My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 365 - You Don't Ever Know

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

On today's episode, Karen and Georgia cover Theodore Durrant, aka the "Demon of the Belfry," and the ghost ship, the Mary Celeste.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.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. Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Music Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstar. That's Karen Kilgariff.

We're both wearing Mr. Roger Style sweaters right now. Oh, we are. Don't you feel a little bit like I, I'm doing a forced cozy on my side because I'm like, it's maybe 62 degrees. Yeah. And it's. Which is cozy weather. It really is. Yeah.

You could start a fire if I could. Start a fire. And your fireplace or just in general. Because you're angry. In the backfield. Oh. Backfield. Yeah.

Definitely. Do it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are wearing Mr. Rogers. RIP.

Style sweaters. He's number one forever. I'll never forget. That's right. Watching that documentary on a, on a flight. I'm sure it was one up to one of our shows. And I was only like 15 minutes in and I was crying so hard. I had to turn it off because I was making the businessman sitting next to me so uncomfortable.

Good. I couldn't like wipe my tears away enough my sleeves were soaking wet. It was. Oh my God. You're just like splashing him with tears. With childhood trauma. Nostalgic childhood trauma. Yeah.

Everywhere all over the place. What have you been doing in this weather? One thing I did. I found a TV show that I think you're going to love that you might have found already. It's British. Okay. It's a British show. So there's one check in your favor.

Great. And the nun from Dairy Girls is in it. Hell yeah. Siobhan McSweeney. I was just randomly trying to find a show to like a feel good show this weekend. And cause I was home alone for the weekend and I, and I don't want to get scared, you know. So I need something happy. So it's called extraordinary and it's on Hulu.

Did you see it? It's basically, it's like, okay, it's a comedy. It's in England at the premise is it's this girl who's like 25 and she's, it's kind of this mix between like Dairy Girls and Fleabag. And in this world, which is basically our world except everyone at 18, when they turn 18, get their superpower, whatever it may be, and everyone has a different one. But she is this like 25 year old kind of loser who hasn't,

who never got her superpower. She's like the only person in the world. And she's trying to figure it out. It's so charming. It's called extraordinary. That sounds really amazing. I thought you were talking about Maeve Higgins had a film out with Will Forte from three years ago called extraordinary.

And for a second, I thought that's what you were going to start describing. And I was like, it just seemed a little from the past. So now there's two recommendations with the title extraordinary. There you go. What more do you need? That sounds good. It's really charming and messy. And I like it.

I took a recommendation of yours, but I had friends in town and we went to El Coyote. Yes. And that restaurant, if there was ever a restaurant in Los Angeles, that's worth the wait because there's always a wait. You can't make a reservation and everyone wants to go there. It is like a Mexican Christmas 365, 24 seven, blah, blah, blah. It's just like the most standard Mexican food. But I got to tell you, their chips and dip,

like their pico de gallo is incredible. Yeah. I love the food. It's Michelin star. It's so good. I call it Disneyland Mexican food. You know what I mean? Where it's like, it's kitschy Mexican food, but I fucking love it.

It's so those crunchy tacos are like something straight out of 1975. And it's where Sharon Tate had her last meal. So you can tell your friends that when you go there to everyone. And what I thought was interesting is we all, because it was a group of friends who hadn't seen each other since kind of for a while. Not, not pre COVID, but also it had been a long time. Cause we all see each other so much more. And we all had the same conversation that you and I had last show about the weird.

What I'm like now calling in my mind, like this social dysphoria that we're all experiencing post lockdown, social dysphoria where we don't know where we belong in the social like stream. We don't know where to jump in where everything seems maybe a little dangerous, a little too cold, a little list, a little that, then you do it and you have the best time. And you're like, why don't I go out all the time? But then you're like, Oh, it's cause I never go out. And that's why I liked it this much. And it's not always like everybody was talking about that.

It was hilarious. And I'm like, Oh, this people need to process this. Yeah. You know, another thing is I don't know how I dress now. Like when we went into lockdown, I was 39 and now I'm 42. And I, my body's not the same. I don't have the same style. I don't have the same patience for the style I had before with the fussy vintage shit.

So I don't know what to put on when I want to leave the house. So I just don't leave the house. Can I tell you, you dress like Mr. Rogers and that's right. That's right. It's a good look. He was very, he was really kind of fit and ready. Sure. He switched in and out of sweaters a lot, but he also wore.

I do that too. What's better than throwing on or taking off a sweater? Takes his shoes off and put slippers on when he comes in the house. I do that too. That's so you. It's so me. Just give over to Mr. Rogers chic. We're calling it.

Your hair like Mr. Rogers like get it above the ears. Dare me, dare me. Dare me to do it. I'll do it. And then get some of those nice like always ironed pants. What are they called? Like slacks, slacks, stay pressed, stay pressed. Yes.

