Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dunton. Hey, Saron, I missed you.
Speaker 3: I missed you too. I've been great.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got a question for you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do? I knew you would Ikea bags?
Speaker 2: They are ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Nice, I love them.
Speaker 2: You want more?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I have a bunch of Ikea bags, very handy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you know that they make like really cool new
Speaker 2: bags like backpacks and other types of stuff out of them.
Speaker 2: People will take them and they've converted them. I saw
Speaker 2: them at a flea market.
Speaker 3: Oh really, Oh cool. So you know I do a
Speaker 3: lot of mashups, and so think of the iconic Ikea bag.
Speaker 2: What if I don't if id and you.
Speaker 3: Just think about two iconic paintings.
Speaker 2: Okay, you've got me. Unfortunately, go on, hold on.
Speaker 3: Hold on this just in This is not a mashup.
Speaker 3: What this is? This is an update. This is a
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime update.
Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you know how I was. You're so relieved.
Speaker 3: So remember I told you about the Van Go Van
Speaker 3: painting that was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the parsonage garden. It's been recovered. The Laughing Boys and
Speaker 3: that's that still hasn't been recovered, right, But the parsonage
Speaker 3: is back. Baby. There's a Dutch art sleuth. His name
Speaker 3: is Arthur Brand and he like had this unnamed contact.
Speaker 3: They met up. Dude gave him a Ikia bag with
Speaker 3: something wrapped in an old pillow case and inside the
Speaker 3: van go whoa, And so it's it. It's the real one.
Speaker 3: It's basically you can track it down to that Nil's
Speaker 3: m the guy that I told you about. We pretty
Speaker 3: much knew he did it, and so yeah, right, I
Speaker 3: was right here it is. They they still have to
Speaker 3: go through like you know, all these you know, looking
Speaker 3: it over and double and triple checking and what have you.
Speaker 3: They're going to hand it over to the museum soon.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so it's been recovered. We got that news.
Speaker 3: The first person got it from a bunch of people.
Speaker 3: But the first person did let us know, is Mary
Speaker 3: Tarantino on Instagram. You Mary looking looking out So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: If you got a second, do you have a second?
Speaker 2: Are you in the mood to hear something ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Because I got one for you, girl, I am Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, imagine two hundred and ninety nine rare tropical.
Speaker 3: Birds, Okay, all in one room.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and now they're all covered in bright plumage. It's
Speaker 2: a rainbow of feathers, just a riot of color. Now
Speaker 2: imagine these birds and their feathers are on display in
Speaker 2: a British museum.
Speaker 3: I can see that.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, totally fitting. Now, Next, try to imagine the
Speaker 2: twenty two year old American who would steal those rare
Speaker 2: bird feathers.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Now, last, try to picture that same young American man
Speaker 2: who's in your imagination as he sells the stolen rare
Speaker 2: bird feathers on the black market in order to make
Speaker 2: a small fortune so that he could buy a golden flute.
Speaker 3: Is this a Hans Christian?
Speaker 2: And this is ridiculous crime? A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 2: outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's all with ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous ridiculous. All right, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I have an extra wild one for you today.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad I need it.
Speaker 2: Nice that shot.
Speaker 3: In the arm.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got a lift for you. This story has
Speaker 2: a little bit of everything. He's got rare birds. It's
Speaker 2: got British naturalists, he's got one of the wealthiest men
Speaker 2: in the world. It's got an American music lover. He's
Speaker 2: got a thing for golden flutes. Sign me up, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's just take an element by element first, one rare birds.
Speaker 3: Yeah right.
Speaker 2: You know how it's not easy to save nature from
Speaker 2: the ever rushing onslaught of humanity. I hate to have
Speaker 2: that job. Enter the naturalist. That's pretty much their job, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is also the reason why we have
Speaker 2: zoos and zoo keepers, same reason, right, and nature preserves
Speaker 2: open the last resort naturalist museums, because if we can't
Speaker 2: save the animal from disappearing from the natural world, at
Speaker 2: least we can still look at it behind glass, at
Speaker 2: memories right there it was. Now, can you imagine what
Speaker 2: must feel like to be a modern naturalist like today?
Speaker 2: I mean, they live a good life on one level, right,
Speaker 2: Like they get a scrabble over rocks, they get to
Speaker 2: climb around ravines, they're clambering up boreal footpaths. They have
Speaker 2: a great life in that they're stalking across meadow hill
Speaker 2: and dale just to see an animal.
Speaker 3: I mean, how awesome is that it's pretty good job.
Speaker 3: That's a good job for you, but it does sound
Speaker 3: like a job for me.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't think I could be one of them,
Speaker 2: and I just want to be as a I told
Speaker 2: I was one of the kids. I want to be
Speaker 2: a marine biologist, right, I was that kid?
Speaker 3: Dude? How many marine biologists are there in the world,
Speaker 3: because I think every person in like fifth and sixth grade, Yes,
Speaker 3: it was HiT's on marine biologist. But then it continues.
Speaker 3: Then you got people all the way into how many
Speaker 3: are there?
Speaker 2: Three thousand, two hundred and eighty four.
Speaker 3: Okay, good to know, Yeah, ok question, probably have better
Speaker 3: odds of being an MLB Baseball player than being a marine,
Speaker 3: but has no idea. I know you made that up,
Speaker 3: and I love you for that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that you know it's close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just say. I'm just going to go out
Speaker 3: here on the limb and say it. You have a
Speaker 3: better chance of becoming a professional athlete than a marine biologists.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's just kind of humbling, don't you think? I think? Maybe?
Speaker 3: Right, I don't know, I know, I'm right.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're a naturalist these days, you know you're
Speaker 2: living through the anthroposscene mega extinction event. Yeah, right, so
Speaker 2: you're documenting. Yeah, that's fun for you as a naturalist.
Speaker 2: Now I found this one guy's a naturalist. I was
Speaker 2: doing research for this story. Right. I find him. He's
Speaker 2: down there in Mexico trying to track down a rare bird. Right.
Speaker 2: What he was all about was the Imperial woodpecker. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a huge, two foot tall striking bird, right,
Speaker 2: with majestic plumage, has this really bright red crop on
Speaker 2: top of its head, right, and it's believed to be
Speaker 2: extinct or nearing extinction.
Speaker 3: They don't really know two foot tall woodpeckers, yeah.
Speaker 2: And the mountains of Mexico, and it was it's circling
Speaker 2: in the drain of life on earth right now. Right,
Speaker 2: So this naturalist tramps out into the wilderness. He's just
Speaker 2: to find the last imperial woodpecker. He's convinced there's been spottings.
Speaker 2: So what does he find, Elizabeth. He doesn't find the bird. Instead,
Speaker 2: he finds a truck driver. Now this truck driver, yeah,
Speaker 2: real close. He was a little bit taller than two feet,
Speaker 2: but he had seen the Imperial woodpecker. He'd been crossing
Speaker 2: the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains down in Mexico. That mountainous
Speaker 2: region is the home to the presumed last remaining Imperial woodpeckers.
Speaker 2: So this truck driver he spots one. So when he
Speaker 2: saw that brightly plumage bird perch on the Durango pine
Speaker 2: tree branch high above him, it's the truck driver gazes
Speaker 2: up at her right there resting feet that red feather crop.
Speaker 2: I told you about catching the sunlight. He slowly pulled
Speaker 2: out a gun and shot the woodpecker. Get then he
Speaker 2: ate it. The truck driver told the naturalists this story
Speaker 2: of his Imperial woodpecker encounter. He added that the bird
Speaker 2: was on the car, which are in American English. This
Speaker 2: says the bird was a one great piece of meat.
Speaker 2: So his truck driver's meal may have been the last
Speaker 2: Imperial woodpecker we'll ever see.
Speaker 3: But what kind of gun did he shoot? It was?
Speaker 2: I didn't. That was not in any of the stories.
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking, like, that's not a big bird, and
Speaker 3: you're going to do a lot of damn.
Speaker 2: I think like a twenty two rifle, something that a
Speaker 2: truck driver would have in their trucks.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I mean, I know you're hungry.
Speaker 2: But come on to tell a hungry man not to eat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but of all the birds he doesn't know he's liked. Well,
Speaker 3: that one's the easiest to see.
Speaker 2: It was just right near him. He figures out it's
Speaker 2: in the trees. You know, we got plenty of birds. Now,
Speaker 2: this more naturalist listening to this story of the truck,
Speaker 2: he's just losing. He's been dying to see this bird. Right,
Speaker 2: it's possibly the last imperial woodpecker. And now this guy
Speaker 2: they could be extend like we still don't know. We
Speaker 2: still haven't seen one since this truck driver. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: the life of the modern naturalist. But let's talk about
Speaker 2: the lucky ones, the ones that got to quote, discover
Speaker 2: everything and go around naming everything. The eighteenth and nineteenth
Speaker 2: century naturalists, right, you know some of the big names, Carlneis,
Speaker 2: John James Audubon, Alexander von Humboldt, and al.
