My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 307 - Fun Cracker Reveal

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

On today's episode, Karen covers the Miracle in the Andes: the Uruguayan Flight 571 crash, and Georgia tells the story of Celia Cooney, the Bobbed Haired Bandit. 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. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Calguera. And this is the end of the year. The last, almost second to last day, right? It's New Year's Eve Eve. Right, that's the one. Yeah. You're all partying, cuddled up at home, I hope. Yeah, I hope you're pre-partying into New Year's Eve, the greatest party of the year. Yeah. Can you imagine going out on New Year's Eve these days as an adult human? Oh, I sometimes

am at a gathering, a very low-key gathering where they will have like the Times Square ball drop in the background and I just, I, I immediately stress out. I immediately have to pee. Yeah. I immediately am wearing high heels and a small dress in 40 degree weather. Yeah. Like, how did they do it? They're under 30. That's how. They just must be hot. Like, they just, going out into the world must bring them just the greatest of rewards. You know what I think it is? I think it's a bunch of people who are newly in love and so they're warmed and excited by that. Like, there's no people who have been in seven-year relationships at the ball drop that are going down to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Exactly. Not talking shit. I'm in one and it's the

fucking best, but. Hey, but yeah, you don't have to do that anymore. Yeah. Also, they can't sell like tickets or anything to that. Do they? Oh, I don't know. I bet you can buy like VIP section areas that have like an actual toilet because we've all heard of the diaper that people wear diapers and. What? Yeah, I haven't heard that. Oh, yeah, because you have to hang out there for 14 hours to get your spot. And so people wear diapers. So they don't. What? Because none of the that's that's its own fetish. That's people doing that on purpose and using New Year's is an excuse. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I have to be in Times Square. That's what it is. Yeah. Well, you know the Times Square TGIF isn't going to let you use their fucking bathroom. No, I

bet you have. They have like four security guards on that bathroom. Absolutely. Anybody that comes in like with a with a frosty sheen and a red nose, they're like, get the hell out. Oh my god, it was Santa and you just kicked Santa out. Oh, wait, that's what I got. I just I just had. Well, yeah, it's the holidays, the holidays here. It's like someone trying to prove they just had boneless wings and a bucket. What are those like a bucket of like fucking Mai Tai that they all shared around the table? Corona minis. I just drank so many coronas. You have to let me use this bathroom. God, that would be no, no, no, you can't make me. Guess what? No one's going to make you do it this year. Please don't. Although I think we've talked about this, but I told you about

my friend who is from the East Coast and he used to go watch them fill up the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade floats. There's like a big warehouse by the airport or something. Cool. Wouldn't that that's something I would because it's also like almost like away from the crowd. You have to know about it to go see it and you take a little hit off that helium on the side. I love Snoopy or whatever, whichever one you like the best. I love Snoopy. That was just me playing the character of myself on helium. I love Snoopy. I really do. Drunk helium, Karen. How about that? Oh, she really doesn't handle things well. Amazingly drunk helium, Karen is even louder than normal, Karen. That's that's how she defies the odds for partying. Well, we hope you guys are all doing

things, keeping sane, keeping in therapy, staying healthy. Don't go to any, don't go to any event where you have to wear diapers or do if that's your thing or fine. No kink shaming, but it's more like, yeah, it's more like what's good really. What feels, what feels good to go do that. Yeah. Let us boss you around anymore, not anymore or do because we're kind of good at it. I mean, I think the diaper advice is solid, but that's up to you and your own individual need. Yeah, we would never tell you not to wear the diapers if that's what makes you happy. I'm just going to break it down in this way. It's so cold and then you're wearing a diaper filled with frozen pee under your sparkly dress or what have you. That's all I'm saying. It doesn't cut a good figure,

either, the bulky diaper with your what I think low cut jeans are in again. If I can somehow. But high cut diapers. High cut diapers, low cut jeans. This is truly evergreen, this conversation. It really is. This could be used year round. In fact, this is the new opening of every single episode we post in 2022. Every episode. We'll just go in and we'll dub over Easter or whatever. Weird holiday. Don't wear your Easter diapers this year. This is absolutely the kind of opening where one of my aunts would dip in and try to test out to see what all the cousins are talking about. Oh, this is Karen's podcast. She talks about diapers the whole time, adult. I thought she talked about crime. No, I guess, it's a real dirty podcast.

It's a diaper shaming podcast. Should we do a little update? Yeah, let's get into this. Let's move this thing along. You know, getting ready for nears and they're like, can you guys move on, please? Or what I love is like, what if there's somebody out there that's getting ready and then getting directly into bed? Like just after that third layer of mascara, then you just get straight, straight under the covers. Honey, I support you in a diaper. Yes, in a diaper. Because they're like, I'm going to sleep through January 31st and first. I refuse to even fucking open an eye and so diapers are going to happen. Look, we're saying there's so many positive

sides. We support you sleeping through. Do you hear Zeeve? Everything is most of what we're saying. That's what I've been doing for the past week, solid. All right. Well, real quick on before we get to more stories on the Exactly Right Media, our actual, can you believe it, podcast network. The Great Podcast Bananas is releasing their live Halloween episode. Oh, who's the special guest on that episode? I don't know because they recorded it, Diannesty Typewriter, and I'm the special guest, me, Georgia Hardstark. That's right. It was so fun. I was out in the world. It was my first live show since quarantine and it was just like, oh, there's so many people here and they were all in costumes. It was awesome.

Perfect. Also, did you get any popcorn? No, they didn't. I really love, they serve popcorn there. Oh, shit. Katie Levine, their producer, isn't fucking trouble for not offering me popcorn backstage. She's like, hey, that's not in my job description. Fuck you, I'm an actual producer. She's like, I got you hairspray. Like, I can't get you popcorn. I'm not your assistant. Go to hell. Go to HEWL. Also, our final installment of the Celebrity Hometowns is with our wonderful and immensely talented friend, Megan Mullally. So check that out. What a dream she is. Love that woman. She's so supportive of us. I really appreciate it. And then today is the last of our weekly December donations. So this week, we're donating $10,000 to Feeding America.

It's a national network of food banks and we're really happy to be supporting them. Yes. And you can actually, if you would also like to donate to Feeding America, you can go to their website and find a food bank near you that you can support directly or you can just donate to the organization. So check out their website and you can figure out if you would like to make a direct donation or however you'd like to do it. If you can, we know a lot of people aren't in that spot right now and that's the whole idea that we had with this is just being a little like out there with the giving because this is a time where lots of people are in need. And so it's a good thing to do. It makes you feel good if you can do it.

