My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 344 - Hypothetical Rearview Mirror

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe and the survival story of Brazilian pilot Antonio Sena.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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And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And it is football season, guys. Who is excited? We switched to a sports spot. Or we just really got into football all of a sudden for no fuckers.

You know what? Our interests have changed. We welcome ourselves into the hallowed halls. Can we please have a different pastime? Can people evolve and grow, please, and get really into football for no fucking reason? I don't love football. No matter the state, no matter the city. Oh, I don't even have a team.

I just love watching it. I love all football sports. I don't do it for the food and the drinks. I just do it for the love of football. And are you more of an AFC or an NFC? That's a great question, Karen. The answer is yes, 100%, you know what I mean? Yeah, because I feel like the AFC is more real than the other, the second option of

that. Extreme. And I like my football extreme, you know what I mean? Like I want to see some heads cracking or whatever. Yeah. I prefer it when they're the faster, when the one team is faster than the other and more accurate with their throwing and catching. Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely. That's why I like it. I want to see two footballs on the field at once. That's like what I mean. I want to flag on that play every play. And I want to watch men and their intricate romantic dances that they add a little violence on just so no one's the wiser.

And I just want to see lifelong traumatic brain injuries really play itself out right there for my own pleasure and entertainment. You see, that's where we bring kind of the darkness back into what is normally very light, airy, fun time sports, but we're like, hey, there's potential crime on the field happening right now. That's what we do. You're not fast enough. What else besides football have you been getting yourself into lately?

Just mostly football. I really wish I could, I could remember like the last thing my dad told me about that I didn't care about, about football, that I could really impress you with. No, the AFC, NFC thing that you just pulled out of nowhere. I was, is it real? I think NFC is like not, not featured content or something, but AFC is real. Okay. Well, color me impressed.

Thanks. That was good. Let's see. What, did I tell you about when I did a slip and fall? No. Did we talk about last show? Well, this will be, we're recording a little bit early. So this, this is evergreen.

It'll be so fascinating what my toenail looks like by the time this actually airs. So I, here's what I did. The other morning I was trying to have like a power morning. So I got up, I went swimming. I'm on it. And I'm on it morning. Right. And I'm like, go get them, a go get them football kind of morning.

Right. What the coach would tell me. Go get it. Go get it in that pool for a half an hour. Getting out of the pool realized there's like, I had ordered because I ran out of coffee. So I was like, well, then I guess I get to order Starbucks delivered to my home. Yes, you do. It's a necessity.

I need it first of all, and then I want it. And you've seen me on the road, when I go to Starbucks, I will order like four to five things at a time. It's my favorite. This time I only ordered two, which was a big coffee and then my double tall mocha that I like. One pump. It comes very quickly, like surprisingly quickly where I'm like, oh shoot.

So I have to get out of the pool and instead of standing there and taking my time to dry off. I kind of like ran to the door to get my drink and the second my foot hit that fucking tile inside my house. It was a slip and fall of such hilarious dramatic heights. Like it was like a herky where my leg went out from under me. Oh my God. And then the other, you know what it was like?

It was, have you ever seen drag queens do death drops where they just fall to the ground? Yes. It was one of those with the slip, you know, a liquid slip height. So my first, anyway, it didn't, nothing, the only damage that came out of it, I'm really goosing this for like attention and pity and thank you for that, is it hurt. Of course, my like right haunch that I feel on my butt and thigh was like, how that was like height. I went up and came back down.

I've been there. My left leg did bend behind me a little bit. The problem, which that was actually fine. The problem was, is that I know, I know a toenail injury is coming and I'm just holding my sweating. I apologize. I'm making it take too long. Essentially the way my big toe hit the ground, the toenail, no, no, disengage, go forward

three, if you're a squeamish person. And also, Georgia, do you not want to hear that? No, I want to, I like gross things. I would look at your toenail right now. I'm weird like that. You can. It basically bent my toenail in the bed. So it came up off the toenail bed a little bit and then it turned to the left.

I'm sweating. I'm sweating. It was so, I, your toenail vogue turned to the left. This whole thing. My toenail held up a compact and acted out, putting on powder at me, as if to say, in my toenail gave me shade through vogue. It hurt so bad that it was numb at first, one of those nightmare ones, where then it slowly comes in.

Were you shaken up when I have a big fall like that? It's like, when you're suddenly like, how badly am I hurt? Yes. Did you still get your coffee? Oh hell yes. I mean, I stayed in place for like five minutes to make sure, like there was no spining. You know, midlife, serious injury of like, you know, you have to take boneva for the rest of your life or whatever.

Realized that the only thing was my butt, my one side of my butt hurt and then that toenail was like something bad happened and I can't look at it. Got up, got my coffee, collected myself and then slowly looked down at it and it was just like turned. It was just slightly, it was like, it got side-swiped. Yeah. It was like a jar. It was like left.

It was horrible. Are you okay? Oh my God. Yes. Well then, here's the thing, I wasn't going to go to the emergency room because everybody would go ahead of me all day. And my, the next doctor's appointment was like for 10 days ahead. So then I was just like, well, I guess we'll just see what happens.

Because I have a wonky toenail for a couple of days. Because it might fall off. Oh God. You know what's weird is in the last hour, this is like the accident prone show because in the last hour I've hit myself in the face area twice. With what? And I'm going to have a black eye I think. Well I was putting on a hair clip, like a chompy type hair clip and I had coconut oil

like everywhere and it slipped right here as I was about to put it on my face and fucking swapped me right in the face. So now I'm going to have a big bruise. It like slipped out of my fingers as I was opening it as like a, like a banana clip thing. And shot onto your cheekbone? Yeah, luckily it didn't hit my eye. And that hurt really bad and I think it is going to bruise. And then I was plugging in my equipment here and I like pulled a cord that has a metal

thing at the end too quickly and it came back around and just whipped me in my big white teeth. Like just so flat, like right in my fucking teeth I was like, oh God. But I think I'm thinking okay. Good. That hurts. But like when I first, was it when I first got Blossom and she jumped up right at me so our like skulls cracked and something hit my teeth where I was like, oh that's a specific

bad feeling. Yeah. It was a very like, did that just crack my teeth? Yeah. For sure. Did that crack my skull? Up past my teeth. I love when it's like, hey guys have evergreen content because this is coming out early.

This is where you're in my brains go, which is pretty great and I think it's also like indicative of us being able to have done this podcast for almost seven fucking years because we're able to just like fill in the time. Hell yes. With tragedy. Here's, because you know what? At this point we know what a good story is and a good story isn't I watch this thing on TV.

We're just trying to fill our shows with what might be relevant to others. But we know what's relevant to us is especially me living alone in this house. Like I fell down and then I was just like, I might need to stay here for a while, just in case. I don't fucking know. And there's no, it's like, and I kind of crawled over to the carpet, you know, just to get a little softness under my butt. Yeah.

Exactly. I'm just like, no, I don't like this at all. Oh God. But I have to say this and I'm sorry to say it because I'm a believer, not when this podcast comes out, but when we're recording it, we're on the verge of Mercury going into retrograde. Oh, are we? And that's when you have to be careful of, you have to be careful. That makes sense.

Accidents happen. I was very much not careful just now when I hit myself those two times and so it would have been completely my fault if something happened. Yeah. So it's good to know that because I need, I definitely need to pay attention. Yeah. There was a very great female standup comic. And now I can't remember which one it was.

It wasn't Suzy Essman, but it was in that 80s era. I'm almost positive. It was Liz Winstead's bit in standup where she'd go, you know, you're getting middle aged when you get into the shower and you go, oh, you can think as careful. Oh no. Oh God. Yeah. I ain't one there.

But anyone, you know, at really any age, let's all be careful. Yeah. You guys be careful in the shower. If we've taught you anything, it's slip and falls are a real mess and football is life. You know us and you know these are the things we say all the time. Yeah. That's it. You know what?

Should we just get into it? Yeah. We probably should only. I just wanted to say. Oh, okay. I got this lip stain. What is it? Peripera.

P-E-R-I-P-E-R-A. Mm-hmm. And it's just real good. Ink velvet. You stick it on and it stays on all day long. All right. I'm doing it. I'm in.

I'll wear it next time I play football. It's pretty. Now I play football. Stripes. Now I play football. Now you're playing. Now you're playing. You don't just watch it.

That's how the lie escalates. So let's do some exactly right highlights real quick. Shall we? Oh, sorry. It's going to stop you. Okay. Did you want me to open this box that you sent over? I'm so glad you were.

No. Oh my God. This is fucking weird. Okay. Okay. Give me one second. Let me go grab mine. Okay.

My thing. Hold on. This is, this is true. I just prefaced this by saying Georgia sent me a box and it says Karen don't open. That's all it says on it. And I got it last Tuesday, which was a week, basically a week ago since the last episode that we recorded. And it's like a little surprise.