Speaker 3: Wallace, the greats, all the greats.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that last guy, that's just what Paul Simon
Speaker 2: and I call him. We call him al Oh god hinterned.
Speaker 2: Nineteenth century British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace. Hey. Now, Wallace
Speaker 2: was a collector, extraordinariy. He dreamed of gathering up from
Speaker 2: nature a storehouse and cataloging at all like a library
Speaker 2: of Mother Nature. That's what he wanted, the greatest hits
Speaker 2: of mothers, Nature's greatest works, but all of them really
Speaker 2: now the scientists. He thought, I can put this collection
Speaker 2: together for the benefit of all humanity. That's how this
Speaker 2: cat talked to He's like all humanity, that's what I'm
Speaker 2: doing this for now. He's super high mind, did very
Speaker 2: noble view of himself and what he aimed to do.
Speaker 2: But he was also very effective. Now, when I say
Speaker 2: very effective, I mean like, after one trip down to
Speaker 2: the Melee Archipelago that is at now Malaysia and Indonesia, Wallace
Speaker 2: walked out of the jungles after harvesting get this, one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five thousand specimens.
Speaker 3: So he doesn't wait until they just the great Creator
Speaker 3: takes him.
Speaker 2: No, no, no no.
Speaker 3: For guys, anthology is the hand of God.
Speaker 2: Harvesting. Yes, So primarily he was gathering up butterflies, beetles, birds. Now, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: you may be wondering, Saren, why did he need one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five thousand specimens? Why basically in the
Speaker 2: wings of a butterfly, Wallace saw world peace.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I told you, you're trying to give me
Speaker 3: a headache.
Speaker 2: Nineteenth century. Yeah. So there's this book called Beauty Obsession
Speaker 2: and the Natural History Heist of the Century. It's by
Speaker 2: this author, Kirk Wallace Johnson. And in his book he
Speaker 2: documents in great detail the story that I'm about to
Speaker 2: tell you, and I will be quoting some of various
Speaker 2: interviews he gave hyping his book. And in his book
Speaker 2: The Writer Kirk Johnson, he concluded that the naturalist Wallace
Speaker 2: believed that nature had written and I quote letters in
Speaker 2: the volume of the Earth's Deep History. And if we
Speaker 2: allow these things to disappear, we're essentially blinding ourselves to
Speaker 2: these records. So real, high minded language. Right, it's a
Speaker 2: heavy trip, but it got dude, ain't wrong, right. I'm
Speaker 2: a big believer in biomimicry. You know this. I fully
Speaker 2: agree with al. I mean, like, yeah, we gotta look
Speaker 2: at nature as our place, not as something we exploit.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: Anyway, this naturalist ol Wallace, he goes tramp on off
Speaker 2: to the South Pacific to study nature and birds and whatnot.
Speaker 2: As I told you, for one of our big early trips,
Speaker 2: he went down to the Melee Archipelago. While he was there,
Speaker 2: he collected all these creatures he found undud you know,
Speaker 2: fascinating or pretty or whatever. He ends up writing some
Speaker 2: papers for science journals. He's particularly smitten with the birds
Speaker 2: of Paradise. You know, the birds of Paradise. Really okay,
Speaker 2: so those are his birds, not the flower, the bird
Speaker 2: obviously he loves it right. In one paper that was
Speaker 2: published in eighteen fifty five, Wallace wrote that quote, every
Speaker 2: species has come into existence coincident, both in space and time,
Speaker 2: with pre existing closely allied species. So basically what he
Speaker 2: had concluded is that each species came into being through
Speaker 2: a divergence with apparent species. And this natural progression, if
Speaker 2: you or if you prefer this evolution, was how new
Speaker 2: animals came into being. In other words, he came up
Speaker 2: with Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest on his own,
Speaker 2: and three or four years before Darwin published it. So
Speaker 2: he sent his ideas to Darwin in eighteen fifty eight. Yes,
Speaker 2: and Darwin was so struck by them and how similar
Speaker 2: they were to his own ideas, which he had been
Speaker 2: developing independently. That he showed, you know, he showed his
Speaker 2: buddies Wallace's ideas, right, and he was like, look, homies,
Speaker 2: look what this cat came up with. Do I need
Speaker 2: to be worried about this? And his buddies, right, Darwin's
Speaker 2: close homies. They're also scientists, right, So once a geologist
Speaker 2: and other dudes a botanist. Now they considered this question
Speaker 2: earnest and they come back to Darwin and they're like, look,
Speaker 2: my dude, d we got to be straight up with
Speaker 2: you about this. This guy he's got all the same
Speaker 2: stuff as you. So we're thinking this, it's better to
Speaker 2: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And he's like, ooh,
Speaker 2: Darwin's like, my geez, I like that, that's what's up.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that. So I'm going to invite
Speaker 2: him to publish a piece with me in my journal,
Speaker 2: but I'll position it so that my ideas are up
Speaker 2: front and his ideas are just like further confirmation of mine.
Speaker 2: Think that'll play. They're like, that's what's up.
Speaker 3: Right, So, and that is what was up.
Speaker 2: And that's what was up, Elizabeth. That was the move.
Speaker 2: So Darwin, he does exactly that. He publishes his landmark
Speaker 2: book on the Origin of Species very next year, eighteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, a year after Wallace's entem his work. So
Speaker 2: now to seal the deal for his scientific fame, Darwin
Speaker 2: came up with a presentation that featured extracts from his work,
Speaker 2: two previous books of his, and some of Wallace's papers.
Speaker 2: So then he presents them to the Linnaean Society, which
Speaker 2: is basically the leading naturalist organization of the day. He's
Speaker 2: now backseatd his brother forever. Right, So the paper that
Speaker 2: Darwin presents and publishes is called on the Tendency of
Speaker 2: Species to form varieties, and on the Perpetuation of varieties
Speaker 2: and species by natural means of selection. Quite a banger, sure,
Speaker 2: yeah right, it has it's his name, right, just just
Speaker 2: liquid words, right, But Wallace's name is on the paper,
Speaker 2: so it was Darwin's. But everyone still treats it like
Speaker 2: it's Darwin's paper. So boom, Darwin and seals the deal
Speaker 2: in the science community, and we all know it now
Speaker 2: as Darwin's theory of evolution. Wallace gets sidetracked for all times. Sorry,
Speaker 2: now right now, Darwin, he was a little decent about
Speaker 2: this he made sure that Wallace won a couple awards.
Speaker 2: He gets some medals, and also when later when Wallace
Speaker 2: was aged and poor because he did not get the
Speaker 2: scientific glory, Darwin also made sure you know that Wallace
Speaker 2: is watching himself be lost to history while he's still alive.
Speaker 2: Darwin got him a stipend of funds to live on,
Speaker 2: so he was decent in that regard. But anyway, that's
Speaker 2: pretty much how gangster Darwin iced out this guy Wallace.
Speaker 2: So what about Wallace? Like, why should we not cry
Speaker 2: for Wallace.
Speaker 3: Argentina, don't cry for him because.
Speaker 2: His story isn't over, Elizabeth. He later on became buddy
Speaker 2: buddy with one of the richest men in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 2: who offered him his entire naturalist collection and create a
Speaker 2: great museum to display at all. That was a good outcome.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay.
Speaker 2: However, he wasn't the only one in England who zealously
Speaker 2: coveted the feathers of rare tropical birds, so that led
Speaker 2: to a negative outcome, which was okay. There was this
Speaker 2: fashion trend going on the time, bright tropical feathers that
Speaker 2: these guys in these naturalists have been collecting. Suddenly became
Speaker 2: all the rage in eighteen seventies London society, right, anyone
Speaker 2: who was anyone had to have some eye catching plumage,
Speaker 2: something to decorate their high hat. Basically, the ladies of
Speaker 2: London were like pimps. They needed all the feathers they
Speaker 2: could get. They're like, give them to me, right, So
Speaker 2: the fashion training creates a crime wave because they need
Speaker 2: a black market to supply the ladies with the feathers
Speaker 2: that they're willing to pay top dollar for. Us his
Speaker 2: crime wave right and fashion trend synergy. It leads to
Speaker 2: a creation of a network of feather getters m HM
Speaker 2: and boom. Unscrupulous Europeans come rushing into the South Pacific
Speaker 2: following Wallace, taking the same birds he's trying to take. Right,
Speaker 2: they're taking him in such large numbers. They're just scouring
Speaker 2: the jungles for rare feathers that are now basically worth
Speaker 2: more than gold. That there are so many feather hunters,
Speaker 2: and they resulted in a mass slaughter that was nicknamed
Speaker 2: by the press at the time the slaughter of the Innocence.
