even still, disconcerting attitudes towards domestic violence have long determined
Speaker 1: how we govern ourselves within the walls of our homes.
Speaker 1: Some may want to leave, but can't for any number
Speaker 1: of reasons of dependency, stubborn commitment, cultural pressure, or just
Speaker 1: plain fear. Community leaders and police officers have been known
Speaker 1: to counsel people to try to make abusive situations work,
Speaker 1: even though the lives at hand might be in imminent danger.
Speaker 1: The Violence Against Women Act signaled the beginning of a
Speaker 1: shift in society. But as we know, gargantuan ships take
Speaker 1: a long time to change course in rough waters, and
Speaker 1: we are still so far from our desk a nation.
Speaker 1: Grady Styles Jr. Was buried in the local showman cemetery.
Speaker 1: The story goes that he was so widely disliked that
Speaker 1: they had a hard time finding anyone who was willing
Speaker 1: to be a pall bearer. That's in the fact that
Speaker 1: a large part of his family was being tried for murder.
Speaker 1: And when pall bearers were finally located, the story tells
Speaker 1: us that the concession was that they would only do
Speaker 1: the job if they could handle it with a little
Speaker 1: bit of flare, with lobster claw mittens on their hands.
Speaker 1: To be precise, A bouquet of flowers sat atop his
Speaker 1: coffin a pretty site amidst this final inflection point of
Speaker 1: a decade's long tragedy, and anyone present, whether they be
Speaker 1: mourner or gawker, would have been able to see the
Speaker 1: words printed across their banner from your loving wife. This
Speaker 1: was a heavy story. I think I can speak for
Speaker 1: all of us here at grim and Mild when I
Speaker 1: say that this episode has us hugging our families a
Speaker 1: little bit closer today. If you are someone you love
Speaker 1: is struggling at home right now, we've included resource links
Speaker 1: in the episode description. Now I have something new for you,
Speaker 1: something different, a look at what's ahead coming from the
Speaker 1: contemporary world of the Side Show with my co producers
Speaker 1: Robin Miniter and Taylor Haggerdorn. Stick around through this brief
Speaker 1: sponsor break to hear all about it. Wow, that was
Speaker 1: a doozy of an episode. He really was. You know,
Speaker 1: we've encountered some dark stories over the course of the season,
Speaker 1: and it's really easy to remove ourselves from them, you know,
Speaker 1: just to think that they are tales of yesteryear, that
Speaker 1: these things took place a long time ago, maybe back
Speaker 1: at a time where we weren't so knowledgeable or we
Speaker 1: weren't so enlightened. But in meeting Grady and a say
Speaker 1: only we can understand that we really aren't that far
Speaker 1: removed from this history. None of this took place that
Speaker 1: long ago, and the Side Show might be harder to
Speaker 1: find these days. But it's ghosts, it's still lingers. You're right,
Speaker 1: well said, but I would move that beyond being a
Speaker 1: ghost right into this very real, very present force. It
Speaker 1: really surprised me. I think it surprised you too. You know,
Speaker 1: when we started this, it was chronological, and we had
Speaker 1: to start with Barnum, right, We had to reckon with this,
Speaker 1: and I certainly didn't predict that we'd end up with
Speaker 1: this new and yet similar kind of darkness with Grady.
Speaker 1: But the Grady in the nineties wasn't the end of
Speaker 1: the side your story. That's right, you know. That brings
Speaker 1: us right up to the present. And I actually have
Speaker 1: one more Grady Styles adjacent story for our listeners. You
Speaker 1: want to hear it, absolutely please? All right? So Styles
Speaker 1: family legacy still felt in Gibsonton, you know, people are
Speaker 1: not and to forget what happened that easily. However, today
Speaker 1: I've been Philly in a place that's far removed from
Speaker 1: give town and time and place. Uh. There's a gal
Speaker 1: named Kim Kelly who remembers the infamous side show Lobster
Speaker 1: Boy in her own way. When I was looking back
Speaker 1: through history trying to find other people that were, you know,
Speaker 1: lobster boys, lobster girls all rose kind of lead to
Speaker 1: gratty styles. So Kim she had a personal reason to
Speaker 1: go looking. She's a writer, she's an organizer, and she
Speaker 1: just happens to be someone else who was born with extrodectilly.