So just in case you're confused, I have a brown box at my house and apparently Georgia has one at her house too. So I think this is going to be an audio unboxing. Okay. Okay, I just ran upstairs to grab this thing that I bought for us and I sent it to you and I said, do not open on the box. And it's, it's a theme that we've done before, but it's eerily fitting for today's episode. And my mind, I did not do this on purpose.

My mind is a little blown. Okay. Open the box. Okay. This is another bag of Brock's candy corn flavors and we've done Thanksgiving, we've done a couple of different kind we did. What is it? Street food.

And this one is. Tailgate. Flavor. Tailgate flavors. Hot dog. We were talking about football. That's crazy. Hot dog, hamburger, popcorn, fruit punch, vanilla ice cream.

This is going to be disgusting. I'm so excited. Me too. Okay. So let's open the bag. Okay. Flavor. Tailgate.

Tailgate. Oh, I have to give a shout out to the Murderino who told me about it. Hold on one second. Oh, okay. Oh, I opened it and I can smell it already. Oh. Smell it. Hamburger hot dog.

Oh my God. You have to get the code. I know. Yeah. Which one's which? I just got a handful of what I think is entirely popcorn, which based on the jelly belly jelly beans is a nightmare. A woman named Jenny Marie at J-B-I-E-S-87 on Twitter is the one who told me about this

and was like, you guys have to try this. So I mean, I think we need to go right into the hot dog, but it doesn't look like they have a. There doesn't seem to be a code unless it's left, left to right. I think it is. Here. Okay. So that means fruit punch should be pink and mostly pink with orange.

Yeah. And then they're okay. And then vanilla ice cream is mostly white. Let's try vanilla ice cream because I have a lot of those. Okay. Okay. Oh no. That's popcorn.

Is it? Mine tastes like popcorn. Let's just close our eyes and pick one and put one in our mouth and see what happens. Okay. Okay. But I really did not like. Okay. Dottie is like trying to eat these right now.

That's very weird. Okay. Here I go. Okay. I just don't want to eat a second popcorn. Then pick one a different color. Okay. Ready?

Go. Oh no. That's hamburger. Oh. That's hamburger. Mine was vanilla ice cream, which is what I was expecting last time. Pick one with orange in it. Okay.

Oh, that's fucking tastes like a hamburger patty. Ew. Really? Yeah. I need another one. I'm sorry. The Brock's people are geniuses. Oh my God.

This is so hilarious. This is on level with a giant skeleton. It's just like, yes, you have a market for these people. I think I just ate a hot dog one and I really might vomit. Okay. Let me see. I'm going to eat a new one. Oh.

Oh. Don't you get? I got fruit punch now. That's better, at least. Oh. Oh. I think that's supposed to be hot dog. It's weird.

Yeah. I'm, I fear hamburger. Hamburger was a little life-changingly bad. Like it kind of changed my life. Maybe I don't like football anymore after eating that. How dare you? I know. Oh my God.

This is just work. This is like, it's a fun trick and stuff, but fuck. Yeah. First the toenail, now this. I'm sweating. I'm like sweating so much. All right. We did it.

First the toenail. Yeah. I don't, can we stop trying? Yep. I promise I'll stop. I'll send them to you, but we don't have to try them anymore. No, no. I just meant these, these flavors specifically.

Oh, these now? Yes. Absolutely. These now. We're done. I have the worst taste in my mouth. It's a meaty meat candy. Mine is, I have a combination hot dog vanilla ice cream thing that, yeah.

This just sounds like a kid barfing at a birthday party. Oh my God. Now I have vomit taste in my mouth. Sorry. It's true. It's 100%. It's rough. Look, this is what, I guess the, the Harry Potter bots beans thing kind of did at first

with those trick ones, but I just really love the variation on the theme that Brox has done. Yeah. I think it's brilliant. The turkey dinner one. I'm telling you guys, get that. Bring it to your next Thanksgiving dinner coming up soon on us. Jesus.

It's just right around the corner. Hey guys. Hey guys. Promo code murder. We're doing a commercial for Thanksgiving this year. Use the promo code on your Thanksgiving to get 20% off your family. 20% off, passive aggression this holiday season. Can I say really quickly that I had an incredible huge honor this year that I, I just want to

mention the re-release of the book, The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule. I wrote the forward to it, which is kind of the most surreal, crazy experience to see my name on this book that changed my life completely when I was young and I was obsessed with it. And I'm really proud of that. And so I just wanted to mention that if you want to get a copy of The New Stranger Beside Me, re-release my names on it on the cover and everything and my favorite murders mentioned on the cover too.

Amazing. That is kind of like watching football and then playing football. Yeah. That's the trajectory you just took. You were a fan and now you're a part of the game. Yeah, I am honored. Congratulations. Thank you.

It's very exciting. Also, that book, if you haven't read it, truly is a page turner unlike any other. It really is a beautiful, it just stands a test of time. It's such a beautiful book. It's a true story. She lived it. She lived it. She stood next to a stranger who was beside her named Ted Bundy.

She fell for the stranger beside her. Yeah. That's legendary. Ann Rule. Shout out to Ann Rule forever. Ann Rule. All right. Let's do some exactly right corner.

This week on I Said No Gifts, Bridger is welcoming comedic actor Timothy Simons, known for his role as Jonah Ryan on Veep, an incredible actor. That role is so perfect and good. And also over on Bananas, the Banana Boys, you know those crazy guys. They're joined by stand-up comedian, cartoonist and author Mo Welch talking about weird news in the world right now. Shoot. So funny.

Then on I Saw What You Did, Milly and Danielle highlight another double feature with a mystifying theme. This time, it's ordinary people from 1980 and a clockwork orange from 1971. What a duo. And my guess, because you know, every year you're supposed to guess the theme. My guess for that theme would be the definition of heavy because both of those movies. They are heavy. And then also in the MFM store, we have an end of summer sale happening on everything

from our puzzles to the pajamas that we so love. And we're also offering a gift with purchases over $60. The sale ends on September 18th. So go to myfavorimurder.com to find some merch and treasure. Get some Thanksgiving gift giving out of the way. Yeah. You know, Thanksgiving's right around the corner for everybody. From a good murder.

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Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston, Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path.

Follow Even The Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. This week I'm doing pretty much the least obscure story you've ever heard of, but I watched a really great documentary about this person and this story and it's kind of a mystery thing that we all know, but maybe don't know that much about because it's so huge in pop culture that we kind of don't pay attention to the details. But today for you, I'm going to talk about the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. Wow.

I know, right? Yeah. Why not? Interesting. Of course. It's mysterious and gives one a bad feeling when they think about it. It really does and I'm not going to help with that at all. So the documentary I watched over the weekend was the 2022 Netflix documentary, The Mystery

of Marilyn Monroe, The Unheard Tapes, which is based on the book by Anthony Summers. It's a 1985 biography called Goddess. And so I was kind of curious about this documentary. I was like, I know everything about Marilyn Monroe. I don't need to see anything new, but it was actually really beautifully done and told about her life and what she was really like via these recordings and these interviews that Summers did. It was the interview tape playing and an actor reenacting it in the time, like in the era.

So it looked legitimate. It was very cool because a lot of these people are dead, obviously. Like a historic reenactment kind of. Exactly. And that was really well done. So some of the sources used in today's episode are a Vanity Fair article by Julie Miller, a heavily used article by Robert Welkos and Ted Rolich, and also another by Shelby Grad, a New York Times article by Robert Lindsay, a Time Magazine article by Stephanie Zacharyk.

Also declassified FBI records were used and many, yeah, and many more sources. So check those out in the show notes. Let us start on the morning of August 5th, 1962, when the news breaks across the world that 36 year old Marilyn Monroe, one of the greatest screen legends of all time, has suddenly died of a drug overdose. The world is shocked and grief of Marilyn's passing is felt throughout the world. The official story is that her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, had found Marilyn unresponsive in her bed at her bungalow in the Hollywood suburb of Brentwood around 3am on August 5th.

Eunice says that she had called Marilyn psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who had been treating Marilyn for the past two years for depression, and the pair had become very close with their therapeutic relationship, and actually, there's interviews with him and his family in this documentary that are really interesting, like they become a kind of, like she kind of joins their family and they become close. So he arrives, he says, at 3.40am, he has to break into Marilyn's room through a window because the door, her door is locked, and she's not responding to anyone knocking on the door.

Then two minutes later, he says he opens the bedroom door and tells Eunice we've lost her. So then at 3.50am, her doctor, Dr. Engelberg, arrives and pronounces Marilyn dead. In the bedroom are 15 bottles of medication, some of which are empty, and Marilyn's been dead for six to eight hours, they say. The doctors don't call the police for another 35 minutes, and Dr. Engelberg later explains that it's because he was so shocked that Marilyn was dead and they had discussed whether or not to call the police, which they eventually do. So that's why, there's like a weird gap, which is part of the mystery is like, why did they

wait so long to call the police? Marilyn's body is then taken to the LA County Coroner's Mortuary for an autopsy, and there are mixed reports about what happens to the bottles of the medication. Some say they all remain in the house. Marilyn's manager, and as Melton claims, she threw them away. I'm sure a bunch of people took them, right? That's like a fucking souvenir and everyone knows it. Like, I mean, cop in the room that day would have taken one.