Speaker 2: That's how many birds they were taking, right. The wanton
Speaker 2: bird killing got so bloody, so brutal that they eventually
Speaker 2: animal rights activists, they didn't have that name with the
Speaker 2: ti time. They formed the first early animal conservation societies
Speaker 2: just to stop the feather trade. So this effort leads
Speaker 2: to legislation in the UK. The UK bans the feather
Speaker 2: trade entirely. Right. So now these same groups would go
Speaker 2: on to form animal rights and conservation groups that we
Speaker 2: know of. This was their first success, really, right, your people, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: So we don't have.
Speaker 3: A lot of these birds anymore. So that Henrietta Baxter
Speaker 3: Chonkington could walk down the street.
Speaker 2: And look super flea and incredible, yes exactly, so she
Speaker 2: could feel some kind of way.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also like, you know, it's not new to
Speaker 3: have the beautiful feathers and items like the Chinese Kingfisher headdress,
Speaker 3: which are now in bits and pieces all over Western
Speaker 3: gift shops in like China, Chinatown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have.
Speaker 3: Broken up into Vancouver to which is so heartbreaking that
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So the thing is is that the eighteen seventies
Speaker 2: allowed them to be able to get at an industrial
Speaker 2: scale and harvest all this stuff. As before pe have
Speaker 2: been getting it. They just couldn't go take steamships down
Speaker 2: there and gingle tramping off and everything they could, much
Speaker 2: like the gold Rush. Just imagine it for feathers. Yeah right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: Well next up in our next element, the richest man
Speaker 2: in the world. But first let's take a break and
Speaker 2: we'll be back in two and two. All right, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: we're back. I got more nuts for you. Yeah ready,
Speaker 2: Enter Lord lionel Walter Rothschild, the second Baron Rothschild. Is
Speaker 2: he an you could say so? I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I just meant the story itself. I got
Speaker 2: I got a whole bag of nuts.
Speaker 3: I thought you had a bunch of bozos for me
Speaker 3: to learn about.
Speaker 2: I do that too. I got a I got a hole.
Speaker 2: I got a bag of nuts and a bucket load
Speaker 2: of bozos. This guy, he was the son of the
Speaker 2: first Baron Rothschild aka Nathan, and his father was a
Speaker 2: Nate magnate you know who he was. Father was an
Speaker 2: international financier. This man, he'd founded the banking fortune that
Speaker 2: we all still influences our world today. Right. His boy,
Speaker 2: lionel Or Walter, as he was known to the fam
Speaker 2: and to history, was the eldest of three kids. So
Speaker 2: that means he stood in line to inherit everything and
Speaker 2: become the next sigh On and so forth. But he
Speaker 2: was kind of a delicate boy. So because of his
Speaker 2: rather porcelain nature, he was homeschooled. And then that's where
Speaker 2: he came up with his true life's ambition, which was
Speaker 2: not running the family's banking empire. Instead, like Matt Damon,
Speaker 2: he would buy a zoo.
Speaker 3: Does he have soft hands?
Speaker 2: No, he was a big dude. He's like six y
Speaker 2: three and all that. Oh no, yeah, he had definitely
Speaker 2: soft like butter soft hands, damp hands, moist, clammy hands. Yes,
Speaker 2: I imagine that. So being the son of fabulous wealthies, I'm
Speaker 2: building a zoo and he can build a zoo, So
Speaker 2: a tremendousuo fabulous zoo. He would have everything. And you
Speaker 2: know he because as I said, he's a you know,
Speaker 2: child of wealth and privilege. He doesn't have to give
Speaker 2: up this seven year old's dream. He can make it
Speaker 2: actually happen, right, he has to wade out his family's
Speaker 2: resistance to it. So eventually the family they buy him
Speaker 2: the zoo, but not till he was forty years old.
Speaker 2: By then, he had made it clear to everybody and
Speaker 2: in every possible way that he had no head for finance.
Speaker 3: And so Daddy says, I want a zoo exactly.
Speaker 2: Daddy's like, Okay, give him the goddamn zoo. So they
Speaker 2: bought him the zoo. Now, Walter he builds a zoo
Speaker 2: right there on the family homes property at Tring Park.
Speaker 2: And that's got to be fun. Like, you're one of
Speaker 2: the richest men in the world. You live above the
Speaker 2: lion cage that your son has created. You're like when
Speaker 2: the wind shifts and you're like, we're gonna have to
Speaker 2: change rooms, guys. So Walter Roschau he starts collecting animals.
Speaker 2: He's like, this is like having a job, right. So,
Speaker 2: but he's good to his word. His aim is to
Speaker 2: become like Moses two point zero, just without the flood, right.
Speaker 2: So he starts collecting everything butterflies. Mosah, what I say, Moses,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Noah, come with me animals And then sorry,
Speaker 2: You're right, Noah, not Moses.
Speaker 3: I was trying to save you from like.
Speaker 2: The Instagram comments when I have like yeah flub yeah,
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that I spend my life trying to avoid those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly I do not corrections.
Speaker 3: You know again keep swimming.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I like that about you. Yeah, good looking
Speaker 2: at huh, you know I'm back. So butterflies, moths, lizards, rabbits, squirrels, tigers, kangaroos, giraffes,
Speaker 2: you name it. He wants them in London, right, He's like,
Speaker 2: what do you got? I'll take two. So you've likely
Speaker 2: actually seen an image of this guy. You wouldn't think,
Speaker 2: you know, Baron rothschildt off of site, but I'd be
Speaker 2: willing to bet you you've seen him. He's the British
Speaker 2: cat who used to drive around Victorian and later Edwardian
Speaker 2: England in a carriage pulled by a team of zebras.
Speaker 2: You ever seeing the photo of a team of zebras, perhaps, well,
Speaker 2: he had this team of floor zebras and they'd pull
Speaker 2: his coach to like Buckingham Palace, and there's all these
Speaker 2: pictures of that, you know, which is kind of striking.
Speaker 2: But there's also images of him riding zebras like he's
Speaker 2: a British cowboy, which are just kind of silly. And
Speaker 2: he was real big on domesticating zebras. For some reason,
Speaker 2: he bred them. He crossbred them with horse says he
Speaker 2: called the resulting creature he created a zebroid. So anyway,
Speaker 2: due to his aforementioned delicate constitution, Old Walter Rothschild, he
Speaker 2: didn't leave the UK much, not as much as he
Speaker 2: would like to. He couldn't go on the adventures that
Speaker 2: he craved. So instead, what did he do?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth brings everyone to a very incompatible climate.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he hires teams of men to bring him
Speaker 2: the world. He hires all these hunters, he sends them
Speaker 2: out into the wilderness of the world to collect samples
Speaker 2: from everything from his animal wish list. Right, so he
Speaker 2: paid also roomfuls of taxidermists to prepare his collection, because
Speaker 2: remember talking in the thousands for these animals, he had
Speaker 2: librarians and scientists on his payroll. He had paid a
Speaker 2: team of naturalists to organize and label his collections. He's
Speaker 2: like a one man industry. Eventually, Walter Rothschild he had
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand bird eggs in his collection, ten one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: Think of the storage space exactly.
Speaker 2: Just moving him around, and you had to label them
Speaker 2: all anyway, and these.
Speaker 3: Are just like unfertilized bird egg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like imagine like an Ostrich museum, just but
Speaker 2: all the eggs. So he had thirty thousand beatles. He
Speaker 2: had two million, two hundred and fifty thousand butterflies. It
Speaker 2: was the largest private collection in the world at the
Speaker 2: time by far, and thanks to my man Al Wallace's collection,
Speaker 2: he also had three hundred thousand rare birds to display
Speaker 2: eighty one hundred thousand. Yes. So in eighteen ninety two
Speaker 2: he opens up his family's private parking museum collection to
Speaker 2: the public. It becomes a wonder of its age. The
Speaker 2: crowds love it. But just to make this long story short,
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty two, he gets blackmailed by a mistress
Speaker 2: and he loses the zoo. So it wait plays out
Speaker 2: like this. She was the third mistress to blackmail one. Right,
Speaker 2: So this guy his first mistress had found out about
Speaker 2: his second mistress and both of them were furious because
Speaker 2: it turns out he had met his first two mistresses
Speaker 2: at the exact same party. It was a hell of
Speaker 2: a swanky affair hosted by King Edward the seventh. So
Speaker 2: Walter rothschild. He starts canodling with Bogrim at the time.
