My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 308 - A Blur of Entertainment

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the stories of Blanche Monnier and Candy Mossler.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Where are you? He's way up there. Oh. Hello. Like that. Yeah. Oh, I get it. And welcome to my favorite murder. The podcast, that's Karen Kilgarith.

And that's 2022's Georgia Hard Start. Oh, I'm a brand new lady. Look at her go. Look at me go. I got chamois and a book and doing it. Long blonde hair. You would recognize her. She's brand new.

I'm a brand new lady in 2022. Pantyhose. I don't know. Something about like that reminds me of the 80s. Like working, working women now wear pantyhose. Yeah. Pantyhose and high top Reeboks. Let's do this thing.

Go to the office. It's a brand new you. We're swinging briefcases on the subway. Hey, watch it, lady. You're stepping on my toes with your Reeboks. What's up? Let's do this. What if we did the whole podcast just continually encouraging

each other to do it? Yeah. You get that Karen. You go get it girl. And you slay girl. Slay. Take it here. Take it there.

And bring it around. And bring it into 2022. I feel very positive about this new year. How do you feel? Okay. I feel, I haven't given it much thought to be honest. Oh really? You've been busy?

Too busy? Too busy. I guess I'm not like, maybe I'm depressed. Because I'm not. Could be. I think I'm a little depressed. Because I'm not really like, I guess I've been like new year, new me thing.

But I don't have it right now in my system. Not feeling it. No. More of a, well, but have you been relaxing? Is it part of that? Oh, that could be it. Yeah. I've definitely had, we had three weeks off, which was great.

You and I, we pre-recorded everything. So we actually got to take that break. And there was a lot of nothing going on, which was really nice for me. And yeah. So maybe I'm still in the downward motion and it's not depression. It's just laziness. I mean, could be. It's like, as long as it's, I mean, look, there's always crying,

especially some of these holiday commercials. I've just been like, Nora's favorite thing is look over and then poke me. And I'll be like, so what if I'm crying about this one thing? Cause it's just like, well, you get it out now. Wow. At commercials. Oh yeah. Kind of anything that wants you to feel that way.

I'll absolutely go there. Times two. Have you since your home with your, what, 14 year old niece? Soon to be 15. Oh my God. And your sister, have you guys been, were you watching the Hallmark Christmas movies that were on and amazing? We didn't do that.

Ah, is that what you were doing? That's what I was just like randomly turning them on, like, you know, watching HGTV and then flipping around and stuff. And they are so good and bad. Like they're exactly what you think, you know, there's Chad Michael Murray and he's the carpenter and he needs to become this thing. And they are all on Christmas and they need to save Christmas at Christmas town or whatever.

It's like, it's really, and there's the beautiful girl and there's her friend and then there's the one. She's like a book editor, but she's home for the holidays. But she's sad because it's just her and her mom this year. Right. And that was her high school boyfriend. And like she, it's basically that movie with Reese Witherspoon. Sweet Home Alabama.

Like so much Christmas in your fucking, it's like sticking your face in a Christmas tree, intense and great eyeliner. Like that's all it is. Yeah. And sometimes it's like there's often a goofy best friend or an old best friend or some kind of very minor low key conflict of like fitting back into the hometown or we're being a new town. Cause I'm a busy gal with fucking pantyhose and shoulder pads.

Pantyhose. From the city. And now I'm going back to my slow it down time. Can I slow it down with these super tight pantyhose on? I don't know. And then there's Chad Michael Murray to help her unroll those pantyhose. That's right. Right down.

The sexiest move in sex. Man takes you by the waist and then takes those control top pantyhose and begins rolling them down your hip. They make that noise. That's why there's that scene in every porn. That's right. Thinking of porn. You know, one thing I, another thing I watched that was so delightful

and enjoyable was a bunch of porn. Yes. Always. The shoulder pad porn. It's totally my thing. 80s movies. AKA shoulder pad porn. McGroober has a TV show.

Did you watch it? No. There's like, I didn't know that. I think it's on Peacock. There's like, you know, a six episode McGroober, which like I had just found the movie recently with Vincent and was like, Oh shit, I love this. Yes. And there's a TV show and it's so good and like light and like exactly

stupid and dumb and what you need. Yeah. And help me out because now I can't get Chad Michael Murray's name out of my head. He's in it. No, it's Ryan Philippi. You know what you're saying? No.

He's in it. Yeah. He's in it. He's in it for sure. I just thought you were talking about the other cheeky, like Josh is a blonde guy. Yes. The other classically hot guy, but then there's the classically hot guy

that actually is subverting that look because he's so funny. Will Forte. Yes. And this is now I'm going to seem like a hypocrite, but I've met him before and if anyone's a fan of Will Forte, you need to know that he is the sweetest, nicest, coolest, most normal person in real life. Thank you, Jesus. Like from day one has to be right.

And because here's my thing. I never expected him to be like that because he's really, really good looking in my opinion. Okay. That's your type, like the blonde kind of, what is it? He has a little bit. What is it? Well, I don't know.

He looks like probably someone I went to grammar school with. Therefore I think he's cute. He's totally cute. He's totally cute. I just, he always looked to me like the kind of guy who wouldn't be nice because why would he have to be because he's really good looking. Well, he's funny. So then of course he's nice because.

Yes. Oh, well, that's not been my experience. Oh, right. In the least, but he was the exception to the rule to the point where he always says hi. And it's that kind of thing where I'm just like, I knew you in like 1998. Yeah. You don't need to do that anymore.

But he does. But this whole story, I wish the story seemed credible, but since I started out not being able to say his name right off the top of my head, it seems like I'm fake. You were fluttered and you were thinking about Ryan Phillips and just got complicated. You know, things are complicated. That's for sure.

Well, Lawrence Fishburne is in it too. And it's just, I mean, he's like the actor, you know, and he's in McGroober and it's like so funny. That's awesome. I wonder if he's a fan. Is our friend, Christian Wigg in it? I've never met her. I'm just saying that.

Oh, yeah. She is the fucking Lady Star. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah. She was in the movie. Exactly. And nobody not in it that you're like, they have to, yeah, it's like they all came back.

It's so heartwarming. That's the best. Okay. I have to watch that. I didn't realize they had made a TV show of that. You heard it here. You heard it here first for sure. I definitely did.

I don't know if anyone else did. But we're going to change that too. I heard it here first. Yes. What if we've been watching, well, I think I've said this already, but the thing that Nora and I do is we watch Modern Family together. Right. We've seen every single one of them literally knows them by heart.

But that's kind of our go-to when we, we kind of like surf around. Yeah. All right. Well, oh, I'm watching Game of Thrones still. I watched so much Game of Thrones, Karen. Oh, yeah. That's right. You texted me when they killed the King of the North.

I was going to be like, should we say spoiler? But it's been so long that that's not a, if you haven't watched it. No, no. Everyone dies. Many, many die. Yeah. Guess what? Spoiler in Game of Thrones and in life, we're all going to die.

Yeah. I text you all caps. They killed the King of the North because I wasn't expecting that to be the red wedding. I thought because people are getting married later. So I thought those were going to be the red wedding things, not the one that it ended up being. And I was blown away. I'm sure everyone else was too.

Yeah. You know, it was a real shocker when it actually happened. Yeah. And when was it 2011 or whatever? Look, I was a wee babe of 31. I didn't have time. No. No.

You were doing other stuff. Yeah. No, it's so good. I mean, they, that's the thing. They set you up to think you know what's going to happen. And then they boom. But I think they were one of the first shows like that, that were like, oh, we'll kill anybody.

You can't, you cannot trust that anyone would be here next week. Do not. All right, but I am attached to Aria. So I know she lasts, but I know it. Nothing lasts in Game of Thrones. Very mature outlook. But you're going to be happy about things. Okay.

All right. Good to know. You're just going to be. Okay. In general. I'll take it. I'll take it. That's my prediction for you.

And there he is. What's his name? Who? What's that? Forget it. What's Peter Dinklage? Yes. Peter Dinklage.

Yes. Yes. What's his name? Therion. No, that's not right either. Tyrion. Tyrion. Tyrion.

I'm attached to him as well. Well, you should be. Okay. But I'm not going to get my heart broken like right now. Not this second. Okay. Of course later. Yeah.