So why not encourage others? That's right. And if you can't afford it, give some blood. That's always an option. Or you know what? You can also just kind of try to be a good present person in the world. That's also helpful. We need that just as much as anything else. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Point. Oh, I'm getting real philosophical at the end of this year, 2021. We're wrapping this mother down. You hated this year, I think. This year was five years. Everybody does that where it's like, it clearly time isn't, it doesn't change because the year changes, but I do think people need this vacation and people need a reset. Yes. Well, that's what a new year always brings is like that clarity of like, okay, I'm starting from here. I know it's

going to end here and like, let's just make this one like somehow more positive than the next. That's the only way you can like get through life, really. Yeah, true. Also, you go, there's a real clarity that comes with standing in Times Square peeing in your own pants. I can't believe you never heard that before. I've never heard that before. Oh, I love it. I'm so glad that I was able to impart that on you because that was a real joy to me. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It actually answers. It's like when I was little and I would watch Gale Gens Island and be like, why won't they show the bathrooms? What did they do? What did they do? They're not not going to the bathroom. You're the only one who's interested in where Gale Gens shits essentially. It's just

like they have so many coconut cream pies, but I know there must be a men's and women's facility. Yeah. Coconut is a diuretic as we all know. I don't know. That's true. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, this is devolved from a place of devol of devulsion. It has devolved from there. I am devolved by this episode already. My apologies. I'm doing it. I'm the one doing it. This is going to be voted the best episode of our podcast 2021. Oh, I can't wait for our awards to come out and we can vote for ourselves. From the awards we created, the exactly right podcast awards. That's just all us. It's the exacties. Yeah. We just nominate ourselves for every category. I actually put on a sweater tonight because it's so cold in Los Angeles. Oh, I put a sweater on.

Look at you. Congratulations. Thanks. Just like my dad would love it. Don't turn the heater on. Put a sweater on instead. Don't get me started on that. Okay. Being married to someone from the Midwest who's like, it's not cold. You don't have enough clothes on. But being someone mean from Southern California who's like, I hate wearing layers and I hate clothes. I want to walk out of freely in my fucking house. You know, I hear it. It's like I was really upset because I was like, well, I can't wear my house flip flops. I have to put a pair of socks on. Absolutely not. No, you get very difficult to wear your diaper and your flip flop whenever and wherever you fucking please. That includes Times Square. That includes Times Square or your very front

living room, whatever place you desire. Your heart's desire. You're gonna fire that jacuzzi up? Yeah. You know, I had it. We turned it on when Nora was here. There is something about going into a jacuzzi alone that is a little too dark for me this holiday season. It definitely feels like the beginning of a horror movie. Yeah, you just sit there staring and then you're then you just hear like twig snapping and it's not, you know what I mean? It's not as sexy as you want it to be. We're just kind of like, oh yeah, no, I could have just taken a bath and done this privately. That's a good point. Oh, shit. Done this privately. It was great when I lived in the old apartment building and I'd go to sit in the jacuzzi and Gus, the jacuzzi cat, would like literally

keep watch. Like he'd sit next to my head. Yeah. And if anything came around, I could tell he was like aware of it. His head was on a swivel. It was, yeah. He was covering your, he had your back. He was my guard, jacuzzi cat. He was on your six. Is that what it's? Is that about your six? Come on, it's like a, it's like a marine, it's an army thing. Oh, I thought it was a JLo thing. I didn't get it. It's like, oh yeah, JLo wrote a song. It could also be, yeah, something about being on your six. I'm not sure. Like being up on your, yeah. Well, we did a just fascinating conversation. It's, it's point by point, point counterpoint. It's just interesting and compelling. This is, this is what it's like at Yale. Okay, wait, are you first this time or am I?

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Guess what I'm going to do to wrap out this year? Oh, fuck what? I'm going to tell the story of the miracle in the Andes, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Crash. Are you ready? Oh my god. Is this the soccer one? Rugby, yes. Oh my god. You know this movie's scared the shit out of me as a child. It's horrifying. I watched it as what, an eight-year old? Yeah. And I still think about it. So this is great. It's great. I'm excited. Now, did you get drawn into it because it was a little bit publicized? Like it was kind of a heartthrobby movie. There were so many cute young actors in it. A lot of had. Yeah. So everyone's like,

oh, let's go see this. True story. It's like really intense. True story. But it's a great movie. It's a fucking great movie. If you haven't seen this movie. Alive. Is that what it's called? Yes, it is. It's called Alive. Wait a second. Sorry, Stephen. Let me just, I should have looked this up before it just hit me that I should have looked it up. What? Just to see who the cast is because I'm only thinking of Billy Crudup right now, but I don't even know if that's true. It is. You're Ethan Hawke. You're Josh Hamilton. You're Vincent Spano. Oh, he's a classic. You've got your, your John Malkovich is in it. What? What? Was he? I didn't know he was in it. Hottie. Classic Hottie. Classic Hottie John Malkovich. Oh, Josh Lucas. He's Josh Lucas. Oh, Dave

Cubit. Looking good, Dave Cubit. Uh-oh. Sorry. The rails and into the diaper. I just was off by myself looking at my phone and cheering on the cast of a 1993 film. Okay. So I was like 12 of them. So I was primed ready for a Hottie Hot Hots for fucking me. You were ready for a Hottie Hot Hot and you kind of thought, oh, is this going to be like the outsiders? And then you're like, it's true. It's horrifying, but it is amazing. It's an amazing, wonderful survival story. So I'm going to tell it to you now. Please. If you've seen the movie, just wait till you hear the audio only my version. Okay. No, I'm excited for this. This is great. I haven't seen it since it was in the theater. So this will be a fun. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to remind you of a couple things.

Okay. I pre-apologize for, of course, all the mispronouncements of many of the people are from Uruguay and I don't have the natural pronoun. I'll give it a really honest to goodness try. Okay. Sources for this from an article in National Geographic by Simon Worrell, an article from history.com by Kieran Mulvaney, an article in Britannica.com by Amy Tickannon, and then of course, the Wikipedia page of Uruguay and Air Force Flight 571. So we are going to start on Thursday, October 12, 1972, and an amateur rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, the old Christians Club rugby union teams, what they're called. They board a twin turboprop airplane and they're taking it from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile. The rugby club's president,

Daniel Wan, has chartered this turboprop airplane. So it's little and they chartered it from the Uruguay Air Force and so that the team could fly to Chile to face off against an English rugby team, the Old Boys Club. So there's 40 passengers and five crew members on this flight. So 19 of these passengers are members of the Old Christians Club rugby team. And then the remaining seats are taken by the team's physician, Dr. Francisco Nicola, Dr. Nicola's wife Esther, and then some team family and friends who basically came to support them for this game. Okay, 40 is not that tiny. Like I was thinking of a tiny, like, you know, a teeny tiny plane. Oh, yeah, no, it's chartered from the Air Force. Okay. So it's a decent size plane.

