My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 362 - A Generous Number of Apples

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

This week, Georgia covers the "Boy in the Box" case and Karen tells the legend of Cuba's first Olympic marathoner, Felix de la Caridad Carvajal. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is actually happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, this is actually happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. So this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. 2023.

That's right. That's Georgia Hardstar. Thanks. That's Karen Kilgariff. And we're here to podcast in a brand new year, a fresh year. It's already like the 12th for everyone listening and the 19th. Still first month, right? It's the first month.

This is our first recording back from the winter break because we prerecorded some stuff because we wanted to keep putting out content as you do. So this is technically our first recording back. Yeah. I mean, this was, we had to take a Christmas break, right, because this is America. So we did some prerecords so you weren't completely alone and abandoned in that time. So now we're all lightly off schedule, but I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to be, you know, at least slightly current.

Me too. I am too. But you know what I think I realized while I had all that time to think during our break is that I don't think my brain ever got the memo that quarantine is over. I think that's what's going on with me. Yeah, I relate completely. Yeah. Like I think I'm still stuck in that, but we have to stay home.

No one ever told me. And it's not over. Fucking COVID still happening. Yeah. But it's different. Yes. Like hard quarantine is still the way of the world to me. Even I make a suggestion that is absolutely projection on my part, but is meant to make

you feel better. Yep. Part of us loved quarantine. Part of us was like, oh, holy shit, this is like forced downtime and forced hermiting. Yeah, forced agoraphobia in a lot of ways. All the things, it was almost just a different name for a thing that's normally defined in a negative that suddenly was like, hey, the government's making me do it, man. Hey, you know, all those symptoms of depression that you are normally used to with depression.

It's actually government mandated now. Depression. Yeah. It's my state representative's fault that I have depression. You're giving it to me. The world has depression with me. Finally. Yes.

Finally. Yes. The world has depression. The world's overeating carbs. The world is making baked goods for no reason. Like I'm not alone anymore. There's a mac and cheese run. I don't think I want to let that go yet.

So I think it's now turned into a real depression government mandated depression. Yes. I got to claw my way out of that somehow. I think realization is the first step, probably. Yep. And talking about it, not keeping it like a secret. Yeah. It's never a dirty secret.

And I think maybe that's a good way to think about it or frame it is like, if that's how you feel, that's how a bunch of people feel. Yeah. Because we all had the same. Yeah. I don't want to say traumatic experience, because now we're using that word so much in this culture, but we all had a very bizarre, brand new experience together. Yeah.

Totally. Totally. And since we don't have an office to work from, it's not like there's a normalcy of going back to the office, you know, or anything like that. Right. There's a lot of seeing people on your computer and forcing connection where it doesn't exist because we're at our houses. We've gotten so used to it that we don't question it anymore.

Like the idea of podcasting in real life and being able to like get that actual in the room sense of like what people say and how they mean it and what is going on. What a dream that'll be when we start doing that again. The endorphin rush of connection. Oh. I miss that. Yeah. It's important for human beings.

Yeah. For sure. I still am doing therapy on Zoom. Me too. And it's not the same at all. I miss person to person. Yeah. It's important and also just the change of pace of like that's the way you know quarantine's

over when you start doing things you didn't do in quarantine. Right. And I haven't like leaving the house. I went to a concert and the whole time all I could think about was why don't I have a mask on this room is too small. Yeah. I was positive I was going to get it and I didn't which is an important kind of like watermark of like I don't know but that's going to happen to everybody as we go.

This is just kind of the new way. Yeah. Or you're going to get it and it's going to be okay. Yeah. Well I wanted to talk about we had a nationwide shared experience or at least people that follow true crime because they arrested the suspect for the crimes of the four murders of the students in Moscow, Idaho which I couldn't first of all I couldn't believe they did it that quickly.

So fast. Like compared to most of the stories we talk about or follow so incredibly fast. Yeah. So well handled and then they had a press conference at my I actually my dad watched with me. It was like dad I want to watch this and I was figuring I would go up into a different room and watch it on my laptop and he's like no we'll put it on right here. He's like I love the news.

He really loves news in any form and to watch that police chief that district attorney like first of all the police chief started by saying it doesn't matter what we say today because there is no good news when these four families have lost their children in this horrible way. And I was like oh my God it is a new day in the way people handle crime in cases like this. I was so blown away that he made that acknowledgement and then after that when the DA spoke and he I'm sorry to say did look a little bit like Santa Claus so it was a little bit kind of like.

It was like around Christmas. Oh yeah they were taking care of things and the DA said this is not the end of this. This is the beginning so please be just as patient as you were before because we won't be able to tell you anything for a long time. It was suddenly like they got into this position of almost like teaching people how to be in this with them and how to follow this correctly. Which I thought was so smart. Instead of wild speculation which is what happens online of like it's some teacher that did

it. It's some neighbor. It's some person and here's the evidence and then they just drag people. It's crazy. Docs people. It's crazy. Well and the thing that's now happening with stuff like that when people really don't use their heads about speculation and accusation is now the people that are speculating are

getting sued. That is not fun. It is not good. They're going to lose a lot of money. They're going to be truly impacted. So if you are some sort of an influencer and you think you're going to suddenly be like oh I know who did it. Yeah I solved it.

Don't do that. There's no upside to that. It's bad. It is. So that getting handled in a way where it's like you're not suddenly going to learn everything about this case. You're only going to learn it as the court wants you to learn it. Right.

Is how they explained it which is very cool. So yeah I was just like kind of blown away by the efficiency with which they actually got something done which was so impressive. And then the real kindness I think that they approached. It didn't have that normal old feeling. It was really interesting. The whole case is just it's so shocking and then I saw the photo of the house where they lived.

