My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 348 - Old Biscuit

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

This week, Karen tells Georgia the survival story of the Titanic's baker, Charles Joughin.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar.

That's Karen Kilgariff. Hey, what's going on with you? How are we going? I found it very interesting that Sherry Papini, the Sherry Papini case from Redding, California, has actually come to some sort of conclusion because she just got jail time from that entire scam. Yeah. Like the moment from us first talking about that long, long ago in your old apartment, where it was like, God, this lady's on the cover of People Magazine.

Yeah, this woman who disappeared without a trace, seemingly kidnapped. She claimed to be kidnapped. She actually, she described two Hispanic women, like described her attackers in a race-based way. Right. And the whole thing was a lie. It turned out she was going to see a boyfriend. Yeah. And this was her way of covering basically cheating on her husband.

It's so wild that she thought she could pull that off. I wonder if it blew up bigger. Did she want it to blow up that big? It did seem a little like she wanted to get famous off of it. Yeah. Or did it blow up bigger than she thought it would? And she had to cover. To me, it seems like there's no way you could anticipate something like that.

But she certainly didn't not pose or didn't not be on the cover of People Magazine. Right. She, her husband went on a morning show. Right. And remember that whole long interview that he gave where no one could figure out what was going on because he didn't seem to, like he didn't seem honest and he also didn't seem necessarily involved. Yeah.

It was the weirdest, most mysterious quote unquote true crime thing. Right. That was more of like a tabloid story. Yeah. She points out that kind of like the blonde victim story. So what happened? She got, she got prison sentence out of it? Yeah.

She got like a year and a half in prison for, for fraud for, she actually put in for, what does it say here? She put in for some sort of, there's mail fraud because she got social security payments and California victim compensation board payments. Oh, she went for it. Post-traumatic stress that she said she developed after the kidnapping. Oh. So she, she went for it.

She has to give back over $300,000 in restitution to repay benefits she received and for the cost of the search. I thought this moment of actually being able to report the closing of this story. Yeah. It's satisfying because I think we all smelled a rat, but it was like, this is so strange. Yeah. It really, it's to me what would be cool if it's the end of the era of immediately the nation is up in arms because a pretty girl with long blonde hair is a victim.

Like that idea. That's not going to happen. It's just, but I think like on the Gabby Petito, on the heels of that where it's then people start talking about, what about all these people of color who are also missing? Like that idea of what is focused on and how. Right. I don't know. Yeah.

Because this is like, it was a full scam. Yeah. Yeah. Full scam. It's, it's fascinating that someone would just go to the, go to those lengths to do that. That's a mental illness or just narcissism, I guess. Yeah. I think narcissism, I think it's that thing where you start to tell a lie that works best

for you. And then your mental state tells you that you have to start believing your own lie so that you can kind of get through it and then you're now living in kind of that world of illusion. Yeah. It's got to be cozy in there. Yeah. Well, it's the 40th anniversary of the Tylenol murder case that I covered in episode 43, way back when, which is still like, I think one of the craziest cases where someone went

around Chicago putting poison in Tylenol bottles and killed a bunch of people and it's still unsolved. I believe it. My, my theory is still that it was the unabomber, but it's been 40 years. I feel like it's time to solve this case. Don't you think? It's insane. And the, it, yeah.

Yeah. Especially how, what a, like national impact it had. Right. Isn't that the reason they started changing the way we, like childproof bottles and all that kind of stuff? Yeah. Safety, safety. There are like tampering, tamper proof bottles so that you can't just go into store, unscrew

a bottle and stick some fucking fake poisoning Tylenol in a bottle. There never used to be those foil coverings, like, you know, the kids love to talk about how Gen Xers and some late age millennials complain, but it's like, to that level, did they understand to the level of danger that we were operating in all the time? We're just like, it's crazy. It's crazy to think. My conspiracy theory is that it was someone who worked at the Tylenol factory because wouldn't Tylenol want that solved?

And if it hasn't been solved yet with all the money they have, then maybe there's some conspiracy going on and they don't want like, they don't want the call coming from inside the house. Makes sense. That's another theory. I have theories that abound. Let's hear five more. All right.

Do it. It was a small, it was all a small child. It was a dog. It was a small child tampering. So it truly is. These are child-proof caps because it's the child poisoners that we're trying to prevent here. Child-proof.

Oh my God. It all makes sense now. I mean, you're right though. They do 40 years. They got to get on it somehow. I hate cold cases. Let's solve them all, please. Do you have any updates on TV or anything you're watching or reading?

I mean, the most recent episode of The Patient came out and now it's that kind of, for me, the appointment TV where I had already seen the last episode and I went and checked last night which was Sunday and it was like upcoming. But I'm like, but when? I thought this was a Sunday night show and I guess it's a Monday night show or maybe it was at midnight or something, but I'm literally waiting for every episode of that show to drop. I am kind of bored with it.

It's not take. Like what you said, if it's like a two-man play, it's a little too much two-man play for me of like the slow dance, although I love the food aspect that it comes home with takeout at the end of every captive day and it's like some kind of interesting ethnic food. I love that. That's about it as far as like my interest in that show goes. Did you not see the fifth episode?

