303 - The Lansburys & The Greystones

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome.

[2] My favorite murder.

[3] That's Georgia Hard Star.

[4] Thank you.

[5] That's Karen Kilgarra.

[6] You're welcome.

[7] And we're here to podcast with you once again.

[8] Yep.

[9] Week after week we do it.

[10] Week after week.

[11] I think that they should know and don't know that right before we start, there's like a moment of quiet while we get ready.

[12] And then the most insane hand gestures happen between the two of us.

[13] We're pretending to be classical music conductors.

[14] trying to cue the other one that, yes, I'm ready to start.

[15] I'm going to say it now.

[16] Because we're still strangely obsessed with the unison concept.

[17] It just works for us.

[18] It works for us.

[19] It's a great way to start out, you know, as one.

[20] Yeah.

[21] And I think so like if we are cracking up in the very beginning of the episode, it's because of just you just had some really great ones.

[22] So that's why I was cracking up.

[23] Yeah, I was trying to put a little extra.

[24] spice into my opening, you know, like, let's do this.

[25] Yeah.

[26] It was a let's do this kind of energy.

[27] There was a lot of wrists.

[28] But just with the wrists.

[29] Yeah.

[30] It's like I like to speak, you know this about me. I like to speak through my hands.

[31] And then of course, connected to that or the wrists.

[32] That's right.

[33] They get involved.

[34] Yeah.

[35] Part of the hand gesture.

[36] You can't have one without the other.

[37] Talk to the wrist.

[38] You know, I say that all the time throughout the 90s.

[39] You do.

[40] You do.

[41] How was your Thanksgiving?

[42] Oh, thank you for asking.

[43] It was surprisingly well and non, you know, dramatic.

[44] Great.

[45] Yeah.

[46] How was yours?

[47] Fun times.

[48] Yeah, fun.

[49] It was great.

[50] And you hosted and Vince cooked.

[51] That's right.

[52] Oh, my God.

[53] Made an amazing turkey.

[54] And this year we didn't spill the turkey juice all over the rug like we did last year.

[55] There's always got to be something, though, right?

[56] Yes.

[57] I'm trying to think of what happened.

[58] Well, it was a pre - Thanksgiving, you know, drama with my mom that ended up being, she ignored it like it never happened and like she likes to do.

[59] And so everything was fine.

[60] And I did the same.

[61] You know what?

[62] It's like, that's the scene you're improvving with her.

[63] So you have to match what she's giving you and go with it.

[64] Which is nothing.

[65] No, I mean.

[66] Which is zero.

[67] No, it was really, it was lovely and I'm done with the holidays for like.

[68] family stuff hosting is hosting is big hosting is suddenly there for me my family was down all of a sudden it's like how come I don't have that many blankets like suddenly I'm judging myself in the weirdest ways it's like my couch isn't that comfortable right and I don't have very many blankets so yeah who am I even invite anybody over your dad so I came up women's and I and cookie were so generously invited over a couple nights for Thanksgiving to celebrate just life with your sister and your niece and your dad and your dad got so mad at you for not having a pizza cutter that I have and then he got mad at me for not using it.

[69] I was using a fork to cut my pizza and it really bothered him.

[70] And at one point he goes, Georgia, I used that night.

[71] Like got mad at me, which is I realized how annoying I was being.

[72] because the pizza wouldn't cut, you know?

[73] But this is what makes me laugh is that to a normal person, yes, it seems like he's mad.

[74] But literally, that or doing a funny voice are the only two choices you get.

[75] So there's no other way he would say like, oh, I'm sorry you can't cut that very well.

[76] Here, do that.

[77] Like, there's a whole process going on instead of like, it's a shame on our ancestors that you can't cut your pizza.

[78] so he's not mad at you it's just it's the insanity also he cannot hear oh right right right right of course everything seems a little bit more ratcheted up than if he had fully attuned hearing yes okay it would be it would be much lighter but then i think he's like a couple beats behind and it's an irritating position position for him to be it yes but when he yeah the way he yelled at me about not having a pizza cutter.

[79] A pizza cutter.

[80] I don't own a pizza cutter.

[81] I'm not Gwyneth Peltro.

[82] What are you talking about?

[83] First of all, they cut mine at the fucking pizza parlor.

[84] Right.

[85] Where I, as any other red -blooded American, get my pizza.

[86] Like, my sister's the one that took it upon herself to make homemade pizza for all of us.

[87] God bless her soul.

[88] It was really good.

[89] She's such a good cook.

[90] She's a really good cook.

[91] Yeah.

[92] But, yeah, it doesn't mean I have the tools.

[93] Like, she had to bring most of the stuff that she was cooking with with her.

[94] She had to bring so much shit, including a turkey pan for Thanksgiving.

[95] Who the fuck has that if you don't ever cook an entire bird?

[96] We just happen to have what Vince enjoys doing that thing.

[97] Yeah, but it's good to have.

[98] Yeah, it's pointless.

[99] You know what a pizza cutter is?

[100] What's that?

[101] A knife.

[102] You know what a knife is?

[103] A pizza cutter.

[104] A fort for you.

[105] It was embarrassing because I was like, oh, yeah, I have been sawing away at this fucking slice of pizza for like an hour with a fork.

[106] And he probably also was like, who the, what kind of like princess eats a fucking pizza pizza with a fork?

[107] No, chances are what was happening was whatever this sound was that your, that your fork was making was like he could hear because that's the other thing is hearing aids.

[108] You can hear certain things way louder than other things, especially if they're high -bitched.

[109] Yeah, it doesn't, like, it doesn't, it's not selective of like, oh, man. So if you're making, like, to you a kind of quiet, squeaky fork noise on your plate, to him, it's like blowing his ears out.

[110] I mean, who knows?

[111] That man is in hell.

[112] All I will say is every night.

[113] So he would watch sports in, like, the afternoon and the evening.

[114] But then every night around, like, 7 .30, he'd be like, what movie are we watching?

[115] So then you had to, like, play it really carefully because Nora's there.

[116] So it has to be like a family movie.

[117] Right.

[118] but you still want everyone to like it and be into it.

[119] So nobody likes it and nobody gets to watch what they want to watch.

[120] That's normally what happens but I will tell you that we night after night picked winners.

[121] So the first night we watched King Richard, which is the Will Smith movie about the Williams Sisters and the way their dad basically raise them to be tennis champions.

[122] It's an unbelievably great movie.

[123] If you ever watch the William sisters which my roommate in my My college and then young life roommate, Dave, who I talk about all the time, was did play tennis, very intense about tennis, and watched tennis obsessively.

[124] So I knew about those girls as they were coming out, basically through him.

[125] He would be like, you have to watch this girl.

[126] She's amazing.

[127] So to watch the background of how Richard Williams basically got his girls from Compton to like, you know.

[128] Wimbledon.

[129] Is that what it's called from Compton to Wimbledon?

[130] Exactly.

[131] It's amazing.

[132] It's amazing and it's really inspiring.

[133] And they were executive producers of the movie.

[134] They got to tell their father's story.

[135] There's times where it's super intense, but it's just, it's so well done.

[136] Okay.

[137] It's so, it's great.

[138] Really good.

[139] So we all loved that.

[140] Okay.

[141] Then Jungle Cruise, which nobody thought was going to be good, but we were like, oh, it's just a Disney movie.

[142] It'll be fine.

[143] Completely delightful.

[144] Okay.

[145] cute so good the rock and uh everybody's best friend emily blonde yeah a magical combination the darlings so good really good and our friend paul giamati makes a special uh italian cameo yes paul giamati then one night we watched moana which we i cry the whole time in that movie i love it so much have you seen moana i haven't take the time please okay i'll i'll get a nephew over I'll put it on.