I would think. That's possible for sure. Or like people were trying to cover for her knowing that looks bad, just to get, to clear the area. Totally. Like a PR thing, for sure. Other reports say eight bottles are sent to the coroner's office, including an empty bottle labeled Nembutol, which was only filled the day before, and another labeled Chlorohydrate.

So both those sedatives are used to treat insomnia, which she has, it's like no secret, she has insomnia. Chlorohydrate is also effective in treating anxiety associated with withdrawal from alcohol, opiates, and barbiturates, and it's also known that she had a problem with all of these. But if you take that medication, the Chlorohydrate, along with Nembutol, it's fatal. It can be fatal. The toxicology report shows that along with Chlorohydrate, Marilyn has a lethal dose of Nembutol in her system.

The 13% Nembutol reading indicates she must have ingested the drugs within about a minute. So that huge amount she took within a minute. Yet the deputy medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, doesn't find any barbitrate or capsule residue in Marilyn's stomach. So if she took all those drugs, she didn't take them like a handful of pills, because there's no capsules in her stomach. If Marilyn swallows enough Nembutol pills to give the 13% reading in her liver, she would have died before all the residue dissolved.

So she didn't take a handful of this pill, essentially. OK. Marilyn's large intestine is also discolored, which is a possible indication of an enema. And there's no sign of any injection sites on her body. So that's kind of out of the question. But there is a small unexplained bruise. All right. Let's talk a little bit about Marilyn's life.

Of course, she's world famous. Publicly, she's portrayed as the epitome of a sophisticated woman and feminine. She's glamorous, this golden age of Hollywood, this icon. She's an aspirational figure, beloved by everyone, men and women. But underneath Marilyn's professional success, she's also extremely emotionally insecure and lonely. And she goes through these bouts of depression. She's born Norma Jean Moranson on June 1, 1926 in LA.

And she's later Kristen Norma Jean Baker. And those two surnames are of her mother's ex-husbands. So neither of those are her father. She never actually knows her father, and that fact plagues her throughout her life. Her mother Gladys suffers from chronic schizophrenia. And in 1934, she's in and out of psychiatric hospitals and is unable to care for her daughter. And so Marilyn moves around from numerous foster homes. She goes into the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society for two years.

She has no positive stable parental role models. And during this time, she's sexually abused by a lodger at one of her carers. So she has a really tragic, sad life. She calls herself a waif, and just kind of, there's no stability in her life whatsoever. I did not know that about her mother or the fact that she was essentially a foster child. Yeah. I had no idea. In LA, I didn't know that part.

I thought she was from the fucking Midwest or something like that, you know? Right. Yeah. It's really sad. And they talk about that in the documentary as well. There's interviews of her as well in the documentary talking about how she just never felt like she had a stable home and she thought she had a mother. She wasn't an orphan in her mind because her mom, you know, was here, but she was unable

to care for her. Yeah. So in June, 1942, 16-year-old Norma Jean marries her neighbor's son, 21-year-old James Doherty, and then Marilyn gets noticed by a photographer at her factory job and her modeling career begins. But she had wanted to be an actress her whole life. She would sit in the movie theater, didn't care what movie it was, would just watch it and dream about being a good actor.

But her marriage, her marriage, she starts at 16-years-old, ends in 1946 because now at 20-years-old, Marilyn signs with 20th Century Fox and the contract says she can't be married. And they talk about the exploitation of these girls back then, you know, these actresses, these want to be actresses, and how she can't be married because she has to be. Available, essentially. Available to the higher-ups, like it's just that simple. Also, yeah, that just provides an extra level of protection and outside eyes of someone

going, what are you doing? This is inappropriate. Don't do that. Right. I'm not comfortable with this. Yeah. So I'm sorry, then this could have been, this first husband could have kind of been the love of her life, but then she had to pick, like, she was made to choose between her career

and her. Who knows? Oh, life. Yeah. And she, the thing about this documentary that talks about is that she was just always chasing love, especially with older men, like father figure types. She was always chasing, not just with men, but with the public, like wanting to be loved and adored so badly because she had none of that in her childhood.

And it is, like, so amazing that these circumstances she grew up in, she was still able to become, I mean, you know, she had this, like, dumb blonde bombshell image that they wanted her to have, but she was absolutely fucking not. She was very, very smart. Well, and that kind of upbringing is difficult and traumatic as it might be. Also, absolutely, like, basically provides the fuel to get you to where you want to go. That's the... Totally.

You know, the paradox of those difficulties, especially when you're a kid, is that then suddenly something gets planted inside you and you're like, well, now I'm just going to do it. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing holding me back. Totally. Yeah.

She was definitely a badass. So after some bit parts, she moves around some studios and now she's renamed Marilyn Monroe. And her film career really kicks off in 1950, but Marilyn's plagued by self-doubt. She appears to struggle with constant feelings of professional and personal inadequacy. She has debilitating stage fright, so she's often late to set because of that and can't remember her lines, and she wants to do take after take, so the schedule gets all fucked up because of her. But of course, she's also exploited and abused by Hollywood studio executives who aren't

interested in her talent. She also has a strong work ethic and she's intelligent, but of course, that's not what they're interested in. However, she's determined to be a success. In 1954, wanting to gain a sense of professionalism, Marilyn starts her own production company, and this gives her more control over her career, and Fox agrees to pay her a higher salary. Yet, she continues to chase approval and love from powerful authority figures. And in 1954, the then 27-year-old Mary's retired baseball star, 39-year-old Joe DiMaggio.

Yep. So she's 27, he's 39, and retired. But the marriage is rocky. Joe is physically and emotionally abusive towards her, and nine months later, the couple divorces. Wow. Yeah. From 1955, Marilyn trains at the actor's studio in New York.

She just really wants to be taken seriously. She learns the method acting technique where students have to use their own personal experiences to develop their acting skills. And so as she explores that, she revisits her painful history of childhood trauma and attachment issues, and she uses it to become a better actress, which is just incredible. So she's really, really focused on becoming an incredible, serious, dramatic actor. In 1956, now 29-year-old Marilyn marries 40-year-old playwright Arthur Miller, who's the most famous playwright in the world at the time.

She wants a family, and they seem really, really happy together. But during the marriage, in the very beginning, Marilyn finds notes that Arthur Miller has written saying she's not much of an improvement over his ex-wife, and he calls her a, quote, appointment, and a, quote, whore. Like, she finds notes after a party that he wrote to himself saying that shit. Can you fucking imagine? Sorry. Why do you have to fucking write that down?

Yeah, dude. What? Just a quick scribble it so you don't forget? Yeah. Love you. Yeah. This is the play. And also that, I don't know, what would hurt your feelings worse to read something like

that or just to find a love letter? Like it feels like it's so much worse. It's so personal and shitty. It's like saying, it's not like going, it's not you, it's, I just met this other person. It's like, it's you, you're a disappointment. Yeah. You're not what I thought you would be, which is like, fuck you. Gross.

And sadly, Marilyn suffers two miscarriages, and the marriage ends in the late 1960s. She had really wanted to start a family, and it didn't work out. Can I just remind you that if it was modern times, she would go to jail for having miscarriages? Just a quick reminder of where we are in America. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Nope. That's a great point.

By this time, she also reconnects with someone she had met earlier, a 43-year-old senator named John F. Kennedy. She reconnects with him just before he's elected president. And she had known him via the rat pack in the 1950s, and they grow close. In early 1961, 34-year-old Marilyn goes into the Payne Whitney psychiatric clinic in New York for four days for her insomnia, which I'm sure it was for a lot more than that. But she's treated inhumanely, and it traumatizes her further. She's isolated in a padded cell and has forced baths, which I think means forced cold baths.

They used to do like ice bath plunges and shit. And she finally, after four days, Joe DiMaggio, her ex-husband, comes around, and he's able to get her out. But instead of this being kept private, hordes of media had found out, and they're waiting outside the psychiatric hospital. And in this documentary, there's so many videos of her just leaving the psychiatric ward, leaving anywhere, being just fucking hounded. And she puts on this pretty face and says, I feel wonderful, everything's great, but

it just looks like a nightmare. So by this time, Marilyn had met JFK's little brother, 36-year-old Robert Kennedy, who had been appointed attorney general. In early 1962, Marilyn had a brief affair with JFK, and some people say it was just a one-night stand. And then Bobby comes along, who kind of takes care of JFK's business, and says, hey, this is over, it's not going to happen. But then they kind of fall for each other, and they start hooking up.