Speaker 2: Then they find out all hell.
Speaker 3: Breaks these are mistresses, so he has one.
Speaker 2: He's not married, he's unmarried.
Speaker 3: Oh, they are just girlfriends.
Speaker 2: Yes, but they're called mistresses and all the press because
Speaker 2: at no point intending to marry them. They're not. Clearly,
Speaker 2: you're not taking them.
Speaker 3: I don't think they use the term girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 2: No, but they're not girlfriends because he's not planning on marryland.
Speaker 2: There's no future.
Speaker 3: Fellows have a girlfriend, they have no intention of murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just little more delicate. I guess these days
Speaker 2: started calling girlfriends. They're mistress. Oh this is your mistress. No,
Speaker 2: I'm not married. I know I know somebody.
Speaker 3: We all know where be real, honey, don't get your hopes.
Speaker 2: So eventually threats get made by these two mistresses. Now
Speaker 2: remember I said that, Uh, he's Walter's kind of delicate. Well,
Speaker 2: his brother, his younger brother, has to step in and
Speaker 2: settle the royaling embarrassment to the family. He bribes both
Speaker 2: women with land and money for them to go away.
Speaker 2: So then now unmarried Walter rothschild. He finds himself a
Speaker 2: new mistress to blackmail.
Speaker 3: This man can like dip his wick all over the place,
Speaker 3: but he can't settle up, like.
Speaker 2: Come on, he's yeah, delicata. He doesn't deal with people
Speaker 2: like he doesn't like game.
Speaker 3: Thing you tell me about this man makes me loathe
Speaker 3: him more and more.
Speaker 2: Just wait. So his mistress of decades, she eventually blackmailed him.
Speaker 2: He has a mistress he's with for four decades, the
Speaker 2: same one during all of this, right, but she was married,
Speaker 2: so she's married. He's not her husband and her conspire
Speaker 2: to start blackmailing them. They blackmailed him for the four decades.
Speaker 2: They just work them.
Speaker 3: They blackmailed him.
Speaker 2: For four decades, and at the very end they're like,
Speaker 2: we need to cash out. So they cash out at
Speaker 2: the casino and they go, we're gonna go big man.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, come on, guys, and they make him
Speaker 2: sell his bird collection to pay off their ransom. So
Speaker 2: he has to sell it off. He sells the Tring Museum.
Speaker 2: He sells the museum and then on his death it
Speaker 2: goes and gets transferred to the crown and the people
Speaker 2: of the UK.
Speaker 3: The magnitude of like the maronitude in this we were like,
Speaker 3: he has three hundred thousand birds. I'm like, my mind exposed.
Speaker 3: He was blackmailed for four decades.
Speaker 2: And then he loses it to this married couple that've
Speaker 2: been working there for He loses his whole collection. Right
Speaker 2: the museum goes to the UK. It gets called in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven the Natural History Museum at Train. Now
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, some random twenty something American
Speaker 2: breaks into this museum, rifles through the collection and steals
Speaker 2: the long prize fortune of Wallace and Rothschild and you
Speaker 2: know the affair couple. This all the ultra rare birds.
Speaker 2: This thief, what is he after? Elizabeth Feathers us say
Speaker 2: yes so even talking rare bird Feathers British naturalists, one
Speaker 2: of the wealthiest men in the world. Before I introduce
Speaker 2: you to the criminal today, I do need to tell
Speaker 2: you one more thing. You ready? You ever tie a fly?
Speaker 3: Oh like fishing fly?
Speaker 2: Yes? Good call. Yeah, I mean someone tried.
Speaker 3: To teach me in the past and I go, oh, yeah, totally,
Speaker 3: you've seen it done. I've seen it done. Actually my
Speaker 3: father used to tie them.
Speaker 2: You used tod type fly. Okay, there you go. It
Speaker 2: turns out there's another group in this story who also
Speaker 2: covet rare bird feathers. The dudes and Dudets who tie
Speaker 2: flies for fly fishing. They like to use the feathers
Speaker 2: for all sorts of imitations of nature designed a trick
Speaker 2: fish into thinking it's a flying insect. Right, So the
Speaker 2: New York Times they once documented this salmon fly fishing
Speaker 2: expert dude tie his own flies. He ties flies professionally
Speaker 2: for others. He's a master tie flyer or fly tire anyway,
Speaker 2: whichever the case may be. His name is Paul Schmuckl,
Speaker 2: and this cat Paul Schmukel. He was quoted in a
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety profile wherein he tells the Paper of Record
Speaker 2: that quote, we will use up to one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty different materials, ranging from polar bear and mink fur
Speaker 2: to the feathers of wild turkeys, golden and reeves, pheasants,
Speaker 2: the African speckled buzzard, and the Brazilian blue chatterer. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: that's just a fun list to say. I don't get it.
Speaker 2: How often do you say the Brazilian blue chatterer.
Speaker 3: Well, it seems like they're like, you know, wild turkeys,
Speaker 3: they're all over the place, and we got him walking.
Speaker 2: All over the African speckled buzzard.
Speaker 3: Polar bears like please tell me you just went and
Speaker 3: snipped a little off the side.
Speaker 2: You didn't. I'm hoping he went to the zoo. He's like,
Speaker 2: do you guys just cleaned up? Like sleep up?
Speaker 3: Trying to get disappointed in fly fisher people, just we
Speaker 3: I always admired it because it's a very contemplative activity.
Speaker 3: And not only just in the tying of the flies.
Speaker 2: I've been where a river runs through it.
Speaker 3: Exactly. You just stand there, just a little quiet, keeping yourself.
Speaker 2: Imitating legs, like imitating imagine.
Speaker 3: That people are yes, and I take every opportunity to
Speaker 3: say someone's peeing their pants.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's good anyway.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I know it's very contemplative and I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But now that they're just as craven and disgusting, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: they're all breaking my main credo in life, which is
Speaker 3: let wild be wild. I like your main that's my
Speaker 3: big thing, Let wild be wild.
Speaker 2: You have a Mary Oliver, I'm telling it. You always
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Love her. But yeah, like, come on, guys.
Speaker 2: Well you're gonna hate this next part. Chief among the
Speaker 2: chosen natural materials of these fly fishermen is rare bird feathers, right,
Speaker 2: and they are integral to a number of different fly
Speaker 2: what they call recipes that you'll find in all these
Speaker 2: manuals that are available. But get this, Elizabeth, most of
Speaker 2: the flies these folks tie, they never actually get used
Speaker 2: for fly fishing. So at this point they're just it's
Speaker 2: it's a whole art of tie.
Speaker 3: They're in a shadow box on someone's walls exactly.
Speaker 2: So these ties are works of art. These beauties create.
Speaker 2: They never touch water. I mean, would you throw Van
Speaker 2: gos Storry night into a rushing creek, Elizabeth, No, you
Speaker 2: would not.
Speaker 3: I needed to teach a man to fish.
Speaker 2: So these flies also at this point they can cost
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars. Would you throw thousands of dollars into
Speaker 2: a rocky bottom stream, Elizabeth? You would not. Anyway, you
Speaker 2: probably would also anywhere whole festivals dedicated just to tying flies,
Speaker 2: not to fishing, right, just to tying.
Speaker 3: Probably find festivals dedicated to pretty much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of rule thirty four. On the Internet,
Speaker 2: people either gather or yeah anyway, So there are conventions,
Speaker 2: there are meetups, There are groups rife with folks who
Speaker 2: are all they all covet the feather, right, yeah, especially birds,
Speaker 2: And just like remember those Victorian feather hunters of the past.
Speaker 2: They also kind of get into a craze and a
Speaker 2: mania out of this all, right now, So naturally these
Speaker 2: folks will pay high dollar for these rare feathers that
Speaker 2: they desire. Like addicts or junkies or funko pop collectors.
Speaker 2: They're willing to ruin their lives in pursuit of rare
Speaker 2: bird feathers. Yeah, and you know what that means, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: that means crime. So meet Edwin Risk. Yes, two year
Speaker 2: old American floutist and fly.
Speaker 3: Tying and daddiest on top of it all.
Speaker 2: Dude was born in New York City. Later his family
Speaker 2: moved upstate to Hudson Valley area. That's where he was homeschooled.
Speaker 2: At a rage around ten years old, young ed Woim's home.