[146] Then on the last night, school of rock.

[147] And we were like, I was like, my sister and I were like whispering in the kitchen like, is there going to be swearing?

[148] Is he going to get mad or blah, blah, blah.

[149] It's the most perfect family movie.

[150] It's adorable.

[151] Jack Black is just giving his all in the most wonderful, hilarious musical way.

[152] And then those kids are magical.

[153] Out of control.

[154] So cute.

[155] It's the best.

[156] Those are good Christmas movies, I think, like around the with the family.

[157] because I've only been watching Game of Thrones so that is not family which I am in by the way now Okay where are you?

[158] I'm in like the end of season three I think Oh shit fucking dragons are happening Fucking just so much going on The little boy King's being such a douche and playing it so well He's scary right Oh he's so cocky I hate him and then I'm always like wow I hate him He's a great actor as a dude Yes.

[159] Uh, as, I'm in it.

[160] Is Aria gone to training?

[161] Aria, like, they escaped.

[162] And then the man who helped them escape is like a different man's face.

[163] And he, and they're like, and he, she got a coin that's going to mean something one day, probably.

[164] Okay.

[165] And yeah, I'm into it.

[166] I'm into it.

[167] And then the sister, what's her name?

[168] Sansa.

[169] Sonsa, like, she, she's getting away from.

[170] him.

[171] I'm so bad at this.

[172] Let me write, let me read you my review I wrote.

[173] She's getting away and is she, but or is she?

[174] And I really love her nursemaid or whatever it's called.

[175] Who's really the girlfriend of what's his name's character?

[176] No. You're just holding up her hands almost like hand puppets.

[177] Like when she puts up a different hand, I can see the people that she's thinking of.

[178] this character on this hand and on this character i should do like a puppet show of uh my my interpretation of game of thrones yeah you absolutely should with the you can just do the real simple um lunch bag puppets oh yeah just put your hand in and how about one lunch bag is for like this family and then the sock is for this other the other family the landsberries or whatever their name is and then then graystone comes along and graystone is what a shoe that's that's where man's real.

[179] That was the guy I'm talking about.

[180] Theo.

[181] Theo.

[182] Beon Braithian?

[183] Greyjoy.

[184] He's turned out to be a jerk.

[185] Yes.

[186] Many of them are jerks.

[187] I kind of, at this point, I'm not sure.

[188] Wait.

[189] Is the super tall lady knight the one who's guarding Sansa?

[190] You're talking about her?

[191] Okay.

[192] No. So that was a spoiler.

[193] I think I'm only in season two.

[194] Oh, okay.

[195] But the super tall lady night, who's the coolest.

[196] is taking the brother what are they called oh forget yes uh no i know what you mean who are they the the it's um the incest twins yeah what you say the lanthium what are they called the lithium battery family that's right taking the brother over there like to the back to the king's castle yeah because he's in trouble right yeah she has to take him Okay, but now I know that she's going to guard Sansa, so that's exciting to know.

[197] Okay, don't hold me to that because I thought that's right.

[198] You were telling me, I'm like, oh, I remember that, but it could be any number of variations of.

[199] Because she's on behalf of Lady Stark, right, taking, what is the, he's the hottest guy.

[200] Um, no, you don't think classically hot guy that sleeps with his sister is hot?

[201] He's a little too surfery for me. Like, that's not, you know what I mean?

[202] Like, he's very in Orange County, and even though he's from England, clearly, I'm just not interested in that.

[203] He's so Orange County, but he's in Kings Landing or the Crows Nest.

[204] No, that's a comedy club in Santa Cruz.

[205] But it's a delightful journey, right?

[206] I'm having fun.

[207] Yeah, having a good time so far.

[208] Yeah.

[209] What else?

[210] Oh, well, we're going to do some wrecks.

[211] I am so thrilled that on Hulu, the TV show The Great is back.

[212] Did you watch The Great?

[213] No. With Elle Fanning and Nicholas Holt.

[214] No. I saw it just now, though, on like the channel changers.

[215] Okay, well, guess what?

[216] And I can't, I'm pretty sure I must have recommended this in season one.

[217] But it also was, I think the last time I was visiting my sister, so she and I were binging it.

[218] It may have been last Christmas, but anyway, it's now season two.

[219] So there are two seasons to watch of this insanely excellent show, The Great, and it's based on the life of Catherine the Great, who took over Russia when she married her husband.

[220] Mr. The Great.

[221] King's.

[222] King the Great.

[223] King.

[224] Is that right?

[225] He was also kind of a surfer of the time.

[226] But no, you have to watch it.

[227] It's so.

[228] So they're such, the two of them are carrying the show.

[229] The whole ensemble cast is mind -bogglingly great.

[230] And usually if a show is so good, you binge it and you never stop watching it for season one.

[231] Then when season two comes around, some snob like me is always like, hmm, we'll see.

[232] It's falling down in this way and that way.

[233] And that's the thing we love to do is we're so good at TV that we can spot when something isn't as good.

[234] can't do it on this show it is solid as a rock my faith you gotta find something else to be smug about i guess yeah because this thing is just giving they're in all the outfits it's like the richest russians so like yeah the whole place they're in the outfits they're wearing the food they talk about eating it's hilarious it's amazing it's all right oh i meant to apologize to you because cookie peed on your rug And that's okay.

[235] A brand new rug, but also wanted to say that Frank and Cookie got along so freaking well.

[236] They're best friends.

[237] The best time.

[238] And I just - Cookie ran Frank around that house.

[239] He was like, oh, are we doing this?

[240] Okay, great.

[241] I guess I'm not elderly anymore.

[242] He had the time of his life.

[243] And it doesn't surprise me because I think Cookie needed to find a corner to just very lightly make her mark.

[244] Yes.

[245] And, you know, that's what rug for.

[246] But your rug held up.

[247] it was like, oh, I'm not taking this on.

[248] It's like how we should be, how our therapists are always telling us to be.

[249] It's like, don't take that on.

[250] No, scotch guard yourself against the pee of life.

[251] That's right.

[252] That's right.

[253] Listen, puppies will pee on you.

[254] That's just how life goes.

[255] We know it's coming.

[256] Therefore, we put the scotch guard around us.

[257] That's right.

[258] Of self care of awareness of presence.

[259] Everyone remember that this holiday season when you're hanging out with family members and it's like hard and they're getting to you that you, are a rug, everything that happens that your mom says is puppy pee and you're not going to let it.

[260] You're not going to absorb it.

[261] No, you don't have to absorb it.

[262] And you're not seven years old anymore.

[263] So it is a different track.

[264] You can change brain tracks and be like, oh, that's right.

[265] None of this is actually coming in here.

[266] It's just reminding me of things that are already in here.

[267] Yeah.

[268] But that's okay.

[269] But I'm a grown -up now.

[270] I'm a grown -up now.

[271] And if I don't have a fucking pizza cutter, then I guess that's fine.

[272] I haven't failed in this life.

[273] You haven't.

[274] You haven't.

[275] Just because you don't have a utensil that does one thing, which nobody even wants that kind of thing.

[276] My dad has the kind of kitchen where you would be, you could go on like a scavenger hunt and name any obscure thing.

[277] And of course, that kitchen's been sitting there for 40 years.

[278] So everything's in there.

[279] Once you live there for 40 fucking years, you're going to have like skewers for fucking kebabs and shit, like of any size.

[280] Of course you are.

[281] You don't have, you don't have chopsticks?

[282] Yeah.

[283] I might left over from, but no, you don't have your own chopsticks.

