My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 304 - Show-Off Time

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

This week, Georgia covers the life and tragic death of Aaliyah and Karen tells the survival story of ultramarathon runner Mauro Prosperi. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook, and listen to True Crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Okay, we're like a well-oiled machine. Oh, we are. You hear that? You hear that churning? The churning of the machine?

Have to leave us in, right? We have to leave the episode. Let's see if we can get the episode. Tim, my favorite murder. Thank you. Yeah, that's Karen Kilgariff. That's Georgia Heart Start. And this is how we do it. Guys, this is how we do it.

Professionals all the way to the top. I was just actually smiling right as we turned and hit record in our separate homes. I just was smiling of like, with thank God for Stephen Ray Morris. We made it through this pandemic and through this quarantine, podcasting the entire time. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, many people did much more that helped many more, but it just was making me smile of like, we just kept doing it, like responsible, like how I think of responsible people behaving.

Oh, like actually still doing your job, like continuing on to life instead of being like, well, this is the green light for me to lay on the couch for the next two years in depression mode. Goodbye. Yep. No, we still picked up our bloomers and we sat in front of the zoomers and we Yes. And we come on. We finish it. One more.

Let's get out of here. We've done it again. Truly, I feel like I've passed into 2021 has lasted about three years where I've passed into an area I don't give a fuck anymore. I want what's best for everyone, but I also, you know what I mean? Yeah. I just would love to wrap this year up. I'd love to, you know, chestnuts resting on an open fire.

Did you put up, speaking of, did you put up your white Christmas, fake Christmas tree? You're beautiful. I should. I haven't done it yet because I packed so much stuff into my garage that it's blocked. I blocked my own Christmas tree in. Oh, no. Yeah. That's kind of a metaphor of what this year's been like. Yes. Your joy is blocked in by whatever.

I just, I realize every day I think of going down and getting it and I'm like, you will end up really sweaty because you're going to have to move about five couches. Maybe hurting yourself a little bit. Maybe just a slight lower back pole that affects me for three to six weeks. Right. And so then you have to keep it up through January and then you're that depressing person who has a Christmas tree up through January. Right. Although I do have to say, if you're in the market or like thinking about a fake

tree, especially go all the way fake like I did and have a white sparkly tree with lights already in it, you kind of can leave it up for as long as you want. Yeah. Does it make you happy? Great. Put it up in September, take it down in March. You fucking cares. Who fucking cares at this point? We put up Christmas lights, which are great outside, but the problem this year is that we have a puppy and a kitten.

So there's no fucking Christmas tree this year for us. Like it's just it would be asking for a pain in the eye, like asking to be annoyed all the time. Well, yeah. And it would go down like it would be in the middle of the night. Kind of what's that Santa here early crash. Yeah. I mean, I've already had to put all my plants, my beautiful indoor plants that I like kept alive and love so much. I've had to put them outside because Moses and now they're all dying because I just if I don't see them, I won't water them. Yep.

Anyway. Do it. Pick a day. Not like I'm some green thumb, but I just pick a day. That's what I learned. I looked it up because I was like, I would love to keep my house plants alive. And I'm acting like I simply can't quote unquote. And then so I looked up some tips and it was just like like water your plants on Sundays. Then it's just like and only one there thirsty like wait, let the dirt get really dry.

Right. Right. Well, those are my two tips from like they're going to die. Green thumb corner from Karen's, Karen's plant corner. Woo. Oh, speaking of Karen's corner, I have a Karen was right corner. Oh, shit. You know, my favorite corner. You know, the fucking TV show, The Great on Hulu is one of the best fucking shows. I would have never watched it if you hadn't told me now.

Vince and I are like in it. It is. I can't believe that was elf. I didn't even know it was elf ending. Isn't she fucking spectacular? She is like next level, next level. Oh my God. And the writing, what was the mood? It's it's made by the same dude who made the movie with what's with Olivia. Oh, the favorite. The favorite.

Yes. It's like it's the same kind of vibe going on. Tony. I should Tony something. I look at his name every time I watch an episode going because I always think of him as like a playwright because it's I heard it was originally a play. It does seem it doesn't have those that vibe directed by your ghost Lantheamos. No. Oh, sorry. Like EP.

Okay. Your ghost is killing it, though. I mean, Jesus Christ. That thing is a beautiful television show to watch. Yeah. That sounds like a name from Game of Thrones, by the way. Is it Tony McNamara? Yeah. Okay.

And what else did he do? Tony McNamara wrote The Great and wrote the favorite and wrote Cruella and The Rage and Placid Lake. He's good. He's a legend. I mean, and this show, it's like, what do you like? Do you like costumes? Show up for this. Do you like comedy? Show up for this.

Do you like history? Show up for this. Do you like vintage cursing? I love when they use like modern curse. I don't know why when there's like, fuck this and fuck that. I'm like, yes, they're speaking, literally speaking my language. Literally speaking your language, but also teaching you about the Russian aristocracy and the way that their democracy unfolded.

I don't really look at you. I didn't learn that. I didn't learn that much. And also the guy that plays the general, her general. Oh, yeah. Who is, he has been in all of my British shows, I bet. He's got over the years. Yeah.

And, and he is in a couple of the old and I can't offhand, I can't remember which ones, but he's been in like Jane Austen style. He's, you know, classic. He started as like the, the hot guy and now he's like this character part that he is so good at where you're like, I love when that guy is on screen. And I love Elizabeth. I love the aunt. Oh my God, she's my favorite, for sure.

She's crazy butterflies. Yes. She's amazing. And I was going to recommend, there's a Netflix true crime documentary and it's German and it's called dig deeper the disappearance of Burgeet Meyer. Oh. And it is, I think it was for six parts episodes. Oh.

It's so unbelievable. You have to watch it. It's, it's an unbelievable story and. Okay. And it turned out the Burgeet Meyer, her brother was like basically the head of the police. Oh. In I think Hamburg and so she just disappeared. And so he was in it where he was in charge.

He was way high up, but he was like somewhere else. So he couldn't run the investigation or like interfere. Yeah. But then it basically just went cold and they went, yeah, there's just no answer. When did it take place in the, I think 80s. Okay. 80s or early 90s. Okay.

You have to watch it though. It's, it's really unbelievable. What's it called again? It's called dig deeper the disappearance of Burgeet Meyer. Okay. I'm in, I'm in. Yeah. Really incredible.

What happened to this family and these people, her ex-husband who she was divorcing, her brother, her daughter. Oh. It's, you got to see it. Okay. I'm in. I'm on it. Okay.

Once we watch the session tonight, then we watch. Oh. Oh. So excited. Oh. Just the, the living stomach ache of entertainment. That is succession. It's just getting better and a brilliant piece of work.

Just wonderful. Do you have anything else or should we get into it? Oh, I just have, I just have one thing which is, and this is really, I feel really bad, but at the same time, I don't think we were talking massive shit. But when Michelle Boutot did the celebrity hometown with us, yeah, we walked, we did a little, a memory lane walk and we were talking about what we called the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. Okay.

And then the guy that runs the Winnipeg Comedy Festival wrote in and said, hey, just so you know, that's not us. That was that other comedy festival that took place in Winnipeg. So there were a couple like, you know, saucy comments. I think Michelle made a joke about her check, not clearing or something like that, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it made this person feel like they really needed to say, hey, that's not us. So we, so our apologies to the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, which I have never been to.

Okay. I assumed Winnipeg as a city only had one, but I was wrong in that assumption. And I think the one we were at isn't around anymore. Not sure, not going to name the name. Let's not do it, yeah. But hey, full apologies and props to the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. The guy was really nice and funny on his email, but he was just like, yeah, that's not us. Oh my God, I love it.