Speaker 2: He's sitting there, he's, you know, schooling it up. He
Speaker 2: sees a video about tying flies. He starts watching. A
Speaker 2: kid is in fraud, right, He's he's also he's watch
Speaker 2: he wants him to watch another video and another one.
Speaker 2: He got no friends and he's got nothing to do,
Speaker 2: and so he's hooked. He runs around his home gathering
Speaker 2: up all these materials. He immediately begins imitating what he's
Speaker 2: watching on the screen. He ties his very first fly.
Speaker 2: That moment, moment changes the entire course of his life.
Speaker 2: That one fly tying video did he happen to see?
Speaker 2: Is wild? Like a one random us have those.
Speaker 3: One moments exactly, you know, change the course of everything.
Speaker 2: I think every kink is based on that one moment. No,
Speaker 2: I mean, seriously, how much of a life anyway, So
Speaker 2: his obsession with tie flying it grabs hold of him.
Speaker 2: He starts focusing on trout flies as a kid. No,
Speaker 2: trout flies, they're kind of easy for a kid to
Speaker 2: tie because they're supposed to look like an ugly insect
Speaker 2: and not like a beautiful yeah may fly or something.
Speaker 2: So it's supposed to look like a bug. Right, So
Speaker 2: he's able to do those and he starts to learn
Speaker 2: as young and when risks, he starts learning all the techniques,
Speaker 2: the history of tie flying. He spreads his own little wings.
Speaker 2: He begins to compete. He travels to fly tying contests
Speaker 2: one and two states away, mostly in New England. Right,
Speaker 2: and at a convention, he sees someone who's tying salmon flies.
Speaker 2: This is like Gwernica to his young eyes. He's like,
Speaker 2: oh so young boy, thighs are now drawn to all
Speaker 2: this bright, strange, rare bird feathers that this person used
Speaker 2: for this salmon fly. And there he asks, and he
Speaker 2: finds out there were twelve different types of bird feathers
Speaker 2: used for just this one salmon fly. They're all delicately
Speaker 2: wrapped and braided around the eyelid of the fish hook.
Speaker 2: And he stares long and hard at this salmon fly
Speaker 2: right the colors, and he just transfix them. It's like
Speaker 2: a magic spell gets cast. He just has to be
Speaker 2: about this to pare for his Netchere, Elizabeth, he stared
Speaker 2: into the salmon fly, and the salmon flies stared into him.
Speaker 2: Now evan to risk, he's got a new obsession, right,
Speaker 2: so he books lessons with masters of salmon fly tying.
Speaker 2: Turns out this kid's a natural. He had a god
Speaker 2: given gift for making imitation insects out of bird feathers
Speaker 2: and some mink fur or whatever. Rights having to drive
Speaker 2: like all around these different states. Let's go get you
Speaker 2: those fly like you can't watch them, Like when you
Speaker 2: have a kid who's like good at gymnastics, at least
Speaker 2: you can watch some fun stuff.
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, oh, man, I would take driving around
Speaker 3: to fly tying over a gymnastics meet any day.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's the difference between you and I. Jim's stink,
Speaker 2: the competition, the action, there's something going on instead of
Speaker 2: like get out the ziplock turkey bag and find that
Speaker 2: really feather.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would go for the feather thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, so guys, this is not a huge surprise
Speaker 2: that this guy's good. Had all of this to be,
Speaker 2: I said, he's a natural. I remember also this, I said,
Speaker 2: he is a floutest. He was a virtuos too floutest.
Speaker 2: This kid Edwin is like he could play a tune
Speaker 2: on a flute to make a grown man cry. I
Speaker 2: mean he's like as a kid. Apparently he also could
Speaker 2: play metallic on his flute. I mean he was just
Speaker 2: about it, right.
Speaker 3: I like to hear all of those. I like how
Speaker 3: high minded his games and activities. Kind of like a
Speaker 3: sixty year old man in a child wants to tie
Speaker 3: flies and he wants to play the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know from Metallica.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, he's ste year old man.
Speaker 2: It makes you believe in reincarnation. Anyway, as I said,
Speaker 2: he's got to get for artistic expressions. His obsession with
Speaker 2: time flies continues to hold over him. There's one problem, though.
Speaker 2: If vund Wrist wants to recreate the recipes he's finding
Speaker 2: in these nineteenth centuries masters of tie flyings recipe books,
Speaker 2: he would need the materials that they had. Super rare materials,
Speaker 2: the sort of materials that are now illegal to purchase
Speaker 2: laws would not stop him. Elizabeth, he had flies to tie.
Speaker 2: Years later, he moves to England. He finds himself not
Speaker 2: far from one of the greatest collections of rare bird
Speaker 2: feathers known to humanity. The idea of us come to
Speaker 2: him one day. He was just like, you know, I
Speaker 2: must break into the British National History Museum. So he
Speaker 2: decides he's going to steal Lord Rothschild's display of Wallace's
Speaker 2: rare birds, and if he was successful, he would sell
Speaker 2: the feathers to all of his fellow fly tying officionados.
Speaker 2: He would free the feathers, because you know, that's what
Speaker 2: he was really after, Elizabeth. He wanted to buy himself
Speaker 2: that solid gold flute. So he's planning a move in
Speaker 2: these feathers.
Speaker 3: So are these birds actually on display?
Speaker 2: Taxidermy birds.
Speaker 3: They're not just in the storerooms.
Speaker 2: Taxidermy birds on display, last case, his cabinets, the whole bit.
Speaker 2: Sometimes feathers like attached to a wing.
Speaker 3: Because I'm trying to decide how mad I get because
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, like, if they're just in a storage space
Speaker 3: and no one can see them, well, maybe they get
Speaker 3: repurposed and people can see it because they're not using
Speaker 3: these for actual fly fishing. They're for display purposes. Wait,
Speaker 3: oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: So he is now next to the greatest temptation that
Speaker 2: you could possibly conceive for this kid, the Natural History
Speaker 2: Museum at Tring. They're in South Kensington, Soliz, Yes, can
Speaker 2: you feel them, just like the anticipation, the anxiety this
Speaker 2: kid must have, like, how can I get those feathers? Huh?
Speaker 2: I want you to stay right there with that feeling,
Speaker 2: cause we're gonna take a break afterwards. We're gonna bust
Speaker 2: into that museum. Yeah all right, Elizabeth, Yes, you're ready
Speaker 2: to bust into this baby. We're gonna free some feathers. Okay. Now,
Speaker 2: this museum, it boasted, the is at this point the
Speaker 2: second largest ornithological collection on the planet. I think the
Speaker 2: Smithsonian has passed it or the Naturalisty Museum in New York.
Speaker 2: I cannot remember. I did not look up what was
Speaker 2: number one. But it was criminally unguarded or underguarded. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it did have guards, but it was a rather easy target,
Speaker 2: even for an amateur cat burglar. So Edwin brist he
Speaker 2: does it the smart way. He cases the joint. He
Speaker 2: visits the museum pretending to be a student photographer. That
Speaker 2: gives him cover, right, so he's able to photograph everything.
Speaker 2: He takes photos of all the cases, the cabinets, every
Speaker 2: rare bird he wants to on his shopping list. He
Speaker 2: of course, you know, he takes photos of the entrances,
Speaker 2: the exists, all the info he'd need for his eventual
Speaker 2: break in plan right for the next seven or eight months,
Speaker 2: He creates his master plan, and like you, he created
Speaker 2: a word document. He titled it Plan for a Museum Invasion. Yes,
Speaker 2: in the document, he typed out his shopping list of
Speaker 2: burglary tools and birds he wanted, and his wish list,
Speaker 2: you know, just everything that could go right. And he
Speaker 2: keeps visiting the Tring Museum working on his plan. We're
Speaker 2: working up the nerve. One day he feels good to go.
Speaker 2: He's like, all my ducks are in a row. So finally,
Speaker 2: on a fateful summer day in June, edwind Wrist sets
Speaker 2: his hest plan into motion. It was the night of
Speaker 2: June twenty third, two thousand and nine. Edwind Wrist scheduled
Speaker 2: to perform in a concert in London. He brought his
Speaker 2: flute with him. He turned that concert hall out. Then
Speaker 2: he took a train up to Tring Park. That I
Speaker 2: discovered his estimated to be about a forty five minute
Speaker 2: long train. Right, Okay, I haven't taken it. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Don't jump on me if I'm wrong. Yeah, But whatever
Speaker 2: it is, I do know this, Elizabeth. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: just tell you about that night. I want you to
Speaker 2: close your eyes and I want you to picture as
Speaker 2: a close You are a Victorian era ghost, yes I am.