Okay. It's like a solid, yeah, it's not like a tiny little charter plane. No, I think the name turboprop is misleading. Yeah, yeah. Because it makes you think of like a little Cessna that has 12 people in it or something. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty big. Okay. So one friend had to cancel last minute. So they gave this a seat away to a woman named Graciela Mariana who was traveling to Santiago for her oldest daughter's wedding. So she's just kind of there, you know, because she got the chance to travel. Yeah. So the pilot Colonel Julio Cesar Ferraris is an experienced Air Force pilot with over 5,000 flight hours and 29 passages over the Andes Mountains. So he has experiences isn't like his

first time. He's overseeing the flight. And he's also training his co-pilot Lieutenant Colonel Dante Hector Lagurara. Okay. So they take off and they're on their way and then a storm rolls in over the Andes Mountains like mid-flight. And they actually have to make an emergency landing in Mendoza, Argentina, because the conditions are so bad up ahead. So they spend the night, the crew and the passengers spend the night in Mendoza to wait out the storm. And by morning, the conditions are still rough. They wait a few more hours and then they finally decide to depart again at 2.18 on Friday, October 13, 1972. Okay. So technically, there's a straight path westward from Mendoza to Santiago. And it's about 120 miles. And if they travel along this

path, that requires that the plane has to fly 25,000 to 26,000 feet to clear that section of the Andes. And this plane can go as high as 28,000 feet, but that's the maximum. And it has a full flight with lots of heavy gear, luggage, people on board. So basically, it's too dangerous for them to just fly directly over the Andes. Okay. So the pilots decide instead to take a U-shaped route that dips to the south before going west again. And although it extends the trip 370 miles, that's only an extra 90 minutes. And then they're much safer because they're only flying at 18,000 feet. So they're basically going around the mountain instead of over? Yes, exactly. So they basically are going, they're going out of their way so they don't have to just go straight over.

Got it. Yeah. So when they finally do start to pass over the mountain range, the co-pilot Lagurara Radios Air Traffic Control to let them know that they should reach this place called Plancheon Pass by 321. This is the point over the Andes where air traffic control in Mendoza hands off their flight tracking duties to air traffic control in Santiago. So the skies are cloudy up in the mountains at Plancheon Pass. So the pilots depend on radio navigation to determine where they are. So basically, they have to do this all by radio signal. So at 321, Lagurara Radios Air Traffic Control telling them they've just gotten through the plancheon pass. And then the distance from there to Curico, which is the nearest radio beacon is roughly around 40 miles.

It should take them about 11 minutes. But the pilot Radios Traffic Control telling them that they plan to reach Curico in about one minute. So at around 324, three minutes after crossing the pass, Lagurara Radios Air Traffic Control again, saying that they're now turning north and are requesting permission to start their descent. And that descent is authorized. So the plane dips down from 18,000 feet to 11,500 feet. But what both the pilots of this plane and air traffic control don't realize is the plane has not yet cleared the Andes. So they don't, they don't know where they actually are. They're off. They're pre, okay, got it. Yeah. So they think they've cleared it and they haven't even come up to it yet. So they are now descending too soon. So as the plane descends,

the passengers begin to feel heavy turbulence because in reality, they're getting really close to the mountains, which is, you know, creates the turbulence. The rugby players start joking about the turbulence. They're tossing rugby balls around. They're making up songs about it, you know, kind of trying to be macho and brave. But then a couple players look out the window and they see that they are much closer to the mountains than they should be. Then the plane takes a, all of a sudden takes a steep climb until it's practically vertical. It's trying to go straight up in the air because the pilots have realized that they didn't, they don't actually know where they are. And they're too close to the mountains.

And it begins to stall and shake. The plane's ground collision alarm starts going off. The pilots throw the plane into maximum power, hoping that they can pull upwards and away from the mountains in time. The nose of the plane makes it up and over the ridge, but the tail does not clear it. And at 3.34pm, the tail of the plane clips the ridge and basically hits, begins the plane crash. But it's not just the tail. Then the plane's right wing slams into the mountain side and is ripped off the plane entirely and taking what's left of the plane's tail and the entire back of the fuselage with it. So that includes the vertical stabilizer, the baggage hold, the galley, and two rows of seats from the back of the cabin. Oh, no.

Yeah. So this is basically a really horrifying beginning of this plane crash. So immediately three rugby players, Gaston, Costamale, Alegio, Aounie, and Guido Magri, as well as the navigator, Ramon Martinez, and flight attendant Joaquin Ramirez are all immediately killed. Ah. Seconds later, a mountain on the other side of the plane rips the left wing off. Two more passengers, Daniel Shaw and Carlos Velletta, they fall out of the back of the plane. So basically the back of the plane is a gaping open hole. Oh, I remember this from the movie. As the fuselage descends. It's horrifying. Just having fucking flashbacks. Yeah. The plane drops from the sky and basically lands on the mountain face. And then it begins sliding for about 2,400

feet. And then when it hits a snow bank, it stops, but the impact crushes the cockpit, killing the pilot Veradas. And it also loosens several seats from the ground in the cabin. And it sends four passengers flying to the front of the plane and killing them. Ah. Their team physician, Dr. Francisco Nicola, his wife, Esther Eugenia Parado, who's a rugby player's mom, and Fernando Vasquez, who's a friend of the team. Oh, God. Yeah. So the co-pilot, La Garara, is badly injured, but he's still alive in the cockpit. And he actually begs one of the survivors to shoot him and put him out of his misery. But the passenger can't bring himself to do it. And La Garara ends up passing away

from his injuries later that night. So it's just chaos. It's chaos, but it's also carnage. It's horrifying. Okay. So in the immediate aftermath, 12 passengers have been killed, leaving 33 survivors stranded on a glacier 12,000 feet up in the frozen Andes Mountains right along the Argentina-Chile border. So there are two players that are on this flight, Roberto Canessa and his friend Gustavo Zarbino. Not only have they survived with minimal injuries, but they're both first-year medical students. Yeah. So they quickly tend to every survivor that they can get to prioritizing those with the most severe injuries and patching people up as best they can. So that alone is a miracle. There are two, like, basically doctors in training on

this flight. Because I was going to say how, I mean, a double whammy it is that the physician died because he could have helped so many people. Right. Right. So we've got some physicians in training. So they actually, Roberto and Gustavo end up removing a piece of metal from the stomach of one of their teammates named Enrico Platero. And they actually have to remove some of his intestine along with it. But they end up being able to, like, do this impromptu surgery and keep him alive. So they execute it and they patch him up and he survives. Another teammate, Arturo Nogriera, suffers from two broken legs. And Roberto and Gustavo stabilize those breaks as best they can. But basically, Arturo is rendered immobile on the glacier because they just have

nothing to work with. Yeah. Several of the passengers, both teammates and family members and friends suffer compound fractures. The young medical students do their best to patch up those and protect them from infection. But none of the people with compound fractures ends up living for very much longer. After the first night on the glacier, another five people die. The co-pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Dante Hector Laguera, Francisco Abal, Graziella Mariani, who is the woman who was traveling to her daughter's wedding. Yeah. And Felipe McHarrion and Julio Martinez-Lamas. But despite these tragic losses, there's one recovery that appears to be the biggest miracle of them all. teammate Nando Parado was hit in the head during the crash.