Oh, I have a thing too. Wait, hold on a second. I forgot. Oh, well, we got a lot of shit from people who were like, how do you guys, how do neither of you own a pizza cutter? Like people were a little aghast last week when we both talked about that, which I find. Were they aghast? A little aghast, which I find like calm down, but this one person wrote, I mean,

so someone called this girl named Nikki L. Bag on Instagram commented, my husband and I received a sterling silver Tiffany pizza cutter for a wedding gift. Oh, can you believe that? It in no way reflects our lifestyle at all. It is currently in a drawer next to our 199 pizza cutter on pizza nights. If we think our pizza is on the fancier side, we scoff at the lowly cutter for the plebs and give a quick shine to the cutter made for pizza eating Queens and then immediately fuck the pizza up by cutting right away before letting it cool.

I just thought that was like the nicest of the comments. Well, that's kind of hilarious. Please remember if you get married and you get a jacked up gift like that, return it for that money. What are you doing? Absolutely. Get what are you doing? Get your Tiffany motherfucking gift, credit.

Store credit. Store credit. Get yourself so many beautiful butterfly necklaces. That's right. But yeah, I've never really, I think there are people who live differently and they assume everyone lives like them and pizza cutter people being actually like a guest. That's silly to me because you order pizza from a restaurant that cuts it for you. And if for some reason that doesn't happen good enough, it's called a fucking knife.

Other than that, who gives a shit? What's crazy to think about? Is there a people out there who live lives that have pizza oven, outdoor brick pizza ovens that make pizza systems? I know, it's crazy. Wait, are you thinking of Papa John because he does not listen to this podcast? There's no way. Okay, so should we do some network business?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's see. This week on the Exactly Right Podcast Network, I saw what you did is doing a double feature of the 1991 version of Point Break and the 2015 version of Point Break. Amazing. I love it. Deep analysis, compare and contrast. Get in there.

You're going to want to hear these observations. You got to see it to believe it. And then we also want to wish that's messed up. An SVU podcast, a happy one year anniversary. Yay. We love having them on the network. This week, they cover the episode of SVU called Pure, starring the great Martin Short. And then their special guest this week is none other than SVU superfan, your friend,

Karen Kilgariff. That's right. Oftentimes, when podcasts on our network have one year anniversaries, they ask one of us to be on it. Very funny. To mark that time with them, which is very fun. We had a great conversation. I love those guys. Love it.

And this week on Wednesday is our amazing, hilarious guest, Nicole Beyer. So please check out Celebrity Hometowns. Oh, and hey, there's lots of great MFM and exactly right merch for sale. We have lots of cool Christmas. Stay safe. Do God's missions. Sweatshirt still exists. You can get it.

There's ornaments. There's all kinds of great stuff over there. And you can still get it sent to you in time for the 25th if you order expedited shipping. That's right. And also we have a lot of this is terrible keep going merch. So if you need that instead this holiday season, we got you. Yeah, whatever you need. Yeah, we got you.

Don't worry about it. So, you know, throughout December, we're giving to different charities because it's the holiday season and it's the giving season. And so this week, we're donating to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. They're committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the U.S. And we're going to give them $10,000. We're really happy to be able to give them a little help this holiday season. Yep.

And if you can too, it's a great thing to reach out to. And if not, think good thoughts. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly.

Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes

it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha.

And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even The Rich. Where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain.

In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva will tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even The Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Um, all right. Well, I'm first this week, right? You are.

Are you ready? I'm ready. Are you ready? I don't know. Thank God I'm ready. That would be funny. It's like, no, I need a little more time to work on this. Can I have 25 minutes?

All right, Karen, for this week today, I'm going to talk about one of the most influential music artists of all time, her life and her tragic death, the princess of R&B, Aliyah. Oh, wow. Yeah, been wanting to do this one for a while. Sources used in today's episode are the Aliyah website, biography.com, two CNN staff articles, a New York Times article by Kurt Eichenweild, a Daily Beast article by Cheyenne Roundtree, and a New Yorker article by Jim DeRogatis. So here we go.

On January 16th, 1979, Aliyah Dana Houghton is born in Brooklyn, New York to parents Diane and Michael. And then at five, the family all moves to Detroit. So Aliyah, whose name is of Arabic origin and means like the heavens, highborn, exalted one. She starts voice lessons pretty soon after she's even able to form full sentences. She starts singing. She had the gift. She had the gift.

She sings in choirs and churches. She eventually also attends dance and guitar lessons as well. So she's a talented kid. When she's still young, Aliyah has a small role in the production of the musical Annie. She plays an orphan and only has one line, but it makes her realize that that's what she wants to do will be on stage and perform for the rest of her life. Annie is a, it's a like a watershed moment for little girls who think they can sing or can sing. When you get, when suddenly you find out that there is a musical that just is filled with

10 year old girls that are kind of scream singing. It's like one of the most exciting things that can happen to you as a young show off. Do you know this from personal experience, Karen Kilkera? Oh yes. Yes, I do. Oh, what did you play? Who do you play? Um, well no, the Annie, I think it was like 1979 when the Annie Cast album came out with Andrew McCartle starring Annie and that just that whole, you know, it's a hard knock knock. It's just like this kind of like, it was just all anthems for young girls.

Karen's doing a marching arm thing right now, like a fist pounding march. It just felt good. I know that feeling that she had. It worked and I know what you meant by that too. So she, yeah, she wants to do it forever. She later says, quote, what I loved about it was just putting the production together, being in the chorus, learning the routine, singing and doing a little bit of acting. That's when I said, I've got to do this forever. In 1989, 10 year old Aliyah performs in the youth vocal competition on Star Search.

Mm-hmm. Did you know that? No. Her dress is like, what, in 19, I'm the same, pretty much the same age as her. It would have just been the dress you've always wanted in your entire 10 year old life, you know, at the frilly bottom and the top. And then it has like a little bolo coat on it. Yeah, she's, yeah, look, she's so cute.

She doesn't win, but it's okay because she does get a gig performing five nights a week with Gladys Knight in Las Vegas. Yes, holy shit. It seems random, but Gladys is actually Aliyah's uncle, Barry Hankerson's ex-wife. Oh, okay. So they're connected, she sees this thing and Aliyah and she's like, she's fucking amazing. I want her to perform with me. Gladys Knight is the greatest, is the greatest, just truly.

That's amazing. Well, also, there's so many people who were on Star Search and didn't win and went on to become huge. That's right. Yeah. I believe Justin Timberlake. Was he on it? Yes. I watched it, I watched it, we watched it every time it was on.

I just don't remember any of it. Remember the acting category? That's right. What did it do? They just came out and did a terribly written scene. Come on a log or something. Yeah, it was like two people fighting over a kitchen table. It was crazy.

We loved the singing, the child singing, which now I have a hard time watching children sing. Yeah. It just creeps me out. You know too much. Comedy, yeah, exactly. And the comedy. Yeah, comedy. Lots of there, there was lots of great comics on.

There was. She sings My Funny Valentine, which is like, oh, that's cute. But then like some of the lyrics are like, you don't have an Adonis' body. Like it's kind of a little bit weird. Yeah, when children sing standards. That is what happens. That's inappropriate. Yeah.

But it's unavoidable inappropriateness. So Gladys Knight later says this about Aliyah. From an early age, I knew she had enormous talents and intrinsic gift. When she first performed with me in Las Vegas, she was still quite young, but she already had it the spark that the world would later see and fall in love with. So by age 12, Aliyah is signed with Jive Records and her uncle, Barry Hankerson's Black Ground Records. And Aliyah's uncle, Barry, isn't just Gladys' night ex-husband.

He's also R. Kelly's manager. In 1994, when Aliyah is only 14 years old, R. Kelly writes and produces her first album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number. Oh, no. The first single back and forth makes it onto the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and becomes the number one R&B song as well on the charts. Aliyah later says, I still remember how nervous I was right before back and forth came out. I kept wondering if people would accept it.

When it went gold, I had my answer and it was just such an incredibly satisfying feeling. While the album is very successful, many people feel that the lyrics are too suggestive for a teenage girl. Aliyah later responds by saying, I didn't feel I was too mature. I felt for my age, I was just right. Yeah, I was a little bit sexy, but that's just me and I'm not going to deny being a little bit sexy. I think it's a wonderful thing.