[284] Right.

[285] Yeah, it's that.

[286] Yeah, it is that.

[287] It is that.

[288] It's just Jim going, how is your house different than my house?

[289] Sometimes that makes parents upset.

[290] Sometimes it makes them infuriated.

[291] How much do you think?

[292] How much do you want to bet you're going to get a pizza cutter from either your sister or your dad for Christmas this year?

[293] We literally bought one the next day.

[294] Oh, you did?

[295] And then held it up in front of a. Oh, yeah, because this is the thing about.

[296] It's permanent information about our family is then that becomes the joke of like, we better get a pizza cutter.

[297] Dad's going to be mad.

[298] Should we do some exactly right corner time?

[299] Yeah, let's talk.

[300] through a little business.

[301] We've got some exciting stuff.

[302] Our friend Kate Winkler -Dawson over on Wicked Words is talking to guest author Aisha Sesey to discuss the hashtag bring back our girls.

[303] That was a social media campaign that alerted the world to the kidnapping of 276 school girls.

[304] So they'll be talking about that.

[305] And on lady to lady, we're having a little another exactly right crossover with guest Dave Holmes, host of the exactly right podcast waiting for impact and so those are so many funny people you should check that out also um because it is uh it is basically the beginning of the holiday season happy honica to everyone who celebrates um georgia yes you included um so we decided george and i decided we wanted to give back this holiday season um we know it's hard for a lot of people out there so we thought it'd be a good idea to focus on some of our favorite charities, um, to give through all throughout, uh, the end of the year, basically.

[306] Yeah.

[307] So this first week, which is the first of, uh, five, we will be donating 10 grand to toys for tauts, which of course, everyone knows and loves and we're so excited about.

[308] Just a great kickoff for the holiday season, um, helping people get toys, um, you know, for kids and need, yep, families in need providing a bigger, um, better Christmas.

[309] If there's any way that you can give back in your community, then yeah, you should do that too if you can.

[310] Yep.

[311] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[312] Absolutely.

[313] And when you say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash.

[314] Exactly.

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[330] Goodbye.

[331] Are you ready?

[332] I am ready.

[333] All right.

[334] Well, this week, I'm going to tell you, Georgia, about the deadly green arsenic dresses of Victorian England.

[335] I love it Do you know?

[336] Have you heard anything about these?

[337] Vaguely, but this sounds fun and I'm really freaking excited about you know, I love a good poisoning so the sources used for this story this week the history of green dye is a history of death by Jennifer Wright for racked .com the arsenic dress, how poisonous green pigments terrorized Victorian fashion by Alison Matthews, David that's on Jezebel Well, there is an article by Jessica Charlotte Halsem for ResMedica, the Journal of the Royal Medical Society.

[338] There's a National Geographic article by Becky Little.

[339] There's some quotes from the British Medical Journal of 1862.

[340] Whoa.

[341] And there is a bust magazine article called These Dresses Could and Literally Did Kill by F yeah history.

[342] I guess that's a byline.

[343] Okay.

[344] So we're going to start in 1861, and a 19 -year -old woman named Matilda Scherer is working as an artificial flower maker for a man named Mr. Bergeron in central London.

[345] So artificial flowers, I guess, were like all the rage.

[346] They were on hats and they were on headpieces and headdresses that women wore because, you know, back then, hats were.

[347] There's way more hats and gloves in the mix.

[348] Yes.

[349] Proper ladies wear hats.

[350] proper ladies you were required to.

[351] Like you just had to have all those kutermal.

[352] So Matilda's duties include arranging the flowers and leaves to look their most realistic as well as painting the arrangements with various colors, including a very vibrant green that had very recently become popular throughout Great Britain.

[353] So Matilda does her job diligently with thorough attention to detail, hand painting these flowers and then hand arranging these flowers.

[354] but by fall of 1861 she begins to fall ill and her symptoms are not normal so her fingernails turn green then the whites of her eyes turn bright green no she also begins vomiting green liquid and then when she goes to see her doctor she admits to him that her vision is completely green Everything she sees has become green.

[355] Holy shit.

[356] So as the doctor tries to diagnose this problem, Matilda's illness progresses.

[357] She starts convulsing every few minutes and foaming at the eyes, mouth, and nose.

[358] Filming at the eyes?

[359] I don't know.

[360] I don't know.

[361] But you know what?

[362] I would normally argue that.

[363] But if her eyes are green, we don't know what's going on with those eyes.

[364] So I won't argue it.

[365] We are not Victorian doctors.

[366] No, that she's foaming at the mouth and nose and something horrible's happening in her eyes.

[367] And on November 20th, 1861, Matilda dies.

[368] So when the autopsy's performed on her, it's revealed that she's been poisoned with massive amounts of arsenic to the point where it has saturated her stomach, her liver, and her lungs.

[369] It doesn't take long to figure out where the arsenic exposure occurred.

[370] The green dye she's been using to make the artificial book.

[371] pays look realistic with is made of a deadly combination of copper and arsenic trioxide aka white arsenic.

[372] So basically we'll talk about how this dye got invented.

[373] In 1778, a Swedish chemist named Carl Schill formulates a new green pigment made from copper arsenate, which is the copper and the arsenic trioxide.

[374] And it's officially dubbed Sheel's green and it's hailed for its beauty and it's relatively low production cost.

[375] So in 1814, a manufacturing company in Schwainfurt, Germany, named the Wilhelm Dye and White Lead Company, becomes the first to mass -produced Shields Green Dye for use in clothing.

[376] So the resulting garments are dyed of rich, vibrant emerald green, and these dresses and gowns become fast favorites for the women of Great Britain's High Society.

[377] So what's interesting about this is part of the reason these green dresses got so popular was because it had very recently happened that they had switched to gas lighting, indoor gas lighting.

[378] So instead of the usual dim candlelighting at night that people would go to dinner parties or balls or whatever and it would all be candlelight.

[379] Now it's it's gaslighting and so there's, you know, it's much brighter in the room.

[380] And so Wow.

[381] Anybody wearing a shield's green dyed gown has an even more eye -catching and dazzling kind of effect on the room.

[382] So this becomes like all the rage.

[383] So women are buying these new bolder dyed gowns whenever they can and this green color becomes so popular that people start using the dye in wallpaper on carpets in home decor and of course in these artificial flowers.

[384] And soon Victorian Britain becomes bathed in shields green, but it isn't long before the dangers of wearing these garments show themselves.

[385] So the earliest known report of suspicion about the green dye emerges in 1839 when a German chemist named Leopold Gmellian notices a mouse -like odor coming from rooms decorated with green wallpaper.

[386] Did you just say a mouse -like odor?

[387] mouse -like yeah so he's like there's this is a very distinctive smell that like I'm sure you know rat catchers or vermin hunters or whatever there's like a very certain certain smell and he could smell that with this green wallpaper because the color you know the dresses were really popular for the upper class but then suddenly you could buy wallpaper in the shield's green color and put it in your house no matter where you lived around London town.

[388] But this chemist is like, this don't smell right and this isn't good.

[389] So he believes the odor is caused by dimethyl arsenic acid contained in the wallpaper and he expresses his concerns about that acid's presence to a local paper in Germany.

[390] The paper publishes Gmellion's warning, but it does not affect the production of that wallpaper.

[391] And then just a while later, four kids in a working class district of Limehouse in London make the news for mysteriously coming down with sore throats and having trouble breathing.

[392] When the doctors diagnose them as having diphtheria, the kids' families don't understand how they would have gotten it because the disease, which is normally highly contagious, hasn't spread to anyone else in the neighborhood.