And he got a skull fracture that put him into a coma. He remains unconscious for three days. But when he finally awakes, he actually is okay physically. Holy shit. He just wakes back up. But sadly, after he comes to, he learns that his mother has died in the crash. His sister, Susanna Parado, who's only 19 years old, who is also aboard the flight, is alive when Nando wakes, but she's suffering from a terrible injury of her own. And she will end up actually passing away on day eight. So it's really horrible because there's, it's then becomes like triage inside of this crashed fuselage, where they're already in snow. Like it's a horrible situation. So when air traffic control realizes that they've lost contact with the rugby team is playing, they

immediately seek help from the Chilean Air Search and Rescue Service, which are called SARS, unfortunately, but let's give them this. So there for this, they're SARS. Using the last radio signal sent out the rescue team pinpoints an area where the plane most likely crashed in one of the most remote and difficult to access regions of the Andes. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So knowing they're going to need more help, SARS immediately reaches out to the Andes rescue group of Chile. So they, no one does any of that dumb bullshit that we hear about a lot of like, oh, we'll handle this or this or I think they're immediately like, it's about the rescue and it's about getting people out. Yeah. So these agencies team up to scour the area to search for the wreckage, but the plane is

white, which makes it virtually impossible to spot in the snow from the air. Right. I never even thought about that when I watched the movie. It's a what obviously as many planes are, it's a white plane. So they search well into the night and into the next day. So that next morning, which is now October 14th, 1972, the survivors can see the search planes flying overhead. Thinking quickly, one of the survivors finds a passenger's lipstick and goes up onto the top of the fuselage and tries to write SOS in big letters. Right. But then realizes they don't have nearly enough lipstick to finish the actual letters SOS or make it big enough for anyone to see as they go by. Three rescue planes pass over right over the crash and don't see it. The search goes on like that for eight

days. But after 142 hours of searching, the rescue team has to call it quits. The frozen conditions, the high altitude and the unforgiving terrain of the Andes leave the search parties doubtful that anyone even would have survived the impact or could continue on surviving days later, even if they did survive the initial hit. So the search officially ends on October 21st, 1972. Now the rescuers only hope is that by summer, which is December because we're in the southern hemisphere, the snow will have melted enough for them to recover the victims bodies. So that's the best they're hoping for. But little do these rescue officials know there are 28 survivors left on the glacier. And as you know, if you've seen this movie, they have an unwavering will to live.

So most of the survivors have never even seen snow. And now they're facing temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn't even think about that. They're from fucking Chile and Argentina. Like, of course. Yes. Oh, yeah. It's like it. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's it's like being from Orange County and then being like, now you're crashed in Tahoe. Good luck. Good luck with your flip flops. Yeah, try to figure this shit out. Oh, my God. Yeah. So and it's so cold. It's insane. So they make a shelter out of what's left of the fuselage. They all crammed together inside the cabin the first night, which is actually only an eight by 10 foot area that they all have to get into. Yeah. Then the whole back of the plane is ripped off, which leaves them exposed to the whipping winds

of the mountains. So they have to use luggage, broken seats, and other random bits of debris to make a wall to insulate the fuselage better. Then they realized they're going to need water. So player Fito Strauch comes up with the brilliant idea of ripping the aluminum paneling from the underside of the plane seats and using it to reflect sunlight down to melt the snow. So they set up this whole system where basically they put out empty wine bottles to catch this melting snow that's coming off of these strips of aluminum. And even though it doesn't produce water very quickly, it is a perfect plan just to set up and keep them hydrated and, you know, just one more thing to keep them alive. Yeah. Yeah. They also tear apart the plane seats and they use wool for

blankets. They strip the insulation from parts of the galley and make sleeping bags out of it. And they use pieces of the plastic screen from the cockpit to make themselves sunglasses so that they don't go snow blind. Snow blind. Isn't that smart? Yeah. They even discovered that if they need to urinate after the sun goes down, it's better to do it inside one of the rugby balls to prevent having their pee immediately freeze to themselves. So if they go outside, that's all that's going to happen. Yeah. Like a midstream. I guess. I mean, if it's minus 22. Yeah. Haven't you ever heard of like when you live in Chicago and it gets really cold in the winter, your snot freezes? No. No. I had people warn me about that when I moved to Chicago and

thank God the year that I lived there, it was like a mild winter. Yeah. And so I never experienced that because it never got that cool. I think it has to be like 10, 10 or zero or something. But yeah. That never crossed my mind. I've been in like cute snow, never in like real snow. Yeah. Sunny snow that you're like immediately you go inside and sit by a fire. Right. Yeah. Not serious snow. No. As Roberto Canessa would later joke, you get very smart when you're dying. So they had, they basically are having to outsmart things they've never even thought about before. So as we know, we who have seen the movie, the group of survivors is faced with a severe lack of food. So the only food left in the plane after the crash are eight chocolate bars, a tin of mussels,

a small assortment of... Karen, you're disgusted. A tin of mussels in the middle of a plane crash. Tell them I was a good person. You can have my muscles. Okay. Ten of mussels gone. A small assortment of nuts and dried fruits. Nando Parado describes the extreme rationing that he had to restrict himself to within the first three days after waking from his coma, surviving on just one chocolate covered peanut. So this is what he says. On the first day, I slowly suck the chocolate off the peanut. On the second day, I suck gently on the peanut for hours, allowing myself only a tiny nibble now and then. I did the same thing on the third day. And when I finally nibbled the peanut down to nothing, there was no food left

at all. Fuck. Yeah. So as the days wear on, their hunger grows so intense that they make an impossible decision. They agree that to survive, they will have to eat the flesh of the dead passengers. Yep. Some take longer to come around to this idea than others, of course. But ultimately, the desire to live outweighs the mental and emotional hurdles that they all have about eating human flesh. The survivors decide that their friends would want them to consume whatever protein and fat they could to stay alive, which is absolutely true. Eat me. If I ever fucking, if you, me and Stephen and Vince are on a plane, on a Tina, on an, you're going Air Force plane. Yeah. You're welcome to it. Well, also, it's just that it's, it's just for the person that has to do it. But

it is like, yes, if you've already died, you'd be like, please do whatever you can to live. I'm on the donor list for a reason. Yeah. Hell yeah. Okay. The survivors then make a pact amongst themselves that if they too die, that they would be happy to put their bodies to the service of the rest of the team. So they all are basically like, look, we have no choice. We have to do this and this and you can do it for me. And we'll, you know, that's like the idea. So because of his medical training, Roberto Canessa takes it upon himself to cut the strips of meat from the bodies. Yeah, horrifying. So on day 11, October 24th, some of the remaining 27 survivors find a small transistor radio stuck between the plane seats. So there's a tech savvy rugby team member named