She was like 14 years old and it was the unchecked 90s. It was the time where everyone was just putting stuff out. Totally. So we don't want to focus on R. Kelly because he sucks, but I just wanted to go over some of this stuff and it's pretty timely because, as you know, in September 2021 of this year, R. Kelly was found guilty of many charges, including sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering, and sex trafficking. And he now faces life in prison.

So during his recent trial, prosecutors actually discuss R. Kelly's relationship with Aliyah, acknowledging that she was one of his victims. They said, yeah. They said Aliyah and R. Kelly met in 1992 when he was around 25 and she was 13. And R. Kelly saw how talented she was. So he started producing and writing the music for her. And not long after, he also started, quote, engaging in sexual activity with her, which we all know now is called rape.

Aliyah was far too young to consent, obviously, but R. Kelly kept engaging in this sexual activity for several years with the child. In 1994, R. Kelly was on tour when Aliyah called him and said she might be pregnant. So he starts panicking, knowing that if she's pregnant with his kid, he could get charged with statutory rape. He decides he has to fix the situation. He flies home to Chicago. He gets his accountant who testified in the trial saying that he needed to come up with

a plan to marry Aliyah in order to keep her from talking and, quote, keep him out of jail. So because Aliyah was only 15 at the time, R. Kelly's former tour manager, Demetrius Smith, he bribes a Chicago official into giving him fake documents lying about Aliyah's age, and they use those documents to get a marriage license. So basically, the documents say she's 18 instead of 15. Oh, wow. And so on August 31st, R. Kelly and Aliyah marry in a hotel room at the Sheraton near the Chicago airport.

Then he fucking leaves the same day, gets on a plane, and goes to his next show. So Aliyah goes home to Detroit to tell her parents what happened. And they're obviously very upset about the whole thing. And then rumors start to spread about the marriage. In 1994, Vibe magazine got a copy of the marriage certificate, which showed R. Kelly's real age of 27 while Aliyah's 15. And people are talking all about this. It's really scandalous as it should be.

And R. Kelly and Aliyah deny it was true. They just say they're really good friends. The marriage is annulled pretty quickly. And there's a settlement entered where they wouldn't make any public comments about each other, and they would no longer have any personal professional contact with each other. I think her parents were upset, obviously. R. Kelly, quote, admitted to no liability or wrongdoing. And Aliyah and her parents agree not to sue him.

And Aliyah's uncle Barry, I guess, quits his job as R. Kelly's manager when he finds out about this. In his letter of resignation, he tells R. Kelly that he should, quote, seek psychiatric help for a compulsion to pursue underage girls. Wow. Yeah. So fine, let's fucking move on from R. Kelly. So back to 1994, Aliyah's first album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, has just been released.

It's a massive hit. It's just a really unfortunate title. That he's involved in it. It's just like, it's so indicative. Yeah. Yeah, but he's on the cover of the album, too. No. It's like, not all bad.

It's all bad. So it's a massive hit that everyone now knows about Aliyah and love her. She's got this really cool style. She's got like baggy pants and oversized shirts. She becomes like a major fashion icon. Kind of like Teen Vogue, so she like sets the prototype for that time period. And in 1996, Aliyah's second album, One in a Million, is released. This time she works with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, and they end up making this incredible team.

They work together many times in the future because they are just such a tight team. You want Missy Elliott to produce your album if you're a young town. I mean, that move of getting out from under that shadow, and then to move to Timbaland and Missy Elliott, it's just like. But also she really was insanely talented, insanely beautiful. Like just primed so perfectly for show business. Yeah, she definitely, you know, it's like such a corny thing to call it. But like that it, you know, she had that thing where you just wanted to like watch her.

And at the time, like in the late 90s, I was into like emo and punk and hardcore. Like I was not, and I bought her album. I never fucking bought albums. Like I didn't own anything. I had like a boombox CD player on my car seat beside me because I couldn't afford a fucking car stereo. And I still have that album somewhere. Like it was so good.

Yeah, she was just incredible. So the whole album, one in a million, ends up going multi-platinum and Aliyah starts performing shows around the world. And at this point, she's a major star. Alan Light of Spin Magazine says, quote, there's a lot of popular interchangeable young pop and R&B singers. And Aliyah had an element of mystery and sophistication. Okay. And at the time, Aliyah's not only releasing hit records and performing shows,

she's also at this time attending the dance program at Detroit High School for the fine and performing arts and getting a 4.0 GPO. Oh my God. GPA. Not a GPO. Right. I don't know what that is. Yeah. So she's fucking finishing high school at the same time.

And she plans to attend college, I know. Amazing. In 1998, Aliyah's song, Are You That Somebody is featured on the Doctor Do a Little Soundtrack and it becomes one of Aliyah's most recognizable songs. She's nominated for her first Grammy and in the same year, she performs Journey to the Past on the Anastasia soundtrack and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. Yeah. So that's 1998.

Great year for her. So next, Aliyah goes into acting because she can fucking do anything. And so in 2000, she stars in Romeo Must Die, a modern day martial arts version of Romeo and Juliet. Do you remember that movie? Yes, I do. But I don't think I saw it, but I remember how popular it was and how much everyone talked about it.

Yeah. Aliyah was Juliet and Jet Lee was Romeo. The movie's a box office success. And not only did she, Aliyah, star in the movie, she also executive produced the whole soundtrack and performed the hit Try Again. And once again, she's nominated for a Grammy. It's so fucking Try Again. I love that fucking song.

But wait a second. Is she like 18 now? Yes. I mean, like she's... Yes. Jesus Christ. 2000. So she's, maybe she's 20. God.

How old was I? She's 20 or 21 this time. Yeah. I mean, just doing her work. Yeah. I was starting my drinking career at 20 and 21. Like, what are you talking about, Aliyah? Okay. Aliyah spends the rest of the year 2000

in the first part of 2001 recording a studio album and shooting the movie Queen of the Damned, which was a horror movie where she plays a vampire queen. And she's often working all hours of the day. But her hard work pays off. In July 2001, she releases her self-titled album. It sells over 2.4 million copies. And the songs More Than a Woman and Rock the Boat

are like at the top of the charts. She also accepts more acting roles in movies like Matrix Reloaded, which she had started shooting, and also the movie Honey. And at the time, her love life's also going great, which she fucking deserves. She is dating co-founder of Rockefeller Records, Damien Dash. They met in 2000 through his accountant, and they became friends and then had, were dating,

but it was like kind of secretly. Dash said that they would, quote, be in a room full of people talking to each other. And it felt like everyone was listening, but it would just be us. It would be like we're the only ones in the room. So I think they were totally in love. True love.

True love. Okay, so in mid-August, 2001, plans to make a music video for Rock the Boat again. The production company scouts multiple beaches for locations, and they settle on Miami, Florida, and a Cabo Islands in the Bahamas. On the 22nd, Aliyah and her team shoot underwater scenes in Miami, and the next day,

they take a chartered flight to the Bahamas. So Aliyah is a nervous flyer. She doesn't like to fly at all. And flying to the Bahamas scared her, because it was a smaller, like a little plane. It wasn't like a commercial flight. But she's talked into going. She initially didn't even want to go shoot

in the Bahamas at all. This team spends the 24th shooting in the Bahamas. The next day, Aliyah and her dancers filmed some scenes on a boat. Director Hype Williams later says, filming the music video was, quote, very beautiful for everyone. We all worked together as a family. The 25th was one of the best I've ever had in the business.