And from what I can tell, what I think from this documentary is that Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy were really the real item going on here, not JFK. Yeah. So they all start hanging out at actor Peter Lawford's house. He's married to a Kennedy sister, and it's kind of this playground where everyone goes to hook up and have affairs and have their discreet fun, or not discreet fun, but discreet from paparazzi and shit. So it seems like she goes there a lot to hang out with Bobby Kennedy.

I mean, here's the thing about those old-school blue blood East Coast rich people, which the Kennedys were, classic withholders, somebody like Marilyn, who's always on the hunt for love, and I'm not good enough, do's like that with the bat of an eye, you are dedicated for life. Because all they have to do is be lightly nice to you, and then ignore you, and you're like, he's number one. And they're so powerful. Totally.

That's the family. It's insane. And I think she really wanted to be known as smart, and she wanted people to think she was smart, and part of marrying Arthur Miller was around that, of like, look, I'm marrying an intelligent person, and that means I am too. I think she wanted the Kennedys to think and know how intelligent she was. And so the minute they're like, yeah, that's a great point or whatever, yeah, she's smitten. Yeah, probably.

But by this time, Marilyn is regularly taking amphetamines, and she's mixing opiates and barbiturates with alcohol to help her sleep. On the set of her last picture, something's got to give. She's often under the influence of prescription drugs. She's so unreliable that she's fired, and then rehired again. She's just not in a great place. Something's got to give. What's that?

Yeah. It's supposed to be great. I've never seen it. I just brought up her page just to look at all the tons of movies she's been in. Yeah. So crazy. Did you ever see some like it hot? She's so darling.

She's amazing in that movie. She's a great actress. She's a really great, compelling actress that like everything she was doing, you're just like, this is great. This is so funny. Yeah. You can't take your eyes off of her. Yeah.

So during, let's go back to the investigation of her death. During the initial investigation when she died, police talked to those close to her, including that Peter Lofford, rat-pat guy, a week before Marilyn dies. He says she's feeling suicidal, drinking to excess, and taking lots of sleeping pills. Eunice Murray, the housekeeper, and I think she was way more than a housekeeper. I think she was almost like a guardian. To me, it seems that way. She privately says that hours before Marilyn dies, Bobby Kennedy had visited her to break

off their affair. So the papers claim that Marilyn later speaks to Peter Lofford on the phone. Just try to interview him, but don't pursue inquiries with him. 20 years later, he says the first he hears about Marilyn's death is when his manager calls him at 1.30 in the morning. But don't forget, Eunice said publicly, the public story was that at 3 a.m. is when she found Marilyn unresponsive. And Bobby Kennedy being in town that day is news to everyone too, is like not a known thing.

So yeah, the coroner appoints a panel of mental health professionals to conduct a psychological autopsy of Marilyn. Her behavior in the days leading up to her death is noted as unstable. The panel notes she previously tries to take her own life via a sedative overdose and quote, had often expressed wishes to give up, to withdraw, and even to die. Her death is determined to be probable suicide caused by acute barbiturate poisoning. And so one of the mysteries is, did she take her own life on purpose or was it accidental? That's one of those enduring mysteries.

But also there's the whole conspiracy of did the Kennedys have her killed, did someone else have her killed, what really happened. But others who are close to Marilyn don't report her as being suicidal at all leading up to her death. They say she's planning to travel, she's focused on her work, and of course there's no suicide note ever found. This group, including Joe DiMaggio, who arranges Marilyn's funeral, suspects Marilyn's been murdered due to her involvement with the Kennedys and they start questioning the suicide finding

very early on. So that, okay, that's interesting to know. I thought that would have been a later kind of national inquire type of thing. Oh no, it was like an immediate news story. Is it on purpose or is it suicide? Yeah. She is not to be, not like it works this way, but innocent, my first dumb thought is she has so much to live for and she can have any man she wants.

She's literally the embodiment of like the peak of femininity and perfection. Yeah. But she already has these feelings of inadequacy and that she's never going to be loved, wanted, hated, I think it's that classic lack of having a parental or a father figure. You're just constantly needing this thing. This is the only person who will ever love me if they don't want me. And it looks like Bobby Kennedy did try to end things that day. Oh, yeah.

Come on. I know. But it's complicated though. It's crazy why he was ending, like it got really, really messy given to. Which they can't have. Right. Exactly. This makes me think of my listening to my two young, you know, like pseudo-nephews talking

because one girl had broken up with him and the other one just goes, get another one. And I was like, that's so true. Just get another one. Get another one. Get another one. Oh my God. Yeah. All right.

So let's go to 1982 when this like public speculation and rumors about Maryland's death is like so rampant that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors asked the DA's office to re-investigate Dr. Engelberg, who was the doctor at the time, the one at the scene. There was a doctor and the psychiatrist and the housekeeper. Tells the DA office he had only prescribed Nembutol to Maryland, not the other drug. She also died from chloral hydrate. So he had prescribed that to her that day and didn't know she was on chloral hydrate, which the duo would have, you know, is possibly fatal.

So it's estimated that for Maryland to have died by suicide, she would have had to take around 25 to 40 Nembutol pills. And it's not clear who had prescribed her chloral hydrate or how she had so many different medications, which I mean, like medications are easy to get, right? Your friend has some you're like, they're like, this works for anxiety and you try it. Movie stars too. Not that I've ever done that before. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. And people bend over backwards to give them things that they will be grateful for. Right. Don't mix medications, you guys. It's very dangerous. Yes, it is. Dr. Noguchi tells the DA's office that when he later asked for tissue samples from Maryland's

autopsy to be tested, he's told they've been destroyed. So it's not known like who gave her what and why she had a prescription for this and that. Another weird thing is that the first police officer on the scene, Sergeant Jack Clemens, tells investigators that when he arrives, Eunice Murray, the housekeeper, is running the washing machine, but no one asked what she's washing or why. The 1982 investigation finds that Maryland dies either by suicide or an accidental overdose. So they are doubling down on that. And the DA claims the reason there's no barbiturate residue in Maryland's stomach is because the

drugs had time to be absorbed into her blood and liver. So they think she died way earlier than when it was called in. So this is when this reporter who made the documentary, Anthony Summers, comes in. He hears about all this weird stuff going on. He does his own deep dive. He does 650 recorded interviews with 1,000 people, just trying to get information. In the 80s, so enough time had passed, he's hoping people will talk about what happened. So one thing is that in the early 1960s, a private investigator named Fred Otash, who's

working for Jimmy Hoffa, head of the Teamsters Union, who of course has mob connections, notably with mafia boss Sam Giancana, he says that Jimmy Hoffa and Sam Giancana hate Bobby Kennedy because the government is cracking down on organized crime. So in 1961, Jimmy gets this private investigator to tap Maryland's house. So he goes into her house and taps her phone. It happened. This is so fucking crazy to me that you just break into someone's house back then, tap their telephone line.

So he does it at Maryland's house, and he also does it at Peter Lofford, the rap pack guy's Malibu house where everyone hangs out. So he taps their phone and their house and basically gets recordings of Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe doing it. He gets everything, and he gets her talking about politics. She's a total leftist. She's kind of spilling the beans on stuff that Bobby Kennedy is telling her and that JFK is telling her as a friend in bed.

And she's a total leftist, and she's also friends with people who are known communists. So it's totally possible that the US government hearing all of this information might start to get worried that she's going to have, she's going to be spreading these secrets that are secrets. Okay. Secret, wait, secret secrets? Secrets that are secrets. Okay.

Top secrets, some people would say. Extra strength secret. Extra strength secrets. Okay. The recordings also capture allegedly Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy having a fight at her house the afternoon right before she dies. So it's just so, like she dies during all this and it just so happens that there's recordings of all of it because of these illegal activities.

That's crazy. Isn't that wild? Where are those recordings? You'll never know. On Netflix? Unfortunately, no. And so that day Bobby does call off the affair and tells her not to contact him or the president again because the FBI is worried about Marilyn fucking spilling these secrets and they're

like, Bobby, you can't see her anymore. So who knows how deep they were, but she's clearly devastated about this. After Bobby leaves her house, she calls the White House to talk to the president. And then so Bobby goes to the Malibu house and tells Peter he's worried about what Marilyn might do. So he's aware that she might do something to herself. Peter Loughard's third wife, Deborah Gould, who's in this documentary, claims that years after Marilyn's death, her husband, then husband Peter, reveals Marilyn is incredibly

distressed about Bobby calling things off. Peter calls Marilyn that day, who says she's, quote, had it with, quote, being passed around like a piece of meat. And before ending the call, Marilyn says, just do me a favor, tell the president I tried to get him. Tell him goodbye for me. I think my purpose has been served. Oh.

Uh-huh. Bobby calls Marilyn later that night and she tells him to leave her alone. That night that she's found dead, Marilyn's publicist, Arthur Jacobs, is at a Hollywood Bowl concert and he receives word that Marilyn has died. So his wife, who's there with him, corroborates that he found out at 10.30 that night. So this whole 3 a.m. thing is not fucking true. He leaves the Hollywood Bowl, apparently gets to Marilyn's house at 11 o'clock and they start making phone calls.