No. I mean, the two-man play aspect is he goes to other places and stuff. Oh, okay. No, I haven't seen that yet. That does change. Okay. Yeah. All right.

I'll keep going. I'll keep going. I mean, it's great acting. So it's just a little slow for me. So here's exactly right update. That's really exciting. Two of our favorite podcasters here have new books out. So Millie DeCerico cohosted the film podcast, I Saw What You Did, has written TCM Underground

which covers 50 must-see classic films. It's an expert in this area and so check out the book if you're a fan of films or just the podcast. Millie has been programming for TCM for like the past, I think it's over 20 years. She's truly, she's not just like a film buff or like, I really like movies. She is a legit expert that now is basically writing a book. Like you can have all her expertise in one book. It's so exciting and I believe it's her first book.

Yeah. It's such a great gift too. And of course, Kate Winkler-Dawson from Tenfold More Wicked and Wicked Words. Her book, All That Is Wicked, which is based on season one of Tenfold is out now. I think we've talked about All That's Wicked because we got to read Galley. I read a Galley version and it's an amazing book but basically all about Edward Ruloff and his whole, that whole case in detail. It's really amazing.

Yep. I'm in the middle of it. It's so good. And because Kate Winkler-Dawson just doesn't sleep, there's also a new episode of Wicked Words out this week. She's joined by friend of the show, Jerry Williams of the FBI Retired Case File Review podcast. We love Jerry Williams.

Also over on I Said No Gifts with Bridger Weinerger. The great Rob Hubel is the guest, bringing Bridger a gift that he doesn't want. He's hilarious. People love Rob Hubel. They do. So go listen to that. And the MFM merch store has some new MFM t-shirts. So go take a look at myfavoritmurder.com.

And also real quick, guys, we want to remind you to check your local voter registration deadlines and make sure you're registered to vote. It is so, so important now more than ever. So make sure you're registered and make sure you vote in every little tiny election and big election that you can. It's so important. Go to vote.gov to register and check out your deadlines. It literally is the fate of our nation and the future.

It's not just a concept anymore. Now it literally is you have to vote so that we can get these ludicrous people out. We can codify Roe v. Wade. We can actually take our country back from this insane minority. That's right. Let's do it. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered.

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Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha. And I'm Brooke. I'm the host of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation, and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched.

But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, 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. So over the summer when I got my COVID, I stayed in bed for three days. And essentially in between sleeping, I binged the William Shatner series, The Unexplained.

It is essentially, you know, a series of unexplained things, and the shows, they try to kind of clump them up thematically. So this is season three. I didn't realize there's three seasons of this show out. And in this episode, which I believe was episode 16, they talk about this story. And I love the story so much that I just wanted to do it myself. So thank you, William Shatner. Thank you, The Unexplained, for giving me the idea.

That's the old show, right? An old school show? Or is it new? No, are you thinking of Unsolved Mysteries? No, maybe I'm thinking of the Leonard Nimoy one. Oh, yeah. In Search of. In Search of.

That's what I'm thinking of. In Search of was rad. No, this is very similar to In Search of, but it's, and it actually has, there are shades of ancient aliens, except for, so it has that thing of like, no one can explain this, but then it doesn't immediately start saying, aliens. And that basically ancient people were not as smart as us when clearly they were way smart. Right.

Clearly. Right. Clearly. Right. You can actually go through and see thematically what you're getting into. So it'll be like cults, giants, whatever. You can kind of do it that way. I was watching every single one though.

So this is basically the story. It's episode 16, season three of The Unexplained. But now, now we're making it our own here on the My Favorite Murder, True Crime podcast. This is the story of Charles Jochen, the unlikeliest survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. So the main sources used today are from Encyclopedia Titanica, the page on Charles Jochen. The testimony of Charles Jochen from the British Wreck Commissioners, Inquiry. Marin went all the way back and read that British Wreck Commissioners, Inquiry, all about history book of the Titanic, which is a book published in 2014.

And there's a podcast called History This Week podcast. And they did the Titanic's first and last voyage. There's lots of information from that podcast in this podcast. So let's start at the beginning, at the very beginning of Charles Jochen's life. He was born on August 3rd, 1879, in Birkenhead, England, which is directly across the River Mersey, right across from Liverpool. And in 1890, Charles has to start taking jobs on ships at nearby seaports when he is 11 years old, which is a crazy young age.

But of course, we know that way back then that was very common. They celebrated child labor, but also it's because his father died. And so his mother had to go get, start working as a nurse. And two of his other young brothers also started working on ships. So everybody, it was just like whoever could, there were six kids in the family. So they all had to make ends meet any way they could. Charles is documented in a 1901 census and he's recorded as a baker at sea. So basically he started working on ships and worked his way up into the kitchens.

And by age 22, he's basically like the main baker in these kitchens. He's made really good progress and I probably got tutored by somebody or apprenticed somebody. And that is the same position he's going to have on board a large luxury ship called the Olympic, which is owned by the prestigious White Star Line Company. He does such a good job on the Olympic as their baker at sea that in 1912, he's offered a job on the company's brand new state of the art luxury ship. And this one comes with more responsibility and a big pay bump because the White Star Line on this new ship is sparing no expense, including in the kitchen.