Sure. Sure. So far in the past that there's no way they're not dead now. You know what I mean? So if I was like, are they still alive? It would be stupid. Right. I mean, no, I think Tyrion lives on to this day.

Just kind of out in a field somewhere with a sword. No, no, it's good. You're going to, it's very satisfying. And there's a part I'm going to, I'm going to want you to circle back to me. Okay. I can text you all caps. Yes, you can. Okay.

Night or day. Truly. I'm scared. A lot of things happened, but you know, I liked it. There were lots of different opinions when that thing ended. Here's the thing these days, everybody thinks that they could write television. Everybody thinks that because they watched television. Right.

And because they have watched television and because maybe they took a creative writing class, but actually plotting out and writing television is fucking hard. And the way they were doing it is like there were so many characters and so much going on. And they started with the books and then went off. Like everything about that is the most dangerous way to make television, which is there's the fans that like the books. Right. So then you're not doing the book thing anymore.

Like there's all these ways to let people down. Well, I had, I was never pissed off. No expectations. I'm here for the ride. Great. I'm here for the beauty of the sword fights because they're gross and boring and otherwise. There's a lot of clanging. A lot of clanging.

But this is the attitude we're looking for in 2022. Just kind of like the openness and the releasing, the taking in and the letting back out of things. Okay. All right. Deep breaths. Breathe it out and in. You know the drill.

It usually is out and in. Yeah. It gotta be. We're in and out depending on like where you're standing. Right. I'm trying to think of like one thing that I've watched. It's not about TV. Oh, no.

It was just to say like something I've watched on this break or something I've been doing. But it's been a lot of kind of been doing a lot of like movies and then reruns and thing like rewatching and stuff because. Yeah. There's I've started things and then I've been like this isn't doing it for me. Yeah. But my demands are very specific. Yeah.

Very irritating. And you're watching with other people now. So it's like it has to be everyone has to be into it, especially a 14 year old girl who's not probably into very like very much stuff that you're into. Yes. So that makes it harder. It's kind of like when Nora's still when she's still up and in the front room with us. Yeah.

Then then everything's kind of catered toward what she likes because we just are trying to keep her in the room as long as possible. But then she's got to peel off so she can go snap, chat it up. It's so hilarious. It's like and we have to talk about we can't take it personally because she's an adult. You know, she's a teen, but it's like, why are you in there? Why don't you want to be out here with us? It probably feel better if she went in there to read a book rather than talk to other people.

Right. Yeah. She's talking to her friends over us, which like, that's how it is. Who gives a shit about your mom and your aunt? Right. But she needs to know that these are the days to hold on to and we won't, although we'll want to. Right.

These are the days to remember and because they will not last forever. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. There's a thank you and you're welcome in that Billy Joel song. That song makes me cry. Do you know that? Really?

Yeah. Well, that's funny. Yeah. It's beautiful. The man knows how to write a song and has since like 1972. Billy Joel is the man. He knows a shit. There was a TV show I was watching and one of his songs from the 70s was very astutely

put on the soundtrack. Yeah, it was one of those TV shows that had a very good sound like music producer. Yeah. So they had a huge budget is what you're saying. Yeah. And they could they could actually play the real Billy Joel song and I was just like nice one, nice pick and also his voice like the clarity of his singing voice is real effective. It gets you.

It does. All right. What else? Yeah. So on my way up because I drove up for this break. Oh, I am. Yes. Do it.

Yes. Yeah. So I had to I had to prep a bunch of podcasts for me drive. Yeah. Okay. So you know that crazy story out of South Carolina about the lawyer who the Murdoch family, the Murdoch, Murdoch, Murdoch, Murdoch, it's pronounced Murdoch. I learned.

So there is a reporter, a young woman named Mandy Matney and she has been covering the story since the first part of the story broke. And I think at this point there's like 20 parts of the story is the first part where he kills the girl in the boating accident or when the two it's so wild. It's the craziest story. So first of all, that's misinformation because he didn't kill, we didn't kill anybody. That's a dab at the sun, right? The sun.

Okay. Yeah. So there's a boating accident. A teenage girl dies in this boating accident. And that's basically what begins this journey. And Mandy Matney is a reporter, tries to look into it. But the son who was driving the boat is the son of the Murdoch family, right? Who they have been, what is essentially the equivalent of the DA in this county in South

Carolina for like a hundred years or more. Yeah. It's like a big, rich family, generations of wealth. Very powerful in the legal community. She uncovers, basically starts pulling a thread that is one of the most unbelievable stories you've ever heard. And we've all heard parts of it. My dad, home Jim, sent me this Guardian article, and he was like, you have to read this.

This is crazy. Did you know about it? And I was like, well, I heard things here or there. This article is basically this comprehensive thing because the person who wrote the article has been listening to Mandy Matney's podcast. So the podcast is called The Murdoch Murders. And there's like 25 episodes of it, they're half hour each, so you can binge it like crazy.

And she's been covering the story since the beginning. She's the reporter. So it's really cool because aside from the fact that you're hearing this mind blowing story in this kind of old boy network being blown apart, it's this young woman reporter who's basically doing it with her, Fitz News. Amazing. News website that she works for. And like on the weekly things are changing and things are coming out, like currently

things are happening. Yes. It's a breaking story that she has been reporting on from the beginning. Right. It's with like old, very shit and like cray and twist. Oh, I can't. Okay. I'm going to totally listen to that.

Yeah. It's like a kind of a jaw dropper. And also in the first couple episodes, she starts, she talks about after her first episode, she gets on there and is like, people keep talking about my vocal fry. There's nothing I can do about it. It's really mean that you're saying that. And I was laughing so hard. I was just like, oh honey, move on, it's just the beginning of quote unquote feedback that

you're going to get. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going. That's not feedback. Good for her. Good for you. So if you haven't heard the Murdoch murders, you absolutely have to listen to it.

Okay. Yeah. Can I do one real quick? Please. I don't know about like whenever I was cleaning something throughout the, what, not the pandemic, but our vacation. Same difference. Same buckin' thing.

So have you heard of the podcast Heavyweight? I don't, I don't know. It's hosted by this dude, Jonathan Goldstein, who is so lovely and funny and curious. And each episode, he basically interviews a person who had this moment in their life that was pivotal and are trying to sort through it by like kind of understanding it. And usually there's another person involved that then Jonathan Goldstein goes and gets a hold of so they can like exchange. Like there's an episode with Moby.

It's people's life stories, almost a little bit like this American life, but told through the voice of whoever was there, not the person who experienced it, who want to figure it out. It's really fucking good. There's some guy had gotten hit by a car on his bicycle and had it, you know, ruined his life. He couldn't walk for years and he was, and then he wanted to meet the guy who hit him and had been like 10 years and they sit them down in a room together and they're crying

and apologizing and thinking it's like the most beautiful cry, cry, cry. Oh my God. I know. It's stuff like that. If, but Jordan, if I'm crying while I'm watching like an AT&T commercial, do you think I am going to be okay? No. But it's like a good cry.

It's like, there's like a humanity behind these stories that like, yes, but like this is how life really is. It's really beautiful. Oh, good. Okay. So just amazing storytelling. Yes. Really great storytelling, really.

And then there's some that are funny. They're always like touching a little bit and they're always like life lessening. So yeah, check out heavyweight. I really love it. Cool. I love that. Hey, speaking of podcasts, should we do exactly right corner and talk about. Yeah.

All the podcasts on our network. Or at least some of them. Let's do it. Woo-hoo. Real quick, Murder Squad continues their winter distraction series with guest Dr. Ann Burgess. She is who the character of Wendy Carr in the show Mindhunter is based on, which is just she is a badass. So awesome.

And also over on I Said No Gifts with Bridger Weinegger, if you're watching SNL and you're blown away by the newest cast member who does the impression of Trump, his name is James Austin Johnson. He's a comic, I don't know if he's originally from LA, but I know him from here. So talented and hilarious. And he is on I Said No Gifts this week. Love it. Yeah.