You know in my mind it was like an apartment or a dorm situation that it was a standalone house living with what was it five six roommates which totally I did that at that age. And then they finding out they had a dog it's just like oh my god these poor people they're poor families. What a shock and it's so horrible and yeah I hope this goes as smoothly as it's gone so far for them. I was in a couple threads watching what people were saying and there were a couple people and this is going to happen like you can't get upset really about anything that happens

on social media because people are there to kind of make a weird stance and get clout. It's just what people do on social media. But there were some people who were trying to say things about what the roommates did or didn't do and when they did it and how that means something. And at first I saw it and I was getting upset because it was just like these are victims as well. These are also children like this can't be happening and then God bless them within the next time I checked that thread here come all kinds of true crime expert follower people

who know what they're talking about and they were like how dare you accuse anybody or how dare you come in saying you know how this would go like with specula like wild speculation insane and kind of really gross like bottom of the barrel accusation speculation it's not just like oh I think that's weird behavior it's like that means this right. I did this once and it never went like that yes that's that's how I know they're wrong or whatever yeah so it's cool that there are so many people showing up in that way and really defending the people who deserve to be defended and basically kind of pushing back against that weird like there's some people who just get in there and like you

know when you follow a thread and they keep showing up to like argue with people where you're like what is this why would you do this yeah it's just participating like is this a human being that mattered or are you just kind of trying to do a very self-centered thing so that people interact with you good or bad totally totally yeah I'm not judging people when we started this podcast I said shit I wish I'd never said and we were finding our way and it just all happened to be recorded. We chose to have Steven sit on the floor and record it for us but that's kind of my point it feels like the entire genre of how people pay attention to this stuff is changing in

a very real way I was really impressed by the people that were showing up and doing it right and helping other people kind of go the right direction very cool for a thing that's shocking I think that's the thing you start to look for because this has all those pieces of like an old-fashioned case you follow the idea that this suspect was studying criminology yeah I mean that's like if it was in a movie you'd go that's kind of corny totally it is it's mind-boggling for sure the whole thing yeah and then on the other side of that you saw Dr. Love got arrested again tell everyone who Dr. Love is Dr. Love Dr. Love is a case that I covered a while ago right that was pre-COVID right mm-hmm sure definitely I think what

it is I don't remember it was it must have been I think it was but he's a young man who has a lot of hopes and dreams to be or at least dress like a doctor and have a doctor's office and see patients and he got arrested for it and it's a really kind of mind-boggling story and got out of jail and I guess the first job that he had relatively soon after he allegedly because I think he only got arrested began to embezzle it's just the kind of thing where he just keeps getting into trouble and then immediately if there's a news story about it people will tweet me and go look at him he's doing it again he's into fraud he's really really into fraud yeah hobby it is it's wild how do you get on the straight and narrow if

what you love deep down is fraud yeah that's tough yeah that is a tough one like it can't be a hot that's not a hobby learning about people who are into fraud is a hobby being into fraud he needs to go to Wall Street and start working with people who love embezzling they love different ways to steal and rip people off get in there applaud people who are into fraud that's like they reward them figure out a way to take 0.03% out of every check and put it in your personal bank account that is yes that's what is great go work for the US government something you know they were where they reward you for being a total fucking psychopath yeah a lot's happened over over Christmas break the full run yeah um should

we celebrate what's going on with exactly right at the moment yeah might as well get to the real business at hand okay here's some exactly right highlights that's our podcasting network everyone this week on parent footprint dr dan is joined by science journalist and author of the book mother brain chelsea conna boy so parents and people who are adjacent to children please check out parent footprint you'll love it if your child adjacent in any way yes and then over on I said no gifts with Bridger Weinerger wow this is an amazing booking writer director paul feig you might know him from the show freaks and geeks many other things he was the director of bridesmaids I think he also directs a couple episodes

of arrested development he's a legend he directs movies now and he's a guest on I said no gifts go over there and listen to their hilarious conversation to it and if you haven't heard the MFM store is now home to merch for other exactly right podcasts and since it's still the cozy season you can go check out some really fun sweatshirts from the podcast bananas this podcast will kill you I saw what you did and more so go to my favorite murder dot com and check out the store that's kind of cool because if you wanted to buy say an MFM mug but then you also love I saw what you did you know you can get all your shopping done in one spot that's right we made it easy for you it's all we want to do for you well

shit am I first I think we talked ourselves right up to the beginning of the actual podcast that was fast yeah all right in the aftermath of a shocking crime people always ask why why would someone do something like that what could possibly push them to commit such a horrible act was it money revenge what makes people like that tick I'm Candace DeLong host of the podcast killer psyche where I explain the thoughts motivation and behaviors of the most violent figures in history you may think you know these cases but trust me you do not using my decades of experience as an FBI agent and criminal profiler I dig deeper into the twisted psychology of why

many of the cases covered on killer psyche I actually worked on like the serial killer Ted Kaczynski the unabomber and Dennis Rader also known as BTK follow killer psyche wherever you get your podcast you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app okay well I'm first and this is a story a cold case that had a big update at the end of 2022 I thought I'd give everyone the background and the update and hopefully in 2023 we'll see some more updates on this historic huge case so this is the story of the boy in the box oh wow yeah this episode features pretty graphic depictions of child abuse including some mentions of sexual abuse which aren't graphic but they're mentioned so it just as

a warning to listeners so main sources using my story today is a New York Times article by David Stout a Newsweek article by Gerard Kanga Philadelphia Inquirer article by Jason Nark and a People Magazine article by Nicole Acosta and the rest you can find in our show notes so it's February 25th 1957 so we're going way far back a teenage boy has set up some illegal muskrat traps in an empty lot lined with bushes in the Fox Chase area of Philadelphia Pennsylvania so I think it's it's in the middle of Philly but I think it's kind of you know some open grassy lot area back in the fifties when they had grass in Philadelphia exactly mm-hmm he's checking on those illegal muskrat traps when he finds