Some stay pressed slacks. Yes. That'll be nice. That'll be good. That'll look good on me. That's my new era of dress. Can I recommend a podcast? Yeah.

Can I recommend two? Yeah. One I just started, but I love to do that because of this one I believe in, but. Okay. So the first one I just started, but believe in it's because it's from the people who brought you murder in Oregon. Oh yeah. That was a great one.

Legendary. Post Lauren Bright Pacheco. I hope I'm saying that correctly. I believe I am. So it's about, this is a season three of on that same RSS feed. It's called murder in Miami and that same columnist from the Oregonian Phil Stanford. It's his story of moving to Florida and getting involved in stuff down there. And it's great because that guy, what made murder in Oregon such a listenable.

Totally. It's a story of the murder of Michael Frank, but it's how this one columnist really kind of wouldn't let it go. Right. And lost his job. It's an amazing. Love those stories. It's really good.

Okay. So murder in Miami. Okay. Murder in Miami. It's Phil Stanford's back to tell you how it is to be a journalist, which I just find so compelling. But then there's another one from BBC and it's called the boy in the woods and that host. Yeah.

That host is Winifred Robinson and she tells this story that is, it's a very sad child murder, very disturbing, told so beautifully. They get these interviews. It's just, you know, BBC style. They're out like in the location interviewing people and following. And apparently Winifred Robinson was a journalist on the story when it first broke and she's basically going back to get the full kind of comprehensive story. When did it happen?

The crime, the murder, the early nineties. Okay. Oh yeah. Right. I'm going to listen to that one. It's great. The boy in the woods. Okay.

And you have a hometown to read us. Oh, and then going into a, let's call it community mailbag. Okay. Our producer Alejandra, thank you. She found this. It was a hometown that was related to the story I did last week about Houdini. So it says, I'm not going to read you the subject line because it's really good. It says, hello to all.

This is the third time I've submitted the story, but I refuse to give up because I think it's a great one. And the timing may finally be right since you just shared your Houdini story. That's keeping it positive. When you're not getting the results you want, you just keep going for it. Try, try again. Yeah. My great grandfather's name was JB Rine and he coined the term extrasensory perception

or ESP. Ooh. Mm-hmm. He was also part of the community of people aiming to debunk mediums at the time, which brings me to my story. Houdini was in Boston in the 20s demonstrating the tricks phony mediums like Meena Marjorie Crandon used to use on a live audience. Houdini had discredited Marjorie's practices two years earlier and JB authored a public

damning expose about her after sitting in her seance and realizing it was a scam. After the show, JB was introduced to Houdini backstage. While they were talking about their experiences with mediumship, Houdini surreptitiously slipped a foot out of his shoe and pinched JB hard on the leg with his toes. Houdini then explained to a confused JB that mediums often use toe dexterity to manipulate miracles. Claiming these mysterious pinches in the dark came from the beyond. His toe flexibility also helped him be such a great escape artist.

Wow. When I know right, when JB went home he noticed his leg had a huge bruise. Holy shit. And then it just goes, thank you so much for all you do. My great aunt and dad helped me research this a bit for you. And we're so excited to hear a little family tale be shared. Stay sexy and keep those toes nimble, Megan. Who the fuck knew toe dexterity?

Just grabbing at you like a weird little crab. A little, little biting turtle snapping at you all the time. To prove his point about spiritualist God, Houdini was on one. I know what my new hobby is going to be, is getting that toe dexterity down. And then you, when you're doing your Mr. Roger shoot change, that's when you pinch people. Vince, get over here. Snap. Out of the blue.

Thank you very much, Megan, for sending that in. Because I love a follow-up. I love a follow-up. Yeah. I have a follow-up, actually, that Steven sent me. Perfect. He texted me the other day that his friend Carly, who's an armadillo scientist, said, Dude, Georgia is talking about falling in a cistern in this episode.

And that was like a very real hazard I had to be briefed on during my masters. Some of the line I was trapping armadillos on was a wildlife refuge that had old cisterns. We think we know where most of them are at, but there might be more, so watch your step. Cisterns are a very real threat. Wow. And most of us have either never heard of that, or we think of the ones that are on the top of buildings. Yeah.

Yeah. Rural areas. We've got to watch out for those cisterns and those armadillos, I guess. That's really good. What is the word I'm looking for? Background information? Or really good, kind of like, it's not the main thing. It's like information on how to…

Secondary information? Detail. That's all I meant. The word I was trying to find was detail. Detail. Love it. I covered the Doodler, who's a San Francisco serial killer from the 70s. That was in episode 184.