Speaker 2: You haunt the former home of the Baron Rothschild. You
Speaker 2: were one of the Rothschild's domestic servants, but you died
Speaker 2: in a tragic hunting accident. So now you stalk the
Speaker 2: grounds of Trink Park, specifically the spot where you were shot,
Speaker 2: which happens to be the Natural History Museum at Tring.
Speaker 2: It's nighttime you're doing your thing, haunting the hallways of
Speaker 2: the museum. You hear a noise. You float directly through
Speaker 2: the brick walls of the building and pass through into
Speaker 2: the alley that runs behind the museum. You spy a
Speaker 2: young man dragging a suitcase behind him. You watch as
Speaker 2: he climbs up the backside of the museum. He cuts
Speaker 2: the barbed wire meant to keep someone like him out.
Speaker 2: With one good snip, the barbed wire springs away with
Speaker 2: the tension of the wires. The young man climbs up
Speaker 2: to a window. He goes up with his suitcase. Once
Speaker 2: he's situated, he pulls out a diamond tip glass cutter.
Speaker 2: You watch with curious relish. He tries to use the
Speaker 2: glass cutter like you see in a movie, like a
Speaker 2: cat burglar would do, or to his mind, like a
Speaker 2: superspied James Bond guy would do. But the glass cutter
Speaker 2: he bought online doesn't work. It fails him in that
Speaker 2: critical moment, so you float over closer to see what
Speaker 2: he's up to. He doesn't sense you, though. Instead he
Speaker 2: hops back down to the ground. He pulls a loose brick,
Speaker 2: then he climbs back up and smashes the glass of
Speaker 2: the window. Then he reaches in. He opens the window,
Speaker 2: swings it open, shoves his luggage into the window. The
Speaker 2: suitcase lands inside the museum with a leathery slap. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: you float there wondering if you have a new roommate
Speaker 2: in the museum. You float back through the brick wall
Speaker 2: and catch up with a cat burglar. You watch him
Speaker 2: as he quietly opens the glass faced cabinets and cases.
Speaker 2: They barely creak with noise. Then he shoves Taxi dermy
Speaker 2: bird after Taxi dermy bird into his suitcase. You know
Speaker 2: there's a security guard working that night. You saw him earlier,
Speaker 2: a droll fellow of little imagination. He's not even worth haunting,
Speaker 2: but you know he's there. Later on, that same security
Speaker 2: guard will say that an alarm did go off that night,
Speaker 2: but in a different one of the six gallery of
Speaker 2: the museum. But you, you are here, you know what
Speaker 2: really happened. As best as you can count. The young
Speaker 2: man steals two hundred and ninety nine rare birds from
Speaker 2: the collection. Then he exits the same way he came in.
Speaker 2: It just takes him a second or two to shove
Speaker 2: his suitcase back through the open window and like that
Speaker 2: he's gone. So Edwin Risk gets away with it.
Speaker 3: He successfully steals three birds, a suitcase.
Speaker 2: Full of birds. So I don't know, like why that
Speaker 2: worked for him, that was his first big bus, but
Speaker 2: it works. So the amateur cat burglar. He goes to
Speaker 2: a train station. His plan is then could take the
Speaker 2: last train back to London. But he took so long
Speaker 2: shopping for birds. He was like, you know those grocery
Speaker 2: store shopping spree TV shows. Now was him in the museum, right,
Speaker 2: It's bird after bird in the suitcase. He's dragging it around,
Speaker 2: more birds, more birds, takes he gets so many birds.
Speaker 2: When he gets to the train station, he's missed the
Speaker 2: last train. So what's he gonna do now? Now he's
Speaker 2: sitting there with basically about a million dollars worth of
Speaker 2: birds in a suitcase at a train station somewhere in
Speaker 2: the like suburbs of London. So he sits there at
Speaker 2: a train station, all by himself, just a few miles
Speaker 2: away from the museum. He's just burgled. And uh, luckily
Speaker 2: though he's not in a part of England where someone
Speaker 2: would think to steal his suitcase. That's the only thing
Speaker 2: that works out for him.
Speaker 3: Right, they'd be disappointed, dude, the flute player.
Speaker 2: Right, imagine you steal suitcase. It's kind of heavy. You
Speaker 2: think elders is coming here, get home. It's just a
Speaker 2: bunch of tropical dead birds.
Speaker 3: No, not my suitcase. There's a million dollars with the
Speaker 3: stuff in there. You're like, oh yeah, what kind of money?
Speaker 2: Python sketch him I in anyway, the dude, he's safely this,
Speaker 2: this flute player safely spends the night in the train station.
Speaker 2: No cops come up to him, No strangers walk up
Speaker 2: and say his full name at him, No one punks
Speaker 2: him for his suitcase. He makes it all the way
Speaker 2: to dawn, He catches the first morning train, makes it
Speaker 2: back to London. He goes back to you know his place. Now.
Speaker 2: It's the next day, June twenty four to two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine. Police are called out to the Natural History Museum.
Speaker 2: Governort has been a break in. It's a train right.
Speaker 2: The staffed and administrators of the train museum are on it.
Speaker 2: The quickly tabulate Elizabeth the damage and lost items. Doesn't
Speaker 2: take them long. Not coincidentally, it was all male birds
Speaker 2: that were stolen. Why is that?
Speaker 3: Aren't they the showier one.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's not some kind of bird sexiest. Turns out
Speaker 2: that in the bird world, magnificent plumage and regal feathers
Speaker 2: are the male's domain, right They females, they get the show,
Speaker 2: they get to decide. So the juvenile males, though, they
Speaker 2: are too young for all that, so they're still drab
Speaker 2: looking like the females. So this guy on his wish
Speaker 2: list a bunch of male birds with bright feathers. Right,
Speaker 2: so the birds he took, right, these you haven't asked me,
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to tell you.
Speaker 3: I was waiting. I think give me an accounting of
Speaker 3: what the flute tutor took.
Speaker 2: There you are they rare katangas, the oh not the
Speaker 2: rare yes, rare katangas, and the quetzals from South America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's new social media.
Speaker 2: Bower birds from New Guinea.
Speaker 3: Oh, now, there's so much good footage of birds building
Speaker 3: their collections of Yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Now the Indian crows and the ever striking birds of
Speaker 2: Paradise previously mentioned, also from New Guinea. He collected a
Speaker 2: bunch of them. He's all about the tropical birds, and
Speaker 2: all of them had been collected by al my Man
Speaker 2: al Wallace back in the nineteenth century. So these birds
Speaker 2: are irreplaceable, right, Yeah. The then director of science at
Speaker 2: the museum, Richard Lane, he tells the press quote, these
Speaker 2: birds are extremely scarce. They are scarce in collections, even
Speaker 2: more scarce in the wild. Our utmost priority is working
Speaker 2: with police to return these specimens to the national collection
Speaker 2: so that they can be used by future generations of scientists.
Speaker 2: Kind of a dusty statement. Yeah, To put it in perspective,
Speaker 2: the collection was three hundred and fifty years old, the
Speaker 2: specimens had been taken. This is basically you know, these
Speaker 2: birds are literally priceless, like they The museum's collection represented
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of all known living species of birds,
Speaker 2: and he's just rifling through it. So he's damaging some,
Speaker 2: taking others. Anyway, Oh my god, nothing else they had
Speaker 2: been stolen except for these tropical birds. So the police
Speaker 2: are baffled. The Interdetective Inspector Fraser Wiley, this is a
Speaker 2: very unusual crime and we are keen to recover the
Speaker 2: bird skins, which are part of a national heritage. Because
Speaker 2: the British keep calling them birds skins because they're taxidermied birds,
Speaker 2: there's no bones inside, yeah, exact. So the police asked
Speaker 2: the pub look for help or assistance that they can provide. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: back at the ranch, and by the ranch, I mean
Speaker 2: student housing at the Royal Academy of Music. Cut to
Speaker 2: the rare bird feathers, all right, stolen by this random
Speaker 2: twenty two year old American from the Hudson Valley. So, dude,
Speaker 2: Edwin wrist Right, what's he doing at this point in
Speaker 2: his little weird criminal fairy tale that he's living in
Speaker 2: where he's gonna trade bird feathers for a golden flute?
Speaker 3: Does he have a roommate?
Speaker 2: No, he doesn't have a roommates. Yeah, right, But like,
Speaker 2: why a golden flute? I'm so glad you asked to lose.
Speaker 3: I was wondering why a golden I look this up.
Speaker 2: Golden flutes or gold flutes, they are a thing. There's
Speaker 2: apparently some benefit to buying and playing a solid gold flute.