a large cardboard box and he looks inside and he finds something terrifying he's freaked out but is afraid that if he calls the police it will take his animal traps away so he doesn't report what he finds or tell anyone about it a day later a college student is walking through the same lot he's sneaking around to spy on some girls walking home to their boarding school not cool no he notices something in the underbrush and he walks over to look and he sees that large cardboard box he looks closer and is horrified by what he sees he flees the scene and tries to put what he found in the back of his mind he doesn't want to report it but he's haunted by what he found and so he confides in his priests the next

day and finally the priest immediately tells him to call the police when the police are finally called it's now February 26 1957 officer Elmer Palmer is the first on the scene it's a cold and rainy day and he remembers shivering in his raincoat walking around the empty lot when he finds the box he says later it looked like a doll and then I saw it wasn't a doll the box is the body of a dead little boy this is the moment that the investigation into the horrible death of the boy in the box which will last decades begins medical examiners estimate that the boy in the box is between four and six years old he's found naked wrapped in a flannel blanket in this large box that was meant for a bassinet originally his fingernails

are trimmed and he is a crude haphazard haircut that seems to have been recent little cut hairs are found all over his body and his hair is really choppy his right hand and right foot are pruney like they may have been soaked in water and a custom made hat is found near the crime scene and the bassinet box has a serial number on it so police are sure they'll have this case solved really quickly medical examiners conclude that the boy in the box had been beaten to death it's clear that he was abused and neglected for quite some time before he died he is only thirty pounds and was forty and a half inches tall and that's just a little under three and a half feet and the average and healthy five year old

should weigh thirty to forty five pounds and be forty to forty five inches tall so he's really on the light small side he seems chronically malnourished and covered in weird scars that look like surgical incisions he still had all his baby teeth so no dental records exist for him when they check almost immediately the investigation hits a lot of snags because both the teenager and the college student stalled before reporting the body detectives have lost valuable time plus it's February in Philadelphia which means it's cold out the temperatures are really low which slows down the body's decomposition rate so it's impossible to determine the time of death or how long he's been in the box.

Detectives have three main clues from the crime scene that cardboard box the hat they found nearby and the blanket that the boy is wrapped in the blanket is a dead end it was mass produced and sold widely which makes it nearly impossible to trace but the box is from a local JC Penney department store they're able to figure out that this particular bassinet box is one of only twelve that were sold between December 3rd 1956 and February 16th 1957 which is just days before the boy in the box was discovered so they're able to track down eleven of those twelve bassinet buyers all but one this is impressive police work obviously because the store also is cash only so despite that they're able to track

down eleven of the buyers. They're able to find out a bit more about the hat police track down the store where it was purchased and the owner even remembers who bought it but the owner's description is really broad and unspecific she describes a white man in his early 20s and he's never found and never comes forward. So police are becoming desperate for leads detectives check hospitals orphanages and foster homes both in and out of Philly they make flyers with graphic photos of the boy in the box and distribute them widely these posters are disturbing I'm sure we've all seen them and feature images of his dead body and a plea for any information anyone might

have. At one point police even dress up the boy in the box in nice clothes and position him in a more life-like way for photographs so that he might be more identifiable which is it's so disturbing but it's also kind of they're trying their best they're trying to figure out what is going to actually get results yes but horrifying I mean it's disturbing for back then you know and and they're still they just hope that that's going to find out who this poor boy is right even though they've been following up on every lead and throwing all of their resources at this investigation the boy in the box case is not solved quickly like they'd hope leads run out he's buried in a potters field which is a grave site

for unidentified people he's buried with a donated plaque that reads heavenly father blessed this unknown boy and he becomes known as America's unknown child so here's some theories at the beginning of the case there's tons of theories flying around people speculate that the unnamed boy is a Hungarian refugee who fled to the United States after the country's revolution in 1956 they think he might be the son of a local Philadelphia roofer that people are suspicious of it's even proposed that he is the child of some carnival workers who had many of their children die mysteriously oh no oh like an old case yeah yeah oh wow police investigate all these leads thoroughly and they go nowhere several professionals

involved in this case really took the boy in the box to heart many even followed leads way after they'd retired up until they died Remington Bristow one of the medical examiners who worked on this case was extraordinarily dedicated to the boy in the box he visited his grave site regularly with little gifts and flowers he made sure that on the anniversaries of the boys murder that the case was in the news and Bristow even carried around a death mask of the boys face in his briefcase oh that's actually very smart like if he was looking into something and talk to somebody he could immediately say does this face look familiar to you right totally I mean like that's that is dedicated yeah he spent thousands

of dollars on his own money to investigate and even though there weren't many breakthroughs during his lifetime Bristow always believed that future technology would help solve this case and had creative approaches to investigating he spoke with the media a lot and said he quote didn't think this was a homicide it could have been accidental however people close to him say that he didn't actually believe that he was just trying to coax the parents to come forward Bristow died in 1993 without having seen this case solved and he's actually credited in a lot of articles that we read about keeping this case in the news so let's get more into some theories the first one I want to talk about is a theory proposed

by Bristow in 1960 he's contacted by a psychic from New Jersey and together they meet in the empty lot where the boy was discovered the psychic leads Bristow directly to a foster home about two miles away this foster home is run by a family and Bristow believes that the boy in the box might have been the illegitimate son of the daughter of the foster home's owner unfortunately despite thorough investigation this theory falls apart and later in 1998 a DNA test clears this family another theory comes from a Philadelphia woman who calls herself M in 2002 she comes forward with memories that her parents had bought a little boy in the mid 1950s oh she says her mother was extremely physically abusive allegedly keeping this

little boy hidden in the basement and torturing him for years nightmare uh-huh and remembers that one night the boy threw up during a bath after eating baked beans and M's mother beat him to death in a fit of rage she has this memory how awful is that and remembers her mom making her help dump the body in an empty lot where they found an empty box to hide him in so she has all these memories of that she says that a passing man stopped them and offered to help as they were struggling to move the box but they ignored him and drove away oh so that's her memory of what happened some investigators believe that M story is the key to the case the boy in the box did have some kind of brown substance in his stomach