Speaker 1: So for her, that means some of her fingers on
Speaker 1: one hand are fused together. But growing up she knew
Speaker 1: that her handmade her a little bit different, but actually
Speaker 1: it didn't make that much difference in her life. And
Speaker 1: she'll tell you this. Once I learned how to paint
Speaker 1: my nails like it's fine, and I'm still pretty good
Speaker 1: a painting my nails as long as I have you know,
Speaker 1: cute tip with polished mover. But everyone needs that. She
Speaker 1: walked through life pretty nonplused, and so much so that
Speaker 1: she didn't just not care about what people thought, but
Speaker 1: she actively embraced things that were pretty offbeat, and she
Speaker 1: feels she's always had the confidence just to do her
Speaker 1: own thing, especially when I was like a cute little
Speaker 1: fourteen year old girl, too much eyeliner and like long
Speaker 1: blonde hair, Like I think there are other things that
Speaker 1: stood out to people more than like me, missing fingers.
Speaker 1: But not too long ago something happened that made her
Speaker 1: see her limb difference in an entirely new way. Who interesting,
Speaker 1: tell me more? Okay, so a few years ago, she
Speaker 1: thought she was just headed out on another job, just
Speaker 1: another writing assignment, as she want to do well. What
Speaker 1: she found when she got there ended up being something
Speaker 1: far more profound. I wrote the story, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: interviewed people, and you know I didn't. I did the work,
Speaker 1: but it became much more of a personal journey. Such
Speaker 1: a silly word. But they had switched from professional to
Speaker 1: personal real quick. And so because of this, and for
Speaker 1: many other reasons, she's going to be a guest on
Speaker 1: our next and last episode. I mean, actually have one
Speaker 1: more person we want to introduce to our cool cat listeners, right, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to meet our new friend, Dr Bob Thompson.
Speaker 1: By day, he's a mass media scholar at Syracuse University.
Speaker 1: I will confess right now that I have watched The
Speaker 1: Bachelor from the very beginning, and I will also confess
Speaker 1: that I get some pleasure out of watching that heinous
Speaker 1: little odd men. But by night he's watching more TV
Speaker 1: than anyone I've ever met, including you, Robin, and I
Speaker 1: know that because you have my Hulu passwords. Thank you
Speaker 1: for that. But that said jabs aside, So Taylor, what
Speaker 1: does TV have to do with the side show anyways?
Speaker 1: Well that's a damn good question, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm in the business of asking questions. You are, and
Speaker 1: you're in look because you will soon find out that
Speaker 1: Bob Thompson has all sorts of answers for us. Interesting.
Speaker 1: We've got this really powerful, too som in store for
Speaker 1: the listeners, don't we. Do you think they're curious enough
Speaker 1: to stick around for one last episode? Well, as you
Speaker 1: could also say, certain intellectual curiosity can kill a lot
Speaker 1: more than cats. Stop it. We can't scare them away.
Speaker 1: I was just telling them how excited I was, so
Speaker 1: nothing to be. You're here, listen, listen. We're actually doing
Speaker 1: exactly what all the sideshow goers used to do. Following
Speaker 1: our noses, We're moving closer, you know, within a safe
Speaker 1: distance to our curiosity. So you know, it's time to
Speaker 1: get up close and personal with some of our lingering
Speaker 1: questions about where the side show is headed next. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm sold. Let's go right on while see you back
Speaker 1: here in two weeks, same time, same place, for one
Speaker 1: last look at the side show. Side Show was written
Speaker 1: by Robin Minat with narration by me Aaron Mankey Reese.
Speaker 1: Search for the series was by Robin Mineter, Taylor Haggard, RN,
Speaker 1: and Sam Alberty, with production assistants from Josh Than, Jesse Funk,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Grim and Mile Presents was
Speaker 1: created in partnership with I Heart Radio. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about this show and everything else from Grim and
Speaker 1: mild Over at Grim and mild dot com and, as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. M