Everyone felt part of something special, part of her song. I know. It's a beautiful video. They put it out. With the boat scenes out of the way, the teams actually had a schedule. So they weren't supposed to leave until the following day, but they decided to get a flight out that day,

because they were done and take the flight back to Miami. So a last minute flight is booked through a small charter company named Blackhawk International Airways. This company only owns one plane, and it's a small twin-engine Cessna that can only hold eight passengers. There are two other charter companies with bigger planes, including the company that's been hired

to fly them out as scheduled the next day, but they're not called for some reason, and Blackhawk is available, so they go with it. Aliyah and seven colleagues, including her hairdresser, a bodyguard, and a record executive show up to the small airport in the Bahamas. So what happens next is up for debate, but a typical story that's accepted

is that a fight broke out between the pilot and the passengers. The pilot's saying that the plane is already overweight just because of the luggage, and so bringing eight more people on is going to be way past the limit, and the bodyguard himself is like 300 pounds. So it's like they can't have that many people, but they all want to leave.

Oh, and also the plane holds eight people, including the pilot. So the team allegedly is telling the pilot that they need to go anyways and take them to Miami. There's this big hours-long argument about whether they'll go or not. You know there's a kind of like, do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Sure.

Type of shit happening, probably. Time is money, we're busy, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. That's my guess, I mean. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so no matter what the version of events is true, and I'll get into that a little bit later, Aliyah and her seven colleagues eventually board the plane, and it takes off.

At around 6.45 p.m., almost immediately after the plane takes off, a witness is standing outside the terminal and sees everything. The plane takes off, banks left, and then almost immediately it crashes to the ground and bursts into flames. Oh, I know. The guy that witnessed Claude says, quote, it took less than a minute.

It was a heavy blow when they hit. A lot of the plane just basically disintegrated So people rush to the scene and find a grisly sight. Bodies have been thrown out of the plane, and they're now laying across the field. The wings had been destroyed upon impact, and the engines and landing gear were torn off. Aliyah, who's 22 years old, is found around 20 feet away from the plane.

She's still strapped into her seat, and her cause of death is found to be severe burns and head trauma. Most of the remaining eight people, Anthony Dodd, Eric Foreman, Scott Galen, Keith Wallace, Gina Smith, Douglas Kratz, Christopher Maldonado, and Luis Morales. They're already dead, although there are still a few alive and suffering terribly, but everyone on the plane eventually dies. Musicians and actors around the world are devastated to hear

that Aliyah's died in a tragic accident. I remember I saw it flash on the screen. I had to be watching MTV or something at my grandma's house, and I thought it was fake because they showed the numbers, like, 79 to 2001, and I was like, oh, what is it, her birthday? I had no fucking... I was so... whatever. No, no, no. I was just really, really shocked

because I was such a huge fan, and she was so young and full of life. Well, and she was peeking. I remember a queen of the damned how much people were talking about it, and this was, like, pre-internet show business, and the photos of Queen of the Damned... and maybe there was the internet, but it was just like... she was clearly just leveling up, leveling up so fast and killing it, and, yeah, it was so shocking.

It was truly, like, the height of her career. And what a tragedy, like, you know, an avoidable tragedy to die in a plane crash. It's so sad. And so they all share stories of meeting her, of course, talking about what a genuinely good person she was. Hype Williams says, quote, she was a very happy person, she had nothing but love to give to others, and she selflessly shared much of who she was.

I don't know if anyone really understands that about her. She had these incredible, graceful qualities as a person. Fans are inconsolable, hundreds send bouquets to the hotel where her family is staying while they await the return of her body and a private funeral is held on August 31st. And fans of Lion Park Avenue, as Aaliyah's caskets carry to St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church. And it looks like Princess Diana's procession.

It's just, like, so many people. So many strangers and fans, just, you know, mourning her. Yeah. Of course, then, you know, it's August 31st, 2001, so that quickly gets overshadowed, obviously, by September 11th. An investigation into the crash is conducted. Officials find a multitude of causes for the crash all preventable. So it's within 805 pounds without people even on it,

and then they add nine people. Yeah. So according to the investigation, quote, every nook and cranny of that airplane was packed. According to one story, the baggage holders and pilot told passengers the plane was super overweight, but the passengers said they didn't care. They demanded to be flown home that day. But regardless of him telling all this, he still flew the plane out, you know.

So in addition to being overweight, the weight wasn't distributed correctly throughout the plane. So basically, it mattered where the weight was placed. And so in this case, the plane was much heavier in the back, which can cause a pilot to lose control. So it's not evenly distributed. And there was another reason, the major reason why the plane crashed. It's the pilot.

Not only was Luis newly on probation for possession of crack cocaine, he had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system when the plane crashed. And worst of all, he wasn't certified to fly a Cessna plane. Oh, no. I know. I never heard that. Yeah. In fact, he shouldn't have been a licensed pilot at all,

because he overly exaggerated the number of test hours he'd flown in order to get his license. He had actually been hired by the charter company Black Hawk International Airways just days before the fatal crash. I know. So Black Hawk was to blame for the crash as well. They weren't even authorized to operate charter flights in the Bahamas. Not to mention the fact that they've been cited by the FAA four times between 1997 and 2000 violations that included failure to follow drug testing rules

and failure to perform proper maintenance. While there are other causes of the crash, none of them really explain how this flight came to fruition, how everything about it was wrong and it totally could have been prevented. A music journalist and author, Kathy Iandoli, was one of those people who didn't understand how like completely how this could happen. In August of 2021, this year, she released a book called Baby Girl, better known as Aliyah.

And in the book, Kathy wrote that the events that took place that day never added up for her. She questioned why Aliyah, who was known to be an anxious flyer, why she would have been adamant about getting on a plane that was being told to them over and over again was not safe to fly. Like why risk it when she knew she could fly out on the scheduled flight the next day? It just didn't seem like something someone who's terrified of flying would have done. So as Kathy was writing her book, she saw a video

where a man from Abaco Islands, a man named Kingsley Russell, whose family ran a taxi and hospitality business there. He said what he saw leading up to the plane crash and she ended up interviewing him for the book. He said that his mom drove Aliyah and some of her team members to the airport that day. And Kingsley, who was just 13 at the time, was riding along so he could help load the bags. And he said that during the ride, Aliyah kept telling her team

that she didn't want to get on the plane. It was two hours late and she was stressed out and tired. And when they got to the airport and she saw how small the plane was, she was like, I'm not getting on the plane. So after the pilot said that the plane was too heavy for all the passengers, luggage and equipment, Aliyah gets back in the car saying she has a headache. And her team kept trying to talk the pilot into flying them home without removing any of the weight.

Like they also didn't want any of the baggage to come off. Then a team member came to talk to Aliyah. This is all allegedly based on what Kingsley said he saw that day. A team member came to talk to Aliyah while she was still in the car and saying she didn't want to fly. And then Kingsley said he watched as the team member handed Aliyah a pill that knocked her out. And once the plane was ready to go, Aliyah was basically asleep and carried on to the plane.

Never even knew she was boarding the plane according to this statement. The story makes sense to Kathy. Then she says it doesn't make her feel any better, obviously. It's a very sad story. And we also don't know if that pill was given. If it could have just been an aspirin, she could have just fallen asleep. It's all one person's story, so it all could also have not happened. But we do know the basics, which is what happened with that plane

and the fact that it was overloaded. Exactly. So for the 20th anniversary of her death, Aliyah's estate made some of her music available on streaming services finally. You couldn't get any of her music before this. And this was this year. So fans were finally given an opportunity to legally listen to her hits. And also a ton of artists, including Adele, the weekend, Beyonce, Rihanna,

and Jay Cole say that she was a huge influence to them and actually Drake. Aliyah had the biggest influence on his career, and he even has a tattoo of her on his back. Oh, wow. Do you know that? No, I didn't. And 20 years later, people still mourn the loss of the extremely talented

and genuinely kind Princess of R&B, Aliyah. Wow. That is the tragic story of the death of Aliyah. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Mine is going to be a very strange left turn.

When Jay sent me the research for this, I was like, Oh, what's this story? Because we picked the, I picked this, you know, like five months ago or something. Yeah. And it kind of makes me laugh that, you know, this year isn't getting any easier. I'll just say that the news isn't getting any better. I'm not seeing stuff around that are making,

that's making us feel like things are really evening out and everything's chill. On the app and up. No. Not in the least. So this story is kind of just makes me laugh because it's just the strangest and funniest and oddest timing. But this is the survival story of Maro Prosperi. Okay.