when he died which something could have been the baked beans and additionally a motorist did report seeing two people one young and one old getting something out of a car near where the body was discovered so M first reported these memories to her psychiatrist who supported her and coming forward to the police but for some this throws doubt on her testimony because they claim her quote history of mental health issues makes her unreliable I disagree me now much more do you have to have your story line up right right for what it's worth neighbors who live near M's childhood home dismiss her story they say that the story is ridiculous and that there couldn't have been a little boy living in the basement which leads us

to another theory wait sorry the neighbors say that because like they never saw a little boy apparently yeah yeah no yeah so forensic artist Frank Bender proposes that the boy in the box might have been raised as a girl the only evidence to really support this fact is that the boy appears to have gotten such an abrupt haircut before his body was left in the box but so far there's been no leads about this story this theory or M story in 2008 Bender draws up sketches of the boy in the box with longer hair and styled as a girls in hopes that someone might recognize the child but so far there's been no leads that have come forward about this theory and M story remains unverified so this guy Bender

the one who proposed this race as a girl theory is a member of a special group called the Vidoc Society she might have heard of it's a members only crime solving club that describes itself as quote a venue where like-minded persons both in and outside the field of forensics could gather to discuss and debate crimes and mysteries it's also a big part of the boy in the box story because pretty much every theory that's been mentioned so far has been explored by this Philadelphia based group also many of the original investigators of this case joined the Vidoc Society after they retired so they could keep working on the case oh wow it's like part of the founding like the reason the group was founded it seems

like it yeah totally the Philadelphia police department and the Vidoc Society work closely together on this case moving forward so in 1998 police exhumed the boy in the box's body to collect new DNA samples and then he's reburied at the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia so he's no longer in a poppers field the cemetery donates a new plot and ever since then cemetery employees and community members have taken care of the gravesite so fast forward in 2019 the boy in the box is exhumed again and more DNA is collected the plan for this DNA is to apply more modern testing most importantly genealogical testing like what helped catch the Golden State killer a team of investigators including medical examiners and forensic genealogists

get to work they generate a usable DNA profile for the unknown boy and upload it to a database to find relatives so finally just last month on December 8th 2022 Philadelphia police department announces that they have finally figured out the name of America's unknown child wow Joseph Augustus Zarelli members of the Vidoc Society are thanked at the press conference it turns out they were able to make contact not only with one but several living siblings and relatives on both maternal and paternal sides whoa yeah Joseph's birth parents have passed away and their names were not announced in order to protect the privacy of living family members we now know that Joseph's birthday was January 13th 1953 and he was just four years old when

he died so this is still an open and active case obviously that's all the information they've released so far and police are asking for the public's help they have their suspicions about who was responsible for the death but investigations are ongoing during the recent press conference the Philadelphia police department talked about how they would be applying this genealogical forensic technique to other cold cases obviously this is important because there's so many unidentified victims out there who deserve to have their names back and one of those is another Philadelphia based cold case called the girl in the box when the girl in the box is discovered in 1962 so many of her circumstances are almost the same as the boy

in the box she's between four and six years old she's been horribly abused and she's seemingly impossible to identify but this case gets treated completely differently she's a young black girl and seemingly has no advocate to keep her memory alive she was buried in the same cemetery for unidentified people as the boy in the box but her grave was basically forgotten and in 2018 when forensic experts decided to exhume her body to gather DNA to apply these modern technologies they couldn't find her the plot where she was supposed to have been buried was empty and the city records from this 1960s weren't well kept and even though other nearby plots were searched her body has yet to be found oh so she they can't

find where she really was buried yeah so it's just these you know one horrible story after another cold cases need more people to care about them in order to have any chance of being solved the boy in the box had loads of people keeping his memory alive and because of those efforts 65 years later the case of Joseph Augustus Zarelli actually has a real chance of being solved and that is the story of the boy in the box whoa so we have yet to find out if M story is related yeah could be so we don't know it yeah we don't know anything and who knows when and if we will but there might be like an old relative who can finally talk yeah yeah or something that you know like somebody was keeping a family

secret for whatever reason and can now actually tell it especially if there was like horrible abuse totally totally oh wow yeah incredible yeah wild story one of those ones that I think true crime people have always just been like just so curious about this how can a child be found and not be identified it just seems so impossible you know but it's happens all the time obviously it happens all the time and it's the kind of thing where people bringing unwanted children into the world those children suffer yeah and that idea when you start talking about like let's check foster homes we should have a foster system set up or that would never even be considered because their children are protected and loved and which is not to

say that many are not yes but the ones that are not yeah and then basically don't have advocates or if your skin is the incorrect color yeah and then that happens to you and no one's gonna put in the time totally it's egregious and at least after 40 years something is or 50 years I guess yeah 70 years 65 years Jesus Christ well good I mean congratulations to those people who kept on investigating and stayed on it totally you know there's some like online sleuth that it has been like yeah dedicated for 30 years or something definitely I would love I would love to know about that someone is like well here's what I did right and I sent exactly yes so I'm gonna do the thing that you know I like to do which is

change gears and go in a very different and bizarre direction okay it's it's the craziest story but it's really old it's such a reflection of how old it is this is the amazing life and the questionable death of Cuba's first Olympic athlete Felix Carvajal oh I actually started reading this to my dad as I was going over it because it was so insane that I was like dad listen to this so the sources for today a heavily cited article by a writer named Liam Boylan Pet for Lope magazine Lope entitled the barely believable life of Felix Carvajal there's also an uncredited courier journal article from 1905 called fleet of foot and tireless is Felix Carvajal the Cuban and then there's a 1906 article by Robert