And we have a, the new merch in the merch store is this satin pajamas that have you and I and our pets on them. I have been looking at those for so long because they are hanging on a hook with all my vintage nighties like next to my bed. So every time I fall asleep at night, I see our faces and like our animals and all the adorable stuff by the artist. The art on the pajamas is by Rachel Flannery, who's a friend of the podcast and this really talented artist.

I love all her work, rack flan on Instagram. So check those out on my favorite murder.com in the store. Do you need silk pajamas? Of course. The answer just might be yes. Ask yourself. And then also last week, we put out the monthly episode of MFM Animated by Nick Terry. And this episode is so fricking good.

It's sarcasm through the mail and it's based on a story from the My Favorite Murderer mini sewed at number 250. It is, it's another beauty by Nick Terry. He's just so talented. How does he do it? He has like life and a job. I don't know. A marriage to tend to.

Yeah. He does these beautiful, beautiful animated, go to YouTube, MFM Animated, the exactly right YouTube page. That's right. Do it. Good times. Good times. Do it.

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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. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast, Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news.

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Download the app today. So today, I'm first, right? Yeah. So I'm going to tell you a story about a French woman named Blanche Monir. So this is also known as the story of the sequester d'Poitier. So what's, what's that mean? It's a sequestered woman in Poitier, France. Okay.

All right. All right. We can all relate. Sequestered. So I first heard about this in an all that's interesting article written by Gina DeMiro. I also got info from, info, I got info, information. Information. That's right.

From a history daily article written by Lily Rowan, a ranker article by Inigo Gonzalez, two Chicago Tribune staff articles, and then like, these are all old-timey magazines. These are all old-timey newspaper articles, one from like the New York Times, Brooklyn Life article also written by E.M. Milsner. So here's where we start. On May 23rd, 1901, the attorney, yeah, the beginning of the 19th, the Attorney General of Paris receives an unsigned letter that reads, Montserre Attorney General. Miss you.

Miss you, Attorney General. I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who was locked up in Madame Monnay's house, Monnayers, M-O-N-N-I-E-R-S. Monnayers. I mean, yeah. I can't pretend that I'd be able to pronounce. There's only a couple of words I know because I took French one. That's right.

When I was a freshman. So I'm not. I've been through the expert here though. I mean, I know Montserre. Yeah. Montserre. Madame Monnayers house half-starved and living on a putrid litter for the past 25 years in a word in her own filth.

What? Yeah. So he gets that letter. But of course, he knows that the Monnieres are a well-known and respected family in the community of Poitiers, France, which is a couple of hours outside of Paris. So the Attorney General tells a few police officers to go over to the house and check things out, but be really careful, of course, because if the contents of the letter turn out to be fake, it could look really bad on the officers, like, you know, blaming a well-to-do

family for something false. You know those rich people don't like to be blamed for having a lady get in the way somewhere. That's right. Gaffabit. Gaffabit. But on the other hand, the spinster that they named in the letter had basically disappeared off the face of the planet. So they knew it was a real woman.

So maybe the letter was true, because no one had seen her in years. So when the officers are finally able to force their way into the home to search, they are appalled at what they find. Boom. Let's go back real quick. Oh, how exciting was that? Great. So, Louise and Emile Monnier live in Poitiers, France, which is about four hours away from

Paris. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Monnier family has, quote, lived in Poitiers, my God, lived in Poitiers, lived in that town for over half a century, and, quote, they belong to the most respected families of the city and always enjoy the reputation of being among the most refined and gentile. So they're like Beaujois and shit. Right? Yeah.

Going to get that right, Beaujois. Beaujois. Beaujois. Louis is a key figure in, the mother is a key figure in Parisian high society. She's known for her charitable works. She even received a community award for her generosity to the city. The husband, Emile, had been the head of a local arts facility. They're both very well known in town and respected.

In the mid-1800s, their daughter Blanche is born, and they also have a son named Marcel. So by the time Blanche is in her twenties, people just can't help but notice how beautiful she is. But they also say that she's gentle and she's good-natured, a really lovely woman. The New York Times describes her as being a, quote, beautiful tall brunette with a wealth of hair, interesting, and big, brilliant eyes. She is, quote, bell of the neighborhood of Poitiers and is sought by more than one, end, quote.

So she's a gal. Two. It could be three. Could it be? It could be any number above one. Above one. In 1876, at 25 years old, after her father and the head of the household dies, Blanche is expected to pick a suitor to marry so she can be taken care of since her father's dead.

Unfortunately, for her mother, she's fallen in love with an attorney and he's poor, so I know. Tough. Tough. So when Blanche tells her mom about this, Louise is not pleased at all, of course. She doesn't approve of this guy. He is not only much older than her, but he's not from the same social class. He's, quote, penniless.

But they've fallen in love. This is just like Downton Abbey, but French. Oh my God, you're right. You're similar. I think he had money, though. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. Right. But you're right.

And Louise is worried about what people around town will say if she marries this penniless lawyer. It's going to be completely disgraceful for Blanche to marry someone of this class. Implicated, super intense. People talk. Sure. Gossip. Etc.

You know. Etc. Etc. You know how they are. Talk and gossip. Let her daughter find a better suitor, aka a richer one, and Blanche tells her mom, it's not going to happen. I'm in love.

And she threatens to elope with this man. Yeah. But Louise doesn't give in. Instead, she locks Blanche in a nine by 12 foot room in the attic. She tells Blanche that she will be released just as soon as she agrees to marry someone else. But Blanche refuses to give in to her mother's demands. And so she stays in the locked room.

In the beginning, Blanche spends a lot of her time screaming for help. And when the neighbor is here, they ask Louise what's going on, and she says that her daughter has gone insane. Oh. Yeah. And they believe it. I think it's a time when that just, you know, was an okay excuse for women to have disappeared because they went insane.

You know. They were just insane. And that's, yeah, it's very like a gothic novel. It's very, and it's also like women, they're insane. They're crazy. And it's a very apt to happen. Yeah. You know, after a few years, the screaming stops and the attic window is boarded up.

Louise tells her neighbors that Blanche has gone off to live in an insane asylum. According to the Chicago Tribune, quote, the neighbor simplifies with Louise and tactfully respect the sad mystery which surrounds the fate of Blanche. They gradually cease to speak of Blanche and finally almost forget the very existence of the unfortunate girl. But Blanche has not gone off to an insane asylum. Instead, she's kept in the attic where she does not see the light of day. The only interaction she has with her mom, her brother, and the servants, she's rarely

fed and when she is fed it's table scraps and she's not allowed to wear clothes or bathe. Whoa. I guess how long she's in there for 25 years. No. Yeah. No. Yeah.

After like year 17, wouldn't you be like, okay, I'll date. Yeah. But I feel like at that point, it's like they had to keep their little secret. Like even after a year or two, I think she's wasting away. They can't just bring her back into society. Right. Yes. Exactly.

So this is a, they're in an impasse, mother and daughter and also I bet you the mother was kind of intense to have done it in the first place and then held to it in that way. Yes. Absolutely. Like there's not a lot. There's some imbalance of chemicals going on in this household. Throughout the household. Right.

So 25 years go by and no one has even thought of Blanche in quite some time. Even on the 23rd of May, 1901, as we talked about in the beginning of this story, the Attorney General of Paris receives the unsigned letter telling him of the quote, Spinster who was locked up in Madame Monnier's house, half-starved and living on a putrid litter for the past 25 years in her unfilth. So the Attorney General then sends the police officers, they're finally able to get into the house. Louisa's son, Marcel, lives across the street with his wife and daughter.

He says, you can't come in to look at it, but finally they're able to search the house without the permission. I think whatever a search warrant is back in those days, they got one. Once inside, they're immediately hit with the smell of something awful. Following the stench, the officers arrive at a padlock door leading to the attic. The officers break the lock and inside they find complete darkness. They can't see anything, but they can smell something and it's rancid. It's so bad that the officers immediately like we need to open a window, but the windows

boarded up and hidden behind heavy curtains. Oh no. An officer later detailed what happened next, quote, we immediately gave the order to open the window. This was done with great difficulty for the old dark colored curtains fell down in a heavy shower of dust. To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their hinges. As soon as the light entered the room, we noticed in the back, lying on the bed, her

head and body covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier. Okay. Can I tell you what I'm thinking of right now? Yes. Did you ever see the movie Pet Cemetery? It's exactly that. And there's a photo of this woman and it looks like that.