He's told he'll oversee a team of 13 bakers and confectioners and he'll be one of the highest paid crew members on board. He's offered 12 British pounds a month, which is over $1,700 in today's money. And so he takes the job of chief baker aboard the RMS Titanic. Oh shit. I mean, we all know the ending of this, but the middle, the job, it's too late. The middle part's pretty fascinating though. Also I'd like to go into this saying I have never watched the movie Titanic.

I've never seen it after like when it first came out, I told people I was scared to see it, but it was just because I didn't feel like it. I just didn't want to spend that much time in the theater watching that. Although I don't like the idea of being in water next to something as big as a cruise ship that like size differential really makes me panic. Just thinking about that, like a ship going down as you're treading water is horrifying to me. It's going to suck you in.

Yeah. It is a fun movie. I'm just watching it. Normally I wouldn't give a shit, but it is like entertaining in a way. I mean, I know there's some great Hollywood stars in it. Oh, sure. The best of them. Some of the best of the best.

Okay. So on April 2nd, 1912, Charles first boards the Titanic and Belfast. That's where the ship was built. When they put the final touches on, they send it out for what's basically a test run at sea. So a bunch of other crew members are also on board and they make their way down to South Hampton, England. So they're basically, it's like kind of a working trip to make sure everything's going to go as they think.

So they're touching up to core. They're putting together menus. They're making sure that like the heating works, you know, that everything's going to be great for the passengers once they get there. And they also need time to orient themselves on the ship because it's absolutely enormous. The Titanic's second officer, Charles Light-Toler, will eventually say, quote, you could actually walk miles along the decks and passages covering different ground all the time. I was thoroughly familiar with pretty well every type of ship afloat, but it took me

14 days before I could with confidence find my way from one part of that ship to another. Holy shit. That was part of like why they thought it was unsinkable because it was so much bigger cruise ships like that at the time. So the Titanic's test run goes well. The next day, the ship arrives in South Hampton, and it docks for several days before its 2,200 passengers begin boarding on April 10th, 1912. So the boat heads out for the first leg of the journey, like every, you know, over 2,000

people are on the ship. It's like the size of some small towns. That's fucking wild. Yeah. So it's in France and Ireland before it finally sets out into the Atlantic. So it's about 2,800 miles to its destination of New York City, where its expected arrival is on Wednesday, April 17th. So the captain of the Titanic is 62-year-old Edward Smith, who not unlike Charles has been

working at sea since he was a kid, and Captain Smith is planning on retiring after this trip. So was that in the movie? That's a perfect setup of like, yeah, I'm getting too old for this shit. One last run. So Smith's plan is to dock the Titanic in New York once the ride is over, cash in a first-class ticket, and then ride the ship back to England as a passenger in luxury. That's how he's going to kind of celebrate his retirement. That sounds nice.

Yeah. And especially because this ship, if anything, is luxurious. It's stupidly luxurious. The first-class sitting rooms and dining areas are extremely ornate. It has a beautiful grand staircase for elevators. It even has a heated swimming pool in 1912. Like, that's pretty advanced technology. So of course, thanks to James Cameron.

You know that not everybody aboard the Titanic is extremely rich. But the second and third-class passengers were not destitute. In popular culture, the 700 passengers who paid the lowest ticket fare are correctly depicted as being members of the working class or immigrants moving to the United States. But the History This Week podcast clarifies that it's less a haves-and-half-nots situation and more of a haves-and-haves a little less. So obviously, there's the crew and there's those people. But these tickets were really expensive.

Second-class passengers paid the equivalent between $424 and $1,100 in today's money for their tickets. Wow. And there's probably ships that are cheaper, right? So... Oh, yeah. They did have money. Yeah.

Yeah, they were spending or they were choosing to spend it because it was like this luxury, unbelievable, like, you know, floating, gigantic mansion, but bigger than a mansion. So the next-highest fare, the second-class tickets, came with more amenities. The third-class passengers didn't get to mix with the first-class passengers. They kept them separate. But the second-class passengers could. So it was kind of... There was a more shared experience, especially like when they went to eat.

So the second-class tickets were roughly $2,000 in today's money. And then here it says, these prices are steep, especially compared to the fares on other ships at the time. But compared to what the first-class passengers pay, it's almost nothing because the most expensive ticket, the first-class ticket, was well over $100,000 in today's money. What? Yeah. What the fuck?

Could you imagine paying for a plane ticket for $100,000? And also, it doesn't seem like a very long trip. Like, for some reason, I thought their trip was supposed to be like a month long or it was one of those kinds of like... That's the reason it was so big is because, you know, it was like big and you had to hang out on it for a long time. So some of the first-class passengers include one of the highest-paid movie stars of the time, Dorothy Gibson, a railroad tycoon named John B. Thayer, the famous British fashion

designer Lady Duff Gordon, Isidore Strauss, who is the co-owner of Macy's department stores, and John Jacob Astor, whose family owned much of Manhattan at the time. There's also Countess's authors. There's a Guggenheim on board. There's even, quote, a confidant of President Taft. And all these wealthy passengers are dressed to the nines. They have several outfit changes a day. Like, I can't imagine what their luggage looked like.