Roy Harley, and he figures out how to make an antenna out of some of the electrical cable that's from the, the plane crash. So even if they can't use the radio to communicate with anybody, they can at least tune into the reports being broadcast to the outside world. Whoa, that's gotta kind of suck to be like, I just want to talk to you. And all I hear is like Peggy soups and easy listening. Yeah. So when Roy finally gets the radio to work, they managed to tune into a news report about the crash. And the news they hear isn't good. They find out that the search was officially called off three days earlier. So of course, the group falls into deep despair. Their hopes of being rescued are now dashed. But in that moment,

player Gustavo Nicolik shouts, Hey, boys, there's some good news. We just heard on the radio, they've called off the search. And then everyone gets super pissed at Gustavo. And they're like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's not good news. And he goes, it is because it means we're going to get out of here on our own. Wow. This is a fucking positive person. This is like, come on, everybody buckled down. Yeah, get serious. So for the next few days, the survivors discuss venturing out to get help. They remember that the co pilot mentioned them being close to Curico. And they figured that if that's true, then the Chilean countryside should only be a few miles to the west. In reality, it's more like 55 miles to the east, but they had a

theory and they were trying to go with it. Okay. So some of the group had tried venturing away from the plane in the early days of the crash, but the dehydration, the altitude sickness, bitter cold nights with no shelter, sent them back to the fuselage. Yeah. Traveling a far distance in that terrain seems next to impossible to all of them. But still, they keep discussing how they might be able to make it work. And then it's October 29. Around midnight, all the survivors are asleep in the fuselage and a fucking avalanche hits. That's right. It's so disturbing and upsetting in the movie. It's like, are you kidding me? Yeah. They were just getting like their water set up and they're, you know, actually eating something and not, you know, so horrifying. The snow piles

not only on top of the aircraft, but inside it filling the only shelter with so much snow that all the space that remains is a roughly three foot gap between the snow and the ceiling all the way down the length of the remaining fuselage. Eight of the 27 survivors die immediately, including Marcelo Perez, the rugby team captain and the group's de facto leader, as well as Liliana Mithal, who'd become a mother figure for the boys. And the other six victims are Enrique Platero, Daniel Mespons, Juan Menendez, Diego Storm, Carlos Roque and Gustavo Nicolik, the one who yelled, we're going to get out of here on our own. The remaining 19 survivors are now trapped inside the fuselage and the oxygen is running out. So Nando finds a metal

pole and he manages to poke a hole through the ceiling of the plane up through the snow and getting them air to breathe. Wow. It takes them two days to tunnel out of the fuselage. Holy shit. But as soon as they break free, a blizzard hits. No. I mean, fucking, it ravages the glacier and forces everyone back inside the fuselage and they're trapped once again. And so once again, they start talking about the idea of a group going down the mountainside to try to go get help, like that they just can't stay here anymore. So most of the group is reluctant to go, but four of the players volunteer Nando Parado, Roberto Canessa, Numa Tercotti and Antonio Vicenten. So the rest of the group gives these guys larger food rations and the warmest clothing.

They spend a full week resting to save their energy for the trek. And when they finally venture out, so they think they should be heading west, but there's a mountain. There's basically a whole mountainside in their way. So they first head east, hoping that the trail will kind of loop them back around West Bird. So they'll be going in the direction that they believe Curiacco is. After a mile of walking, the guys then come upon the tail of the plane. And inside they find more food. So they find a box of chocolates, three meat patties and rum. Yes, it's a feast. They also find extra clothes. They find some medicine and they even find a few comic books. So they spend their first night sheltered in the tail of the plane, building a fire

and reading comic books to keep their spirits up. Thank fucking God. I know for real. But then when they venture out the next day, they spend their first night sleeping outdoors and they nearly freeze to death. The daily temperatures are getting higher because summer is approaching, but the night temperatures still dip well below freezing. And they realize they won't be able to survive another night without shelter. So they decide to head back to the airplane tail. And there they find batteries that they think could be used to power that two way radio that's back at the fuselage. And they figured they should bring those batteries back and then try to power the radio and try to call for help because this idea of them just walking, walking isn't

going to work. Yeah. So then they realize the batteries are too heavy to lug back with them. So they hike back to the fuselage and then they take the two way radio down to the tail part. And they also take Roy Harley, who's the tech savvy player. He tries to connect the batteries to the radio. It doesn't work. They all head back to the fuselage to regroup and make up a new plan. So two weeks later on November 15th, Arturo Noguera dies and three days after that, Raphael Ekavarin also dies. Both of them had infected wounds that had developed gangrene. So basically they die, you know, after horrible infections by December 11th, which is day 60 on the glacier. Numa Turcati dies of starvation. Numa was unable to eat human flesh, couldn't do it.

And his weight had dropped to just 55 pounds. Oh my God. Yeah. Horrible. What a horrible. So it's clear to the survivors that without another attempt at walking towards civilization, they're all going to die on the mountain. So they need to find a way to sleep through the night without shelter. Their answer comes in a form of quilted bats of insulation that they are able to take from the plane's tail and they figure they sew them together and then double them over and they make one huge sleeping bag that three guys can get into. So they basically sleep, wrap together through the freezing night. Yeah, man. Body.

So on December 12th, 1972, Nando convinces Roberta Canessa and Antonio Vicentin to venture back out with him again. The guys spend a few days climbing up the mountain thinking the Chilean countryside will be just over the peak. They bicker over the best way to go. They endure blustery winds and they manage virtually impossible climbs. But once they're at the top, all they can see is more icy mountains in every direction. So when they're looking, Nando spots two peaks off in the distance in the west that do not have snow on them. And he figures there must be civilization in that direction. The only problem is it's going to take them much longer to get there than they thought it would. So they decide to send Antonio back to the

fuselage so that they only have to split the remaining food rations between the two of them. So because the journey back is all downhill, Antonio sleds down the mountainside using a seat cushion from the plane. And the path that took them days to climb only takes an hour for Antonio to slide back down. Oh, shit. So he just, I mean, that would be the weirdest feeling because in the midst of horror and like these nightmarish conditions, suddenly you're on the most fun ride for an hour. Totally. Just kind of sliding your way back down. But how disappointing to be like, we just risked our lives for a couple of days and that took it was nothing. It was nothing. Yeah. Okay. So as Nando and Roberto continue their journey,