[393] No one has heard of anyone around having it.

[394] and yet suddenly all four kids have diphtheria.

[395] But as the children are recovering, a public health officer named Henry Leatherby examines their bedrooms and finds all of their bedrooms have the green wallpaper inside.

[396] So when he test the paper in each room, he finds that it contains three grains of arsenic per square foot.

[397] So the grains is like the way they measure arsenic, and it's like a grain per blah blah, blah, millimograms.

[398] or whatever, I cut that part out because it's so specific and hard to relate to.

[399] But essentially, three grains of arsenic per square foot of wallpaper is enough to kill a child, one child of this children's size and age.

[400] So the evidence against the poisonous wallpaper starts to mount in the winter of 1856.

[401] When a couple and their pet parrot start feeling weak, the couple has sore throats, eye swelling, terrible headaches anytime they're inside the home, but then when they leave and go take in the sea air and go for a walk, all of their symptoms go away.

[402] So they realize the wallpaper is to blame and they remove it and within a week, all of their symptoms go away.

[403] And because it's winter, they probably have all their windows closed and were indoors a lot more, right?

[404] Yep.

[405] And the heat probably and stuff pulling out.

[406] You're just like poison sitting in the wallpaper just like whatever might.

[407] Somebody puts on some water to boil and it's drawing stuff out of the air.

[408] I mean, it's horrifying.

[409] Also, imagine there's four kids.

[410] How much kids touch the wall.

[411] Oh, right.

[412] Like, especially if they just put up the wallpaper.

[413] It's like, that's new.

[414] Don't touch it.

[415] They would be all over that.

[416] Totally.

[417] So as for this green dyed clothing, the artificial flower wreaths worn as ladies' headdresses are starting to leave rashes and even scabby sores on the heads of some.

[418] of the women who are wearing them.

[419] Dresses, shoes, and gloves sometimes are having the same effect, causing blistering sores and even hair loss.

[420] In some cases, the green dyed clothing has been treated and sealed so that the arsenic is not bleeding out onto the skin, and the customer doesn't experience any poisoning symptoms.

[421] But in other cases, when the green dye is just brushed or dusted on with no sealant, the buyer is fully exposed to the poison.

[422] So, the people who are most severely affected, though, of course, are the laborers who are making these pieces and these, this clothing.

[423] In addition to the blistering scabby, sores and the ulcers, the powder form of arsenic is so fine that when coating an object with it, the laborers are unwittingly inhaling it as they're coating it.

[424] Or if their hands are covered and then the dye, when they go to eat their lunches, they wind up ingesting arsenic and then they have internal as well as external poisoning and from male workers preparing the dye using the restroom then it's on their hands they go to urinate the sores appear on their genitals and they're inner thighs they're misdiagnosed with syphilis they're not treated properly that can lead to gangrene and recovery can take up to six weeks of bed rest at a hospital or lead to death especially if you can't afford to be in a hospital for six weeks.

[425] Shit.

[426] And then the women who use the dye to paint garments or the artificial flower arrangements experience a wide variety of terrible symptoms themselves.

[427] They include feeling a lack of appetite as well as nausea, diarrhea, anemia, pallor, and consistent headaches that made them feel as if their temples were being pressed in a vice.

[428] Oh, God.

[429] That was a quote from the Jezebel article.

[430] Yeah.

[431] Horrifying.

[432] The telltale sign of arsenic contact on the skin is the sores.

[433] And as they worsen, they become open wounds that allow more arsenic to get into the bloodstream of the laborers.

[434] More and more workers start experiencing symptoms like hair loss, headaches, vomiting blood, and liver and kidney failure.

[435] At one London textile workshop, a young girl quits her job after conditions there grow worse and worse.

[436] The women she works alongside are always bleeding.

[437] from their open sores and she herself has handled the green dye so much that her face has become quote one mass of sores and it's caused her to nearly go blind holy shit yeah so arsenic is cheap and it's easily accessible substance used for many things besides green dye and people are very aware of its poisonous properties because it's commonly used as rat poison in many British households.

[438] It's very common to just have a box of arsenic around.

[439] But it's also used for ingestable items like food, beer, and medicine.

[440] It's so accessible that any child can go buy it at their local pharmacy over the counter.

[441] Right.

[442] So it's just kind of around.

[443] Yeah.

[444] So as the side effects of the green arsenic -based dyes become apparent, countries like Scandinavia, France, and Germany ban the arsenic containing dyes.

[445] Great Britain passes a couple of regulations to limit the amount of arsenic an individual can buy, but these initiatives only apply to private citizens.

[446] There's no regulations.

[447] Of course.

[448] Of course.

[449] That restrict large scale arsenic usage for commercial industries in Great Britain.

[450] So the rules are only for the small guy that they're not the ones responsible for everybody being poisoned.

[451] Right.

[452] Despite the news of poisoning throughout Great Britain, which one British doctor, Arthur Hill Hassel, calls wretched in the extreme.

[453] Heads of manufacturing companies argue that there's no reason to be concerned about the dyes.

[454] Their businesses are booming, and as long as their profits are high, they'll fight tooth and nail to keep green -died products on the market.

[455] A famed designer William Morris goes so far as to say, quote, as to the arsenic scare, a greater folly is hardly possible to imagine.

[456] The doctors were bitten as people bitten by which, fever.

[457] Damn.

[458] Denial.

[459] That's flat denial.

[460] So it's also easy for Great Britain to not take action over these deadly arsenic -died products because arsenic is one of the many poisons that consumers were concerned about in this era.

[461] Of course, we've all heard of the lead -based makeup that damages the nerves in women's wrists, disabling them from being able to raise their hands.

[462] So we've, right?

[463] We all heard about that where it's like the makeup that, you know, like people were piling on and then the scabs were making them need to put on more makeup.

[464] Horrifying.

[465] Hair combs made of celluloid that would explode when it got too hot.

[466] What?

[467] Yeah, I never heard of that one.

[468] No. Aniline dyed socks that caused swelling in men's feet and bladder cancer in the laborers who made the socks.

[469] Oh, my God.

[470] And most notably, there's mercury poisoning caused by men's hats.

[471] Hence, the Alice in Wonderland character, The Mad Hatter.

[472] That's actually based on facts.

[473] So the felt hats commonly worn by men back in Victorian times are primarily made of rabbit fur.

[474] And in order to slick the fur down and hold the hat together, the hatters would brush the fur with mercury.

[475] And the lining of the finished hats usually prevented the wares from experiencing any negative side effects.

[476] but the hat makers had no such protection.

[477] So when mercury poisoning sets in, the first sign is usually neuromotor issues.

[478] So long -time hatters would lose control of their motor skills and very often tremble.

[479] This symptom becomes so common in the American town of Danbury, Connecticut, which was known for its hat making, that tremor -afflicted hatters are said to have had the Danbury shakes.

[480] Fuck.

[481] That's terrible.

[482] And the next most common side effect of mercury poisoning is extreme paranoia.

[483] Alison Matthews David, who wrote the book Fashion Victims, The dangers of dress past and present, says that when doctors examined these poison hatters, the hatters began to think that they were being observed and they would throw down their tools, get angry, and have outbursts.

[484] Like they would just freak out when doctors would come and say something is going, something wrong.

[485] Oh, my God.

[486] As the illness progresses with increased exposure to mercury, the hatters would start experiencing cardiorespiratory issues.

[487] They would lose their teeth and sometimes their lives.

[488] But because the demand for fashionable hats remain high, the mercury use continues.

[489] The combination of capitalist greed and the fact that the wealthy men actually wearing the hats aren't really affected leaves the lower class laborers desperate for money to accept the known dangers of the job.