So I'm about to tell you about this crazy just, it's just kind of like a random survival story. Because I said to Jay, we were trying to, you know, find different ones. It's like looking for this, you want this kind of story and this kind of story. And then I'm like, but then again, every once in a while, it's nice to just take a break and hear a story about somebody surviving. Oh my God.

You got it. Like sometimes we have to have these fucking stories that aren't. Tootman Gloom. That's just, you know, it's just a break. It's a real departure. And this one, this one really is. Let me just read you some of these sources. There's a BBC news article that I will read the subject line of later by Maro Prosperi.

Used a lot of information from your favorite magazine, Men's Journal. There was an article called Crazy in the Desert by Hampton Sides. That had a ton of information. There's a website called Off Grid and Patrick McCarthy wrote an article called Alone in the Sahara, the survival story of Maro Prosperi. Wikipedia, of course. And there's a Nerdist article by Matthew Hart that I won't read the title of right now because it gives it away even a little bit more.

So we begin on April 10th, 1994 in the blistering hot Moroccan Sahara Desert. No. Yes. And you know why we're here in the Moroccan Sahara Desert? Because 80 runners are at the starting line in a place called Phone Zeguid for the Marathon of the Sands. The French name of it is the Marathon des Sables. This is a six-day, 155-mile foot race through the Sahara Desert.

How hot did you say it was? It reaches, I didn't say, but it sometimes reaches up to 115 degrees. Why? Yeah. And you're there. You're running an ultra marathon. And you probably paid a lot of money to get there. Oh, I'm sorry.

I have so many issues with this. So, so, so many. So, and it's described in your favorite magazine Men's Journal as, quote, the equivalent of running six marathons back to back in a convection oven. Oh. So, or an air fryer. It's, it's exactly. Oh my God.

You're a human marathoner tater tot, which is quite ironic considering how much your average marathoner fears starches. Okay. So one of these participants, one of these 80 runners is a 39-year-old Italian man named Mauro Prosperi. He's back at home in Italy. He's a police officer, but his passion is competing in extreme athletic events. So that includes several Olympic modern pentathlon.

So the pentathlon is the one that has fencing, 200-meter freestyle swim, equestrian show jumping, and then a combination of pistol shooting and a 3200-meter cross-country run. Wait, I'm sorry. Could you do that again? The pentathlon in the Olympics, which maybe many people don't know, involves fencing, a 200-meter freestyle swim, some equestrian show jumping on a horse, then some pistol shooting and a 3200-meter cross-country run.

I'm sorry. Those are all individual things that you get good at throughout your lifetime, but you have to do them all at fucking once. You have to do them all at once at the Olympics against a bunch of other people who are like, I also love to do this. So out of my fucking way. Talk about showing off. Fuck Annie.

This is like, let me show off time. It's next level show off time because also it's the show off time for the rich because between fencing and equestrian show jumping, these aren't just like your average kids from the town high school. You know what I mean? It's like serious. Okay, so by 1994, Mauro has retired as a pentathlete. So he's competed for a while.

Okay. But when his friend tells him about this Moroccan ultramarathon, he cannot resist signing up. Oh, God. Okay. So let me explain how an ultramarathon, this one in particular, gets broken down. There are six stages. Okay.

One stage per day. So on day one, the runners, they run 18.8 miles. On day two, they run. Wait, 18.8. Okay. 18.8 miles on day one, 24.2 miles on day two, 19.6 miles on day three. So are you catching on that these are, these are actually meters, but they're, the reason the miles are so weird is because I'm taking it back.

I'm taking it back out of the metric system for you, for you as an American. Day three, 19.6 miles, day four, the longest day you run 53.6 miles. That's illegal. Day five is just a regular marathon, 26.2 miles. Thank you. And then on day six, you just cool it down with a nice 4.8 mile run in the desert. RIP to those people's knees. I just want to say.

And also just, I think about that where I'm like, sometimes when I like have to go back to the bathroom to like go get a brush or, you know what I mean? And you're like, kind of walking like a little bit like, ooh, my hip or whatever. And it's like, these people travel to Morocco to run hundreds of months. They went back and forth to your bathroom billion times. So many times with like, with the heater, with five sweaters on. Oh, I'm like sweating right now. And smiling the whole time.

They're like, I love it. I love this. I love this. Let me pay you money for this. I love living this way. I love this high. Um, so each runner carries their own pack of supplies. So they have food, clothing, sleeping bag, a compass.

Um, but then aside from the checkpoints throughout each leg where the runners are given water, they're basically self-sufficient. So Maro trains for this race by running 25 miles a day. So he does like a little less than a marathon a day. While he's steadily decreasing his water intake. So he gets his body trained to, to basically be running while dehydrated. To not die. You have to train your body to not die.

That's how you know not to do a fucking sport. Yeah. That's, that's how you have to go. Hey, have you ever considered being interested in video games or are you just going to run, run, run away? You know, it's great books and reading. Hey, you know what? Have you ever had a fucking twice baked potato?

It will blow your mind and make you want to lay down for a while. Maro's wife, Cynthia, is supportive of his athletic pursuits, but she's very worried about him running in this ultra marathon in the desert. Yeah, we have a smart person entering the building. Finally, someone shows up with their little bit of reason. The elements are so tough on runners that every participant must sign paperwork that designates where to send the body if they don't make it out alive. That's right.

You have to get real, real at the beginning of this ultra marathon. You don't have to do that when you're about to eat a twice baked potato. No, you don't. Although you do have to chew and swallow, chew at least 35 times. That's the old big twice baked rule. Um, okay. So, Cynthia worries that if this happens, she's going to be left raising their three kids who are all under the age of eight at this time.

Oh, that's irresponsible of him. I don't like that. When people make decisions, like when people are like parents of young kids and they make decisions that are like perilous to them. But let me give, let me tell you what Maro told his wife to reassure her. He said, he'll be fine. The worst that's going to happen is he's going to get a little bit sunburned. So there.

Perfect. Oh, all right. Bye, husband. So now we're back to the race, starting gun sound effect and they're off. The ultra marathon has begun. It's day one. Um, Maro is immediately taken with the beauty of the desert. So boom, he's off and he's like, this is incredible.

So there is this thing about it that I think is really amazing and that I would really, I think would be an amazing thing to experience, which is you're just doing it thing. Most human beings can't do. Sure. It is that kind of like, you're getting your runners high, but then you're also like, you know, you're on like a screen saver. That's my screen savers. Like the desert with the dunes and the little.

So you're saying summer 2022 Karen Kilgariff is going to run this. I'm saying 58 miles in one day is not a big deal. If you stay positive. If I stop eating twice baked potatoes now, how many months will it take me? Okay. So he's loving it. He's bewitched by what he sees around him. He says it gorgeous.

Also his training is paying off because he maintains a very steady pace through the first three legs of this race. And he ends up being in seventh place overall out of, I think 80 runners. So he's, he's doing good. So the final checkpoint hits and then you go and you set up your tent and you get ready to just like drink a bunch of water and I'm sure some like some weird gel out of a packet, right? A protein gel, some kind of a gel, some kind of an IV.

You look like you were going to say smoke a fatty the way you had your. No, that was the, that's a protein pack, but you know, that might be an option too. So Maro comes in, he sets up his tent. He hangs his Italian flag on his tent and that way the other Italian racers, when they get to the campsite, they can find him. Then they all hang together and it's like the countrymen have a, have a bonding time discussing their day and a little camaraderie. Smoking a fatty.

Smoking a fatty and talking about how afraid of carbs they are. So, okay. So they do that. Now it's the fourth day and it's the day that's the most daunting leg of the journey, the 53.6 mile day. So they've already been running this whole time. And now it's, it's this day, Maro starts off with a bang by the early afternoon. He's increased his pace significantly and he's jumped up to fourth place overall.