They multiple witness cooperate that when Marilyn is found that evening, she's lying on her side and she's alive but unconscious. And then the ambulance tries to take her to the hospital but she dies on the way. And so instead of taking her to the hospital to be declared dead, the thought is that they turn around, take her back to her house, put her in her bed, and the reason it takes so long to quote, you know, find her and that she dies later is so that Bobby Kennedy can get out of town before she's found. So he has no connection to what's going on.

That's kind of what this documentary is like purporting is that they waited and there is a helicopter log from that night taking him across the bay to San Francisco. I mean at 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. The rich and the powerful live completely different lives than any of us are even familiar with. Totally. Totally. Imagine getting to leave an area in a helicopter just because it wouldn't look great for you.

Yeah. Just get airlifted out of a situation. Hey ma'am, we got to get you out of here because this looks really bad because this horrible thing has happened. John Miner, a former deputy DA, comes out and says that Maryland's access to top secret information via her affair with the Kennedys put the administration in a compromising position and that she's known to be a bit loose-lipped on the phone regarding her conversations with the brothers about matters of national security.

So he summarizes that the government goes into damage control and had her killed because of it. And so he suggests there's a conspiracy behind Maryland's stomach contents going missing at the autopsy and the claim that there's no evidence she ingested the nebutol. So maybe someone put the nebutol, remember there was evidence that she had had an enema? Oh yeah. So maybe it was given to her after she had been passed out from the other drug and given to her via enema.

But there's no evidence of that at all and if you're going to do the whole fucking Occam's razor thing, the most likely thing is that she was really upset about this relationship ending, took pills whether or not it was on purpose and passed away because of it. It's just an interesting thing to think of if somebody takes a lot of pills and drinks a lot of drinks and then wants to get on the phone because they witnessed things they weren't supposed to witness or have been made privy to information that they shouldn't have been. That's just kind of, it's just like, well, what information could it be that they would need to go kill somebody secretly?

Don't forget at the time, there's a lot of really sensitive stuff going on in US politics. It's the height of the Cold War with communist Russia. Maryland's ex-husband Arthur Miller identified as a communist and he was on the blacklist. By 1962, the threat of the country by Fidel Castro in Cuba and the Russians has the US government really on fucking edge. So they are also losing it. It's possible that that's what was going on and that's why it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that she was talking too much.

You know what I mean? I guess that's part of it. It's not totally out of the realm of possibility that JFK was shot by his own government or by the mafia or by someone other than the lone gunman, which I think is what keeps the story going. Right. It's very feasible, if I may use that word, that that could take place. Also, this theory just popped in my head.

It could have been in the beginning, they were talking about sensitive stuff in front of her because they thought she wasn't that smart. Right. And then when she starts putting two and two together and circling back of like, wait a second, does that mean that, you know, I don't know. And based on a lot of information, she was a fucking leftist and it looks like a pacifist. And so if she could have heard all this stuff, they thought she was too stupid to understand, actually got upset by it and started telling people like her ex-husband, Arthur Miller,

who was a communist, all this crazy information who would actually do something about that information. Right. So maybe she wasn't going to act on it, but she was telling people she shouldn't have been. Yes, that makes sense. So that's a really good point. Before the Red Scare, there was lots of casual communists in Hollywood because that used

to be like saying it, it turned into that, the thing that it was where McCarthy stuff and all that. But before that, it was kind of like, it meant you were artsy, you know, I mean, it was kind of like, I'm open minded and I don't, you know, let's like defeat the man or whatever. And then it became that thing of like, you are the reason this country is at risk. Totally. Yeah. And so taken all together, the evidence does indicate that there's some sort of cover up

around Marilyn's death in the same way that people suggest there's a cover up with both Kennedy Brothers eventual shooting deaths, which is so fucking wild. There's only one surviving photo, at least publicly, of Marilyn Monroe with the Kennedy Brothers. And it's after that happy birthday song she sings them because all the other photos were confiscated, as well as any audio of them talking to each other from that wiretap. So there's none of that that, as far as we know, exists in the public. In her career, which spanned the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Marilyn Monroe made over

40 movies and became one of the most enduringly famous and beloved movie stars of all time. Her tragic death only added to her status as a legend. And you can't help but wonder what other accomplishments the smart, hardworking woman would have achieved had she not died that night, however she died. And then I have a quote from her that I thought I'd end on, we should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid and so are regrets. Oh, yes.

Yeah. I like that quote, Marilyn. And that is the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. Wow, that's fascinating. You know, I only thought of this, though, when you just said it, if we're going to just be entertain every conspiracy theory and be, you know, that's, which is what I enjoy. When you just said, yes, both of the Kennedy brothers were murdered, they were assassinated. Whoever was behind it, they were murdered too.

So there's a very strong possibility that the person that killed Marilyn also, also killed them. Why not? Why not? And if we're going to do that, I think that the, I think the most likely culprit and I hate to do this because I know how much you adore them, you have all the, all the playing cards and everything. The go-go's?

The mafia. The go-go. He's just trying really quick to think of something I actually like. That was good. Yeah. The mafia. The mafia, but why? Why?

Because I think if the mafia killed Marilyn Monroe, it was to get back at Bobby Kennedy or to get him to lay off the mafia as a like, I think that she would have been killed as a, but it doesn't make any sense because maybe, maybe he broke up with her that night to try to save her. Let's do that. Here's the thing though, you know, I jokingly defend the mafia, but now I'm actually going to do it. They don't kill women and children.

The mafia is like, you keep it, it's mafia business. That's true. Maybe unless it's Marilyn Monroe and unless it's Bobby Kennedy, because he was really going after, and Jimmy Hoffa, he was going after Jimmy Hoffa at the time. They were fucking pissed. Yeah. But they're not emotional. They're not.

Yeah. They think it through. Well, great job. That was a. Thank you. That was a fun jaunt. Yeah, right? Yeah.

All right. Well, I'll follow up your possible murder slash cold case slash enduring mystery with one of my favorite types of stories that I like to do on this podcast, a survival story. I'm about to tell you today the survival story of Antonio Saina. So the primary sources for today's episode are an article for ABC News Australia by Emily Olson and Sarah Ferguson, Prince, the princess Sarah Ferguson, a YouTube video by a place called AFP news where they did a whole presentation on this insane event and a New York Times article by Manuela Andrioni from 2021.

And the rest of the sources will be listed in the show notes. This harrowing tale begins in the northern Brazilian state of Para. It's January 28th, 2021. So this very recent 36 year old pilot Antonio Saina has just taken off from a tiny runway in a nearly 50 year old single engine Cessna 210L. And as he steadily gains altitude, he can see the Amazon rainforest unfolding beneath him and all around him. And his breathtaking is that his mission that day is all business.

And it's the kind of work that Antonio normally says no to. He's delivering food supplies and 160 gallons of diesel fuel to an illegal mining operation deep in the Amazon rainforest. So this is something that's common and that Antonio normally would not in any way, he would do everything to not be affiliated with these so-called wildcat miners. He knows that they themselves can be incredibly dangerous to deal with. And what they do is dangerous to every living thing in the area around the mines. They clear and strip the land of minerals and they dump toxic chemicals into nearby

waterways and poison water sources for the locals. But it's mid-pandemic, everything is difficult times. Antonio desperately needs work. Aboveboard flying jobs are very hard to come by and Antonio is still financially reeling after he was forced to close the restaurant that he poured his heart and soul into and opened just a year before. So he was one of those wildly unlucky people that got his stuff together, opened a restaurant and then the pandemic hit.

Nightmare. Nightmare. So he takes the work he's offered and at the time when many industries are suffering, illegal mining in Brazil is booming. So these delivery gigs are the most consistent money available to him and the money is good. After about a 10-hour day, Antonio can walk away with a guaranteed minimum of 3,000 Brazilian real, which is about 590 American dollars. So that's an amazing paycheck.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard earned money. The job has its risks. He of course is piloting a small old airplane filled with barrels of highly flammable fuel and cargo over vast isolated swaths of rainforest. So he's rolling the dice for sure. But Antonio is a good and experienced pilot.

He's logged over 2,400 hours of flight time. He's experienced all kinds of less than ideal flying situations. A profile on him by ABC Australia says that he has, quote, navigated dust storms in Chad downpours in Brazil and that in 2015 he performed a successful emergency landing with 24 passengers on board following an engine failure. So he knows what he's doing. So Antonio figures, compared to all that, this short flight is just going to be a walk in the park.

So as soon as he reaches a flying altitude of about 3,000 feet, he's now situated well above the rainforest. He sees all signs of human life and development are far in his rear view mirror. Do they have rear view mirrors in their minds? That is, I'm sorry, that made me laugh so fucking hard just now. That's a great, no, probably not. I bet they don't need them. There's someone just like adjusting it, fixing their lipstick a little bit.