Edgren that ran in multiple newspapers called the Cuba well represented in marathon race at Athens the queer story of Felix Carvajal all right so the rest of the sources are in our show notes if you want to look at those and read those so we're starting in 1907 that's 125 years ago backwards exactly who can do it so it's 1907 and a cruise ship docks in Vienna Cuba where it has just arrived from Spain the passengers file off board and they move through customs handing over their documents to the customs agents for inspection before entering the country everything is business as usual until one very disheveled man approaches the customs counter the agent checking his paperwork is instantly suspicious not only

because the man looks very dirty but he's also just landed from a long transatlantic trip yet he is carrying no luggage when the agent checks the man's papers his suspicion turns to shock the name on the paperwork is well known to him and to many Cubans Felix Carvajal Cuba's first Olympic athlete just three years before in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis Felix made a huge name for himself in the marathon event but this messy looking man couldn't possibly be Felix Carvajal because Felix Carvajal is dead so now we have to rewind about 30 years I'll tell you about basically the beginning of the life of Felix De La Caradad Caraval Isoto he's born in March of 1875 in Havana Cuba his family is very poor

and he doesn't have much in the way of material possessions but what he does have is a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy God I'd love to have that Felix is always on the move and he's a little cocky so so much so that when he's 14 years old he has no athletic credentials to his name he is not ranked rated anything and he challenges a much older decorated Spanish athlete to an endurance race so at this point in history Spain has controlled Cuba for hundreds of years tensions between the two countries are palpable so this race actually becomes political the two runners start at eight in the morning and they are still racing well into the evening when his Spanish competitor finally throws in the towel

around 5 p.m. 14 year old Felix keeps going for another two hours my god so he wins and then he does a kind of in-your-face thing by the time Felix finally stops at 7 p.m. he's been running for 11 hours straight the website Cuba Paradisas says that quote the joy of Felix's neighbors and friends was intense and they carried him on their shoulders through the streets Felix is so overcome with emotion that he burst into tears he's a hometown hero basically so by 1895 Felix is 20 years old he's 5 foot 3 and he has this enormous mustache like a glorious gigantic a little bit twisty at the end mustache very nice at this point Cuba is in a full-fledged war against Spain for its independence and

Felix is serving as the personal mailman for Calixto Garcia who is a top Cuban general the job requires Felix to run up to 30 miles a day delivering important military messages all across the island yeah right it's incredibly dangerous work also to us very tiring and before long Felix winds up on the radar of the Spanish military and at one point he is almost killed by an enemy soldier but when the war ends in 1898 despite his service Felix is barely scraping by he takes jobs as a civilian postman he's a hotel doorman he's a barber he's a handyman and then the little free time he does have he spends it running so he's never had the means to travel to a formal race like the Boston Marathon but still Felix

is confident that he's one of the best long distance runners there is so when he hears that the 1904 Olympic Games will be held in St. Louis he becomes consumed with the idea of competing in the marathon of the Olympic Games and winning the gold for his country Felix figures that if he can just get there he'll bring glory to Cuba and get recognized finally as one of the world's best athletes gotta be that cocky right not be nice to just be like it's me I just need to be able to show up yeah I'm the best so yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking that way no absolutely not it helps yeah I think for sure that in a gigantic mustache that truly looks like a small broom okay but

in the early 1900s getting to Missouri from Havana is tough enough but for Felix who's basically destitute it's borderline impossible so he decides to go ask the mayor for help but once he gets there he stopped outside the mayor's office store by secretary who is not buying his sales pitch and it's hard to blame her Felix is a complete unknown he has no proof to back up his claims that he is this excellent athlete so she asks him to leave but Felix can't let it go he pushes his way past her he goes into the mayor's office where the elegantly dressed man is sitting in a big leather chair puffing a cigarette and the mayor is clearly taken aback by this scraggly looking intruder and like a secretary

he thinks Felix is delusional he's not buying it either in fact the mayor reportedly laughs in Felix's face before telling him to get out but Felix is not discouraged of course not I mean can you imagine just not giving a shit about rejection to this degree he takes matters into his own hands exits the mayor's office says goodbye to the secretary steps out into the plaza and starts running Felix completes one full lap around the building then another he just keeps going one article says that each time he made another lap quote more people were watching for him and as he passed they could not restrain a smile next time they roared with laughter clerks and office boys swelled the crowd of spectators

so legend has it that at six o'clock that night the mayor who has been inside the whole time with his blinds drawn packs up his stuff heads home for the day and when he steps outside he's shocked to discover that an enormous crowd is gathered to watch Felix run in circles around the building he's inspired to march back to his desk cut a check handed over to Felix saying quote this is for your transportation to st. Louis now go and do your best nice right it's a great story it's not entirely verifiable yeah people say it's more likely the Felix fund raised for the Olympics all on his own there are stories that he ran around Havana with a sign strapped to his body that said quote help an athlete that wants to participate

in the Olympics but either way the truth is he raised enough money to make it to the United States yeah so he sets out for st. Louis beginning with a trip on a steamship to New Orleans but then once he gets off that steamship and gets into New Orleans he needs to find a way to get to Missouri and he's already running low on money he didn't raise enough money to cover food hotels or any athletic wear that he needs to raise he just basically has ticket money yeah and a tiny bit more but he's not stressed about it not Felix instead he has too much fun hanging out in New Orleans bars and casinos and he ends up losing every excess penny he has playing dice now yeah so now he has absolutely no means to get to st. Louis

which is 700 miles away from New Orleans but he's not discouraged he can't pay for transportation so he figures he'll just walk there so he sets out occasionally hitching a ride here and there and he ends up making it to st. Louis just four hours before the olympic marathon begins love it when he arrives at the starting line he hasn't eaten anything for days his body's exhausted he's wearing the worst possible outfit for marathoning which is a billowy long sleeve shirt long slacks which are his only pair of pants heavy homemade boots which weigh around four pounds total and to top it all off a felt beret and it's 90 degrees outside so it's it's not just improper clothing for running but it is a terrible outfit just for