So he's doing really good in an ultra fucking marathon, like killing it. But about 20 miles into the day, which is around one o'clock in the afternoon, temperatures begin to rise and they hit 115. Oh, fuck that shit. Remember last summer when it hit 115 degrees? That's right. Was it the last summer, this past summer? I think it's this past summer.

It was like the hottest in fucking history or whatever. And we, it was the day, it was July and it was Scotty Landis' birthday and we had a like COVID birthday where there was only seven of us. We'd all had tests and we were all clear and we were all just standing in my pool and your, so your body neck down was like pool temperature and your head was blazing hot and it was windy. Hot head. Everybody had hot head.

It was, it was hard to be in a pool and this guy is running the long day of the ultra marathon in the same weather. It's amazing. Yeah. So then, but he's doing fine. He's in fourth place. He stops at the third checkpoint for the day to get his water and to wrap a blister and then he takes back off and 15 minutes into his continued run, the rise in heated

surface air causes the winds to kick up and Maro can start to feel the sand whipping at his face and soon the winds get stronger and the sand dunes begin to lift into the air. What? And that's right. It's a sandstorm that kicks up. What? Yes.

No. So prior to the race, all runners were instructed to stop running and stay where they were if a sandstorm starts. But Maro's first thought is the only way to avoid being buried by the sand is to keep moving through it. Also, he doesn't want to lose his place that he is because he's in fourth place. Okay, dude. So he just keeps running through a sandstorm.

The winds grow stronger. But few runners Maro can see around him, they disappear and basically the air is now so thick with sand that he cannot see it all. He thinks he's still on the trail and he just keeps running. Oh no. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, the rest of the runners have all listened to the rules. They have stayed put. They wrap themselves in their sleeping bags along the trail, do their best to protect themselves.

Some get bloody noses, some get respiratory tract abrasions from the sand being nailed. Yeah, it's pretty serious. And the race staff actually decides to officially stop the race for the day saying that they can resume from where they are all currently at the next day. With the sandstorm in full force, Maro tries to keep going. He's wrapped his head in like a shirt to protect it from the sand. He said it feels like a storm of needles hitting his face. And finally he can go no further.

So he crouches beneath a small bush for shelter and he waits for the storm to pass. Guess how long it takes for the storm to pass? No. Eight hours. No. And you'd go out of your mind from the sound and the fury and the small helpless bush that's like, can I hide under you? You're trying to hide under me, but I mean, so now it's completely dark and Maro has not

only lost sight of the trail, but of all his fellow competitors. So he doesn't know where the fuck he is. No. He's exhausted. He spends the night sleeping out on the dunes. He knows he's lost his fourth place standing. That's his concern. He's an ultramarathoner.

He's not fucking around. No, he's not. He's not there to make friends with other Italians. He can do that back home. He wants to win this fucking thing. He plans on getting up and just continuing the race the next morning, hoping that at least he'll finish to the best of his ability. So yes, he's not going to get, you know, fourth place, but he can finish.

So when he wakes the next morning, he finds the landscape is totally transformed. He has no idea where he is and he is completely lost. Shit. Okay. So we'll talk about Maro Prosperia a little bit. He was born on July 13th, 1955 in Rome, Italy. Arromba. Arromba.

He's a natural athlete in 1973. He joins the Italian police force and he works in crowd control, which he finds boring. The real reason that he joined the police force is because the very convenient for him, Perk, Italy's police federation offers a generous subsidy for those training to be national caliber athletes. What? So essentially, if you sign up to be a cop in Italy, but you're also like an ultramarathoner or a pentathlete, like Maro is, you get paid to do that.

So you can do both, right? Because they want the, they only want the fittest on their police squad. Okay. So in the 1980s, while competing at a pre-Olympic pentathlon event, Maro meets an English and Russian language translator named Sinzia Pagliara. Sinzia is drawn towards Maro's positive attitude, his enthusiasm for taking on challenges and his competitive drive. And he's also just a straight up hot Italian.

Is he? Oh yeah. He has those like Italian eyebrows that kind of, they both go up like, like kind of like two little canoes that are tipped back that make him look really empathetic and like sweet and caring. He's one of those. The two get married within six months of meeting and they settle in, I'm going to say Aci Trezza, Italy, which is the Sicilian fishing village outside of the city of Catania.

Can I go there please? For real. And then they have three kids. So Maro continues competing in pentathlon for as long as he can and he retires when he reaches his late thirties, but he never loses his competitive edge. So when his friend and fellow athlete Giovanni Manzo talks about the 155 mile ultra marathon through the desert that he plans on running, Maro immediately wants to sign up alongside him.

And he does. So Giovanni, this same man is the first one to realize Maro is missing when he makes his way to the fourth and final checkpoint on the evening of April 14th. And he sees that Maro, who should have beaten him by several hours is nowhere to be found. So he reports this to the race staff and they're confident that Maro couldn't have strayed far and they promised they're going to send out a search team the following morning. So when Maro awakes to a wildly different desert landscape on the morning of April 15th, he's not in any way discouraged.

He's mostly upset about losing his standing in the race. Yeah, just such a bro and such a dude. But he figures since he has his map and his compass that he's sure to find his way back to the trail or he also thinks he's going to bump into another runner along the way at some point. And then once he does, he can team up with that person and they can finish together. So with that in mind, Maro starts running again. So he doesn't know where he is, but he just starts running and here I go.

It's like the good faith. He makes his way through the desert, climbing up the larger dunes he passes to try to get a better view of what lies ahead. But he doesn't see any signs of the next checkpoint or of any of the other runners. And this goes on for four hours until reality finally sets in. Maro is lost. So meanwhile, the search party takes to the surrounding desert by land in a fleet of land rovers and by air in one lightweight aircraft.

They look all morning. They see no trace of Maro anywhere. The race staff realizes that based on their water rationing system, Maro has at most two liters of water on him, which is barely enough to sustain him for the rest of the day in this triple digit heat. So with this in mind, they commission a Moroccan police helicopter to also help them search. So unaware of any of that Moroccan drama, Maro decides he's going to stop running and just walk for a while.

Okay. He's just still fucking going for it for hours. He figures there's no point in expending all that energy when he doesn't even know which direction he should be headed. So as a precaution and then gets a little bit gross, but also it's this it's what we all expect, he urinates into his empty water bottle because he knows that eventually it's going to get serious with him and water. He's a smart person.

He's got enough food on him to last a few days, but without knowing when he'll hit his next checkpoint, water could be virtually impossible for him to come by. He is in the Saharan desert. But still he figures that even if he can't find his way back to the trail, the race staff will surely come looking for him soon. He just needs to maintain and keep going. No, don't go. You're going the wrong way.

Yeah. He just needs, he's just like, you know what, I just got to do that thing that I love, which is to run in the blazing heat. Maro works with the desert conditions basically just he's now only walking during the early mornings and then again in the evenings when the temperatures are at their coolest. He wears two hats. He covers his skin with long sleeves. And when the sun's beating down hard on him, protecting his skin during the hottest part

of the day, he rests underneath anything in any shade that he can find. This goes on for two days before Maro hears another sign of life. On the evening of April 16th, he looks up to see a helicopter flying right toward him. It's the Moroccan police helicopter that's on loan for the search of Maro. And so he finally is like, thank God I knew what I'd be rescued. As the helicopter approaches, it's so low in the sky, Maro will later say that he could actually see the pilot's helmet. It was that like kind of close to him.

So he takes out this pen sized emergency flare out of his pack that basically the race provided for all the racers. And he launches it, but the flare is so small that the pilot can't see it for him. Oh no, please. The pilot flies right past totally unaware that Maro is directly beneath him. And as disappointing as a moment as this is, Maro does not give up hope. He just keeps going, sure that someone will find him eventually. So on the morning of the third day of being lost, which is, I think the fifth, no, I think

it's the seventh day overall, he's just walking in the desert and then he spots the outline of a building off in the distance. He heads toward it as fast as he can, hoping that someone might be inside that can help him. When he gets to it, he sees that it's a building called a Marabout, which is a small Muslim shrine and they're common throughout the desert where Bedouins stop and rest. The Bedouins are the nomadic Arab people of the Sahara. So this is what it looks like.