Nando says, quote, we may be walking to our deaths, but I would rather walk to meet my death than wait for it to come to me. Yeah. So it takes several more days, but Nando and Roberto managed to hike all the way down into the valley that Nando spotted from that mountain peak. Then once they're down there, they see the San Jose River, which is always a great sign in any of these like wilderness horror stories. You find yourself a river, you are halfway home. That is, that's the dream. So they find this river and they just walk along it and it eventually brings them to the snow line. And that's where they finally see signs of human life, which is abandoned camping gear and grazing cows. Great. Now they know they're at least near somewhere,

someone somewhere. Yeah. On their ninth day of travels, they stop next to a river, they're completely spent, they can't hike anymore. So they decide to stop and build a fire and basically set up for the night. But as they do, across the river, they suddenly spot three men on horseback. So they start shouting to the men for help, but the river's roar is so loud that the men can't hear them. God damn it. But then they spot Nando and Roberto and they managed to communicate to them that they're coming back tomorrow. Okay. So, you know, over the roaring river, they basically with a bunch of gestures are like, we'll be back. We'll be back. Okay. And they do, they come back the next day, only this time they've come prepared,

they have a pencil and paper tied to a rock and they throw it across the river to Nando and Roberto. So the guys write a note saying they survived a plane crash up in the Andes, that they're incredibly weak, they need help, and that there are 14 others that still remain up at the crash site. They throw the rock back over the river. And one of the men on the other side, who's a mule tear, which is a person who transports goods via pack mule. And his name is Sergio Catalan. He reads the note aloud to his companions. And he'd heard about the plane crash. And none of them can believe that anyone could have survived not only the plane crash, but then all that time, yeah, way up in the way up in the peaks in the Andes. So Sergio Catalan and his,

and his two compatriots, they ride for 10 hours by horseback to get help at the nearest village, which is Puente Negro in Chile. There they go to the police, and the police contact the Chilean army. So Roberto and Nando are later brought by horseback to Carrico, and they're fed and given the chance to rest before being questioned by army officials. They tell the officials where the rest of the group is stranded. They point to the location on a map. They figure out that it took them 10 days to hike 24 miles. And both of them had lost almost half their body weight. Oh my God. Yeah. So they made it out of there like in the nick of time. On December 22nd, 1972, the Chilean Air Force sends in three helicopters to rescue the remaining 14 survivors. But because

of space and weight restrictions, and because the fuselage is in such an inaccessible spot, they have to break up the rescue into two day shifts. So yes. So on this first day, they pull the first seven people out, four of the emergency personnel then spend the night in the fuselage with the remaining survivors until the helicopters can come back the next day and finally bring the remaining seven survivors home. Oh, what a bummer to be one of those fucking second peer. You'd just be like, no, I think I have to go now. I think I need to be on this first flight out. Definitely. So in all of the 45 people that took that flight that day, only 16 survived the 72 days that is over two months trapped in the Andes Mountains. News outlets all over the world

cover the story, of course, but when the survivors reveal that they had to eat some of the deceased to survive, they are met with negative, a negative response. But when the survivors meet with and talk to the families of the deceased, the families are compassionate and they're understanding about the impossible position that these survivors were put in. So no one that's close to the situation judged them or had anything negative to say. That's just all the people that are sitting warm and cozy in their homes, never having risked anything in their lives. And knowing that the survivors would have done it for the deceased if it had been on the other, or would have been okay with it. It's like, yeah. Yes, no one wants to do that. No. Clearly. It's outrageous to pretend

like you stand against it as if they in any way liked that. I mean, it's just so obnoxious, so tabloid-y. So, okay. Authorities have to wait for the snow to melt on the mountain to recover the people that were lost. The victims' families agree to a mass burial near the crash site. The wreckage is then burned down to its metal frame. And every year, the remaining survivors try to get together on December 22nd to honor their experience and commemorate those who were lost. As for Roberto Canessa, he went on to be one of Uruguay's top pediatric cardiologists. He says he's grateful to be alive and that his experience taught him to do something positive every day and to strive to be better than he was the day before. He tells National Geographic,

quote, every day when I look at myself in the mirror, I thank God the same old jerk is staring back at me. And that's the unbelievable story of the miracle in the Andes, the survivors of the crash of Uruguayan Flight 571. Holy shit. I'm freezing now, by the way, like, so cold. It's unbelievable. That's why I had to put a sweater on. Oh my God. Just the idea of it. Hold on. I'm like literally. I genuinely hate being cold. Wow. Great job. That was. Thank you. That was upsetting. Yum. In a good way. Like you did great. Right? Yeah. You can overcome anything if those guys got themselves out of the Andes. That's right. You should be happy you're going to see the same jerk in the mirror every morning. I am. Be grateful for that jerk in the mirror.

All right. Well, today, I'm covering a story that I had never heard of until I read an article about it in Atlas Obscura. So this is the story of the Rurang 20s tabloid darling, the bobbed-haired bandit. Oh, old timey. Well, 1920s timey. Yeah, it's pretty old. Yeah. 100 years. Oh my God. You're fucking right. Jesus. Wow. Okay. So the article on Atlas Obscura was by Lauren Young. There's also a New York Times daily news article by Mara Boveson. An article on a blog called Jackie O, but it's J-A-Q-U-O by Jackie Jackson. An article in ephemeral New York in a blog post article on fish wrap by Tareya Galloway, Florida History Network.com, a New York Times article by Steven Duncombe and Andrew Mattson. And they also wrote a book called The Bobhaired Bandit,

the two of them. So 1920s, Karen, let me tell you a little about it in the US. Okay. I know you've forgotten so much about it. I'd love to hear. It was a great time. It was a great time for all of us. Economic prosperity, post-World War I partying, referred to as the Rurang 20s, or the Jazz Age, societal and cultural changes were challenging that old Victorian, you know, proper style of both societal norms and fashion. The 1920s is recognized as the decade in which fashion entered the modern era. Women began wearing more comfortable clothes, like shorter skirts and even trousers, abandoning the more restricting styles that have been worn in the past. And they also began taking on more, quote, masculine activities like sports. They entered the workplace in large

numbers. And so the style of clothing evolved along with the women's more active lives. So kneeling skirts and dresses became socially acceptable, as did smoking cigarettes. And of course, as you can see on my head, a bobbed haircut. And of course, this is a stark contrast to the proper Victorian style of beautiful long tresses and buns and shit. Of course, women got the right to vote in 1920, thanks to the women's suffrage movement and prohibition in the US began in January of 1919. The ban on alcohol helped usher in the age of bootlegging and gangs ruthlessly taking over lots of crimes and a feeling of lawlessness in many cities. Lauren Young from Atlas Obscura said quote, the era of prohibition in the early 20th century was a period marked by

poverty, deep schisms in social class, gangs and high crime rates. And of course, we've all heard of the famous men of the time who robbed banks, but took everyone by surprise when a female robber started holding up spots around Brooklyn with what was dubbed as her quote, baby automatic in tow. The first robbery took place on January 5, 1924 at Thomas Rouson Grocery in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. When a petite, pretty young woman ordered a dozen eggs from the shop's clerk, as he's preparing the order, the woman who's well dressed in a seal skin coat, a beaded gray dress and black shoes and nylon suddenly pulls out her 25 automatic pistol from her fur coat and yells for the clerk to stick them up quick. Her accomplice kind of is standing

towards the back of the store, but he's an intimidatingly tall for the time six feet tall man. He's got two guns drawn stands her quietly. He's kind of just there as the muscle, the woman is in charge of the operation and she gets away with a total of $680. And the man drives her and the man drives her off quickly in a getaway card hot $680. And today's money is $2,800 or Marguess $680 in 1924. Oh, $10,000, 11,000. Good job. Oh, right. Thanks for giving me a second. Yeah, I knew you knew it. Now at the time, of course, women were involved in some criminal activity, but it was more like as the accomplice of the dude, like they'd hide a gun for him or they'd give him an alibi. And so this woman soon dubbed the bob haired bandit was new