[490] and continue exposing themselves to the mercury.

[491] What ultimately saves more laborers from suffering this fate isn't government or legal regulation, as mercury use for these products is never banned in England.

[492] Instead, it's the simple fact that wearing felt hats goes out of style.

[493] And that doesn't really happen until the 60s.

[494] Oh, my God.

[495] Matt Hatters, man. Matt Hatters, right?

[496] Okay, so back to the death of Matilda Shore.

[497] in 1861.

[498] So once this young 19 -year -old girl dies and very horribly and violently with such horrible side effects, an organization called the Ladies Sanitary Association decides to fight against the harsh working conditions that have been harming these laborers and green dye product consumers for so long.

[499] One of the association members, a Miss Nicholson, has already been following similar cases at other businesses for a while.

[500] She even previously published a piece about workshops where she witnessed young girls who looked half -starved, working long hours with their hands wrapped in bloodied bandages.

[501] Upon closer inspection of the skin, it appeared to Ms. Nicholson that many of these girls had been suffering from some cutaneous disease, leaving them riddled with open sores.

[502] So the members of the ladies' sanitary association hire a highly regarded analytical chemist named Dr. A .W. Hoffman to test the artificial flower and leaf arrangements for toxin levels at that specific place where Matilda worked.

[503] And they hope his report might bolster their case for safer working conditions.

[504] The doctor's findings are alarming.

[505] For scale, so just four or five grains of arsenic is considered lethal for the average adult.

[506] Dr. Hoffman finds that the typical headdress containing artificial flowers dyed with shields green dye contains about 80 grains of arsenic.

[507] That's enough to kill 20 people.

[508] Holy fuck.

[509] And a full gown using roughly 20 yards of green dyed fabric contains about 900 grains of arsenic.

[510] That's too many.

[511] It's so, it's so poisonous.

[512] It's like, poisonous stress.

[513] It's so crazy and horrifying.

[514] So Dr. Hoffman publishes these findings in a London Times article entitled The Dance of Death.

[515] And one week after the article's publication, the British Medical Journal publishes its own piece, recounting Dr. Hoffman's conclusions and echoing his concern.

[516] So finally, like the medical association is behind this.

[517] But of course, it takes some nosy bossy ladies at the lady's sanitary.

[518] association to be like enough already.

[519] As they put it based on Dr. Hoffman's findings, a woman wearing one of these dresses, quote, carries in her skirts, poison enough to slay the whole of the admirers she may meet within half a dozen ballrooms.

[520] Damn.

[521] But here's what I would like to say to that.

[522] The woman is not the maker of those motherfucking skirts, so she's not killing anybody in those ballrooms.

[523] That's right.

[524] These fucking companies who know full well, that they're using arsenic and they're the ones killing people are the ones killing people.

[525] That's right.

[526] And she's dying as well as those motherfucking admirers too.

[527] So can we just talk about her?

[528] How about the poisons on her?

[529] So let's not start talking about, oh, that slut that keeps going at all the different ballrooms.

[530] Fuck you, man. As the news gets around about the dangerous and sometimes even fatal side effects of arsenic lace dies, people begin to avoid these emerald green products.

[531] that they once loved, but not everybody.

[532] Some take the stance that as long as they don't lick their wallpaper, they won't be affected by the poison.

[533] That's like absolutely something my dad would say, just don't touch it.

[534] Don't lick it.

[535] Well, why are you looking wallpaper?

[536] And of course, there are women who don't want to give up their beautiful green garments, and so they just decide to take the risk with each purchase.

[537] One lady in 1871, for instance, who, quote, purchased a box of green colored gloves, at a well -known and respectable house, end quote.

[538] She develops chronic cuts and sores around her fingertips.

[539] She's completely stumped about the cause until arsenic salts are detected under her fingernails.

[540] So these gloves, it turns out, were not dyed and sealed.

[541] They were just dusted with the green dye.

[542] So she was completely exposed to that poison.

[543] So I think that anecdote is about how the rich people assume, oh, not my gloves, not my dyes.

[544] of course, they wouldn't do that to me. By 1879, the perils of this green dye reach as high as Buckingham Palace.

[545] On one occasion, a foreign dignitary who is visiting the palace tells Queen Victoria that he's feeling sick after spending the night in his guest room, and it turns out it's decorated with green wallpaper.

[546] He survives, he turned out to be fine, and Queen Victoria has that wallpaper removed too sweet.

[547] So now, with Queen Victoria herself expressing concern over the dyes, more Brits start to take the horror stories seriously, and the sale of green dyed items begins to decline.

[548] But Parliament still fails to pass any sort of regulation that might stop or even slow the use of arsenic -based dye.

[549] The British government's failure to act forces activists to spread awareness through the newspapers, urging the people of Great Britain not to buy these products, and even giving them tests.

[550] they can run on their belongings at home to see if they contain arsenic.

[551] The first of these tests is to burn strips of cloth or wallpaper and if a garlic smell comes out of the smoke that's a sign that arsenic is present.

[552] Light it on fire and inhale it and what does it smell like?

[553] Is there fucking solution?

[554] Maybe somewhere in there it's like take it out into the alley or something.

[555] But yeah, it's basically like, yeah, let's get I don't know, 10 to 50 grains of arsenic on fire.

[556] It's like, hey, does this smell like arsenic is essentially what they're fucking to say.

[557] Right.

[558] The second way you can do it.

[559] You don't have to light it on fire.

[560] You can also dilute it with hydrochloric acid.

[561] And if the item turns blue, there's arsenic present.

[562] I think I'm going to say, put it in your mouth and chew on it.

[563] And if it has a mouse -like taste.

[564] Oh, God.

[565] Oh, I get that out of my head, that visual.

[566] at the same time more manufacturing companies work on synthesizing new dye formulas to be made without arsenic imagine can you imagine and as these techniques improve the quality of the colors that they produce are just as good if not better than the arsenic based greens that were so popular when they first arrived and jay included um some pictures this was this is a picture of two skeletons at a ball like a skeleton asking a yell and to dance.

[567] Higher, I can only see your nails.

[568] Oh, there we go.

[569] Oh, dear, that's eerie.

[570] And it says the arsenic waltz underneath it.

[571] That's from the Punch magazine.

[572] And then in the bottom, there's a wallpaper stamp that they had on a product that says guaranteed free from arsenic in the little sign for it.

[573] Can you see that?

[574] Oh, my God.

[575] So that would be like, that's almost like your tag on your pillow that says don't remove under a thread of government infringement or whatever.

[576] It's the same thing of like, no poison here.

[577] Don't worry.

[578] In 1895, a law is finally passed that regulates the working conditions for any laborers who have to handle arsenic.

[579] By this time, though, the arsenic -based dye has been mostly phased out between people finally heating the public warnings and not buying it, which then leads retailers to end sales of these products.

[580] So, yeah, obviously, just demand goes down and it goes away.

[581] But as for direct legislation banning the use of arsenic -based dyes, Great Britain never passed such a ban.

[582] Shut up.

[583] Not once.

[584] Now, without the power of public newspapers, the will of activists, and the sway of the consumers opting for safer products, arsenic -based dyes would have never been eliminated.

[585] And that is the crazy story of the deadly green arsenic dresses and wallpapers and assorted flower arrangements of Victorian England.

[586] And that is why I love Victorian England.

[587] What a hellhole.

[588] Oh, my God.

[589] Just the smells.

[590] Not only the mouse fucking smells.

[591] And then the clothes are going to kill you.

[592] The clothes will kill you.

[593] The clothes will kill you.