See this. Oh, like a little dwelling, a little dwelling, a little dwelling out of the sun. And basically, he discovers that inside this particular Marabout, it's actually more of a mausoleum. There's no one alive here. There is a deceased holy man that's buried in one of the walls. And because of the sandstorm, this building has basically been filled with sand. So the floor is up close to the ceiling.

Oh no. Yeah. So Maro can reach the ceiling from a standing position and then up in the rafters, he finds a bird's nest with three eggs inside. Dude, he lucked out. He lucked out the poor bird to the birds like, what could happen up here? So he eats these eggs for sustenance and for the hydration, which also allows him to ration some of the food that he has left.

Then he goes outside and he hangs his Italian flag from a wooden post on the building, hoping that if any like helicopters, anyone flies over again, they'll spot it and come look for him there. He spends the rest of the day inside the Marabout shielding himself from the sun. It must have felt so good in there. Totally. So for the next three days, Maro waits for rescue inside the Marabout. So again, it's a bit of a bummer.

He has to use his own urine and a small portable stove to cook his dehydrated food rations. I mean, it's, you know, desperate times. When those run out, he turns to the small colony of bats that live in the tower of the Marabout. Oh no. Yes. So he needs the moisture that the bats have. So he decides not to cook them at all.

Instead, he rings their head off and he uses a knife to stir up the insides and he sucks the bats dry. Turn about his fair play, Dracula. Who's the vampire now, motherfucker? Oh, can you imagine? Oh! Yes. He, he, he scrambled them.

He scrambled them and then kept them again like a gel packet, but it's a bat. Really intense. I don't want that. But would you want it more or less? What's your pick? Good food that you boiled in your own pee or a bat scramble. Remember, it's 115 degrees outside. Remember, I like staying home and reading.

Remember your chafed and this is a serious situation. Oh my God, your nips. Can you imagine? Oh God. Your motherfucking nips. So Marl wakes up on the fourth day at the shrine to an airplane flying overhead. He rushes outside and he takes everything in his backpack that can catch on fire and he sets it on fire.

Holy shit. He's like, I'm fucking done, dude. He's like, I'm done with this shit. I had too many bats. I'm filled with, I'm filled with inspiration to get out of here. He also writes SOS in the sand beside the smoke signal, hoping to catch the plane's attention. Yeah.

But just as the smoke starts to build, the desert winds kick up and another sand storm rolls in. Oh. Yes. This is why. Just go running and down, down like fucking Rhode Island or something. Why do you have to go to the most dangerous spot on earth? Yeah.

Some people. So all of Marl's distress signals are blown away and so he goes back inside to shield himself from another raging sand storm. Great. And once again, the airplane passes by without seeing Marl. So with another chance of rescue passing him by, he finally falls into a deep state of despair. Yeah.

The reality sets in that he will most likely die in this desert. He considers his last remaining options, either to die a slow, painful death by dehydration or to take his own life. And he figures if he dies at the Marabout, there's a better chance of authorities finding his body more quickly. And this is what he wants because then his wife and kids will get his police pension. But if he's just merely declared missing, his family will have to wait 10 years to receive any benefits.

God, what an awful choice. Awful choice. So he grabs a piece of charcoal from his failed smoke signal bonfire and he writes a note to his wife and then he takes his knife and he cuts his wrist. But to his surprise, when he wakes up the next morning, he's still alive because his body is so dehydrated that his blood is too thick and it clotted to bleed out. Oh my fucking God. And in discovering this, Marl is so elated that he's basically, it's like he's beaten

death and been given this chance that he takes it as a sign that is not his time to die. He's re-energized and he rededicates himself to getting out of this desert one way or another. Oh my God. Right? Yes. So he remembers the race staff saying that the race would end in a mountainous village called Zagora. So he scans the horizon and he sees that there's a mountain range, you know, off in the distance

basically. So in the morning of April 21st, he gathers what little belongings he has left and he's makes his way toward those mountains. As he crosses the endless sands, he becomes tuned into his surroundings. So he starts to notice that there is like animal life around him once he starts paying attention. So there's beetles, there's snakes. So that's what he starts eating because he's like, he's paying attention, he's like basically

desperate. But he's also basically, he later describes it as becoming one with his surroundings and becoming like of the desert to survive. He knew that's what he had to do to survive. He says, quote, while I was out there all those days, wandering alone, I became like an animal, a desert creature that lives by the rules of the sun and behaves entirely on instinct. I crawled as a reptile crawls over the ground, hunting for beetles to stab with my knife,

searching for the shade of a tamarisk tree, forging for roots to suck. I fell into a hyper alert state, I became attuned to every shift of the wind, the promising wisp of a cloud building in the east, the sound of mice running over the sand at night. Every thought, every movement of my body was devoted to surviving. So along the way, Maro drops little items that are no longer of use to him as clues to his whereabouts, so that if there are any searchers still looking for him, they might be able to find him. So he leaves behind a t-shirt, toothpaste, a shoelace, and more.

He's just littering a trail of litter through the beautiful desert, hoping that the search party will find it. Oh, no. So two days after Maro's disappearance on the 16th, his wife, Cynthia, learns about her husband having strayed from the race trail by reading about it in an Italian newspaper. No. Yeah. No one from the race contacted her.

So the next day, her brother Fabio flies out to Morocco to help search for his brother in law. Yeah. And because Maro is a police officer and a national athlete for Italy, Roman officials and officials from Italy's embassy in Morocco now join the search as well. All right. They find small traces of Maro in the desert, a sock here, a power bar wrapper there, and they even find that Marabout where Maro was staying, complete with his Italian flag waving

on the top of the building. But try as they might. They cannot find Maro himself. On April 22nd, Maro does the thing that we've been waiting for him to do since this story began. He comes upon an oasis. I thought you were going to tell me. He takes out his cell phone and calls 9-1-1.

He's like, I finally, I'm going to break. I'm going to call it. No. He finds an oasis. An oasis. A cartoon desert experience. Yes. This oasis is not like the ones in the movies, though.

It's not super lush. It's actually just kind of a big puddle of water, but Maro is so overcome with gratitude. He throws himself into it as soon as he sees it. He tries to drink the water, but his throat is so swollen from dehydration, he can barely get anything down without vomiting. Oh my God. Yep. So over time, he manages to take slow, small sips every 10 minutes.

He basically spends the day laying in the puddle, drinking as much water as he can. Here's what he didn't consider. That puddle was 80% camel spit. There's just no way it was. It's a spittoon. It's disgusting. We did that once. There was a creek behind our house that basically linked my aunt Jean's house to our house.

It would rain and get wider and smaller, but it was really tiny. And then one time we came upon this widened out section of it, and we were like, oh my God, it's like a swimming hole. And we all jumped in and went swimming. And this was before Stand By Me where we didn't think about leeches. There weren't leeches in it, thank God. That night, we were eating dinner at my aunt Jean's house, and we were so excited. We told, and my cousin's team, he couldn't stop laughing, and he goes, that was completely

cow spit and cow pee that you swam in. Look at Stevie, man. He's the worst. But he's right. Did they just pick a place and do it? I don't get it. Well, yeah, or either that, or they just do it, and then it goes downstream. It's not a rushing body of water.

It was our little tiny creek that a lot of livestock also enjoyed, basically. We didn't really think about that part, anyway. But Maro would not care, because at this point, he's experienced way worse than just a little camel spit. Yeah, gave me some camel spit, he said. So the next day is April 23rd, and Maro fills his bottles with the puddle water, so he's done with his own pee. He's like, I have fresh water now, fuck you.