And here we go. It's a hypothetical, it's a hypothetical rear view mirror. Get used to it. You can always tell when I go off the page and just start talking because the bullshit meters go off the charts. So now he's just flying over an endless sea of green basically. Suddenly about halfway through his flight, Antonio feels a distinct shift. The steady roar of the plane's engine has suddenly dropped into eerie silence.

He looks at the plane's gauges and he sees they're all on zero. This means there's no fuel flowing into the aircraft. And he knows this because this is the exact same thing that happened to him in 2015 when he made his last emergency landing. So he knows he basically has five minutes to come up with a plan to figure out how to land this plane in the rainforest. If Antonio hopes to survive each step of this plan must be executed perfectly with the Cessna now gliding thousands of feet in the air, Antonio scans for something that might provide

a soft landing. So he's just trying to figure out what trees will be best to crash into essentially. Jesus. Yeah. Everything beneath him looks all the same. It's just green. And then finally he sees up ahead a spot of palms. So he's like, okay, that's going to be a little bit better.

So he heads toward them as he reaches for the radio to send out his distress signal. And then he braces for impact. So we'll just talk about real quick about the Amazon rainforest, which we've known about its destruction since the 80s, or at least I have, that's been a big deal for a long time because essentially the rainforest keeps this world alive. And the more we destroy it, the less carbon dioxide that can come out of the air and the more greenhouse gases and basically climate change will happen the more we destroy it. So it's obviously a very important thing to protect.

The Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, spans nine different countries in South America. It's almost as big as the entire continental United States. Whoa. I know. I didn't know that. No, I didn't either. More than half of its total area is in Brazil alone.

So that's the majority. And of course, countless wildlife and plant species live there, some of which don't exist anywhere else on earth. Also there's 30 million people that live there from 350 different ethnic groups, nearly 10% of whom are indigenous. So given its sheer size, there's very large portions of the rainforest that are totally isolated, have been always and remain that way. And some of that's actually intentional.

There's parts of the Amazon rainforest that are legally protected from human activity because it's damage, as I was saying, basically leads to rising sea levels and melting glaciers. Environmentalists say that over the last 40 years, because of illegal logging and farming, an area roughly the size of California has been obliterated in the Brazilian Amazon. Wow. Deforestation rates hit a six-year high in Brazil just this year. Jesus. So it's an issue that I thought kind of got addressed in the 90s when everyone started

learning about all that kind of stuff. Those own layers and shit, yeah. Yeah. Also, according to research done by the New York Times, between 2010 and 2022, criminal mining operations have absolutely ballooned. And these mines, which are often connected to criminal networks, grew by 300% on rainforest lands that are legally protected and 500% on indigenous rainforest lands. And that's having devastating effects.

When the lands cleared, the people are displaced. And the toxic chemicals that are used in the mining, one of which is mercury, ends up in local waterways and poisoning entire water supplies. So the lack of strong response by law enforcement in Brazil, coupled with the recent weakening of environmental protections, have allowed these illegal mines to flourish. So that's kind of the current situation in the Amazon rainforest. So now we'll talk about Antonio the pilot a little bit. When he first told his family he wanted to be a pilot, nobody was surprised, because

he wasn't always had been very adventurous. As a boy, he never sat still. He was always exploring on his bicycle or climbing up trees, which frustrated to his very protective older sister, Mariana, especially when his Knackford venture left him with a broken arm after falling off a neighbor's roof. So of course, she's the older sister, Mariana is in charge. And then she turns around and her brothers, she looks across and is like, you've got to be kidding me.

I bet she got in trouble for it. Yes. That's what I was just going to say. I'm going down for this one. She's not protective. She's just the one who gets in trouble for him getting fucked up. That's why she has to be protective. Older sisters.

Not cool. The burden of the older sister. That's right. May we never know it. Cheers. Amen. Regardless, Mariana always wanted to help her brother achieve his dreams. And along with her younger brother, Thiago, Antonio's siblings sold tracks of land to

help him pay for his piloting classes. So it was like a, yeah, the family pitched in and basically helped him get that done. Mariana even put him up at her house while he was studying for that exam. She was of course always worried about it though, because she remembers when Antonio was going to flight school, he was telling her about this lesson that they all had to learn in survival skills. And she didn't like the idea that he would someday be in a position or he would need to know these survival skills that he was learning.

And unfortunately that day is today. Is today. So now we're cutting back to when Antonio looks for some palm trees, gets on the radio, calls out the distract signal, then braces for impact. What a nightmare. Nice segue. Nice segue. Yeah.

Right. And now we're back. So the plane has crashed in a dark area of forest packed with vines, plants and trees, which is every area of the rainforest. It's all dark and green and packed. Oh man, there's no McDonald's. Well there's, yeah. There will be.

There's McDonald's cows grazing on stolen land anyway. We'll talk about that. Sting is the guest here today and we'll have him on in a second to talk about what a problem is. Great. Antonio's mangled Cessna is now on the jungle floor. And so is the 160 gallons of diesel cargo that has been ruptured in the crash. So the entire place smells like gas.

Inside the wreckage, Antonio's pinned to his seat and he's drenched in gasoline. But he's amazingly never lost consciousness. He's awake. And as far as he can tell, he's not injured from this crash. He feels okay. There's no major pain. He's not confused. He doesn't have a concussion.

All he can see on his body are a couple small cuts. He's amazed. He just fell 3,000 feet through the air and somehow he's unharmed. It's nothing short of a miracle. Not even a toenail out of place. Not even a toenail shifted to the left in an unholy manner like mine is. So then the smell of gasoline hits him and he realizes he is in a very bad position. So he wrenches himself out of his seat.

He goes through the cabin debris. He finds his backpack. He basically collects himself. He has to kick out the windshield, the front windshield of the plane, jump slides out onto the nose, jumps down and just starts running for his life and as he's running away, the plane explodes. What? What's that move?

Action movie? I know. And so all alone in the forest, he turns around and looks and realizes this is the second time he's cheated death in a matter of moments. In a major way. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah.

So he looks for a place to sit down and catch his breath and then he goes through his backpack and he takes stock of the supplies that are in his backpack. So here's what he has. He's got four cans of soda. He's got three bottles of water and he has got 12 bread rolls, which I would love to know what kind. Me too. What's your dream bunch of rolls to have if you're trapped in the Amazon rainforest?

Hawaiian sweet rolls. Oh, yeah. Immediately. Okay. Oh, I would eat them. I would eat them all right then and I'd be like, well, shit, that would be a problem probably. They're so airy and light. I was thinking 12 biscuits would be amazing.

Like you want a denser. You want something denser. Yeah. Yeah. And when I drink my water off a leaf, then you want something that's just going to expand in your stomach, right? Okay. But now I really want Hawaiian sweet rolls.

Okay. Well, let's make a list. Okay. Order postmates. Feel free to order postmates at any time during my story. Okay. He's also got, so he's got that for the food. He's also got some tools.

He has two pocket knives, a flashlight. He has lighters. He has rope and he has trash bags. That's right. Clean up. All right. He has a change of clothes. Consider it.

Okay. He's got a wristwatch and he's got a totally charged cell phone. Oh. So hilarious. That's not a survivor story. Well, there's no service. Okay. So he can play solitaire for his own sanity, which is what I would do.

Immediately start playing solitaire the second I sit down. You and I, I would finish the bread rolls and you'd play solitaire and then we'd have no food and no battery. And we'd start complaining about why won't anyone help us, including ourselves. Okay. So he can barely see sunlight through the trees. There's no roads. Obviously, there's no phones.

There's no people anywhere near him. It's just him, his fully charged phone with no service and his roles in the vast dark jungles. So he thinks back to his survival skills class and he knows that while he waits to be rescued, he needs to build shelter for when it invariably rains. And he also needs to start a fire to keep warm. So he starts gathering palm fronds and limbs to look for a place to set up camp. So his first choice to set up that area, it's short lived when a pack of territorial spider

monkeys sabotage his efforts. Oh, how cute. Like they come in and literally tear his shelter down as he's trying to build it. No. I thought, at first I thought you were going to say spider, territorial spiders. And that was a real issue. And then when you said spider monkeys, I was like, oh, that's adorable. Now it's precious.

Although when I read that the first time, I got really sad. If I was Antonia and just be like, the monkeys are against me, that's what a terrible feeling. You'd want them to work. Yeah. You want to think that you're snow white and that like all the creatures in the rainforest are like trying to help you. Yeah. How about you monkeys go get some palm fronds?

Yeah. Like let's work as a team. I'll start you guys a fire. They're like, no, you have to get out of our area and our area is this whole area. Yeah. There is the rainforest. Okay. So despite his exhaustion, Antonio can barely sleep that first night.

Of course he's in the rainforest. Yeah. No, thank you. Because there are territorial spiders. You just can't see them. Oh God. I don't want to think about those guys. No, don't think about it.