Speaker 2: So so it's not just solid gold. Yeah, So, to
Speaker 2: quote the instrument maker Suzuki, gold lends a special glitter
Speaker 2: to a flute, and the lustrous tombre of a gold
Speaker 2: flute has an unerring, far reaching carry even when the
Speaker 2: instrument is played pianissimo. It's allure probably makes it the
Speaker 2: last word in flutes, so he wants that last word, right,
Speaker 2: So how much would the last word and flutes cost?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: I look this up for you. They range between twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand and one hundred grand.
Speaker 3: Wow. And it's not just to be flashy.
Speaker 2: No, there's also solid platinum flutes. They're even more expensive,
Speaker 2: which makes no sense because I can't imagine solid platinum
Speaker 2: sounds better than gold AND's gold like atomically makes more
Speaker 2: sense as a perfect element.
Speaker 3: But whatever, Well, people love the platinum.
Speaker 2: I know it just seems like you get platinum because
Speaker 2: it's pretentious, not because he's going to do anything music.
Speaker 2: But whatever, what do I know? I'm not a floutist.
Speaker 2: So the time of the theft, Edwin Rist was twenty
Speaker 2: years old. Now it's fifteen months later, he's twenty two
Speaker 2: years old. I know you're wondering, how could that be.
Speaker 2: It's because we missed a birthday or two.
Speaker 3: We missed two birthdays.
Speaker 2: Right, So he's studying flute at the London Royal Academy
Speaker 2: of Music. Did he have his golden flute? Well, he
Speaker 2: was trying to get that amount saved up. Right after
Speaker 2: he'd successfully robbed the train museum, he took all they
Speaker 2: told you, the two hundred and ninety nine bird skins.
Speaker 2: He starts processing them. He's clipping off the identification tags,
Speaker 2: decoupling the birds from all that inventory, like that indexing system.
Speaker 2: So all the scientific research is now null and void.
Speaker 2: And when he went to where he could sell bird
Speaker 2: feathers on the black market, he knew where he could
Speaker 2: find and connect with what I'm going to call the
Speaker 2: feather underground. So that's my generalized nickname for the modern
Speaker 2: feather hunters, collectors, dealers. Did anyone who buys, sells, or
Speaker 2: covets rare bird feathers? Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Anyway, this black market, the feather underground, primarily it's composed
Speaker 2: of fly tying fishermen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the folks who desired the brightly colored tropical feathers,
Speaker 2: they were the ones who paid top dollars, so they
Speaker 2: really moved the market, right, So they are also willing
Speaker 2: to pay on something that's either extinct or endangered or
Speaker 2: stolen or why not two of three? Yeah, So Edwin
Speaker 2: the now twenty two year old flute virtuoso. He's studying
Speaker 2: at the London Royal Academy of Music, so real, like,
Speaker 2: you know, congrats to his parents. Yeah, he spends his
Speaker 2: nights tying flies made from his stolen bird feathers. And
Speaker 2: get this, Elizabeth, you were to drop Edwin in a
Speaker 2: stream with a rod and some flies, he'd have no
Speaker 2: idea what to do. He doesn't know how to fly fish.
Speaker 2: He's never been fly fishing. He doesn't fly. He doesn't
Speaker 2: fish period. Right, apparently this is very common for expert
Speaker 2: tie flyers or fly tires rather, especially amongst the salmon
Speaker 2: fly tying community. Anyway, so no fishing, Edwin. He's down
Speaker 2: there spending all of his night's tying flies, and it's
Speaker 2: tossing him into large ziplock bags. He crammed ziplock bags
Speaker 2: filled with thousands of flies that he ties in this
Speaker 2: twelve or fifteen month period.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, anyway, kids, who's sitting down that day happened to
Speaker 2: see a fly tying video has now shaped his life.
Speaker 2: Or he's sitting there alone in London tying flies every night,
Speaker 2: dreaming of his golden flute. Right, and he's plucking feathers
Speaker 2: from this rare bird collection and so he does this
Speaker 2: for more than a year. I said, he's plucking, he's
Speaker 2: tye in, he's plucking some more. Edwin's sitting there alone. Boom.
Speaker 2: It was like, also, I forgot to mention when he's
Speaker 2: not doing that, he's ritualistically playing flute. So he's just
Speaker 2: either playing flute because he's you know, virtuoso, or he's
Speaker 2: tying flies. That's all he's doing. He's just obsessed, all right.
Speaker 2: So he stuffs multiple ziplock bags filled with thousands of
Speaker 2: delicate salmon flies. He manages to sell some online mini
Speaker 2: In fact, he makes money, a bunch of money for sure.
Speaker 2: And now where do you think he was selling these
Speaker 2: stolen feathers? I told you who you're selling them to
Speaker 2: and in the feather underground. But where do you think that?
Speaker 3: Where do you think he found geographically?
Speaker 2: We'tre's go with where? Online?
Speaker 3: eBay?
Speaker 2: Yes, he was selling them on eBay. He was just
Speaker 2: listing and selling the rare bird feathers all out in
Speaker 2: the open as whole skins or tide flies on eBay,
Speaker 2: also in fly tying forums. It worked for a while.
Speaker 2: He was able to he found four buyers. He moved
Speaker 2: about seventeen thousand dollars worth of bird skins and flies.
Speaker 2: Then things went awry. Someone got suspicious, someone went to
Speaker 2: the police. They reported him. Didn't take long for the
Speaker 2: bobbies to find him because he hadn't hidden his IP address.
Speaker 2: He's just using eBay, so they just went right to
Speaker 2: his student housing apartment. Knock, knock, knock. He gets arrested
Speaker 2: November twelve, twenty ten. When the police search his apartment,
Speaker 2: what do they find? They find one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: four of the two hundred and ninety nine stolen birds.
Speaker 2: They're like, how many ties have you been tying?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: So up about one hundred and seventy four. Only one
Speaker 2: hundred and two were still tagged and labeled. The remaining
Speaker 2: seventy two weren't there. Just all out. The museum puts
Speaker 2: out a request and they asked in anyone who bought
Speaker 2: one of his stolen birds please return them. No questions asked,
Speaker 2: We just really want the birds, bask Can you guess
Speaker 2: how many of these outstanding birds were sent back?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say zero nineteen, oh wow, which calculates out
Speaker 3: to be six percent of the missing birds from the
Speaker 3: Train Museum.
Speaker 2: So they got six. Yeah, so there's a few good
Speaker 2: people or maybe one who bought a lot, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Nineteen So anyway, guys, with the number of birds that
Speaker 2: were returned into flies and stuffed into zip lock bags,
Speaker 2: can we guess how many that was? The police estimated
Speaker 2: it as sixty four birds returned into flies.
Speaker 3: Sixty birds birds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he gets arrested, interrogated, and because he's not
Speaker 2: a hardened criminal, Edwin Wrist he confesses to everything and
Speaker 2: that just leaves his trial now because he is me right.
Speaker 2: So his defense attorney, admittedly though, just still wanted to
Speaker 2: fight something. He doesn't have much to work with, but
Speaker 2: he still decides to try to like get something. So
Speaker 2: the defense attorney works his butt off and the dude's sharp.
Speaker 2: He argued that his client, Edwin Risk, engaged in impulsive
Speaker 2: and amateurish actions, to be sure, in a vain attempt
Speaker 2: at living out his James Bond fantasies. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Then the attorney he argued that his client had spent
Speaker 2: a few weeks, just to me, a few weeks planning
Speaker 2: this job, and he was a boy playing at cat burglar.
Speaker 2: The lawyer tried to downplay the value of the stolen
Speaker 2: rare bird Feather's what science can be done with three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty year old feathers? Right? So Risk, at
Speaker 2: some point he's like really proud of his lawyer for
Speaker 2: just going after the court. Right. He tells Kirk Johnson,
Speaker 2: the author of the book, quote, my lawyer said, let's
Speaker 2: face it, the tring is a dusty old dump, and
Speaker 2: he was exactly right. What Yeah, so they just go
Speaker 2: on the attack. Right.
Speaker 3: So he's got James Bond. Yeah, there's nothing, says James Bond,
Speaker 3: more than tying flies and playing the flute by yourself.
Speaker 2: To break a window.
Speaker 3: Very James Bond, Yeah, exactly, it's just one Bond woman
Speaker 3: after another.
Speaker 2: He just needs a Bond woman and then boom birds.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. So his lawyer, rather solicitor, argued in court
Speaker 2: that the purported scientific value of the feather had been
Speaker 2: lost to the dustiness of the tring. Right, and Risk
Speaker 2: tells the court all the scientific data that can be
Speaker 2: extracted from the skins it has been extracted. So Risk
Speaker 2: is on the attack right now. Remember this dude's an
Speaker 2: amateur bird lover, no scientist, just a flute player. But
Speaker 2: he's out there talking about scientific value. Anyway, prosecution, they
Speaker 2: countery story. They go after him and they show that
Speaker 2: Eben Risk has been planning his burglary for fifteen months.