It was like those huge, like, wardrobes that you open. Like, insane. And they basically, they would... The big deal was the restaurant, the dining room was known as the Ritz. And that's where they would all meet at the end of the day for their over-the-top spectacular meals in their amazing finery. Here's how one guest describes the last meal on board the Titanic. They say, quote, we dined last night in the Ritz restaurant.

It was the last word in luxury. The tables were gay with pink roses and white daisies, the women in their beautiful shimmering gowns of satin and silk, the men immaculate and well-groomed, the stringed orchestra playing music from Puccini and Tchaikovsky, the food with superb caviar, lobster, quail from Egypt. I don't know. I guess that was popular back then. Plover's eggs and hot house grapes and fresh peaches. Damn.

Right? So, this is a huge contrast to the not-so-distant past when, this is amazing to me, when ship's passengers, including first-class passengers, were expected to bring their own food on board. No. Yes. No, no, no. It's going to go bad. You have to make seven sandwiches.

It's all beef jerky and fucking dried fruit. Yeah. That's where hard tack. You just make an old, old biscuit, and then that's going to last you for two months. You eat a leather shoe. Eat a leather boot. Don't worry about it. So, on the Titanic, the ship's kitchen staff provide incredible gourmet meals.

Even the third-class passengers ate very well. On the Titanic leaves England, it has 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, 1,000 bottles of wine, which I was like, that is not enough. Not enough. Not enough. 1,000 bottles of wine, 2200 pounds of coffee, and in Charles' pantry, just for the bakers, they have 250 barrels of flour for just for themselves for this voyage. So now, we'll get to the night of the disaster.

Let's stop. Let's stop it. So, it's April 15th. It's four days into the journey. Everything's been smooth sailing. The ship is set to arrive in New York City within the next two days. It's currently roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. And although some of his bakers are still preparing for the next day, Charles is off

duty. He gets to go back to his bunk on the Titanic's e-deck, which is the sixth of the Titanic's 10 decks. So, he's pretty much in the middle of the ship. And he basically just gets to go unwind from his long day of work with a drink. Fourth officer, Joseph Boxhol, remembers this night as, quote, clear with no sign of fog, the sea was perfectly smooth, there was no moon, and every star in the heavens could be perfectly seen.

But what we all know wasn't being seen was the iceberg. So that March, there had been a lot of ice in that part of the Atlantic. And Captain Smith and his officers all knew this. The Titanic actually received as many as seven warnings on this day alone, including from a passing ship that used Morse code with one of its lamps to warn about the icebergs that were in the area. But you know how this story goes. At 11.40 that night, a lookout up in the crow's nest rings a warning bell three times.

Up ahead, he sees a massive iceberg in the not-so-far-off distance. But only 30 seconds later, the ship hits the iceberg. So he thinks it's like way up there. It rips right into the side of the ship. Many of the ship's nearby compartments fill up with water. Within 10 minutes, there's nearly 15 feet of seawater in the front part of the Titanic. I'm not going to go into how the ship was built all with all the separated things. You can look all that up if you're interested in something like that.

But we just know that it basically got torn open and then the water just came crashing in. So below deck, Charles was trying to figure out what just happened. He says later that he, quote, felt the shock immediately and got up, end quote. But he hasn't heard any official orders from the top deck. And in the moments right after the collision, no one is assuming that the ship is just going to go down. It was advertised as an unsinkable ship.

And even in a worst case scenario, Captain Smith believed that the Titanic could stay afloat for at least several hours. But Charles, having grown up on the sea, knew that what he was not going to do was wait around to be told what to do. So instead, he leans into this gut feeling that he needs to act now and he wrangles his bakery crew into the ship's pantry and he instructs them to bring bread out to the lifeboats. So he's really thinking ahead of like, if everybody has to get into a lifeboat right now, who knows how long they'll be in it?

Like it's pretty smart of him. So meanwhile, the Titanic's officers are frantically inspecting the ship. They're also trying to maintain composure as they encounter their increasingly worried guests. Many passengers have started gathering in the salon where the ship's band started playing music to help calm people's nerves. So by 12.05 AM, Captain Smith is facing the reality of this very dire situation. The ship is essentially totaled, the water's coming in fast and people need to be evacuated.

But there aren't enough lifeboats on this ship to get everybody to safety. He's worried that the people will freak out and maybe start to get violent as they try to get onto these lifeboats. That's a very viable concern. So on deck, he hands out loaded pistols to his officers. No, hey, shoot people who start to freak out about this. Oh my God. Well, essentially because it's women and children first, but we all know that there's plenty

of men in the world that'll be like, fuck you out of my way. So they had to be able to like, control the crowd and really be in charge as people panicked. Very validly panicking on a sinking ship. So at 12.15 AM, while Captain Smith and his officers are beginning the evacuation, Charles and his bakery staff are on deck dividing 40 pounds of bread between the lifeboats. And at this point, many of these lifeboats are still empty because it's essentially that thing of like, you know what, a wedding when no one wants to eat first or it's just like, well, I don't want to eat and then be sitting here eating by myself and no one else, people

are still dancing. Yeah. Like, no, I don't want to be first and then whatever. But it's that, but the panic life or death aversion of that, of people don't want to get onto these boats and they're not just, they're not just going on calmly and quietly. They're kind of like scared to get off the big boat and onto the little boats. So at this point, Charles is fairly laid back for a man on a sinking ship. This is where his status as a legend comes into play.