And he continues his trek toward the mountains, but then in the middle of his path, he spots fresh animal dung. So next to the dung, he sees small human footprints, and he excitedly runs and follows the footprints over a dune to find a young nomad girl with a small herd of goats. She's the first human being he's seen in nine days. It's been nine days. It's been nine days lost and wandering in the desert. Amazed and relieved, Maro rushes toward the girl, but his face is sunken, he's covered

in dirt, and he's lost so much weight, he looks like a skeleton, so the girl screams and runs away. Yeah, she does. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl. He follows her all the way to her encampment beneath a few scattered trees, and there, Maro meets the turigs, a nomadic Saharan tribe, another nomadic Saharan tribe.

The men of the tribe are out hunting, so the women tend to Maro, having him rest beneath the shade and feeding him mint tea and goat's milk. It was so delicious. Oh my God, the vest. So when the men of the tribe get back, they take Maro to the nearest village, which is a several hour camel ride away. Wow. People have never made it.

It's not for this, if he hadn't happened upon this place. Yep. Yes. I mean, that's the kind of romantic, beautiful thing that you see in movies all the time is people lost in the desert and whatever, and then Bedouins, or in this case, the turigs are the ones that save people because they're the ones that actually know how to live in the desert correctly. So basically the men of the turig tribe, they're worried he might be a criminal, so they turn

him over to the military police when they get to that village. The police hold him, they blindfold him in case he's a Moroccan spy, but when they question him, he explains that he's an Italian police officer. And then when he says his name, the police officers there recognize his name from the missing persons reports that have been sent out for the past nine days from the marathon. Wow. So with Maro's identity confirmed, the officer questioning him says, welcome to Algeria, sir. We have received a report about you from the Moroccan authorities.

We must get you to the infirmary straight away. Yeah, you do. Yeah. On April 24th, 1994, Maro Prosperi is finally strong enough to call his wife. You know he was scared shitless. It's evening. She just put the kids to bed. She picks up the phone and she hears her husband say, Cynthia, it's me.

Did you have a funeral for me yet? No. Cold, bro. So he tells his wife he's alive, he's being treated at the hospital in Tindof, Algeria. So when he was thrown off course, he wound up running and walking about 180 miles out of the way. He went east and south. He went over the mountains.

He actually crossed the border, the Morocco-Algeria border, and he went 25 miles into Algeria. He was so off course. So I can show you this little map, but it's pretty funny. The line of the actual race is like this, and he did this thing where he did this huge insane loop and ended up like way over here, like nowhere near. So he's a great athlete, but he's not great with directions. He's not great with being in a sandstorm and going, you know what, I'm not going to try to power through this one situation.

So when Maro was first admitted to the hospital, he'd lost 33 pounds in nine days, which is 20% of his original body weight. His eyes and his liver are badly damaged, and he can only take liquids. He's given 16 liters of intravenous fluids. His skin is weathered to a leathery texture that he compares to that of a tortoise, but he tells his wife, don't worry, I'm still beautiful. There's Italians. There's Italians.

Oh wait, and he is, look at that picture. That's him in the middle in the white shirt. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Very handsome. So Maro spent seven days in the hospital in Algeria before being flown back to Italy. When he arrives at home, he's met with a hero's welcome, complete with applauding crowds, photos with Italian dignitaries, media interviews, and his face plastered all over the papers.

The Italian news outlets, Dub Maro, the Robinson Crusoe of the Sahara. I don't know, Robinson Crusoe had a plan. Yeah. This guy just kind of made the best of a really awful fucking situation. Maro's survival is nothing short of a miracle, and it leads some people to doubt it. Some journalists consult sports physiologists about Maro's story, and many of them believe that it would have been physically impossible for him to survive as long as he did if his journey truly unfolded the way he described it.

According to these physiologists, the dehydration alone would have led to his demise. Worried about bad publicity for the marathon Disseble, founder Patrick Bauer jumps on the bandwagon and accuses Maro of making the story up, or of at least exaggerating it, for publicity and personal gain. He theorizes Maro and his wife teamed up to concoct some big dramatic story so that they could write a book or make a movie about his alleged survival. Maro, however, fights back. He says, quote, if that was the case, then you'd never met two people who are more stupid

than we are. We never got any money for this. At one point, Maro even considers suing Patrick for defamation and for poorly marking the marathon trail, but he never follows through with that, citing that his beef is personal rather than legal. Maro believes that Patrick, a lover of the desert himself who created this marathon after his own walking journey through the Sahara, is jealous of Maro's tremendous story. To this day, Patrick and Maro remain at odds, but the main points of Maro's story have

never veered from the original recounting, and later clues were found pointing to the validity of Maro's story. When a Roman film crew retraced Maro's steps for a 1995 film and found the Marabout shrine, as he described, complete with leftover bat skeletons in it. Not to mention the fact that Maro was dangerously ill when he was taken to the Algerian hospital, so the idea that he would do that and then damage his eyes and liver for some possible future story makes truly no sense whatsoever. It takes Maro two years before he's fully recovered from his time wandering in the desert,

but when he does, he's left with a passionate longing to return. He starts training for that marathon again as soon as he can, and he returns and finishes the race in 1998. He ends up running the Marathon Disable six times after his disappearance in 1994, and in 2001, he actually places 13th. Sadly, his love of risky endurance races leads to him and his wife getting a divorce. It's an amicable one, but she just doesn't have the wherewithal to stand by him while he continues to put his life on the line.

Maro has completed eight desert marathons and is still alive today at 66 years old. His survival story has been featured on National Geographic Channel's Expedition to the Edge, Sahara Nightmare, the Netflix series Losers, and a feature in Discovery Channel's six-part series Bear Grills Escape from Hell. And then he and his wife, his ex-wife, also partnered up to write a book in May of 2020, and it's called Those Ten Days Beyond Life. And in that, so the BBC article I told you I was going to tell you the name of, it was called How I Drank Urine and Bat Blood to Survive.

I'm glad you didn't tell me, otherwise, spoiler alert. That would lead to a huge drinking urine spoiler alert. But in that article, he actually says, these days, the Marathon Disable is a very different experience with up to 1,300 participants. So when he first ran it, it had 80 people, he said, with up to 1,300 participants, it's like a giant snake. You couldn't get lost if you tried. And that is the remarkable Saharan Desert survival story of Maro Prosperi.

Wow. I've never heard of it. That's bananas. It's super crazy. And it's, you know, it's just a fun, it's just a little fun excursion. Yeah. It's the holidays. Let's have a nice little.

It's the holidays. And also, you know, what would you do? Like what would you do? What would I do? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't ever do it. I'd love to go to Morocco. I would love to see, like do a one day tour.

Sure. Oh, I'd love to go to Morocco. In the winter or like when the sun, I don't know, I would need a next level sunblock. It's crazy. I guess my parents have run marathons before my brother thinks than a half. It's like a thing, you know, that you're supposed to do in my family, you know, I have like, like my uncle was a trail runner who like wrote books about it and shit, but like I have no fucking interest.

My dad ran a bunch of marathons. Really? Oh yeah. In the, in like 70s, 80s, my dad was all about jogging and ran marathons. But I, and he'd always be like, Hey, like while he was training, he always wanted me to like ride my bike with them or try to do it with him. And I was just like, that's a nightmare. I mean, it did it as my mom and I used to run the other all the time, but I was a little

skinny kid. Right. I don't, who had energy, I don't have, I don't do that anymore. Well, you could if you just wanted to, if you just applied yourself. Um, all right, well, that was a great, we did it. We did it. We did it guys. Yeah.

Thanks for being here with us in this endurance race of a podcast. Just hours and hours of podcasting. You have to get through while you drink your own urine and eat fats. If you're not drinking your own urine and eating fats while you listen to this podcast, you're doing it wrong. What are you doing? Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, associate producer Alejandra Keck, engineer and mixer Steven Ray Morris, researchers J Elias and Haley Gray, send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at my favorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to my favorite murder.com, rate, review and subscribe.