[594] Also, that was back when, say, if you were like middle class, maybe, and I'm, you know, again, I think we all know this about me. But I'm basing all of this on period pieces I've seen on acorn.

[595] TV.

[596] Yeah.

[597] So I could completely be inaccurate about this, but you would get a dress, like if you had a nice dress, you would wear that one dress all the time.

[598] Totally.

[599] I was thinking the same thing.

[600] Right?

[601] So it wasn't, there was a good chance there are people who it's like you, that was your good going out dress.

[602] Totally.

[603] Totally.

[604] It wasn't like it was in rotation.

[605] Yeah, exactly.

[606] You didn't have a closet full of clothes like us consumers of fast fashion do now.

[607] If the Whites of your eyes ever turn green?

[608] Oh, my God.

[609] Can you imagine how scary that would be?

[610] Terrifying.

[611] And you're just trying to get your like three pence for the week or whatever.

[612] Six shillings, please.

[613] For some poison?

[614] Oh, my God.

[615] Hi, my eyes are green.

[616] So fucked up.

[617] Oh, great job.

[618] Fucking love of Victorian poisoning.

[619] Okay, so this week, my story, I think I've heard about it throughout the years.

[620] It was a cold case for more than 30 years.

[621] And over the summer, when we were on break, I was doing my usual late night cold case news scrolling and found out that there has been an update on this one, a big one.

[622] This is one of the most notorious cold cases in Albuquerque history, the murder of Caitlin Arquette.

[623] So I got information from KRQE .com an article by Courtney Allen, a Rolling Stone article by Andrea Marks, real crimes .com, the Kate Arquette .com website, the Albuquerque Journal by Jolene Gutierrez Krueger, a BuzzFeed article by Tim Stello, K -O -A -T dot com by Maggie Krojuski, Wikipedia, of course, and the Reddit Forum Unresolved Mysteries.

[624] So, okay, in June of 1989, 18 -year -old Caitlin, Arquette from Albuquerque, New Mexico, had just graduated from high school.

[625] She had a promising future.

[626] She was a popular honor student and described by her sister as shy and bookish.

[627] And she had been accepted to the University of New Mexico.

[628] And she planned to attend medical school one day.

[629] So she was a manager at an import shop and had just moved into a apartment with her boyfriend of a year and a half.

[630] I'm just going to say his first name.

[631] His name was Yun.

[632] and she had met him in a coffee shop.

[633] She told her parents he was just four years older than her, but he was actually eight years older than her, which was an age difference.

[634] She knew her parents would disapprove of, but they really liked him.

[635] He spent the holidays with them.

[636] They were together for a year and a half, which is a long time, I think, for an 18 -year -old.

[637] But the couple started having issues pretty quickly after moving in together.

[638] And six weeks into moving in together on July 16th, 1989, Caitlin goes to her mom, Lois's house, and tells her that she plans on breaking up with Eun and asked her mom that if he called to lie to him about her whereabouts.

[639] So that night, which is Sunday, she goes over to her friend's house for dinner.

[640] She leaves there at about 10 .45, heads back to her parents' house.

[641] She's driving alone in her 1984 red tempo, Ford Tempo.

[642] And being a Sunday night, and it's also raining, there's little traffic out.

[643] So just blocks from downtown Albuquerque at approximately 11 p .m. She reaches an intersection.

[644] I think she stops.

[645] There's some weird information here.

[646] Just then another car pulls up next to her.

[647] And the occupant or occupants pull out a gun and begin shooting at her car.

[648] One bullet enters the driver's side window, shattering the window.

[649] A bullet enters Caitlin's left temple and a second bullet punctures her cheek.

[650] Oh, I know.

[651] So having been shot, her car then drifts.

[652] from the road, approximately seven feet from where she had been shot and crashes into a light pole.

[653] So cut to shortly before midnight, Caitlin's mother, Lois, is notified that her daughter's in the hospital.

[654] She rushes to her side thinking she had just been in a car accident.

[655] But let me tell you a little bit about Lois.

[656] So Lois Duncan was born on April 28, 1934.

[657] She's a bookworm from a young age and started writing and submitting her stories to magazines at the age of 10.

[658] She sells her first story at the age of 13.

[659] She dropped out of Duke University in 1953 to get married and start a family.

[660] She then divorces, supports her three kids by writing.

[661] She then remarries a man named Don Arquette and in total had five kids with Caitlin being the baby.

[662] Lois continues to write and publish magazine articles.

[663] She wrote over 300 articles published in major magazines.

[664] And then published her first novel, Love Songs for Joyce, in 1958.

[665] She went on to write a bunch of books, do a bunch of badass things.

[666] She pivoted to writing young adult suspense novels.

[667] Most notably, I Know What You Did Last Summer.

[668] Oh, wow.

[669] Yeah.

[670] And supernatural horror novel, Summer of Fear, which was adapted into a movie directed by West Craven in 1978.

[671] So she becomes this really popular, Y .A. suspense author and spends her life writing.

[672] Essentially, she's an award -winning, well -known pioneer of the genre.

[673] And she is dubbed the queen of teen thrillers.

[674] Wow.

[675] Yeah.

[676] So when she arrives at the hospital and learns her daughter had actually been shot, not in a car accident, she, of course, is immediately suspect of her, of Caitlin's boyfriend, whom she knew Caitlin planned on breaking up with that very day.

[677] obviously.

[678] So when the police go to the couple's apartment to question the boyfriend five hours after the shooting takes place, he at the time claims to be completely unaware that she was even in the hospital, hadn't heard from anyone, didn't know about it.

[679] He tells him he'd been out with friends and he also showed the investigators a note that Caitlin had left him, basically apologizing for the fight and telling him that she would be home later, which totally contradicts what she told her mom.

[680] He admits to investigators that he had argued but said he didn't know that she had been planning on breaking up with him or that she even didn't plan on coming home that night.

[681] Later, he joins her parents at the hospital where just 24 hours after being shot, Caitlin Arquette passes away.

[682] Six months after Caitlin's murder, investigators announced that she had been the victim of, quote, a random act of violence.

[683] So in Lois's opinion, her daughter knew her killer.

[684] It was like clearly to her a targeted attack.

[685] Why just randomly shoot at a loan at a girl on her own in a car?

[686] Right.

[687] You know, so then Lois starts looking into Caitlin's life.

[688] She learns that two months before Caitlin's murder, Caitlin and her boyfriend had taken a trip to Southern California where they allegedly become involved in a car insurance scam in which the boyfriend staged a car accident using a car that Caitlin had rented with Lois's credit card.

[689] So this gets very speculative and also talks a lot about Vietnamese, like Vietnamese organized crime.

[690] So to me, and Lois kind of hones it on this and it's, you know, got some tones of racism to it.

[691] The accident was allegedly orchestrated by an organization of powerful members of Southern California's Vietnamese community.

[692] there's a shady doctor who is apparently in on it with insurance claims there's a shady insurance adjuster and in the end Caitlin and her boyfriend are given $1 ,500 for their part in the scam and they use that money to move in together into their apartment.

[693] So Lois believes that since she was breaking up with her boyfriend, the other Vietnamese gang members feared that she would go to police about this huge multimillion dollar scam they were running and that they silenced her.

[694] Lois is convinced that Caitlin had been killed by a hired assassin because she knew too much about the criminal activities.

[695] And then five days after her death, her boyfriend attempts to take his own life by stabbing himself in the stomach with a four inch knife.

[696] Oh, God.

[697] I know.

[698] He survives and when investigators ask him about, like, why he did it, he said that he felt so much guilt over the fact that he and Caitlin had fought that day or had been fighting.