When he and his crew finish handing out the bread, Charles decides that he's going to go back to his bunk and have another drink because essentially he's like, this is fucked. This is chaos. I'm not just going to stand here freaking out. So he's like, yeah, I'm going to go drink and like, let this die down a little bit because it's basically like they're trying to get people to do stuff, but they're not desperate enough to do it yet. So basically he goes back down to his cabin and as he does, all the people from second

and third class are coming up the stairs at him. And it's almost impassable on these stairways because everyone's trying to get up and out. But he gets back to his cabin and basically calmly fixes himself another drink. And once he finishes that drink, takes a moment to himself, he goes back up on deck and tries to figure out what the next move should be. So now it's around 1230 in the morning. The Titanic's distress signal has been picked up by a ship called the Carpathia, but the Carpathia is 60 miles away.

So it's on the way. At this point, the Titanic's band is now set up outside and they continue playing for the horrified crew and passengers as we've all seen so famously. The band plays on. Meanwhile, Charles tracks down his assigned lifeboat, lifeboat number 10. It's completely empty when he finds it. And he can't bring himself to get inside it because he says later, quote, I would have said about example, instead he looks for women and children to take his spot.

But he's struggling to find them. There are women and children kind of just milling around and panicking in the confusion and chaos. And they're rightfully terrified to get into tiny boats in the middle of the night to be just pushed out to sea. But Charles isn't messing around. So he brings people over to get into the boats and they're like, I'm really scared. He basically in his own words throws them in.

So he starts loading these lifeboats and he even goes down a level to the Titanic's a deck to find women and children. Then he drags them back upstairs and again puts them into the lifeboats upstairs. He saves two children and their mom and separately another mother with her child, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to put people into the lifeboats. There's a rush of water that's causing the boat. So the boat is basically tilted to one side. So that means the lifeboats are drifting about a yard away from the ship itself.

So they're hard to actually get into and it feels dangerous to get into them. Charles actually watches one mother who refuses help and tries to step in herself. Her footing is off and she ends up falling to the lower deck and he basically never sees her again. Thank God. Yeah. Obviously, and of course, terrible and panicky and bad. At 12.45 a.m., the first of the Titanic's lifeboats are finally lowered into the ocean.

But frustratingly, that first lifeboat that was built to carry 65 people leaves the main ship with less than 30 people on board. At 1.00 a.m., Charles assigned lifeboat. Lifeboat 10 fills up completely and he's told there's no room for him to get inside. So he, you guessed it, he goes back downstairs to his bunk and he has another drink. This time it's even bigger than the last drink he had. Fucking bet. Now it's not like he's chilling or anything because at this point, the room he's sitting

in, his cabin, there's enough water in it to cover his ankles. So everybody understands that they're fucked, essentially. So Charles finishes that drink. He goes back to the deck where he's told that all the lifeboats are now gone. Once again, there's no actual plan. No one's saying what to do next. So he decides he's going to go down a few flights of stairs to the Titanic's B deck and start throwing the wooden deck chairs out into the water, figuring if nothing else,

they might be able to function as flotation devices for anybody else that might end up in the water now that there's no lifeboats. Holy shit. Yeah. He throws 50 of those heavy wooden chairs overboard, and then he goes up a level to the pantry on the A deck and pours himself a glass of water. Okay, now we're talking, right? Hydrate.

Always hydrate. So at this point, the Titanic is still leaning a bit to the side, but you can still walk. It's walkable. But that doesn't last long. Charles will later say that, quote, while I was getting the drink of water, I heard a kind of crash as if something had buckled, and then I heard a rush overhead. You could have heard it, but you did not really know what it was. It was not an explosion or anything like that.

It was as if the iron was parting. I'm telling you, Karen, you have to watch the movie. It's cool because I'm picturing the whole thing in my head because I saw, and it's probably like, it's what, 22 years old or something. So it's probably like really shitty CGI at this point, but it was really cool to see it in action. And then it tilted this way, then it went up in the air, and then it broke in half, and then...

What? It's coming. And then the people... Oh, shit. Sorry. But I think you should watch it. I think you'd like it. Okay.

And it's really visual, so it's cool. I mean, I bet you that they got the testimonial that they had all the survivors do. I'm sure they wrote that script based on all of that, too. So yeah, I will definitely watch it after. I just love to be able to say a thing like that. I know. And then everybody makes a big noise, and then you get to be the center of the party. We all have our little party tricks.