walking around outside yeah the website cuba paradistas says that the crowd of onlookers jeer at felix they quote saw this scrawny five foot tall runner and doubted that he could even finish half the race end quote so at the starting line an american named martin charidan pulls out his pocket knife and cuts felix's slacks into bermuda length shorts to basically to help felix run better and a 1907 article in the st. louis post dispatch says that felix quote carefully hid the pieces so that he could sew them on again after the race because they were the only trousers he had so he took the bottoms of his pants and like put him in his pockets so he could keep them now there's a really great picture of all of the marathoners like before the race and they all

are basically wearing like white tank tops with numbers on them and white shorts and some of them are wearing belts like they almost look like weightlifters belts and then felix is standing over there in like a dress shirt and then these kind of bermuda shorts and then big old boots so the men's marathon is billed as the top athletic event at the 1904 olympics so there's thousands of spectators and they're gathered in a brand new stadium to watch the 32 runners take off so at 303 p.m. the starting pistol fires the runners start by running five laps inside the stadium and then they move outside where they are hit with a wall of heat because it's 90 degrees outside so it's so insane this marathon course is strenuous it's hilly and it is arguably unsafe a journalist named

Karen Abbott writes that quote the men had to constantly dodge cross-town traffic delivery wagons railroad trains trolley cars and people walking their dogs so it's not in any way fenced off they just have to run through st. louis wow kind of great it's later described by one marathoner as quote the most difficult course a human being was ever asked to run over so on top of that most of the outdoor track is dirt road it's the late summertime in the american midwest so they're on certain parts of the course there are inches of thick dust and as the as the runners move through they kick it up into their own mouths and faces all the passing vehicles carriages and pedestrians add to a literal dust cloud that follows the runners as they go and before long multiple

athletes drop out because they can't see breathe or they're vomiting dirt cool so that's bad for running apparently how would we know so now but there's felix weirdly he seems to be handling it all like pro for the first few miles he's leading the group which is a miracle considering how hungry tired and thirsty he must be but what's interesting is all the runners are thirsty because of course today it's a no-brainer that hydration is essential for athletes especially on a hot summer day but back in 1904 it was up for debate so the organizers in st. louis are using this race as a research opportunity to test whether quote purposeful dehydration improves athleticism oh no if we're going to do the olympics we might as well do some scientific testing at the same time guinea pigs

yeah so accordingly organizers have only set out two water stations along the marathon route one is at mile six the other at mile 12 wow so everyone's thirsty and dusty it's all a recipe for disaster before long the race devolves into absolute mayhem a south african runner named len tanyani who makes history as one of the first black olympians has an incredible start but he's later sabotaged by you guessed it a feral dog that chases him a mile off course oh no just rando danger all through then an american runner named william garcia collapses on the side of the road and has to be hospitalized because dust has quote coded his esophagus and ripped his stomach lining oh my god and they later say that had he gone on aided an hour longer

he might have bled to death jesus it's kind of like a post apocalyptic marathon in a lot of ways yeah there's a lot of extra shit happening in fact stomach issues soon start wreaking havoc on a lot of the marathoners a front runner named sam meller taps out around mile 13 because of debilitating cramps and then a runner named fred lores drops out in style and hitches a ride back to the stadium in a car yeah so now our boy felix who's clip clapping along in his big boots is falling behind but not because of exhaustion or improper running gear or dehydration he's trailing because he's such a ham that he can't keep himself from stopping to greet spectators along the route oh my god he keeps having conversations with people in broken english

at one point he even steals a couple peaches from someone on the sidelines he loves having an audience but of course it comes at a cost later race officials will determine that felix loses an entire hour to these trackside chats wow so nevertheless he persists but with each mile felix's hunger intensifies eventually he can't ignore it anymore luckily the course rungs alongside an apple orchard so felix decides to take yet another break from the race he hops a fence and goes into the orchard and helps himself to a generous number of apples but in yet another unfortunate turn of events those apples turn out to be rotten no within minutes felix has shooting stomach cramps and is in so much pain he has to lay down and rest oh my god

okay we're back this is this is so weird for everyone at home that we had just had a 24 hour pause in this podcast because yes mid story yesterday as karen was telling her story i was trying so hard to keep it together but i as we started recording had the was getting a migraine that kept coming on and on and then throughout karen's story which was like people throwing up and people getting sick and i i had to stop and be like i can't do this today and i went and threw up i get a migraine like once every few months and i have to throw up and lay down so they're the worst it's the worst truly the worst thank you for letting me pause but we're back yeah so of course oh we we jumped ahead 24 hours we're different people is this and for you it seems the same

it's so different and i have different pajamas on even i yeah i have the same clothes okay all right so let's get back into it i feel a hundred percent better okay good we're getting right back in all right we're mid we're mid marathon wouldn't it be interesting i was about to say for those of you who just joined us what if someone started the podcast here that would be really fascinating that would be weird they accidentally skipped forward okay so now up ahead on the marathon route a way ahead of felix is a man named thomas hicks who in fact is a professional clown i love it he loves to bring joy to the people and also he loves to run run run away so he's managed to reach the first place spot in this race but things are not going well for him either back at mile 10 he'd

exhausted himself sprinting to the front of the pack so now he's depleted he wants to give up oh this is the part that broke you yeah because but his trainers aren't ready to let that happen so thomas hicks trainers run onto the course and give him one of the first known performance enhancing substances ever used at the olympics oh the river that i was so sick yesterday i was well while we were recording i kept getting lower and lower on the couch and like almost laying down and and then i hit her with this fact toy which is mid marathon a guy's trainers run on and give him a combination of strict nine and egg whites that's right i and then i was like we need to georgia that's when georgia called it and said this marathon podcast recording session is over