[699] And if they hadn't been, she would have never been out that night and out alone.

[700] And investigators also compared the note allegedly left by Caitlin on the night of the murder to known samples of her handwriting and the investigator believes that the handwriting wasn't the same as Caitlin's.

[701] Doesn't matter though.

[702] Albuquerque police still believe that the boyfriend didn't do it and then Vietnamese gang were not involved at all and they stick to their belief that the murder was a random act of violence.

[703] But they have no leads.

[704] And then six months after the murder, a man named Robert Garcia is brought to authorities.

[705] After they're given a tit by an informant who names this man, he's interrogated for two hours and then tells investigators that he had been in a car with three friends on the night of Caitlin's murder.

[706] And then he claims that one of his friends who was in the car with shot a woman in her car on a dare.

[707] Police arrest Robert Garcia and the two friends he named based on this confession.

[708] So based on Robert's confession, three men are arrested.

[709] And they find out one of the men had recently sold his car.

[710] They connected to an eyewitness who had seen one of the men chasing a young woman in her car in the night of Caitlin's murder, an hour before it happened.

[711] But essentially, authorities discover that the dude who confessed, who said he was there that night, had been in jail on the night of Caitlin's murder.

[712] So it was a false confession.

[713] None of them were there.

[714] they all these other things fall apart like the gun he says they used couldn't have been used it was broken the case goes back to being cold after all the charges are dropped so critical of law enforcement's progress lois spends decades investigating a case with her family she enlists the help of psychics and also a private investigator named patricia caristo so patricia patricka pat damage to the left rear bumper and side panel.

[715] So it had hit the pole in the front, but also had damage to the back, which led Pat to believe that it had been hit by at least one other car before it crashed, which are details police never released to the public.

[716] Lois even suspects there's a police cover up and there's all this information about that, but it's not that far -fetched because the Albuquerque PD does have some shady shit going on back then, which included them surveilling attorneys who were suing the department and also the reporters who investigated those claims.

[717] So they're doing some weird undercover corrupt shit.

[718] When the American Civil Liberties Union tries to get the police department to hand over the files about these cases and about these people being surveilled, the police department burns the fucking files.

[719] Oh.

[720] Yeah.

[721] That's an option.

[722] Yeah.

[723] That's one.

[724] They don't exist because we burn them.

[725] We burn them.

[726] Also, another police officer is convicted of murder and bank robbery.

[727] Oh.

[728] Yeah.

[729] All right.

[730] So, and I mean, there's like decades of police corruption we could talk about in Albuquerque that we're not going to.

[731] But it is, yeah, alleged.

[732] And also it just immediately put me back to the story.

[733] I think it was like a month or two ago that I did where the cops in this story.

[734] that took the false confession from the guy were also bankrupt that's right like in their free time that's right yeah that's right twist okay this is horrible at the time New Mexico had a 15 year statute of limitations for murder 15 years 15 years so if you can skedaddle yourself for 15 years after your murder you're off the hook that sounds like it's left over from the Wild West days doesn't it It just never got updated.

[735] Yeah.

[736] And at the time, the Albuquerque Police Department cites this reason as the reason they're not going to further investigate Caitlin's cold case.

[737] In 1999, Detective Don Mayhew of the cold case unit told Jolene Gutierrez Kruger, the investigative reporter, that he considered the case closed.

[738] He said, quote, we're not going to look at it.

[739] Oh.

[740] Uh -huh.

[741] Okay.

[742] Yeah, that's that then.

[743] Yeah, they just think it was a fucking random shooting.

[744] And at the time, sorry, go ahead.

[745] No, I was just going to say that's a heartbreaker because usually when we talk about cold case detectives, they're the ones that are interested in opening things back up and getting their hands dirty.

[746] Exactly.

[747] That was a bit of a like, what?

[748] Oh, they usually, that's not usually the person that says that.

[749] That's right.

[750] That's right.

[751] They're like the dogged ones, right?

[752] Mm -hmm.

[753] Well, especially because I think in Albuquerque was a pretty lawless or was a pretty dangerous city at the time.

[754] So, you know, it's the cold case detectives who look at the old ones and have time to concentrate on them because there's so much crime going on that the current investigators don't have time to look into it.

[755] Whatever, whatever.

[756] Right.

[757] Okay.

[758] So another nod towards Lois's police cover -up theory are the facts regarding how the scene was initially handled.

[759] So the first officer on the scene.

[760] was a violent crimes detective who happened to be passing by the scene at the time.

[761] He was off duty.

[762] His name was Ronald Merriman pulls up to the scene and had seen the car accident and there was another car there at the time, a Volkswagen Beetle.

[763] So he assumed it was just a regular car accident.

[764] So he calls in the scene as an accident with no injuries.

[765] When he pulls up and sees that her car had, there was like bullet holes in the car.

[766] and a bloodied girl in the front seat, he doesn't change that call in.

[767] He also lets the witness in the VW bug, who's at the scene.

[768] He lets him leave, only getting his name and phone number, which the phone number turned out to be fake.

[769] And then he and the second officer at the scene fucking leave.

[770] Everyone, of course, has a different story.

[771] But the ambulance drivers who showed up in an affidavit say that they fucking showed up and there was nobody there.

[772] That's insane.

[773] It's insane.

[774] They left a girl dying in the front seat of this car.

[775] So after her daughter's death, Lois begins writing children's picture books saying she couldn't write about young women in life -threatening situations anymore after her daughter's death.

[776] In 1992, she puts out a book called Who Killed My Daughter, a nonfiction account of her daughter's unsolved murder, and then follows it up in 2013 with a book called One to the Wolves, which has a forward by Anne Rule.

[777] on June 15th, 2016, sadly, at the age of 82, Lois Duncan, dies in her home in Florida of natural causes.

[778] Her husband notes that she had suffered a series of strokes in the years prior, and she had never got to find out who killed her daughter, her youngest daughter.

[779] And in July of this year, so just a couple months ago, 32 years after the murder of Caitlin Arquette, police bring in a 53 -year -old ex -convict.

[780] named Paul Apodaca, he had been picked up on parole violations and tells police that he had information on, quote, murders from a long time ago and wanted to talk about them.

[781] And that's when he begins to confess, not just Caitlin's murder, but to two others from the same time period, as well as a series of rapes that he committed in the early 90s.

[782] Oh my God.

[783] I know.

[784] The first murder was of 21 -year -old Althea Oakley, a University of New Mexico student who he followed and fatally stabbed to death in June of 1988 as she walked home from a party near the university.

[785] He also confessed to the murder of a 13 -year -old girl in 1988, who he shot while she walked with a friend.

[786] Her name was just released a couple weeks ago as Stella Gonzalez.

[787] I know.

[788] He confessed to several rapes that took place in the early 90s and he confessed to the shooting death of Caitlin Arquette.

[789] He was the man on the scene that violent crimes detective Ronald Merriman got a name, a false form number four, which detectives never, ever fucking questioned for 32 years that the case was cold.

[790] So he's in the Volkswagen.

[791] Yep.

[792] Holy shit.

[793] Then in his early 20s, he had been driving a primer gray Volkswagen Beetle on the night of the murder, which was mentioned as being seen by witnesses throughout the investigation.

[794] There's so many little details about this that it's hard to name everything.

[795] And, you know, every article has some new thing.

[796] But had the investigators looked into this piece of shit, the first guy on the fucking scene, they would have found that he had multiple convictions at the time already had a history of violent crimes against women and girls.

[797] And that throughout the 80s, he was charged with committing.

[798] multiple violent attacks against women.