You can keep lying. You can lie about it afterwards, just say you never watched it. Oh, good idea. Try it. So basically what Charles was describing there is the moment that the bow goes underwater. That's what he heard. And it does this with a plunge that everyone on board can feel, and it causes the water to come racing up the ship in a wave.

So there are some passengers, as you probably know, who are washed to sea right there. They're thinking everything's fine, and then it suddenly turns very quickly, and suddenly they're washed out to sea. So others that don't get washed out to sea, they basically crawl towards the back of the ship, the stern, as we all know. It's called the stern, which is now a seesaw style. If the front of the ship is going into the water, that means the back of the ship is tipping up.

And the whole thing is slanted, like you're talking about. So Charles races alongside hundreds of other people who are trying to hang on as the Titanic slips more and more into the ocean. The band is no longer playing. The lights in and outside the ship are flickering. Scary. Yeah, horrifying. Charles is holding onto the railing at the stern of the ship, and as an article in the

Canadian newspaper, The National Post will later say, quote, he rode the sinking Titanic into the sea like an elevator. So he basically was aware, I mean, he was three drinks in, but he basically was holding that thing, and he watched the Titanic go down from on the Titanic. And then he basically is out swimming in the freezing ocean. So that night, the ocean water was 28 degrees. No. Yeah.

Basically, the evacuees have just witnessed the equivalent of an 11-story building disappearing into the underwater, into the ocean, horrifying. Everything's dark, but it is not quiet. A survivor named Eva Hart says, quote, the sounds of people drowning are something that I cannot describe to you. And neither can anyone else. It's the most dreadful sound, and there's a terrible silence that follows it. Another survivor named Colonel Archibald Gracie remembers, quote, the agonizing cries of

death from over a thousand throats, the whales and groans of suffering none of us will ever forget to our dying day. Oh, God, I didn't even think about that. That's awful. Yeah, because it's like just because you went into the water didn't mean you died immediately. And then, of course, there's the whole thing of trying to get on the lifeboats once they were in the water. So basically, Charles is smart enough to swim away from the sinking ship as dozens, if not

hundreds of people, are screaming in agony all around him. And as I said, the seawater is freezing cold. The second officer, Lightholer, would later say that, quote, striking the water was like a thousand knives being driven into one's body. Experts think that most people who fell into the water died within an hour, but somehow not our man Charles. At some point, he finds a cork life vest just floating in the water. So he's got that.

It's pitch black. He's treading open, freezing water while everyone around him is screaming and crying in horror and dying. And he does that for two hours. So the Titanic first crashed into the iceberg at 11.40 PM. Now it's 4.30 in the morning. The sun is finally starting to rise. Charles has survived all of it to witness it.

And now that there's enough light to see, in the distance, he spots a group of about 25 men standing on top of an overturned, collapsible Titanic lifeboat. So there were the real boat, like a very hearty rowboat style lifeboats. But then they also had these collapsible smaller boats that were like rickety. And basically these guys wanted flipped over and these guys are all 25 men standing on top of it and they're all holding each other by the shoulders and trying not to make any moves so that the boat doesn't go under to keep themselves out of the water. So Charles basically realizes that's what's going on over there.

So he swims toward it and he tries to pull himself up onto the boat, but one of the men pushes him back into the freezing water. But he doesn't give up. He just swims to the other side and over there standing on that side is a man named Isaac Maynard, who actually was one of his friends from the kitchen. So Isaac knew him and basically Isaac grabs Charles' hand and drags him along the side of the boat. So he doesn't, he's not out of the water entirely, but he's also not just treading

water on his own. And he does that for another 30 minutes, just basically hanging on to Isaac and Isaac hanging on to him. Then they see another lifeboat in the distance. This one is not collapsible. It's one of the big ones and it's upright. And someone calls out from that boat and says that there's room for 10 more people on board. So Charles would later say, I said to Maynard, let go of my hand and I swam to meet it so

that I would be one of the 10. Horrifying to think that at that point it truly is like every man for himself. If you, it's just horrifying. It's horrifying for the people that made it onto those boats and for the people in the water and people that had to push people off, like don't sink 10 of us, you know, Charles, don't get up on him. It's just like everybody loses, horrifying. So he makes it to the lifeboat.

He's pulled up and into it. He finally escapes the freezing sea water, but he's actually colder out in the air on the boat than he was in the ocean. So he has to endure that kind of like instead of it getting better when he gets on the boat, although he's less exhausted, he's now even more freezing. And he has to withstand that for two more hours until around 8 a.m. when the rescuers from the Carpathia finally arrive and begin to pick up survivors. At this point, Charles feet are so swollen from the cold water that he can't climb the

ladder to get onto the rescue boat. With his feet, he has to, he pull himself up run by rung using his knees because he can't use his feet. But once he's on board, he and the other survivors that get on board are all given hot coffee and brandy. They have their wounds treated, if any. And amazingly, besides those swollen feet, Charles has no major injuries. So he rode the Titanic into the water, survived for four hours and basically gets to have

another Nipa brandy to talk about it. So of course, the Titanic disaster is instantly the hugest story of the time. The imagery of people like the Guggenheims and the Asters going down in their evening gowns and the tuxedos is a shocking contrast to America's current gilded age of excess. And of course, world travels fast, faster than the Carpathia can deliver survivors to the shore. And when the Carpathia finally arrives in New York on April 18, there are around 30,000 people waiting at the docks to greet the now famous Titanic survivors.