Wow. Yeah. And they must have torn it from like Stephen King must have known about the story because it's like the same thing. Okay. Those cops all would have had to go to an insane asylum. Totally. Totally.

I'm just standing in the room like, what's going on in here all and then curtain comes down. Oh my God. And like by the description of the curtain, it meant that they could tell it hadn't been, the window hadn't been open and you know, literal decades. And he goes on to say that the unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables,

fish and rotten bread. We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier's bed and quote. So she just, they, the mother held her an abject filth. And pitch blackness, pitch black, no clothes allowed. Your own daughter that you raised from 25 years old, like there must have been something going on before that, right? You don't just like snap. Do you?

Yeah, exactly. There's, yeah. Oh man. Yeah. I don't like this at all. No, I knew you wouldn't. On the floor are swarms of rodents eating pieces of rotting food scattered around and the room is covered with words and drawings scratched into the wall.

Oh my God. But because the smell is so bad, the officers, they can't do any more investigating blanchers rushed to the hospital because they had to just leave the room immediately because of immediate PTSD. I'm sorry. Can I just say, and I know this is a small detail, but to me, what puts it over the top is oysters. Like this is a disgusting situation.

Yeah. Yeah. You're throwing seafood onto the top of that. Yeah. Nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she was a poor person's food back then, so she was literally getting like the

scraps. Yeah. Like what people didn't want to eat. Yeah. Yeah. So Blanche's rushed to the hospital and Louise and her son, Marcel, are carted away to jail. Once word gets out that the wealthy and respected Louise has been keeping her daughter locked up in a room for 25 fucking years, the public is outraged.

A crowd gathers outside the Monnier House and Marcel's wife and daughter have to go into hiding. At the hospital, Blanche is bathed and examined. Doctors are worried that she's not going to make it. She's skeletal and so malnourished that she only weighs 44 pounds. Oh my God. Yeah. According to Brooklyn Life, Blanche's nails are three inches long and her, quote, hair

is matted into the semblance of a bar of iron. Oh. And according to Ranker, she is, quote, unable to speak properly and is completely delirious. But some say she was eventually lucid once they kind of took care of her. And someone said she remarked, quote, how lovely it is to breathe fresh air again. Good. Meanwhile, Louise and Marcel are interrogated by police. At first they say they had to lock Blanche away because she is, quote, foul, angry, overly

excited and full of rage. Me too. Lock her away. But officers don't believe the Moniers. They hadn't experienced any of those reactions when they found Blanche and she started coming around. They said that at the hospital, Blanche had been completely calm and happy when she was finally given a bath.

And so Marcel and Louise's story just doesn't add up. Eventually the Moniers start to open up. Marcel, the son, blames everything on his mother. Knowing that Louise had complete control over the family and their finances. He tells officers that he had tried to save Blanche, but he couldn't because of Louise. So instead he just tried to make her as comfortable as possible. He didn't try very hard. He really didn't do a great job of that.

He didn't. He really didn't. I'm sure he was terrified of his mother too, though, you know? I mean, that's just it. It could have been him. The mother could have been terrified of him. He could have, like, there's the possibilities, right? Right.

Like, you just don't know. At this point, you don't know what the details, what's going on in that house. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So Louise actually confesses the truth, but she never faces any legal consequences because 15 days after her arrest, 73-year-old Louise has a heart attack and dies in her jail cell. Oh, wow. So you kind of wonder, like, oh, maybe then Blanche would have been found and freed anyways.

But then again, maybe Marcel would have murdered her and got rid of her body, so, you know, once the mom died, to not let the story get out, anything could have happened. Who knows? I mean, I doubt he would have freed her and been like, see everyone, she's fine, be like, and let the story get out. But if we're going to take Hamida's word that it was all the mom, then he would have. It is. It's just as possible.

Right. I mean, it's like, yeah. But she might not have died, you know, like she could have died from the shock 15 days later. If she had just been living her normal life, she might not have had a heart attack. So it would have gone on, you know. Yeah, that could have been from shock. Also, one would like to think, like even, you know, you told the story of your sister

hitting you with a Barbie, whatever, but if your mother locked her into a room for years, you would do something about that. Absolutely. Absolutely. You would, you would, you would actually do something about it. Yeah. You would do day two, not like year 25. No.

Exactly. Give her a day in there. Lee, you deserve it a little bit, a day or two. Yeah. Throw some, throw some. Throw some sister revenge. Yeah. But then I'd be like, you know, I don't have anyone to play with right now, so this kind

of sucks. No one looks good in this story on the family side. I'm just saying. Probably not. Before she died, she made sure to change her will to put all the family's money toward caring for Blanche, her last words were reportedly, oh, my poor Blanche, but it just, everyone thinks that on her deathbed, she was worried about her public image. So she did all these things to make it seem like she was taking care of her daughter.

Yeah. And when it's like, well, yeah, yeah, clearly didn't. After the servants all say that Louise forced them to keep Blanche imprisoned in the attic. So they had servants there that were like contributing to keeping her there. Marcel is the only one to go on trial and he's found guilty of helping his mother keep Blanche captive and his sentence to 15 months in prison. Oh. Okay.

But the thing is, he's an attorney, so he appeals the sentence. Sure. He knows exactly what to say. He says Blanche could have left at any time and no one forced her to stay there. She's like, hmm, she was chained to a wall and like writing on the walls about being a health captive. Yeah, yeah. It's highly unlikely that you're just going to let yourself starve to the brink of death

and sit in filth. Yeah, exactly. And at this time in France, though, it wasn't a crime to not help free someone that you didn't imprison. So someone else imprisoned someone, not your problem, essentially. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Yeah.

So technically he hadn't done anything wrong and the court agrees and Marcel is freed, the public's really angry at it and him and his family have to go into hiding. Eventually Blanche is able to gain weight and speak in short sentences, but spending half of her life locked up in a room, of course, has done a lot of damage to her psyche. And she's so traumatized that she never makes a full recovery. She lives out her final days in a sanatorium before she dies 12 years later in 1913. To this day, no one knows who wrote the letter about Blanche's living conditions to the Attorney General.

One of the servants. It's been rumored that it was one of the servants or one of the servants told someone they know and they told someone like the servants didn't even do it. Or some people also think that the brother Marcel finally gained enough courage to go to the police that neither theory has ever been confirmed. And that is the story of Blanche Moner, who was in prison in her mother's attic for 25 years. I need to see that picture, even though I kind of don't want to.

Want me to show it to you? Yeah. Oh, no. No, no. No. No. The poor woman. That is, yeah, horrifying, horrifying.

That's truly what horror movies are based on and made out of. Yes. That's a horror movie. Yeah. Totally. Now we need the heavyweights version where it's those policemen telling the story of that. Oh, my gosh.

Can you imagine? You're just kind of like, oh. Okay. Great. That was creepy. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. No, no.

That's why I'm here. That's why I show up. That's true. That's why I like this job so much. Okay. So my story, the reason I'm doing this story this week is because someone named Tyler Jones on Twitter at Tyler underscore Jones92 sent all of us a tweet that said, quote, please do this story.

It's a wild ride and we all know you love a Texas Monthly article. Yes. Right? Which is very true. Yeah. And the main reason we love those articles is because the great journalist Skip Hollinsworth writes for Texas Monthly. I believe he's actually like an executive editor or something high up there.

And he wrote the article that Tyler Jones92 sent. So it's a perfect. Love a Skip Hollinsworth. Friend of the family too. Friend of the family. But also like the thing about Skip Hollinsworth's articles is that he wrote, I'm just retelling his article. Right.

And we say this every time we do this. Yeah. The amazing bank robber story turned out to be that woman, which is one of my favorite stories of all time, Skip Hollinsworth's article, his journalism, his research. And I'm just basically giving you a CliffsNotes version of it so that you can go and read it. Right. And what I think we've promoted this before, but Texas Monthly has a podcast network now.

They have their own podcasts, which you should absolutely go and explore because the journalism after Texas Monthly is excellent and amazing. Their stories are incredible. And Skip Hollinsworth has a podcast called Tom Brown's Body, which I started listening to. That's really good. Really. It's very sad.