i mean that's how good your story was you know hey we're making it real yeah please let us know if we instigated any other migraines or really anything it's pretty challenging this story yeah so the trainers come on and give him a basically a a very strange like a keto egg white strict nine omelette don't try this at home anyone yeah apparently back then well in small amounts strict nine which is also found in rat poison used to be sometimes used as a stimulant oh interesting the idea that anybody survived yes back then it's incredible and they also these trainers also have brandy on hand because quote runners at the time apparently believed against all evidence that alcohol would give them a boost and champagne was often drunk during races instead

of water no just no yes i mean this is an argument to become interested in history yeah any students out there it was so weird back then you need to find out what they were doing truly against all evidence it sounds like a lot of people today actually yeah that's true it's like i don't know i don't know about science i'm gonna do this on my own i have depression i probably should drink champagne through it yeah that's what's going to do it hey it's me so so meanwhile fred lores you might remember him he was the runner who forfeited because he was having stomach cramps he got into a car and he was heading back to the stadium which is where the finish line was so along the way of him riding back to the stadium in a car he's smiling and waving to spectators

you know he's remembering the glory of the race and then he decides to do something that ended up being very controversial as a crowd of spectators and race officials watch he hops out of the car gets back on the marathon route and starts running the race again in front of everybody he actually ends up running all the way back into the stadium he goes inside he crosses the finish line and inside of course the people inside the stadium are on the wiser so thousands of people in the stadium erupt in cheers thinking they're watching the man win the gold for the marathon yeah bro bro all the way to the point where alice roosevelt who was president theater roosevelt's daughter she's there to give out medals and she puts a wreath on fred's head and she is

about to put the gold medal around his neck but before she does a mob burst through the stadium doors and exposes fred as a fraud he would later go on to apologize and claim it was just a joke that he took too far which i really relate to and understand where it's like wouldn't it be funny if yeah and then you don't you know i'll tell them after i'm not gonna keep it it's just yeah i'll let alice roosevelt know this isn't real sure well let's go back to the orchard where felix is literally laying on the ground napping right the apples another thing that probably made you feel awful i don't know why it was like the power of storytelling i was like this is me they're gonna make me do this next i feel like i can't run a marathon get up and run yeah so back

in the orchard felix is recovering from his rotten apple poisoning he manages to get himself back over the fence he gets himself back onto the course he starts running again but he feels like shit he has knots in his stomach he's having hot and cold flashes oh my god i'm glad we didn't get to this oh seriously he's having hot and cold flashes he's actually in so much pain that his vision is spotty this is so ironic i it's so dead on yeah he's also so far behind at this point that the race officials have assumed he's just dropped out because he's that far behind they aren't even charting his progress anymore but then he gets a second wind which if you remember back in it when he was 14 challenging that spanish athlete right he ran for 11 hours this man

he's got it in him yeah so within minutes felix has run through the pain he's caught up to another marathoner and then another now race officials start tracking his progress again they're like hold on a second felix is back and then they watch in total shock as he moves into 18th place picking up speed passing a few more runners moves into 11th place then 7th then 6th damn right now meanwhile hicks the professional clown runner who had the omelet strict nine omelet strict nine omelet he's still holding down first place but he is not doing well he is now hallucinating he can barely walk right which you would you know it's it's not has nothing to do with his athleticism his trainers have literally poisoned him yeah old school style even though he's not running he's

doing what was described as more of a shuffle he finally enters the stadium now a writer named mike vago says that hicks quote had to be bodily carried over the finish line as his trainers lifted him off the ground while he continued to shuffle his oh like a dog going into water oh my god that's so humiliating by the end of this race hicks had lost eight pounds of water weight oh my god they say that he would have died had there not been four doctors on site to immediately treat him once he crossed the finish line yeah so now with the the first runner having won legitimately the first real real runner who really earned it i think felix charges ahead he's now moving toward the front of the pack in this unbelievably livable upset from last place the 1905 edition

of the courier journal newspaper describes felix running style as quote crossing one foot over the other like a skater would been making a turn that's that's how he ran forward which is kind of amazing maybe it was because of those gigantic boots sure so finally covered in dust and sweat felix enters the stadium he sprints his last lap and he throws himself over the finish line as he catches his breath a race official comes to congratulate him and this is where felix learns his final position in the race after everything walking from new orleans running entirely if not prohibitively overdressed wearing homemade boots on his feet stopping to chat getting sick from apples and then taking a nap all of it georgia getting a migraine all of it i think he's been through

he manages to finish fourth place in the 1904 olympic marathon holy shit felix as you might guess he starts sobbing right there in the finish line because he's so heart broken that he didn't win buddy there's always next time right there really is with this guy yeah so even though he didn't win of course he gets a ton of attention after this race reporters go on the record saying that despite his fourth place finish felix was arguably the strongest runner and only lost because he was totally unprepared and distracted during the event yeah a little bit and this also they don't even because it was the turn of the century they don't even talk about the socioeconomic factors that held him back like a lack of transportation money

proper athletic gear any of that somewhere to sleep the night before like properly sleep he walked there he kind of did win in a lot of ways but even as his profile rises he's still broke he can't afford to pay for his trip home after this event so felix sticks around in the united states hoping to make some money he joins a local running club and he continues training a 1905 st lewis democrat article describes his training regimen saying quote almost any day a person may go into the gym and see felix plugging around the track two hours later a return visit will still show felix going around and around sometimes sprinting and other times barely moving at a dog trot but never walking wow he's keeping it up yeah it's felix so he also manages

to get into a little bit of trouble during his stint in the united states he goes to visit friends in new york and during that time he quote jogged beside cable cars until police arrested him and sent him to belview hospital as an insanity suspect so but that was just his style like it was like he and i'm sure he was probably talking to people on those cable cars is my guess so we feel expense three days um ed belview before his friends finally figure out where he is and they go pick him up and when they do the police ask them how long has he been crazy and to which his friends reply quote he isn't crazy he's a runner so when felix goes back to cuba he brings back with him all these medals and prizes from races in chicago washington and beyond he is even profiled by a