Holy shit. I don't think I've ever heard that part. Maybe it's in the movie, but I never realized that everybody of course heard about this and then just a medium-sized city went down to greet those guys when they came in. Yeah, that's wild. It's unbelievable. And also would be, especially at that time, it's just like, it's such a beautiful thing to think that they would go down and cheer for them or at least welcome them home after

all that shit that they went through. So of course, the sinking of the Titanic is all anyone can talk about. There is one particularly awful story that comes out in that a German ship called the SS Bremen passed through the same waters where the Titanic had gone down a week after the disaster. And the passengers on the Bremen report, quote, a large number of little white dots floating in the water in clusters. And as the ship moves towards them, the passengers realize that what they're looking at are the

frozen corpses of the Titanic passengers. So bad enough, but then you're on a ship. And those are all people that died at sea a week before in the same waters. So very scary. For hours, the ship passes through what's essentially a graveyard in the open ocean. The corpses bob up and down in their cork life jackets. Some report seeing a young woman dressed in a nightgown holding a baby, a woman clinging to what looked like a St. Bernard, and a man and a woman frozen together in an embrace.

So people could see details of what they were looking down at, just like horrifying. In the days, months and years that follow the sinking of the Titanic, there's many attempts to explain how this unsinkable ship wound up at the bottom of the ocean. There are two official investigations, one in the United States and one in Great Britain, to find evidence of wrongdoing, but neither result in any criminal charges. And there's still some debate on what exactly went wrong, but experts tend to believe it was a combination of factors that created the best possible environment for the worst imaginable outcome.

Many people talk about weather patterns here, thinking certain conditions might have led to more icebergs being in a concentrated part of the North Atlantic. Another thing that's debated but does come up frequently is the thought that the ship was moving too fast, especially considering the many warnings that Captain Smith and his officers got the day before the collision. There was also kind of like ridiculous communication errors that night. The most specific warning about an iceberg was received by the Titanic's radio operator shortly before the collision, but he didn't pass it along to Captain Smith because the

sender didn't put the prefix MSG on it, which designates a note that's intended for the captain to receive directly. So he got the warning for the captain and just kind of like put it in his inbox, essentially. So there was also issues with the ship itself. There was no alarm system. The bulkheads, the interior walls, had issues and so did the hatches, but the biggest one is that there weren't enough lifeboats to get every passenger and crew member to safety. The Titanic left Southampton with 1,178 lifeboats, but that was actually above the 962 required

by law, but they would have needed 2,228 lifeboats to cover everyone on board. So they were basically under by 1,000 lifeboats. So the White Star Line knew this. People working on the ship ring the alarm bell long before it set sail, but the company rejected plans to add more lifeboats, saying that they, quote, would clutter the boat deck and ruin the views of passengers strolling the upper deck. Yeah, I don't think they would mind at the end of the day. I mean, yeah, you kind of got to measure those pros and cons.

Just that same ocean you were looking at three days ago, maybe the view, the view, it's estimated that there were around 500 open seats on those lifeboats as they left the Titanic. Because of the confusion and in some cases, selfishness, many lifeboats left without being filled to capacity and never turned around despite people's pleas for help, horrifying. Over 1,500 people died in the sinking of the Titanic, including John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, every member of the band that played as the ship was sinking, they all died. And of course, Captain Smith himself, who had been looking forward to his retirement, went down with the ship.

Of the 2,200 passengers, only 706 survived. One of those survivors, Head Baker Charles Jochen, is one of them. Once he's back in New York, he's treated for exposure. And then two months later, basically, it doesn't take much time, I mean, like it's unbelievable, but after all that time in frozen water and everything else, he's basically back on his feet. And two months later, he goes back to England to testify in the British inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic.

And that's where all the quotes, his quotes in this story are from that inquiry and his testimony. Here's what's maybe more insane than everything I've told you so far. Charles not only never sails again, he never stops working at sea. He goes right back to his job. Oh, I thought you were going to say he never goes on my boat again. And I'm like, yeah. No.

No, he goes right back. The opposite. Oh my God. He not only goes back. Four years later, while working as a baker on board a ship called the SS Congress, that ship catches fire off the coast of Oregon. And yet again, he escapes the burning vessel as it sinks into the ocean. And then, so that's do we survived.

He goes back again. In 1941, he's on the SS Oregon, and that's struck by another vessel and that ship sinks. 17 people die in that event, Charles Joggin is not one of them. So he has survived three ships going down. Wow. That's wild. I mean, that's my favorite part of the story. That is a job hazard right there, I feel like.

And also like, I feel like if you went down with the Titanic and survived on that next one, where you're just like, yeah, I thought we were just going down the coast, the Oregon coast. This is supposed to be chill. What the fuck? This might be it. Charles Joggin's legacy has become tied into this image of him drunkenly surviving one of the most well-known disasters in human history.