and super exciting for New York City, especially at a time where like journalism was all about tabloids and front page splashy bullshit. The story of this brazen woman who was seemingly easily able to evade police fascinated the public and ever would wondered who this badass could be. But the truth was actually much more humble. In reality, the bob haired bandit Celia Cooney was just trying to feed her struggling family. So Celia was born in 1904 in a New York City basement apartment. And she had her eight older siblings lived in poverty and were neglected by their parents who have no education. With a father who drank heavily and didn't earn enough to feed the family, the children were sent out to beg in the streets and they were eventually placed in the

care of an aunt. In 1919, at the age of 16, Cecilia left the family and got a job as a laundry worker. And then in 1923, at the age of 20, married the tall, super hot Ed Cooney, a 25 year old auto repairman. Yes, Ed. What's up tall guy? Just standing behind his woman. Yeah, doing her bidding. Yeah, like you be in charge. I'll get the getaway car. I'll handle this back door. Right. I'll just be tall when everyone else is short and handsome. He was hot. Yeah, they were very happy together, but unable to afford more than the basics to survive. They lived in a small room in Bedford, which is now Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. And Cecilia became pregnant and kind of got worked up because she dreamed of providing her small family with more than what she had endured as a child. And

at the time, you saw this highfalutin life in magazines and shop windows and in movies. So the people who were working class who couldn't afford that kind of thing on their salary kind of had to go without but dreamed of a bigger life and Cecilia did too. Still happening to this day. Oh yeah. Yeah. So ceiling and Ed start to devise a plan. With Ed's access to a gun and a getaway car, they decide to rob a grocery store. And after that first robbery, when they got away with 22 times Ed's weekly wage as a welder, 22 times with which the couple used to leave their single room residence and rent a two-story frame house in Brooklyn. And they also filled it with pricey furniture. They knew they had to continue their crime spree. They're like, Hey, it worked.

And that's when the lazy boy was invented. Their next two robberies at an AMP and a Bohac, which I had to look up to make sure were small grocery stores and they were they netted only about $365. Then they started getting tons of media attention. You know, everyone was fascinated by this petite woman who was robbing fucking stores. But the press was both positive and negative depending on where you stood regarding women's rights. So they kind of people would kind of use it to prove their point. At the time, the term flapper, you know, had a risque dress signature bobbed hair was used to describe any free spirited young woman who challenged social norms. And so the bobbed haired bandit was a perfect poster woman

for this kind of new liberated woman. See what you see what they do when you let them vote? See what they do when you let them smoke? Exactly. See what they do when you let them ride a bike? And let them cut their hair. Andrew Mattson, the co-author of the bob haired bandit book, said, quote, she became such a big sensation in the papers because she was the woman with a gun driving a fast car. And that was exciting. It was titillating. Both for those who saw her as an example of female empowerment and those who used her as an example of what was wrong with the modern woman and her newfound independence. Stephen Duncombe, the other co-author of the book said, quote, how Celia was portrayed had less to do with her and more to do with the presumed biases

of the audience of the papers and the editors and reporters' attitudes about gender. As the couple's crimes pre-continued, targeting mostly smaller businesses like drug stores and little grocery markets in Brooklyn in a similar fashion as their first robbery, their media coverage expanded. As the public ate up the story, casting the, quote, girl bandit as a lady Robin Hood, and the story was blasted on the front pages of the papers. Meanwhile, the NYPD police commissioner, Richard Enright, was ridiculed and shited for his inability to catch the bandit, let alone a female one. Oh, she's a girl. The girl on your ego hurts. So he's super embarrassed. And he made catching the bob haired bandit his top priority, stepping up his efforts to catch her and what they called

what they called her, quote, tall companion. It was called the bobbed haired bandit and her tall companion. So they put together, it was like 200 detectives and even gave the detectives the go ahead to shoot on site. Oh, shit. Yeah. Even though they had never harmed anyone, they just stuck them up. Yeah, but they don't care about that. No. So he puts up roadblocks and tells his officers to stop and question any woman who had bobbed hair that seemed, quote, suspicious. An arrest if need be. In fact, author F Scott Fitzgerald said that his wife, the famous Zelda Fitzgerald, who of course had that awesome plopper style, and also had the audacity to drive a car, which made her suspicious that she got stopped on the Queensborough Bridge in Queens and accused

of being the bandit herself. Yeah. On January 14, the police commissioner and right announces that he had caught bandit claiming it was this 23 year old actress named Helen Quigley. She gets held in custody for a month and a half, but it's not fucking her. She's not the bandit, obviously Celia is. So Celia goes and holds up a drugstore, gets away with $50, but leaves a note at the drugstore for the police commissioner, telling them they had the wrong girl and impart it, right, quote, you dirty fish peddling buns, leave this innocent girl alone and get the right ones, which is nobody else but us. We defy you fellows to catch us. She fucking she's fucking baiting them. She's like, stop being so lame. Yeah, let this girl go. That's very girl power of her. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. But meanwhile, despite an estimated 16 robberies, the couple were only bringing in just enough to get by. Plus Celia was now close to giving birth. So she's visibly pregnant, which is like a kind of adorable, right. Yeah, which made her obviously more identifiable and it's super risky for them. So they devised a plan that would be sure to bring in a large payday. They planned a heist of the payroll office of the National Biscuit Company warehouse. Nabisco. Which is that what it is? Yeah. Oh, shit, Nabisco. Look at that. Nabisco. Fun cracker reveal. Oh my god, diapers and crackers. That's what this episode's all about. And this would prove to be their downfall. Well, so on April 1st, April Fool's Day, might I point out 1924, I don't know if they had that back

then. But they did. They made their move. But while holding up the cashier, a man named Nathan Mazo, he tried to stop the robbery, basically like try to grab Celia by her arm. She stumbles backwards and falls over a chair and sweet Ed sees us and like is like, oh my god, you hurt my wife, shoots at Nathan. He's fine, only like he barely injured him by shooting him in the leg. And the couple flees without the $8,000 that was in the open safe. Oh no. Like they just get out of there. Shit. And the cashier is only slightly wounded. And it was the only time anyone was ever hurt in their crime spree, which they had, I think, discussed ahead of time to make sure it never happened. But it also spelled the end of their crime spree. The couple fled New York on a steamer,

they go to Florida to lay low. And on April 10th, Celia gives birth in Jacksonville, Florida, to a girl and the couple named her Catherine. But sadly, the baby dies within a few days of being born. Oh no. I know. I think because they were in hiding, so she didn't have access to medical care. Back in New York, the shooting, of course, sets off a huge manhunt for the couple. And on April 15th, the police are able to figure out the identity of the couple because the warehouse they had hit was so close to their home that an employee there was able to identify them. Yeah. The police commissioner then discloses the identity of Celia and Ed Cooney to the public, and they're able to track them down to Florida. I heard two versions, either they had been tracked