It's about a teenage boy in a small town in Texas that went missing in the investigation around his, what do you eventually find out, his murder. But also, I didn't know, I don't know that I knew this, but Skip Hollinsworth wrote a New York Times bestselling and award-winning book called The Midnight Assassin, The Hunt for America's First Serial Killer. And that's about the Austin Servant Girl. Yes. Slayer.

I covered a long time ago. Servant Annihilator, right? The Servant Annihilator, yep. And that story is from 1885. Yeah. Crazy. And that book, you can also get it on audiobook, I just downloaded it for my drive home. Yes.

So anyway, we love Skip Hollinsworth. His work is incredible and we were so grateful for all of the journalists and especially the crime journalists, but the journalists in general, they go out and they find those amazing stories that we then take and just kind of retell for you. Yeah. Basterdice, I think they call this. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like, hey, did you know about this?

Right. Did you hear this? Listen to this story? Yeah. It's like, yeah. It's like being at a party, obviously. I'm being like, did you hear this? Let me tell you the story I read about in my party story voice.

It's a party story that then we're just pointing you toward great sources of amazing journalism. This podcast is a party story, essentially. Yeah. So Skip Hollinsworth's article from the Texas Monthly is the research for the story I'm about to tell you, along with there was an article from the New York Times by Douglas Martin. There was a Houston Chronicle article that did not have a byline and then, as always, Wikipedia, which these days, every time I go on there, they need donations.

So if you have $5 and you're the kind of person that uses Wikipedia all the time, which we are, please donate to them, keep them around. We need them. Yes. Very much. So this is the story of Houston's socialite, Candy Mosler, and the murder of Jacques Mosler. Okay. So we're going to go to June of 1964.

So it's the swing in 60s. Yes. Houston, Texas socialite, Candace Candy Mosler is, and I'm guessing at that name pronunciation. Yeah. Let's hope I'm right. Mosley. I think it's Mosley. It's Mosley.

Mosley. She's visiting her husband, a millionaire businessman, Jacques Mosler, at their condo in Key Biscayne, Florida, which is near Miami. So therefore, adopted children are also on the trip with Candy, and they're down there because her husband Jacques heads several banks. He has loan companies. He also owns insurance companies, and he's in Florida for work because three of his banks are headquartered there in Miami.

So the kids spend their days playing at the beach and enjoying the sunshine. Unfortunately, Candy's suffering from debilitating headaches. So she visits the local hospital on four separate occasions for treatment. The last of these four hospital visits takes place on the night of June 29th, 1964, and into the early morning hours of June 30th. So Candy brings all four kids with her, and she also runs errands along the way. So first she stops at a hotel to mail some letters, then she treats the kids to burgers at a diner, and finally then she goes to the hospital where she gets an injection for her

headache pain. Candy and the kids get back to the condo around 4.30 in the morning. Oh my God. Uh-huh. Like, when have you ever, when have you ever, and you're like... After a rave when I was 16. I remember one time I snuck back up after everyone went to bed so I could watch Letterman when I was like 12, and my dad woke up, so it was 12.30 at night, and when my dad woke up and

found me, he acted like I was shooting up drugs in the front row, he's like, what are you doing? Oh my God. And so that's usually if you're a kid, and you're up at 4.30 in the morning, something is terribly wrong. That's just my history. Absolutely. Okay, so they get back to the condo and they find Jacques dead on the living room floor.

His body's wrapped in an orange blanket, his head shows signs of blunt force trauma, and when they unwrap him from the blanket, they find he's been stabbed in the abdomen 39 times. Holy shit. So when the police arrive and they examine the body, they see this, they know it's overkill, and so they immediately question immediate family, which is Candy. So let's talk about Candy Mosler. She is born Candace Weatherby on February 18th, 1920 in Buchanan, Georgia, which is

55 miles west of Atlanta. She's the sixth of 12 kids in a poor farming family. So she grows up no phone, no radio. She works on the farm, like all her brothers and sisters, picking cotton, planting crops, tending to chickens, like works on the farm. I feel like you have that many kids to have workers on the farm, right? Or just because you don't have birth control. There's no choice.

So from the beginning, Candy dreams of more, she is said to have always been putting on a show, dressing up, pretending she's a princess, kind of having to live in a fantasy world. So in 1932, when she's 12 years old, her mother dies giving birth to her 13th child, who also dies. So just tragic. Her dad falls into a deep depression, starts drinking. He's unable to handle 12 kids on his own, obviously. So he moves out of Buchanan.

He leaves the younger children with different family members and the older kids are left to fend for themselves. 12-year-old Candice ends up living with her grandfather, but she essentially has to raise herself. Yeah. So it's a very tough childhood, yeah. As a teenager, her grandfather encourages her to find herself a husband to take care of her.

Sure. How encouraging. So that's when she meets a family friend named Norman Johnson. So Norman is a civil engineer. He's 10 years older than her. They get married in 1939, when Candice is 19, and they move to Aniston, Alabama, and they have a son named Norman Jr. But Candy very soon grows bored with the stay-at-home mom life.

She starts volunteering at the USO nearby at Fort Benning. She hosts parties for soldiers, and she meets and befriends lots of soldiers there. Most notably, Winthrop Rockefeller. Oh, sure. Yeah. Winthrop is the son of billionaire John D. Rockefeller. Damn. We've all heard about him and his center in New York City.

His net worth in 1937 was $1.4 billion. Today is $19,301 million. Oh, my God. Made of money. The Winthrop and Candy grow very close, so much so that when Candy has her second baby, Rita, in 1943, lots of people wonder if the baby is Norman's or Winthrop's. The actual paternity is never tested, never proven. No.

It's no one that knows. In the mid-40s, Norman gets a job at a shipyard. The family moves to New Orleans, but soon after, Norman and Candy get a divorce. So Norman moves to Boulder, Colorado. Candy stays in New Orleans with her two kids and fends for herself, which she's obviously used to doing. She finds work as a model for local department stores. She also designs her own line of lingerie.

So she's clearly a very smart woman and a very beautiful woman. She's like immediately a working model as a mother of two. And getting this work inspires Candace to travel to New York City and attend the Barbizon School of Modeling, which apparently was open in the 40s. Wow. All right. I had no idea. I thought that was just an 80s thing, but it's been around for a long time.

So when she finishes up there, she moves back to New Orleans and she decides to open her own modeling school for young girls. In addition to teaching girls how to do their hair, their makeup, and maintain a thin figure, can't, right? Dreams do come true, everybody. She also promises to give her students, quote, self-confidence, grace, poise, and elegance of speech that will make you a person of real distinction, unquote. And actually, there's newspaper ads for this modeling school that feature Candice's face

in them. Oh my God. And I guess the thing at the school is they would throw a parade down Canal Street and all the students would like show off their different talents. Do like a modeling thing at the end of it. Looks like just take a book on your head, take a walk down Canal Street and let the people of New Orleans know how thin you are. So like rumors are swirling around town that the modeling school isn't Candice's only

means of income. People are saying she makes money as a sex worker herself and that she has set up an escort service under the guise of teaching dance lessons. Oh no. So apparently men go in for the dance lesson, they're partnered up with a woman, and then after they dance, there's like I guess adjoining bedrooms that they split off into. They do a quick shuffle into the adjoining room and three and slam the door. So despite these rumors, Candice, just she has her head held high, she's doing her business.

No shame in her game. She volunteers for local arts organizations like the New Orleans Opera helping to solicit donations and she's very good at persuading New Orleans wealthy elite to give large sums of money to the opera. Although there's one donor that Candice meets in 1947 who thinks the opera is boring and will only commit to giving $25, but he is very interested in 27 year old Candice and that man is Jacques Mosler. So we'll talk about him for a second.

Originally from Romania, Jacques and his family emigrate to Buffalo, New York when he's a child and in his late teens, somewhere around 1913, he moved to New Orleans and starts his own used car dealership in his teens. All right. Right. You got to work hard. But then in 1916, a doctor reports his car being stolen from the hospital parking lot and authorities discover it in a garage at Jacques dealership.