And that is a hell of a story. His character is in the movie, Titanic. There is a baker that is Charles Joggin. No way. Or that's based on him. I don't know if it has his name. But Charles himself has said that while yes, he did do some drinking that night, he always knew what was going on.

So he didn't go down and get drunk and then just like throw it all up to the Lord. Well, I wonder if it helped him in the water to stay warm. Is that a thing? We can talk about it right this second. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the alcohol that kept Charles alive in the freezing water that night. In fact, experts say that drinking increases your risk of hypothermia. So it's even more against the odds.

Like him doing that probably kept him calm. So he probably didn't expend, and I'm definitely getting this from the episode of The Unexplained where they talk this through where they're like, he probably didn't expend a lot of panic energy, which is I think a thing that happens to people where once they hit the water, it's just like freak out time. So he was probably calmer and kind of seeing things maybe it's that third drink clarity that you have. You're like, maybe I need to get away from this sinking ship for a second.

Maybe I need to like keep my eyes peeled for a lifeboat I can get on. I wonder if everyone or it's just me that everyone listening right now is like so cold because I'm just listening to this, like my toes are freezing right now just from the story itself. Yes. Well, we're almost done. How Charles Jockin survived both the Titanic sinking and treading freezing water for many more hours than is believed humanly possible is truly a mystery.

It could have been his own gumption, courage, good luck that saved him that night. But instead of remembering him for the drinks that he had, we should probably celebrate Charles as a hero who saved as many lives as he could as the Titanic went down and then went on to survive two more shipwrecks, which is all we should be talking about. Charles Jockin passes away in 1956 and the occupation listed on his death certificate is Baker on the Titanic. That is the unbelievable Titanic survival story of Charles Jockin. Wow.

I've never heard of that in my life. It's wild. Thank you, William Shatner. Yeah. Thank you, COVID and William Shatner. Thank you, COVID. All right. Well, since today is Rosh Hashanah, we're going to go with a shorty episode and have Karen's

story this week. And then next time I'll do my story. But in the meantime, let's let's hit you guys with a couple of fucking hurrays. Also, it's not a shorty episode. Every normal podcast is one hour long. I just want to remind everybody of that. Let's not indicate so that people think that this is something they can complain about when this is literally, we overdo it every week.

Yeah. Sorry, we're not going two hours this week. Yeah. We're ending at a normal time. My first hurray, it's actually from the fan cult forum. Thank you for sending this in. It says, hi, ladies. My name is Nicole and I live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer, actually says stage two B breast cancer. I don't know if that's a different one. At 25 years old in May of 2020 at the height of COVID, I am now 28 and celebrating one year cancer-free this weekend. Thank you for getting me through treatment, recovery and helping me figure out how to deal with my own trauma. Thank you for preaching about the importance of therapy. You two are a bright light on the darkest of days and I'm so grateful for you, this podcast

and this murdering community. Congratulations, Nicole. Congratulations. That's amazing. Okay. This is from Lindsay Bestie on Twitter. My fucking hurray is that after years of wanting to learn, I finally took a self-defense class. It was awesome and informative and the entire class immediately bonded over MFM when the

instructor started a segment and titled, fuck politeness. Oh my God, we all need to take a fucking self-defense class. I keep meaning to and I haven't, let's all do it. That actually makes me well up. That's so beautiful. I know. I love it. Very cool.

Okay. This one's from Bree Bagwell at Bree Bagwell. It says, my fucking hurray is that my toothbrush lost just enough battery power to be perfectly in tune with the theme song of my favorite murder. It was and will be the most joyous tooth brushing of my lifetime. I almost cried. It's the most random thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah.

That's what I was thinking of when I wrote that song. Okay. This one is a little long. It said, I'm a fucking licensed master's addiction counselor now. Picture it. 2020, Topeka, Kansas and like everyone else in the world, I'm working at home from my dining room table. I get this genius idea to get my master's degree in addictions because it's better than

hoarding toilet paper and eating only goldfish crackers in my pajamas all day. It's very true. No shade. Fast forward to today, September 16th in 2022 and I just passed my motherfucking state exam on my birthday because I figured even if I didn't pass it, it would still be a good day. I have to cushion disappointment like that. I was so relieved and excited.

I whooped and immediately began hiccup balling. Luckily, I took the exam at home so only the proctor could see and hear me. Anyway, I had to share my awesome news with the people that helped me keep sane through this entire pandemic and master's program. Thank you for all you do and who you are. Love sincerely Sharon. Sharon master's degree. It's gigantic.

What a huge accomplishment. In a field that's going to help so many fucking people like you are a saint. That is incredible. Yeah. Congratulations. Congratulations and thanks for bringing us along for the ride. It's fun to get brought along and people getting master's degrees and it's like you're welcome.

Yeah. Yeah. We dropped out of college, but thank you. Have an honorary degree from DeVry. When are we going to get that? Hey. Honorary. And then DeVry calls and is like, yeah, sorry, you don't qualify for that.

So sorry. Well, hey, have a great rest of your day or rest of your evening or rest of whatever's going on with you. And we will see you with the part two of this episode, which would be normally just a regular episode on any other podcast. That's right. And also 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.

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