cuban magazine basically he is you know he's now a lauded celebrated long distance runner and now he's got his eyes on the 1906 athens marathon so he's like i'm going to do it again this is going to be my yeah life calling so after all that training and experience felix is certain he can win that race and the rest of the world thinks so too but even with all the acclaim he's earned as a premier olympic athlete felix is still clocking into his postman job every day and trying to earn a living but unlike before no one questions his athletic abilities so for his trip to the 1906 athens marathon felix raises enough money to fully fund his trip to europe as well as pay for a trainer meals and proper running gear you know what other people call the basic

right standard ship yeah so when it's time for him to leave for Greece felix boards a ship that will take him from cuba to italy which is the first stop on his long trip to athens and now there's no doubt in his mind that this marathon is the one that will catapult him to a whole new level of sports stardom and change his life for the good but once he gets off the ship in italy felix vanishes after devoting everything he has into this event the day of the race comes and goes and he is a no-show but yeah so days turn to weeks weeks turn to months and still no one has heard from felix one newspaper in 1907 says quote the end of felix carvajal became an unexplained mystery he had disappeared like a ship lost it's in a storm at sea leaving

no trace at last it was generally believed that he had lingered in italy and had like a fool shown his cuban gold in some neapolitan dive and drifted out on the tide that night with his throat cuss subtle quite an assumption felix's obituary runs in cuban newspapers and his fans and fellow countrymen mourn the loss of cuba's first olympian so now we're back where we started at the very beginning at the customs counter in havana the agent looking at the man who's just handed over a dead man's travel documents and because it's the early 1900s when everything was way more chill the agent lets him pass without any further questions i thought you're dead go on in thought you're dead maybe you're just using this guy's papers whatever it is welcome to cuba and then

whatever doubts the agent has are quickly erased because as he watches this disheveled man goes from a walk to a full sprint and now there's no mistaking it it actually indeed is the felix carba wow so it turned out the reason felix disappeared it's not creepy it's not mysterious his throat was not even attempted to be slit he got the date of the race wrong bro it's my life story bro just like some basic you had one job you have one job you cared so much about this race that you focused on the wrong detail so by the time felix gets to Athens the marathon had already happened oh buddy so instead of jumping on the next ship home he decides to make the best of it and he ran races in france spain and italy

okay before he finally earned enough prize money to make the trip home so now word quickly spreads that cuba's first olympian is alive and well and newspapers start correcting their early reporting with publications as far away as north america running headlines like cuban marathoner runner carvajal comes to life so felix is back in cuba he keeps on training in 1908 he's in his mid 30s he goes professional the next year he's billed as the man to watch in a marathon in new york state 20 years later when he's 53 he runs over 4 000 laps in six days around a havana mall holy shit and 20 years after that no january yeah in january of 1949 when he is 73 years old a young athlete from argentina challenges felix to an endurance race oh my god just like when he was

a kid and of course he manages to pull a crowd because it's felix and they love him but he ends up losing the race because he's 73 years old okay good yes i would love it if he still had his boots on after the race he sticks around chats with fans that's what he's really in it for obviously and this will be his last race because just a few days later felix carvajal dies at the age of 73 again the local papers run his obituary but sadly this time there are no corrections so over the course of his life felix carvajal won 55 trophies for marathons and races around the world he is remembered in cuba as andarine or the walker and his story has endured for over a century countless magazine features books newspaper articles have been written about him he was even

the subject of a 30 minute cuban tv special and he's remembered not only as an incredible athlete who was born with unique greatness but as someone who lived life to the very fullest writer leon boylan pet summarizes felix's legacy beautifully saying quote living in a shack in a poor neighborhood is not the life expected for an olympian the country's first olympian nothing is said about his family or his personal life the profiles and newspaper clippings hinted at it but it seems that carvajal was never able to escape poverty he was born with almost nothing showed up to his races with almost nothing and died with almost nothing the few times he had enough money to travel he took advantage of it he saw the world and he always did it running by all accounts even

when he was down he ran his ass off and that is the legend of cuba's first olympian felix de la caradad carvajal wow wow right yeah legendary for sure a 2023 inspirational kickoff yeah it's feel good no matter what do it let's be like this guy it's almost like he invented just do it the phrase just do it but it's almost like nike owes him a couple hundred billion dollars that's right very cool that was great i'm glad i stuck around for it me yeah i'm glad you came back i really appreciate it i think maren mclashan our researcher is the one who suggested that story and she was like i know it's crazy because there's not it you know it's certainly not really true crime except for his disappearance yes but the story itself is so truly not so that it's gonna be fun to talk

about good one i love it all right well great job that was maybe the longest podcast we've ever done yeah 24 hours i think yeah at least 24 yeah we did it we did great job thanks everybody for listening that's right for being with us i think we're coming up on our seven-year anniversary by the by we fucking are holy shit yeah me you steven we've been doing this fucking thing for seven years so crazy thanks everyone yeah we're gonna have to have a celebration but thank you guys for especially our day one listeners our early days listeners everybody that is i mean this you know we say it all the time it's a crazy thing to be able to do this for a living i just told you that story you got to have a migraine in the middle yeah we didn't have a boss that came in and

told us we were both fired that's right i love it pretty amazing yeah thanks everyone we appreciate you and thanks steven for being here with us this whole time yeah and stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie this has been an exactly right production our senior producer is hannah kyle creighton our producer is alahandra keck this episode was engineered and mixed by steven ray morris our researchers are maren mcclashan and sarah blare jankins email your hometowns and fucking her a's to my favorite murder at gmail.com follow the show on instagram and facebook at my favorite murder and twitter at my fave murder goodbye listen follow leave us a review on amazon music apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

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