Oops. And so the 21 year old is arrested for grand larceny. It's unclear if he's ever convicted for that crime because soon after his arrest, he joins the army and is shipped off to fight World War One. Damn. When he returns from war, he sells the dealership. He opens a loan company. It starts off small, but then it becomes successful.

And then that allows him to open more loan companies and he opens insurance firms and finally banks. So he is a wheeler dealer. When you own the bank, you're wealthy. Yeah. You're doing pretty good. Or did he buy the bank? Was the bank for sale?

Like how did it work back then? I don't know. He's 22 years old in 1917 and he marries his first wife. He has four kids with his first wife. 30 years later in 1947, Jacques files for divorce and he basically focuses his efforts just on business and that's what he's all about. He has spent the past 30 years becoming a multimillionaire. So he's very well known in these elite social circles, but he mostly keeps to himself until

he meets Candace when she's soliciting for the opera. So a few weeks after obtaining Jacques $25 donation, Candy and Jacques happened to bump into each other at the zoo. So everyone knows that Jacques takes a walk every day for his lunch break at the zoo. So whether it's just a weird coincidence that this supermodel Candy is also at the zoo at lunchtime, it doesn't matter because running into each other, they immediately start dating and they get married two years later in the May of 1949 in Fort Lauderdale. So the next year, the newlyweds relocate to Houston.

Houston is undergoing this massive upgrade thanks to the oil boom and the Mosslers build a three-story mansion on three acres of land in River Oaks, which is Houston's wealthiest neighborhood at the time. Could it still be? Probably. Their seven-car garage is filled with- Seven-car garage, yep, and it has all luxury cars in it. Oh my God.

They have a full staff at their home, butlers, maids, gardeners, the whole shebang. So when they first moved to town, of course, Candy's a stranger, but that doesn't last long. She throws herself into every philanthropic effort that she can find. She volunteers at hospitals. She throws benefit parties for the Houston opera. She's going from opera to opera. She knows that's where the elite hang at the opera.

She cuts very generous checks for causes like theater companies and heart disease research and the Houston Boys Club because fuck the Houston girls. Yeah. Those boys need money. The boys need it. So soon word gets out around town that Candice in her past life may or may not have been an escort in New Orleans, but these whispers behind her back are no match for the philanthropic good that she's doing in her current life.

Throw money at the problem. Yeah, for real. Also everyone who meets Candy is immediately charmed by her twinkling blue eyes, her beauty, and her very friendly personality. She's not the first woman with a questionable past who's married rich. So while some people like to gossip about her possible history, most people just decide to look the other way and say, who gives a shit? I like her.

Yeah. So then in January of 1957, Jacques away on business in Chicago when he hears, and this is insane, he hears about four kids who are orphaned after their father shot their mother and stabbed the youngest child in the family to death. Oh my God. Horrifying. So Candy immediately flies to meet him and to Chicago and they adopt all four kids and bring them back to Houston.

So this new family is met with a flurry of reporters and photographers upon landing when they get back and Candy's face is plastered all across the news for quote unquote saving these children. So this is the Mosler family background, which is actually even more horrifying to think about that these kids, these four adopted kids, what, how they came to be orphans. Yeah. And then they had to live through the trauma of murder all over again when they get to the condo and find Jacques murdered.

Horrifying. God. Okay. So when the police arrive at the Mosler's Key Biscayne condo, the night of the murder, Candy tells them she suspects a robbery has taken place. But then the police note the overkill, the 39 stab wounds, and how that probably indicates a crime of passion. And that's when Candy has a little bit more to say.

She tells the police that Jacques, being the very successful businessman that he is, he has made himself more than a few enemies over the years, plus she suspects that her husband may have been leading a double life, sleeping with the men behind her back whenever he's out of town. She says she suspects that it could have been an angry lover that was lashing out at Jacques. So police look into Jacques's business dealings to see if they can find someone with a motive. But when they do, they come across an unexpected lead. According to an anonymous member of the Mosler's household staff, they accuse Candy of being

the one that has the affair. She's been seen canoodling with a young man named Melvin Lane Powers. And this turns out to be a bombshell piece of information because the movie star, Hansa Melvin, is also Candy's 21-year-old nephew. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Okay, so basically here's how it went down. In late 1961, Candy got a call from her big sister Babe in Arizona.

Not enough people named Babe these days. Absolutely not. Probably because of the pig. But let's change that. So her big sister Babe lives in Arizona. She calls Candy to tell her that her son Melvin has just been sentenced to 90 days in jail for committing fraud. So Melvin, he grew up in Alabama, then the family moved to Arizona.

He'd always been an aimless boy, quote-unquote an aimless boy. He rarely showed up for school or did his homework. And after getting expelled from being absent too many times, he got himself a job in Michigan selling magazine subscriptions. But when he tries to take advantage of an 89-year-old customer by selling him $20,000 worth of stock in a fake, he made up a magazine subscription company and then tried to sell it like a 90-year-old man stock in this non-existing company. He gets caught because I said man, but it's a customer, so it could have been a woman.

Whoever it was, they'd been around the block of time or two and they were just like, hello police. And so he gets caught. So essentially, Babe calls her sister hoping that under Candy's guidance, her son Melvin can turn his life around. So Candy agrees to take her nephew in. And it's around December 1961 when that happens after his release from jail. So Mel moved to the Mossler Mansion in Houston and Jacques gives Mel a job at one of his

loan companies basically as a repo man. And it turns out he's great at it and he should be great at it because he's being given free room and board in a three-story mansion. That includes having private chef-cooked meals. They give him his own Thunderbird, like he's living large and rent-free. There are some odd perks as well though, namely cosmetic surgeries. At Candy's insistence, Mel has first his tonsils removed, then his ears pinned so that they don't stick out anymore because I guess they stuck out.

And his acne scars removed. And finally, he gets circumcised. Okay. So glow up, a glow up from Mel in Houston all over, head to toe, glow up from the crotchet. About a year and a half later in June of 1963, the gravy train for Mel stops very abruptly. Jacques not only fires Mel, he has security escort him out of that mansion. And soon after, Jacques packs up and leaves Houston for key disgain. And that's one of the six properties that he owns in the United States.

So he's going to go to Florida to get away. And he moves there alone. So when people ask Candy where Jacques is and what happened, why he decided to kick Mel out of the house, she says it's because Mel wanted to start his own business that conflicted with Jacques's business interests. And she says Jacques moved to Florida just for business reasons because he's opening yet another bank in Miami and he needs to be in town to get it up and running. Sure.

Sure. So after he gets kicked out of the Mosslar mansion, Mel moves 24 miles south of Houston to Webster Taxis, where he starts a business selling mobile homes. So this is where police find him on July 3rd, 1964, three days after the murder. They question him. Mel tells police that on the night of Jacques's murder, he was in Houston at the movies. But the problem is he doesn't remember what movie he saw and he doesn't remember what theater he saw it in.

Oh, sure. That happens to me all the time. I just forget a thing that just happened. It's just a blur of entertainment. You're just, he wasn't used to all those pictures coming at him so fast. Moving pictures. They're talkies. What Mel doesn't know is that the police have already looked into him.

They've been investigating him for a couple of days. They learned that on the afternoon of June 29th, 1964, Mel arrived at the Houston airport with a suitcase, bought a one-way ticket to Miami, and landed there later that day. See, that's the thing about being hot is people notice you when you go places. People they're like, hey, did you see a guy that looks like he should be in the back? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I saw him.

Did you see a normal looking guy? Probably. Whereas you're sticking out? No, they were pinned tight back to his head. I saw a hot guy, all right. Yeah, everyone, this is such a good point. Everyone's going to remember Mel. Him blazing into the airport.

Also, why did you buy one-way ticket? Absolutely. Never fucking do that. Even if you're really... What are you doing? Yeah, suspicious. Okay. Then, once he got in Miami, according to an eyewitness, he goes to a bar called the

Stuffed Shirt Lounge at the Holiday Inn. Yeah, he does. Genius. Oh, I want to be there now. If anybody's grandma has a matchbook from the Stuffed Shirt Lounge... Or one of those little sturdy things that they... Yes. Or a napkin.

Anything. A napkin. From the Miami Holiday Inn Bar, the Stuffed Shirt Lounge. We will pay you a pretty penny for that thing, whatever. Literally a penny. But... But it'll be pretty. I'll shut up.