But he is awoken all night long with scary jungle sounds. He doesn't know how close any of them are or how far away or what is making the noise and he can feel bugs crawling all over his body. And of course he has to constantly chew away those spider monkeys because they will not leave him alone. Oh, I love them. To settle his nerves, he ties a pocket knife to a stick and he sleeps with that later across his chest, which actually would make you feel better.

Yeah. It's almost like a spear. Yeah. He's made himself a spear. Good. I would never say a quote, an enormous fear of the dark and its shadows took hold of me. But after a while, I understood the mechanism of fear. And instead of it paralyzing me, I used it as an engine to keep going.

Huh. Mechanism of fear. I like that. I like it too. It's a parallel thought to Marilyn Monroe's quote. Yeah. Because fear is a useful tool if you use it as a tool instead of letting it take hold. Right.

That's a really good point. Fear is there for a reason. Yes. It gets you going. Right. You have reason to be afraid, so good, take the information and then do something with it. Yeah.

And this is what he does. Okay. So, meanwhile, the news of the downed plane is reaching the Brazilian public. These kinds of crashes happen frequently and the grim reality is that most pilots are rarely found. Yeah. Because it's difficult, of course, to actually survive a plane crash into the rainforest. Sure.

It's very unlikely. And then it's really hard for the rescue people to spot you once you've gone down. Because basically, you go into the canopy and that's it. It's not like it leaves a big hole. Right. Right. Because it's so dense in there. Basically, it takes a miracle to get rescued in the rainforest.

Okay. But don't forget, he's already evaded death twice. Sure. So, he might be like a real house cat out there. You might have seven more to go. Okay. So, when this story hits like social media or, you know, that it immediately resonates with Brazilian people, partly because of the time and place and Brazil is being ravaged

by COVID-19. By January 2021, over 200,000 Brazilians will have died from coronavirus. Wow. So, the story of a pilot's possible rainforest rescue actually offers everybody a little bit of hope and a break in just the onslaught of bad news that they're getting all the time. The possibility of a miracle is out there now for people to focus on and it's definitely a great distraction in quarantine, essentially. So around 8.30 that night, the night of the crash, Brazilian authorities call Thiago and

Mariana, Antonio's brother and sister, they're shocked. They had no idea he was flying again, let alone flying for illegal minors. And they know these sorts of rescue missions don't tend to have that happy endings. But they also know their brother and how courageous he is. And they believe he will do anything to survive. Mariana tells Thiago, quote, let's do whatever we have to do. We have to get to him. And then Thiago's like, I have a dinner on Wednesday, so maybe I'll meet you up there

at the end of the week. Oh, no. Just kidding. He was right there. He was right there with them. And here's the best part, because it happened in 2021, Mariana tweeted about the whole thing the entire time. Oh, wow.

Cool. Yes. So people were truly on the edge of their seats. So after his first sleepless night in the rainforest, Antonio gets up and decides that he's going to go back to the crash, see if he can scavenge anything from after the explosion. But of course, there's not much left that's useful. The plane's charred, so is anything that was left inside it. But that's when Antonio notices there's still a gap in the tree line where his plane crashed

through the palms. And he knows that this might stand out to any rescue plane that's flying overhead. And he figures it's the best shot at being spotted. So he sets up camp by the wreckage. And the spider monkeys are like, fine, we'll go over there too. We don't care. No. No.

I thought they were just like following around the rainforest, fucking with him. I think they're a constant when Dreamworks makes this movie, there will be a cast of spider monkeys. Oh, absolutely. So Antonio spends the daylight hours gathering supplies to keep himself safe and warm throughout the night. And it's not easy. He's collecting branches and palm leaves for his shelter, but he's exhausted, of course,

and he's trying to conserve whatever food he has left and whatever energy he has left. But it's all going pretty fast. Then he discovers a nearby stream. And so his Lucky Street continues because now he has something close by to keep him well hydrated. He doesn't have to just wait for it to rain. So he stays at the crash site for the next couple of days, watching the gap in the palm trees.

Little by little, he watches as the gap closes, as the palms shift back to their original position. No. Uh-huh. Wow. Yeah. He knows he's running out of time. Isn't that dark?

That is so crazy. So in the outside world, the search for Antonio is fully on. As Marin the researcher wrote, it is fully on. Marin, fully. Antonio's friends have posted a $10,000 Reol reward, which is the equivalent of $2,000 in American dollars. And that's just for anyone that has any information of how to help the rescue efforts. And in the small city of Santa Ram, sorry about the pronunciation, Santa Ram, the Brazilian

Air Force sets up a base for their search and rescue flights. So when rain falls too heavy, they can't take off. So local people volunteer their time and their vehicles to like help in the search, which is no small sacrifice because driving through the hostile terrain in the jungle basically destroys most of their tires. Oh, wow. And the volunteers never ask for replacement or reimbursement. They just want to help get this lost pilot home, which is pretty beautiful and a pretty

huge sacrifice. So now Tiago and Mariana arrive at the Air Force Base to help with the search after a very long journey that involves, quote, a flight, a boat, rough roads, and more than seven hours of travel. Shit. Yeah. And it turns out it takes all that time they arrive on Antonio's birthday. Oh, Mariana, of course, is posting on social media and the Brazilian press and public hang

on every word. The hunt for Antonio now becomes a topic of national interest. So Antonio has now been stranded for five days in the rainforest. He's low on food. He's forced to begin scavenging. He's surrounded by unfamiliar vegetation, and he knows he has to be very, very careful because after five days in the forest, he's really weak. So if he just goes and eats the first thing he finds, and it happens to be poisonous or

in any way toxic, he might not recover. He can't just get sick and throw up like he knows that it's too risky. So he does something so ingenious. He starts watching the evil little spider monkeys, and he watches to see what they're doing. Up until now, they've been a pain in the ass. Suddenly they're a godsend because he watches as they pull these bright pink shells from the surrounding trees and tear them open and eat the fruit inside.

And so Antonio doesn't know this. This is a jungle fruit called bro, and he's never seen it before, but he figures the monkeys are eating it. I can eat it. So he scavenges for that, and he starts eating it. And as he is scavenging for it, he hears a noise up above that gets closer and closer. And he's afraid that he's delirious and exhausted, so he freezes for a second, but he knows it's unmistakable, especially to a pilot.

It's the sound of an airplane. Oh my God, that was going to be a spider monkey jumping on him. This is where the airplane spider comes in. What? Antonio drops everything. All of his precious jungle fruits, he drops on the ground, and he runs full speed back to the crash site to stand in what remains of the little window opening to the sky. Basically by this point, the palms have almost entirely recovered to their original position,

but there's still a tiny gap up there. So he jumps up and down, waves, screams, does everything he can, and then he watches the airplane just pass over the little window and the canopy, and it doesn't see him. And just as clearly as he heard that plane coming, he listened to it go. Ouch. So that plane was sent by the Brazilian Air Force. They routinely give five days for a search and rescue mission in the Amazon, and then past that point, they figure there'll probably be no one left to rescue.

That's how impossible it is for regular, plain old humans to survive in the jungle. And also it's not cheap to fly search and rescue missions in the air, but on this search, they do budge a little, because Mariana and Tiago are there. They beg them to continue searching, and so the mission gets extended another day and then another, but still there's no sign of Antonio or the Hisesna. Then a rescue plane spots something white that seems out of place on the forest floor, and they think it could be an airplane wing. So the Air Force dispatches a helicopter to go in for a closer look, but when the helicopter

zooms in on the object, they radio back, it's just a white rapid in the Amazon River. They were mistaken. So assuming Antonio was probably killed in either the crash or in trying to survive in the jungle, the Air Force ends their search efforts after eight days. But Mariana and Tiago are staying put. Tiago says, quote, we always said we just had to find something. It didn't matter if he was alive or dead. We just couldn't live with the doubt.

So they're basically just waiting for some sort of confirmation of anything, just so they're not in that weird in-between stage. So for days, Antonio hears the rescue planes overhead. He tries his best to find new gaps in the tree line where he jumps and yells and does all he can to make himself visible. He is never spotted. After a few days, Antonio stops hearing the planes altogether, and he gives up hope that he'll be rescued by air, but he starts to consider he could find help on foot.

It's so hard to find me this way. So maybe if I start moving, I can find somebody who's looking for me. So he starts hiking. So he's now been in the rainforest over a week. His phone is now dead. He still has his wristwatch. And so basically he just makes up a daily routine, which we know in all these survival stories that is really key.