[799] And if the cold case detectives who later investigated the murder looked into him, they would have found that a few years after Caitlin's murder, he was convicted of raping his 14 -year -old step -sister.

[800] Oh, my God.

[801] And when he tried to give a reason for why he did it, he said he did it so he could be in prison with his brother who was serving 45 years for murder.

[802] So just completely heartless and horrible.

[803] And allegedly, Patricia, member Pat, the private investigator, had focused on Apodaca as a suspect.

[804] She had even located him in prison for the rape that he had committed and interviewed him in jail in 1995.

[805] And Apodaca was mentioned 26 times in Lois's book about her daughter's murder.

[806] So they always suspected him.

[807] Pat had given the Albuquerque PD like 75 page.

[808] book of her findings definitely focused on Apodaca and they never heard back from the PD about it.

[809] They probably burned it.

[810] They probably burned it.

[811] Just as of a couple weeks ago, Apodaca has only been charged with murder in the first degree of Althea Oakley's murder.

[812] He stated that he chose his victims randomly as victims of opportunity but hopefully more charged as will be pending.

[813] Caitlin's sister Carrie told KRQE .com's Courtney Allen that Caitlin's death shattered her family.

[814] She said, quote, when Paul Apodaca shot my sister, he murdered my family.

[815] And she actually became a criminologist, and she works in Denver now, and says that she got into the profession largely because of her sister's death.

[816] Yeah.

[817] It's pretty amazing.

[818] Lois Duncan, before her death, also founded a research center to help investigate cold cases, which later became the nonprofit resource center for victims of violent deaths, whose mission is, quote, to help the survivors and co -victims of homicide deal with the aftermath of a violent death.

[819] Of her mother, Carrie said, she's here and she is looking down.

[820] And that is the long -time cold case now solved at Caitlin Arquette.

[821] Holy shit.

[822] I know, right?

[823] I mean, thank God it's solved.

[824] But what a horrible mishandling and bunch of bullshit that what a nightmare.

[825] And what a disappointment that it's only solved because this piece of shit confessed.

[826] Yeah.

[827] It was right there for them.

[828] If they had interviewed him for a couple hours and had gotten just his statement on fucking on record and then looked at his past, which had violence against women.

[829] yeah no he didn't just have a like a record or a rap sheet yeah but that would have been it should have been he if they had looked it up that would have been a humongous red flag right of this is not just your average joe on this scene no i just don't i want i wish there was video footage of like how i just don't understand how that detective came upon a scene like that and just kind of like Oh, are you leaving?

[830] Oh, that's cool or whatever.

[831] And then then comes upon the bleeding, dying girl or like that order.

[832] Before that.

[833] Before that and was like, no, you can go.

[834] I got your info.

[835] You can go.

[836] No, you take them directly to the fucking station.

[837] It's like police work 101.

[838] I mean, it's just, yeah.

[839] Yeah.

[840] It's horrifying.

[841] It's horrifying.

[842] And they, you know, are saying he's a serial killer and looking into it rapist and looking into any connections you might have with more cases.

[843] Wow.

[844] Wow.

[845] Rough one.

[846] I love a solved old cold case.

[847] Absolutely.

[848] Well, maybe we should do a couple fucking hurries to end on a positive note.

[849] All right.

[850] My first one is from the Gmail.

[851] And the subject line is 15 year overnight success.

[852] It says, hi, ladies, after over a decade of winging it, and faking it until I made it, I realize I'm no longer faking.

[853] I've quadrupled the size of my company this year, spanning from east coast to west and show no signs of stopping.

[854] I wanted to write in in case there's others that need to be reminded to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

[855] Best, Emily.

[856] Amazing.

[857] I love it.

[858] I love it.

[859] Fifteen -year overnight success.

[860] That's exactly how it goes.

[861] I love that.

[862] You're going to be somewhere in 15 years.

[863] you might as well work your ass off to get where you want to be.

[864] This is from Twitter from Megan Lee.

[865] My fucking hooray is that I went back to school for my second bachelor's degree after being a stay -at -home mom for the past decade.

[866] Just finished my first term and I got all A's.

[867] Wow.

[868] Yay.

[869] How do you do that?

[870] How do you get one bachelor degree?

[871] I live on fucking two.

[872] How do you get one A?

[873] This is from Twitter.

[874] it's from Camille at CHR underscore CAM and it just says to me I saw my first in person real life sinkhole and I just had to tell you about it hashtag fucking hooray that is special nothing like a sinkhole in real life oh I'm proud so deep so deep I'm proud of you Karen for finding something you love and making people tell you about it I think it's I I I have to say it's one of the most satisfying things about this show for me is when you and I sit here and we're just racking our brains trying to be interesting or tell some sort of anecdote, something to fill the air.

[875] And then those are the things where I just go, oh, I always think like this, like I can tell you what happened in the half an hour that led up before my friend Lauren I went to look at that sinkhole in San Francisco.

[876] I know everything about that day because it was so such a massive experience and such a like a like an unbelievable like feeling which I understand some people get when they're like I want to see the Rolling Stones in real life or whatever and that's how they feel there but it's like for me this sidewalk was 30 feet in the ground that that's the Mc Jagger of Karen's life that's my Mc Jagger for real and now other people understand like you got to slap your eyes on it to really appreciate it slap your eyes on it that's disgusting all right here's someone from the email hello my fucking hooray is this after two plus years of paperwork and waiting i finally had top surgery and i love my sexy new body and by sexy i mean my flat chested pandemic belly body even though i now have the physique of a well -fed four -year -old.

[877] I couldn't be happier.

[878] So hooray and cheers to no tits.

[879] Abby from Baltimore.

[880] Congratulations, Abby.

[881] Abby, you did it.

[882] That's awesome.

[883] That's awesome.

[884] That's great.

[885] So much to celebrate.

[886] If you have a fucking hooray, little or big, you can have, you can have gotten all A's, haven't gone back to school.

[887] You can, you can just witness a sinkhole in real life.

[888] for anything and everything in between you want to hear about it.

[889] We love it.

[890] We're happy for you guys.

[891] Fucking hooray.

[892] Thanks for listening once again.

[893] And guess what else?

[894] It's the holiday season.

[895] You know, when I first heard a Christmas song over the weekend, I got legit excited.

[896] Yeah.

[897] We need it.

[898] Yeah.

[899] We need it this year.

[900] That's great.

[901] There's a way, you know, sometimes.

[902] the holiday season immediately makes you think of like what you have to do or what you can't do or what you should do or blah blah I think this year especially because this 2021 has been hard it has been hard for everybody in all different ways, all different contexts but genuinely for the human experience we don't even understand how fucked up we are because of how fucked up we are from Zoom alone So this holiday season, take care of yourself, be your own Santa, make sure you're okay, do the things you can do, and do not fucking engage with the shit you can't deal with because you don't deserve it.

[903] You deserve to have a nice holiday season, whatever that means for you personally.

[904] Yeah, and I love that.

[905] So that's a really great message.

[906] Definitely, definitely.

[907] And stay safe out there, everyone.

[908] Oh, and also stay sexy.

[909] And don't get murdered.

[910] Goodbye.

[911] Oh, Dottie, why are you sitting down right now?

[912] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[913] This has been an exactly right production.

[914] Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

[915] Associate producer Alejandra Keck.

[916] Engineer and mixer.

[917] Steven.

[918] Ray Morris.

[919] Researchers, Jay Elias and Haley Gray.

[920] Send us your hometowns and your fucking hoorays at my favorite murder at gmail .com.

[921] And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder.

[922] And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to my favoritemerder .com.

[923] Rate review and subscribe!