Speaker 2: They showed that he contacted the museum by posing to
Speaker 2: someone else in emails. Then there was his purchase record.
Speaker 2: They showed in the months or the month rather before
Speaker 2: they break in, Van Rist bought a glass cutter. Then
Speaker 2: they showed the box of moth balls that he bought.
Speaker 2: Then also he bought, oh, by the way, fifteen hundred
Speaker 2: ziplock bags. So finally he also bought a lock I'm
Speaker 2: guessing a padlock that he planned to secure his door
Speaker 2: with because he had his you know, fortune and rare
Speaker 2: bird feathers he wanted to secure and he didn't want
Speaker 2: some punk twenty two year old to come along and
Speaker 2: steel his feather forteen Yeah, So as the scientific value
Speaker 2: of the stolen bird skins and rare bird feathers, the
Speaker 2: collection had been used for climate research. So these feathers
Speaker 2: from seabirds had been documented a rise in heavy metal pollutants.
Speaker 2: They used it to prove the DDT was on the rise. Basically,
Speaker 2: some real science was done. The naturalists. My man al Wallace.
Speaker 2: He would have been happy about that. Yeah, probably, you know,
Speaker 2: much happier than at Lisa's collection being turned into flies. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So Edwin Risks, he pleads guilty on charges of burglary
Speaker 2: money laundering. Then comes sentencing oh Man. Sentencing, the defense
Speaker 2: attorney introduced their star expert witness as psychologists who happened
Speaker 2: to be Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin. So yeah, so they
Speaker 2: have this psychologists evaluate Edwind Risk, and Sasha Baron Cohen's
Speaker 2: cousin convinces the court that's a lot of seas that
Speaker 2: Edwin Rist had Asperger syndrome and his James Bond fantasies.
Speaker 2: He's got him carried away, and believe it or not,
Speaker 2: the court goes for it. They sentenced Edwin Risk to
Speaker 2: time served in a fine. He's out free. As for
Speaker 2: the Asperger syndrome diagnosis, Elizabeth, Yeah, the author Kirk Johnson
Speaker 2: called him out on it. He asked Edwin Risk point
Speaker 2: blank about this diagnosis and the only interview this dude
Speaker 2: has done this, you know, about the burglary. Kirk Johnson recalled,
Speaker 2: and I quote, around the five or six hour mark
Speaker 2: of my interview with Edwin I said, I don't want
Speaker 2: to sound like a jerk, and I'm not an expert
Speaker 2: in it. You don't seem like you have asked Bergers.
Speaker 2: You're not avoiding eye contact. You're clearly reading the subtext
Speaker 2: of my questions. I'm paraphrasing what he told me that
Speaker 2: he became what he needed to become during that phase
Speaker 2: in his life, that he'd never had any issues with
Speaker 2: eye contact before since, but that all of a sudden
Speaker 2: he couldn't look in people's eyes, started rocking back and
Speaker 2: forth and hiked his voice up in octave. To me,
Speaker 2: it was clear that he had gained the system. He
Speaker 2: never spent a night in jail, graduated from the Royal Academy,
Speaker 2: and today plays the flute with orchestras throughout Germany, albeit
Speaker 2: under a different name. Now, wow, he did have to
Speaker 2: pay one hundred and twenty five and one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty pounds. That's how much he made in total once
Speaker 2: they tabulated it all from selling rare birds on eBay
Speaker 2: and the fly fishing forums, a lot of money. And
Speaker 2: then also his fine was thirteen thousand, three hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy one pounds. He had to pay that in six
Speaker 2: months time, or else he'd have to turn himself in
Speaker 2: for his totally restored twelve months sentence, and he'd had
Speaker 2: to do the full twelve months. Of course he paid
Speaker 2: the fine. Yeah, served no time. But did he get
Speaker 2: that golden flute? Did he get what he was after, Elizabeth? No,
Speaker 2: he didn't enough rare birds to buy his golden float,
Speaker 2: thank god. But that said, if you check YouTube, which
Speaker 2: I did, you can find him jamming out on what
Speaker 2: looks like a golden flute. But I don't know. I'm
Speaker 2: not a golden floutist. I do know this, Elizabeth. He
Speaker 2: has a new name, and unlike the author, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what it is. His new name is Edwin Reinhardt
Speaker 2: and he has that YouTube Jamli told you about where
Speaker 2: if you want, you can find him playing his heavy
Speaker 2: metal flute rendition of Metallica's Master of Puppets. He pulls
Speaker 2: the strings baby, yeah right, So go to at heavy
Speaker 2: metal flute on YouTube. There are five videos on his page.
Speaker 2: One is of a Game of Thrones theme song cover.
Speaker 2: There's a Lord of the Rings cover. I think it's
Speaker 2: a misty mountain cold yeah, but he's not very active there.
Speaker 2: The last video he posted was five years ago, so
Speaker 2: don't expect new content. So Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway
Speaker 2: after all of that?
Speaker 3: That wild be wild? That's my takeaway, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's like I can see if you're sort of scavenging
Speaker 3: things that in nature that have already passed and don't
Speaker 3: have that like you're saying the scientific value. I mean,
Speaker 3: once these guys have in the past stolen all the birds,
Speaker 3: we can't go back and unsteal and then kill the
Speaker 3: birds today. Like if you're building these these flies first
Speaker 3: of all, to be a poser and not actually know
Speaker 3: how to fly fish, Like, wouldn't you need to know somehow,
Speaker 3: like how you would anticipate them sort of dancing on.
Speaker 2: The decontextualize it to the point that it is its
Speaker 2: own standalone elements.
Speaker 3: That's idiotic. But like I mean, I used to have
Speaker 3: a in my house, a mantle piece that I called
Speaker 3: my mantle Piece of Curiosities. It's just all stuff that
Speaker 3: I found like on walks and like you know, dead
Speaker 3: dragonflies and like feathers, girl skulls. Yeah yeah, but you
Speaker 3: know those are the kinds of things like cool shells,
Speaker 3: and but it's always something that you take and you're
Speaker 3: not damaging your environment to take.
Speaker 2: It away, and you're just acting as an animal.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, but.
Speaker 2: Much like a bower bird, you're just it was my power.
Speaker 3: Let wild be wild.
Speaker 2: Well, my ridiculus take away once again, and thank you
Speaker 2: for asking I anyway, I'll just tell it to you.
Speaker 2: Unlike most of the burglars would get away with it.
Speaker 2: I don't like this cat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I don't like him because he.
Speaker 2: Steals birds and he stole science and he didn't he
Speaker 2: didn't steal it from money or for diamonds. If he
Speaker 2: would have stole money of diamonds, would have been cool
Speaker 2: with it, like I would have had no problem. But
Speaker 2: he stole science, he stole birds, and I'm just ain't
Speaker 2: cool with it. I don't know.
Speaker 3: My instinct is like whack, he blew it. Man. He
Speaker 3: could have been like every parent's dream of, like a
Speaker 3: kid who just like does really well and has these
Speaker 3: great you know, and then he goes off to a
Speaker 3: music conservatory school, Like come on, I don't like him.
Speaker 2: Well that's all I got for you.
Speaker 3: As always like it.
Speaker 2: Find us ever after online, ridiculous Crime, Twitter, Instagram, sometimes
Speaker 2: the Reds. I don't know, We have a website, Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime dot com. That's fun. We also like your talkbacks
Speaker 2: on the iHeart app. We listened to those. We dig
Speaker 2: those We drive around the car listening to him bumping them.
Speaker 2: Make the neighbors listen to him anyway. He emails if
Speaker 2: you want Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. As always,
Speaker 2: type You're Elizabeth and write your email YEP, thanks for listening,
Speaker 2: See you next Crime. Hidko's Crime is hosted by Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Dutton and Zaron Brunette, produced and edited by the seventh
Speaker 2: Baron of Houston, Dave Couston. Researches by Marissa do Not
Speaker 2: Give Me a cute Royalty Name Brown and Andrea Samesey's
Speaker 2: for Me song sharpened here. Our theme song is by Thomas,
Speaker 2: the fourth Duke of Lee and Travis the sixth and
Speaker 2: one third Earl of Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by
Speaker 2: Bonny five hundred. Executive producers are Ben of Paradise Bowlin
Speaker 2: and Noel Mister Matt Damon. Please buy na Zoo Brown?
Speaker 3: Why say it one more time?
Speaker 2: Crime?
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.