It'll be right. We'll shut up. Okay. So, this bar in the Holiday Inn is right near Jacques's condo. All right. At the bar, Mel asks the bartender for an empty soda bottle, he leaves, bottle in hand, and then at 1 a.m. the same night, Mel comes back into the bar and orders a double scotch. See, don't be hot and suspicious.

An empty fucking bottle. What are you... That isn't an order. No, don't just go around in the world acting like people aren't going to be like, I was hoping he'd come back. Right. And then he did. Right.

Or also like, yeah, there was this weird guy who came in that night. Don't be weird and have people remember you because you got an empty bottle. Also, because if you're hot, but then you turn out to be weird, people remember you even more. Right. Because that's the weird hot guy. Weird hot guy, which is usually they're either suave or they're just kind of nothing. Or like a douche.

But if you're weird and hot, what are you doing? Yeah. Stop it. It's like, those ears are pinned back, aren't they? They used to stick out. That's right. Wait a second. You're newly circumcised.

Hey, man, yeah, that swagger I can tell you recently on surgery. You have the vibe of a newly circumcised man and you can't fool me. Oh, God. Okay. So, basically around 4.30 in the morning, the same time the candy goes back to the cargo and discovers Jacques's body, Mel's back at the Miami airport buying himself a ticket back to Houston. Dude.

Also, don't go at weird times to places. Like people will remember you. Can you imagine you're the woman that works at like the American Airlines desk and here comes, you know, the James Dean of your era. I think that was James Dean. Oh, it was James Dean. He actually had a, he had a shoot down. Here comes basically James Dean who's alive and well at this moment, maybe.

But weird. Okay. Super weird. Okay. So, obviously caught in a lie during questioning, police arrest Mel at his Webster office and they charge him with capital murder. So, with Mel behind bars, the police obtain a search warrant and scour his office and they find a photo of Mel and Candy cozied up together at a nightclub and some letters from Candy

to Mel in which she calls him, quote, my darling. And also, there's an excerpt that reads, quote, the image of your face is before me. I can almost feel your face against mine. I could not think of life without you. I love you. I need you. I long for you. Anti, anti Barbie.

Love, anti Candy. Anti Candy. That's what I meant. Anti Candy is giving me the creepiest vibes I've ever had. PS, how's that circumcision going? This spreads about Mel's arrest and Candy's possible ties to Jock's murder. All of Houston, of course, it's like shockwaves, right? Yeah.

Gawkers drive by the River Oaks mansion in droves hoping to get a glimpse of the now infamous Candy Mosler, so much so that she has to hire security guards and police have to come and direct the heavy traffic in her neighborhood. Wow. Yeah. But she's not there. She's been admitted to St. Luke's Hospital for something called, quote, nervous strain. Oh, I have that.

I have that. Yeah. Can I go away to a resort now? Absolutely. Yep. Buy your way into St. Luke's Hospital. She couldn't have had it too bad, though, because she invites journalists to interview her at her bedside.

Or I should say she welcomes them. Maybe they showed up and she was like, sounds good to me. She calls her alleged affair with Mel absurd and denies that she or he had anything to do with Jacques's murder. Then she transfers herself to the Mayo Clinic for further medical treatment. And she rents an apartment nearby for her kids and for their nanny. She remains at the Mayo Clinic for the next year while Mel remains behind bars. Yeah.

Wow. And the police continue their investigation. Candy only leaves Rochester once during this time and that's flying to DC to visit Jacques's grave at the Arlington National Cemetery on the anniversary of his burial. She insists that she loved Jacques with all her heart and she never was with him for his money declaring publicly that she, quote, would have been happy with him in a telephone booth. So then Candy agrees to one last interview with the Miami Herald in which she states

that Jacques was experiencing a mental decline in the last months of his life. Also claiming that one of Jacques's alleged male lovers had been sending him love letters and even tried to blackmail him for $75,000. The media frenzy continues and despite her efforts, the public's outcry for Candy arrest grows louder and louder. Because none of this, I mean, imagine if she were somehow innocent. All of this behavior really says the opposite. But maybe the nephew got sent away and she was like, I got to fix this with my husband.

I can't. I'm not going to leave him for my fucking 21 year old nephew. I need to fix this. You know, you need to go away, sends away the nephew. The nephew. So I rate that he on his own accord is like, well, maybe if I kill the husband, she'll be with me and kills him and she has nothing to do with it. But why would she get home at 430 in the morning?

Yeah. Here's the thing. If she went to the hospital for like, she was getting migraines. I mean, like that's what it sounds like to me. Yeah. She's like, hey kids, if they have a nanny that travels with them, where's the nanny? Where she's or did she not bring them? I mean, there's just, there's so many questions and concerns.

Yeah. Okay, so on July 20th, 1965, Candy's informed of her impending arrest. So the outcry actually gets answered. So she agrees to fly from the Mayo Clinic back to Miami to surrender rather than let the news outlets capture a salacious arrest photo. But when she lands in Miami, the media is there waiting for her, of course. They hit her with a flurry of questions about whether or not she murdered Jacques or whether or not she was sleeping with her nephew, who's half her age.

Candy maintains her composure, smiles, and says to reporters, quote, well, nobody's perfect. I mean, that is an understatement of the century. It's really true though. It is true. It's, you can't say it's not true. Okay. Okay. Well, they have a joint trial that begins January 1966 in Miami, and it's, of course,

like the event of the decade. More than 40 national and local news outlets have seats in the courtroom. People line up around the block to get in. And those lucky enough that do get a seat, bring packed lunches so they don't lose their seat. Wow. Having to get up and go get something to eat. Candy arrives to court dressed to the nines, of course, as one of her defense attorneys

would later put it, quote, you would have thought she was a movie star walking the red carpet. In their opening statement, the prosecution makes their argument clear. They believe that Candice conspired with her nephew, Mel, to have Jacques killed while she was at the hospital for her headaches with the kids, thereby giving her a solid alibi. And now that Jacques is dead, Candice stands to inherit his entire fortune worth at least $7 million then, which is $60 million today. So Candy and Mel, their lead defense attorney is a lawyer named Percy Foreman, who is a

shark of a defense attorney who would later go on to defend James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. And so Foreman argues that Jacques is to blame for his own death, bold, having business dealings and secret love affairs with shady characters. In his opening argument, he claims that Jacques was, quote, as ruthless in business as any pirate whoever sailed the Seven Seas and whose, quote, insatiable sex appetite, unquote, left him vulnerable to attacks and blackmail. So there's zero evidence to back up any of those claims, but that is he came out the

gate. Yeah. In the trial, Foreman calls no witnesses to the stand. Instead, he lets the prosecutors call their witnesses. These are mostly people who claim to have seen Mel and Candy getting frisky at the Mosler Home or on ski trips or at concerts or in nightclubs. And then he just... So lots of places.

Yeah, just kind of all over the place. Then he picks apart those eyewitness accounts and tried to discredit them while also simultaneously discrediting Jacques. This is recount seeing Mel and Candy being, quote, too passionate for relatives. That's all passionate is too passionate for relatives. Passion and relatives need not be anywhere near each other. One witness recalls seeing the two disappear into a trailer at the Mosler Ranch together only to go in after and find the bed, quote, rumbled up, unquote.

One of Mel's co-workers recalls several occasions where Mel bragged about being able to get whatever he wanted from Candy if he gave her oral sex. The witness's testimonies are so sexually inappropriate that at one point the judge rules that no one under the age of 21 can remain in the courtroom during the proceedings. Ex-rated. Sassy. Several witnesses come forward to say that Candace had propositioned them to murder Jacques in the year leading up to his death.

One man known around town for his struggles with drug addiction says Candace offered him $25,000 to kill Jacques. He planned to do it with a car bomb, but he was arrested for something else before he was able to do that. He also claims to have encountered Mel in jail after Mel was arrested and he claims that Mel told him that he killed Jacques. So he basically, he confessed to this other guy. Don't buy that.

It doesn't seem the most solid person. Yeah. In his closing statement, which was five hours long and required three intermissions, Percy Foreman drives home to the jury that Candace is a sweet, innocent woman and that Mel is just an impressionable, innocent young boy slash nephew. After three days of deliberation, the jury comes back with a verdict of not guilty for both Mel and Candace. Shut up.