You start making up a routine of how you're going to go through your days, and you have short-term and long-term goals, and you start, your focus is on surviving. So this is Antonio's. He spends the early morning hours hiking, and he orients himself using the position of the sun, because everything around him, it's just so thick and dense. He sometimes has to cut through vines and trees just to get a glimpse of sunlight and see where he is, like where the sun is in the sky. And so basically once he does that for a little while, he starts to, he can figure out what

direction he's going. So he starts heading east, and because he's pretty sure that's where the river is. And so his goal is if he finds the river, he can walk along it, and that will eventually bring him to civilization, essentially. Which is the truth, and we've heard this in a bunch of survival stories. You get to the biggest body of water and walk along it, and there will be people there at some point, totally. But walking along the river isn't as easy breezy as it sounds, because of course it's

all swampy water next to the river, so he has to walk through swamps basically. He's dodging tree limbs, and he also has to keep an eye out for alligators who like to sit real still and look like logs, and wait for you right next to the river. This is what he does every day until noon, and then from noon till three, he looks for a place to build a campsite, and when he does build his campsite, he always goes inland a little bit, ideally somewhere elevated, because he knows from his survival training that predators like jaguars and anacondas, fuck, this is what he's dealing with, a jaguar could happen by.

They stake out low-lying areas near water when they're hunting, so he knows he has to be away from that a little bit, and ideally up high, and then he gathers palm fronds and tree branches and makes a shelter, so he is protection from the rain. So then for the rest of the day, he sleeps or rests as best he can, and then in the morning hours of the next day, he repeats this routine from the top, and he does that again the next day, and the next day. Now an entire month has passed since his queen has crashed. He's survived a month.

A month. In the Amazon rainforest. Oh, Mike, what is he eating? What is he? Oh my gosh. He's eating his little, well, not spider monkey fruit. Spirits. Oh my God.

Yeah. Okay, so at this point, but it's a good point you bring up, he is totally weak and exhausted, his body's been pushed to the brink, his main source of food are those pink shelled fruits that he's been on the lookout for, although like one day he found three bird eggs and ate those, but that was like just barely enough protein to get him going. Also, that's one of my greatest fears to be stuck somewhere and you have to eat raw bird eggs. It's so cruel.

The bigger the worse, that you think, and just be like, you can have it. It's a terrible thought. It's so awful. But with all the walking, the physical activity that he's doing, he's always starving. That's it. Nothing he eats is ever enough. By day 35 in the jungle, Antonio hasn't eaten for three whole days. He thinks his body's giving out, he starts to reckon with the horrifying fact that despite

all of his perseverance, his courage, his luck, and his strength that he probably isn't going to survive or make it out of the rainforest alive. Then he hears a new sound. And I like to think that these things happen right back to back, right? And he was like, I'm too weak. I can't go on. And he's like, what's this noise? And what it was, it wasn't a spooky jungle sound and it was not an airplane.

He listens closely and realizes it's a chainsaw, which means there's people somewhere nearby. Oh my God. Yeah. But who knows where, right? Right. And who knows who? Because as we already said, there's a lot of people doing illegal shit out there that they're not supposed to be doing.

So you don't just want to run up on a camp somewhere. Sure. Like chainsaw. Yeah. Oh my God. It's Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just out. That's the newest version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as he's just killing people in the Amazon rainforest.

So we're trying just to survive. Yeah. They're just trying to. And then that guy with this terrible mask, okay. So the chainsaw sounds very far away and daylight is fading. And Antonio knows he can't risk getting turned around in the rainforest at night and getting lost. He's so weak, he figures that basically if he got lost at this point, it would kill him.

So he settles in for the evening and he prays that he'll hear that same chainsaw again in the morning. Spoiler alert. He does. He does. Yay. It's a survival story. Antonio wakes up early in the morning and he follows his same routine.

He orients himself toward the sun. He walks toward the river, but now he follows the river and the sound of the chainsaw. As it gets closer and closer, Antonio sees something breaking up the dense forest landscape. It's a white tarp and beyond the tarp, he can make out the distinct shape of a human being. Fuck yeah. Human beings. Yay.

Humans. Antonio is drained. He's delirious and he's on death's doorstep. Marin, the litteration, what a litteration. He's losing his vision and most of his body is cramping up, but seeing another person for the first time in over a month gives him this jolt of adrenaline and sends him walking right through the swamp water across the river and over to where he sees the tarp. So now his clothes are soaking wet and hanging off of his body and he cautiously approaches

the man who's near the tarp. He doesn't want to spook him and he doesn't want to threaten him. And when the man finally sees him, he's visibly startled at the sight of this dirty gaunt man who seems to just have materialized out of the jungle, but he isn't met with hostility or violence. Instead, the man asks him how he can help him. And Antonio sees a large bucket of Brazilian nutshells sitting beside the man and realizes that he is a Brazil nut forager that's out there harvesting and that means he's not

a threat. And then he realizes this means he's saved. So this man gives him two chestnuts and then goes to find the leader of his foraging group whose name is Maria Jorge Dos Santos Tavares. She has five decades of experience collecting nuts in the Amazon to forage and sell back home. Just like Antonio, Maria and her crew came to the jungle to make a living, but their work is sustainable and doesn't harm the forest.

And it's also been a very important revenue stream for Maria. She lost her husband during the pandemic. So her whole family is grieving. Then they realize that's a whole other income that they've lost. They have to get back out there. So the only reason they were that far into the rainforest is because they knew they had to make their haul that year. Their harvest had to be way bigger so that they could make more money because they lost

their husband and father. So it's just more fate that served Antonio because they normally would not have been that deep in the forest. Wow. That is wild. Yeah. So Maria finds Antonio a change of clothes, gives him hot milk and crackers, which he eats in tiny bites, and then she gives him multiple spoons fulls of salt.

Brilliant. So smart. That's what you need. Electrolites. Yeah. She instructs her daughter Miriam, who lives in the city, and has access to a phone. And she instructs her daughter to reach out to Antonio's siblings to tell them that he's still alive.

But when Miriam gets in touch with Tiago and Mariana, they can't believe it literally. At this point, it's been over a month since their brother's plane went down. And of course, they want him to be alive, but they lost hope that he would be coming back safely. And they're really afraid this is a hoax or some sort of a scam. So Miriam puts their call on speakerphone and then she gets her mother, Maria, on the radio, and Miriam mediates the conversation, basically. Then I made a note.

Miriam has to do everything. So first she asks her mother to give Antonio his full name and birthday, but that doesn't actually convince the siblings. So Tiago asks for something that's decidedly un-googlable, which is the name of Antonio's dog. And then over the radio, they hear a soft, they hear their brother say, Gancho, which is his dog's name. Their overcome with joy, relief, disbelief, Tiago actually throws his phone down onto

the ground and then goes out into the town square and just starts shouting for joy. Miriam is actually speechless, she's having a really hard time accepting that it's real because it's just so unbelievable. I mean, the idea that the, you know, most rescuers expect people to survive at the most five days. And this is now 38 days later. Holy shit. It's so crazy.

So soon a police helicopter arrives at the Foragers camp to bring Antonio home. Maria sends him off and then returns to the forest to continue her work. Can't mess around. Yes. You still got to bring in that harvest. Back at it. Rescuing human beings doesn't make you any money. When Antonio lands in Santa Ram, he sees his brother and sister waiting for him at the

base along with a crowd of reporters and just well-wishers, people that are just thrilled he's back. He runs to his siblings and holds them tight saying through his tears, I did this for you. I survived for you. So Antonio's saying his incredible story of survival turns him into a national hero in Brazil where people were definitely in need of a story with a happy ending. And when all was said and done, Antonio walked 17 miles over 36 days in the jungle and he lost an astonishing 55 pounds.

Holy shit. Uh-huh. Tests performed by doctors later determined that Antonio experienced muscle loss on the level of someone running a marathon every other day. Oh my God. That's how hard he was working to survive that rainforest. Antonio's journey reignited the conversation around illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon with Antonio himself vowing to never work for wildcat miners again because of his renewed

appreciation for the rainforest saying, quote, a lot of people said I beat the forest, but I just walked past it and she supported me. She gave me water and food. She is the sustenance of the chestnut trees who saved me. To be found by a family of nut pickers who don't harm the forest in any way, it's beautiful. It was magical for me. Oh, wow. And that is the incredible rainforest survival story of Antonio Sena.

Damn. That is wild. I can't believe he survived 38 fricking days. He just kept walking. Guys, you're always going to end up somewhere else, so just keep walking. High ground. High ground. Look out for alligators.

Watch the spider monkeys. I've always told you that. You have. I've always told you that. You've had every football season. You remind me to watch the spider monkeys and I appreciate you for it. When I get down and out because those, the old jaguars are being beaten by the pirates, you always say to me.

Every season when the Steely Dans are losing and I'm heartbroken over it. To the beautiful Lip Tints. That's right. To the Sephora Stranglers. Thanks for listening, you guys. We appreciate you as always. You are our, I was going to say Amazon rainforest. What were you going to say?

A special angel. Oh, yeah. You're our angel investor. You're our secret investor in our Brazilian nut company. That's right. And we appreciate you so much for that specific thing. Thank you. Thank you.

And we, yes. Thank you for buying our nuts all these years. Guys, are you ready for some football? That's the new Sinov. And we got sued. And immediately sued. And just saying the words. Get you sued.

And the podcast is over. And you are done, that of all the things that you thought were going to end you. It's the NFL. Wow. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Maren McLashen and Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.

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