by searching maternity wards in the area, or it was the undertaker who gave the baby the burial that led the police to them. I know, so sad. That's much more tragic. It is. Ending, yeah. The couple was found hiding out in a grimy Florida room just after midnight on April 20th, 1924, and they were taken into custody and put on a train to face trial in New York. Celia was just 20 years old when they were arrested. Oh, wow. And Ed was 25. So they're brought back to New York, and thousands of people rush Penn Station to see her as the train arrives. She's famous. But by this time, they had all kind of changed their tune about her, and everyone is supporting her because they found out that she's not this rebellious, liberated woman. She's a mother

and wife trying to get out of poverty. So of course, they all support her, despite the cashier being injured. That was more of a, and at this point, I've cast Henry Cavill is in the role of Ed, the dutiful yet silent husband. Which one's he? And Henry Cavill is, he played Superman. He's the Witcher. Oh, yeah. The hot British guy. Beefy. Oh, hey. Nice face. Yeah. He had like a, Ed had like a one of a boxer look, like it was a boxer. He's more of a tough guy face. A little tough guy, but damn, that guy's hot. He could play whoever the fuck he wants. Well, I was just going to say that it would also be, even though we don't want Nathan Mazzo or whatever the, the clerk's name was who got shot in the leg. We don't want that to happen to him

or any Italian man. But, but, but it's the husband's passion for the wife. It's his, his need to protect her. It is very kind of like, well, I guess Robin Hood's not right because they're keeping the money for themselves to buy nice furniture. But it is very, it is a sweet, very sad story. Yeah. Desperation. It's not, they're not just doing it. Right. They're breaking the law and they're doing something wrong and bad. However, we can kind of, we can kind of side with them in a way as people who were just like in a tough situation and didn't have means to get out of it. And she was 20. She was 20. They're very young. They're young and desperate. And this is what happens to people. Yeah. And madly in love. Yep. Totally. The Witcher. What? The

Witcher. He can totally play that. I mean, the old, the photo that I'll post of them, they look like your grandma, like your hot grandma and grandpa back then. You're like, oh, grandma and grandpa were good looking. Like she's teeny tiny and adorable. He's like hot. They went and fought for it. They went and got theirs. They fought the law. They fought the law. With violent crimes. Right. The couple both plead guilty and are sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison. They're for old after seven years. They're released on October 16th, 1931. Still fucking devoted to each other. What's that? Can you imagine their love letters in prison? Like, hey, we've really shouldn't have done that. You know, I love you. I love you. Your long white hair. Why do you keep

talking about being the Witcher? Why'd you shoot that Italian, that nice Italian boy? That was stupid. At least you could have grabbed the money at the same time. Anyway, we'll talk about it when we get out of jail. But that wasn't so smart. They have two sons together, Patrick and Edward Jr. Here's a sad part. Ed develops tuberculosis and dies in 1936. I know. So she's a young single widowed mom now. She gets a job as a typist, works her butt off as a single mom to raise her kids. She keeps a low profile at this time. She had done one interview with our Hearst magazine for a thousand bucks before she went into prison. But afterwards she was like, that maybe wasn't, I'm now 27. And I think that was

about it. I don't know. She regretted it, but she just kind of laid low. She did. She had to go to jail. She had to go to prison. Yeah, but she looks regretted it. She looks pretty smiling, cute in these photos. She's just a little bit like, yeah, this is fun. Oh, well. Hey, she later remarries, moves back, goes back to Florida, moves to Florida. She doesn't talk about her sorted past at all. She doesn't even tell her grown sons about it. They set in one of these articles that when she gets Alzheimer's, she's dying. She mentions having done it. And the son's like, clearly you're just making this up. And she would always try to like leave on her own and go back to New York and get brought back home by the police. And she was like, she was really mad

about it. And I didn't understand. She probably was like, fuck this, you know, want to get back to New York. They just figured it was something she had made up. Well, they didn't know shit. They didn't know her. Celia Cooney, the bob haired bandit, died on July 13, 1992, after which her sons learned more about their mother and learned about the secret she had kept for 50 years. Wow. I know. This is why you ask your grandparents about shit at Christmas. And what's today? Never again will a bob haired bandit go unrecognized within the family. Just started like this. Hey, grandma, did you ever rob a grocery store? Grandma, did you ever cut your hair short and go a little crazy in the twenties? I'd love to hear about it. That's right.

Her crime spree lasted just 61 days total. But her brazen acts and modern style made her a feminist icon and an anti hero for the working class in 1920s New York, or an example of all that was wrong with the modern woman gaining her independence, depending on who you asked at the time. But like a lot of us, Karen, she was a woman in a tight spot who wanted to make a better life for her family. And that is the story of Celia Cooney, the bob haired bandit and her tall accomplice. Oh, I love them. I know. I mean, we're not usually on the side of the criminal. No. But yeah, I like Celia Cooney's style. Yeah, 1920s. It was a lawless time. You know, you're just trying a little bathtub gin. Yeah. Hold up a grocery store. Yeah. And like it's in furniture.

The thing too of like, there's no middle class. It's like you're rich as fuck or you're poor and you're working class. There's no in between. And like, there's no, there's not a lot of ways to get out of that working class, you know, poverty. And I think a lot of people probably saw that and were like, fuck it, crime. I'm robbing the people who have more of an opportunity than I do and fuck it, you know, not to say that that's right in any way. But I think that seems like that was the thinking back then. Well, just just desperation. Yeah. What are you going to do? You're going to sit there and starve or do something about it? I mean, that's, you know, that's just it. That's like there needs to be, there needs to be support and services for people

who don't have because that's the only choice you give them when there aren't. Like when you're, when you try to punish people for being poor and being locked into the cycle of poverty, it just creates desperation and desperate measures. Totally. Yeah. Having no options or opportunity in life will cause people to do desperate fucking things and, you know, like bob their hair and smoke a cigarette. Hey, you know, I'm going to do both of those things tomorrow night on New Year's Eve. Great job. Thank you. A nice capper for 2021. Thank you. We got through it, you know, we're going to look ourselves in the mirror on January 1st and say, I'm glad I'm still here with this idiot. Glad this old jerk's still here. That's the one. Thank you.

I mean, we can, you can take it and say whatever line you want to yourself. Thank you. It's really, it's really open for interpretation, depending on what your deal is. Oh, let's wrap it down. Hey, party. Do your thing. Yeah. Wrap the year up. Can pat yourself on the back. You got through. Yep. Next year is going to be a fresh brand new. Look, all even numbers as a, you know, me, passionate numerologist. I'll tell you that 2022's got good vibes already. That's right. You know, this is ready for it. This is a clean diaper year for everyone. No. Sorry, I can't get off it. You brought it back. I can't get off it. I don't know why. I'm like, now obsessed with the visual of like a fucking mini skirt, a sequence of mini skirt and a diaper underneath it. Oh, it's so

yeah, things could be worse. You guys, things could be worse. You could be in a diaper and time square. That's right. So keep that in mind. Keep it in your heart and also do us a favor and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Happy New Year, everybody. Bye. 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 Jay 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.