For real. They both break down in tears and later thank each member of the jury. They go outside, share a quick kiss, hop into a gold Cadillac convertible and drive away. Okay. They both gave each other, oh, that's like such a fuck you. Yeah. Yeah. Gold Cadillac.

Okay. And they left together. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So Candy and Mel spend the next two or so years living together back at the Mosler Mansion

in Houston. They just like flaunted it at everyone. Yeah. Like your old friend, uh, Double Jeopardy is in place, so they're free. They're free and easy. They built an eight foot stone wall around the house to try and regain some semblance of privacy, but people still come in from all over to drive by and in the hope of catching a glimpse of either of them.

Candy's fellow socialites and friends, of course, are less enthused. They stop inviting her to parties and all charity events, but none of this stops Candy. She takes over running Jacques's companies and opens a few businesses of her own. Oh my God. At one point, she opens her own music publishing company so that she can sell songs she's been writing over the years and allegedly Judy Garland expresses interest in recording some of Candy's music. What?

I mean, yeah. But you know, she did open a music, I mean, it's just basically like her world. Totally. It's her world. Totally. She also soon begins to regain her social standing. She starts, of course, she basically goes to charity events and works the scene, gets in there, starts, so she's taking pictures and like going to events with Harry Belafonte,

with Aretha Franklin. She actually poses for a picture with Martin Luther King Jr. after making a generous donation to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Wow. She's using, you know, her generosity and, you know, using her money basically to buy her way back into society. All the while, Mel and Candice are still growing strong. Even if Candice denies their romantic relationship publicly, they're seen at Broadway performances,

baseball games, Mel allegedly buys Candice an engagement ring during a trip to Switzerland. Oh my God. And he's actually becoming a successful businessman of his own. He gets into real estate and he buys a piece of property for $2,000, sells it for $110,000. Oh, shit. Like, he's in the mix. They're making money. But after a few years together, Mel starts cheating on Candi.

No. What? They were so good together. I'm trying to think it. No. Well, Mel wants to break up with her, but he tells friends that he's afraid to because she has a quote, crazy streak. She quote has a fiery temper and she's unpredictable.

So essentially, you know, he's, he's kind of, he had a good for a while. Now he wants out and he can make it on his own. Candi has a hunch that Mel's been cheating because you're not going to get anything by Candi. She's been around a block of time or two. Absolutely. So they start arguing a lot. During one argument at the old mansion, Mel allegedly goes into the bathroom, slams the

door and Candi fires three shots from a 45 into the door. She somehow doesn't hit him. What? I guess it was a huge bathroom. Yeah. It is a mansion. Yeah. So basically that's, you know, they finally decide to call it quits.

Mel moves out of the mansion, he grows out his hair and his mustache and he basically is a bachelor from then on. Wow. And he just goes and he goes into his own business. Candi enjoys a single life herself through the rest of the sixties. She throws parties. She has lots of boyfriends over the years. Most notable is Chuck Berry, who actually writes about his relationship with Candi in

his 1987 autobiography. Oh my God. Yeah. What the fuck is this woman? She's everything in the world. She's all of us. Yeah. And none of us.

Right. In 1971, Candi settles down once more at age 51 and marries an electrical contractor and night club owner named Barnett Garrison, who is 32 years old. Ooh. Yeah, girl. What's up? Do, why not? Do it.

If you can. Oh yeah. Of course, Candi keeps the legend of her quote fiery temper alive when Barnett starts cheating on Candi. She finds out. Yeah, I know. It's come on guys. It's tough.

It's tough. Especially back in the early seventies. So she finds out that he's going to this go-go bar, which I assume means a strip club, but it was just kind of like maybe it was like sixties. Yeah, like you couldn't take your clothes off though, like a burlisky type of thing. But there's still women in cages. Right. So, you know, it's like sexy times.

So she finds out there's one he likes to go to. It mysteriously burns down. Holy shit. The fire department suspects Candi of arson, essentially. She denies it saying only that she, quote, certainly would understand doing such a thing. Yeah. She's like, yeah, bitch. Yeah.

I don't like it. So what charges are ever filed against her? And then just over a year later in August of 1972, Barnett is found bloody and unconscious on the Houston mansion's patio. No. His gun is beside him, but he looks as though he's been beaten up and fallen from the roof of the house. Three stories out.

Oh my God. A police center at the home, they find Candi's locked herself inside her bedroom. When they finally get her to open the door, she says she, quote, already shot him, unquote. But there's no bullet wounds on Barnett's body, and Candi is incoherent, either drunk or high. Barnett survives his injuries, but he's left in a vegetative state, and he receives care at a nursing home for 25 years and dies in 2009. He never recovers.

Oh my God. There's an author named Mickey Herskovitz, who's researching Candi's life for a biography and never ends up getting published, but they did all the research. And he said that he heard from one of Candi's relatives that she'd hired two goons to beat Barnett up for cheating on her. This has never been proven, and Barnett's injuries and eventual death were ruled accidental. So it's never proven. Yeah.

In 1973, two of Candi's adopted sons filed a lawsuit against her claiming that she'd stolen a portion of their trust fund and had only given them $350 a month. They also describe her rampant prescription drug abuse and call her a serial liar. It's unclear what comes of this lawsuit, if anything, but two years later in 1975, Candi cuts three of her adopted children out of her will. She only leaves money to her oldest daughter, Rita, her second child, Norman Jr., and her youngest adopted son, Eddie. In October 1976, while on a work trip in Miami, Candi is found dead in her suite at the Fountain

Blue Hotel at age 62. She had been given demoral from her doctor to treat one of her headaches, but she had already taken sleeping pills, and the combination of those drugs caused an overdose. Mel attends Candi's funeral with his new girlfriend. It's held at Arlington National Cemetery, where she is buried next to Jacques, the man she claimed to love all the way to the end. Mel continues on his path of yo-yoing wealth. At one point, he buys himself a 142-foot yacht, which is said to be one of the largest in

the Western Hemisphere. Then he loses everything. Then he gains it back again. So it's crazy. In 2010, Mel passes away at 68 years old. The death certificate rules his death, a death by pneumonia. He also had a history of prescription drug use, which may or may not have contributed to his death.

With Candi and Mel both dead and those close to the case fading away, it appears that we will never know for sure what happened to Jacques Mosler. The evidence does point to murder and potentially Mel and Candice being involved in that murder. As the author, Mickey Hersquitz tells Skip Hollinsworth in his article, quote, it was hard for anyone who met Candi to imagine that she could kill anything, even a flea. To be honest, she haunts me to this day. And that is the truly crazy story of the notorious Mrs. Mosler, as told by Skip Hollinsworth. Oh, wow, twists and turns and having sex with your nephew and circumcision and so many twists

and turns. Alleged. Alleged. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Two wild stories this week. I mean crazy stories.

And also, an episode that's almost two hours long as a as a huge come back, welcome back 2022. Let's go, let's do 20 hours and 20 two minutes just to make up just to make it like, no let's marath on this thing. Let's do it. Come in. No one can stop us. Yeah, this is the first.

Oh my God, we're almost at six years. Yep, we are. This month. Holy shit. Six years, Georgia. That's the second longest relationship I've ever been in. Hey girl. Hi.

I'm going to get you an engagement ring in Switzerland and get my ears pinned back as a sign of my love for you. You know what I'm going to get for you? What? Circumcised. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my gosh.

Happy New Year, Karen. Happy New Year to you. Thank you. Happy New Year to all the... New year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to all of us. May it be very nude.

Yeah, it's so nice to have had a break, but it's great to be back. Yeah. We're going to make this year our own. We're going to make it our own. We're going to pin back the ears of this year and show it who's boss. Let's do it. Let's make this year our nephew lover and do it. We can and we will.

Thanks, you guys, for listening. Yeah. Happy New Year. Thanks for listening, guys. Happy New Year. Let's keep it positive. We know it's tough. But okay.

Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. 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, Stephen.

Ray Morris. Researchers, J. Elias and Hailey Gray. Send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at myfavoritmurderatgmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch or to join the fan cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com. Rate, review and subscribe.