The SFPD just increased the reward for the Doodler. So it's been, last Friday was its 49th year as a San Francisco murder case. This guy is a serial killer. He used to go into gay bars. He would sketch people's faces, basically, assameth that was okay, use it as an icebreaker. The two men would leave together, and then one of the two men would end up murdered. That happened over and over, and the Doodler was never caught. Basically, they're trying to, with an age-progressed picture, try to see if they can get any more

information to identify who it is, even if he's like to basically to see if they can find him now. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. ERM highlights. For what you did, Danielle and Millie have curated an episode in recognition of Black History Month, featuring the films Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned, both of which

star none other than Aliyah, whose career was cut short upon her death at age 22 in 2001. I covered that tragic story in episode 304. Also Lady to Lady is live at the SF sketch fest this week. That should be really good. A live show at the sketch fest. You can't beat that. Heather and Lisa of That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, have been on a roll lately.

They were recently bartenders on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, which is so freaking rad. On this week's episode of the podcast, Beverly DeAngelo from National Lampoon's Vacation Films and Cole Miner's Daughter is their freaking guest, which is, wow, big. Also Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and my favorite murder cares about you and the gifts that you want to give on that day to whoever and for whatever reason that you want. We have best friend heart pins in the MFM store that say SSDGM on them, and you can buy them

for your friend if you want to observe Valentine's Day. Maybe call it a thing that's about the two of you, specifically like Valentine's Day. Like Valentine's Day, Karen? How can we end this stupid, stupid holiday if we keep participating in it? That's the question I want to ask. Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day, it's so stupid. Come on.

Oh, it's a scam. It's a total scam. It's all a scam. It's all a scam. It's like that thing of like, you don't feel bad because you have friends. And it's like, well, then what if you don't feel bad? You don't have to launch a counter holiday. Right.

That's all. Right. Get right with it. A counter attack. 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 podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. You're first this week, right? I am first this week, yeah. All right. I'm going to settle in and listen. This story came from a suggestion that was sent in, so I'm going to read you this email because it's really good and it included a PDF of a scan of the front of the book they

got this story idea from. Wow. Thorough. Thorough says great crimes of San Francisco on it. Okay, there we go. Can you see that? Yeah, yeah. Old school book.

Love it. Classic. Yeah. Pulpy cover. And so it says, dear Karen, and then immediately in parentheses, it says, I love you, Georgia, but this story's suggestion is much more in Karen's wheelhouse. It says, on a recent trip to Green Apple Books, fourth generation SF native here, I found the following.

And then they say, included a photo so you get the full understanding of the 70s cover art. And it truly is so beautiful. And then they say, well, home with a recent COVID isolation, I read all of it. It's a collection of essays and almost all of the cases were unknown to me. I mean, the Phosphorescent Bride, yes, please. The one that stopped me in my tracks, and which I think would be an excellent tale for MFM, is that of Theater Durant, also known as the Demon and the Bell Free.

I'll let your researchers do their thing, but this is quite a case. The location is also one of particular Bad Luck in San Francisco, the Immanuel Baptist Church, which used to be located in the Mission. Do you ever hear about that place? No. Me either. Even prior to the Durant case, there were other tales of tragedy involving the church, which I'll tell you about later.

Eventually it was torn down due to the bad feeling it had, especially after the Durant case. It was like, oh, I'm bombed. I'm not doing a good church job. Okay, so anyways, the essay in this book about it is really something, so I scanned it for you. Fairly short and written by Thomas Duke, which you will see in the editor's intro, was a celebrated SFPD captain who wrote a history of great crimes.

His tone is very dry and matter of fact, considering how horrifying the subject is. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Wish the scanner had picked up the proper tone of amber aging of the paper, but we can't have everything. I tried to look it up if MFM had covered this one before and I couldn't find anything, so I really hope you'll look into it. With all my sincerest best wishes, I cannot figure out if that truly is sincere or sarcastic. I like both.

With all my sincerest best wishes, Annie Wilson. Lovely. Right? That's someone who they went and did research and then suggested the story. Oh, it will always take it. I mean, so much respect. So thank you, Annie. And so this week, I'm going to be doing the story of the demon in the Belfry.

So there's a very thoroughly used article from SFGate by a writer named Katie Dowd about this topic. There are several San Francisco examiner articles from the late 1800s. The great website that we've talked about and used as a resource since day one on this podcast, Murder by Gaslight, Robert Wilheim's excellent website. There's a 2009 article on that that Marin used. And also, I was looking at that website because I hadn't seen it in a while and I went on there and there, I scanned down and there's an about me page that Robert Wilheim includes

on Murder by Gaslight, his website. And when you click on the link, it just brings you to a second page that has his name at the top and then two links to websites, one of which is Murder by Gaslight. And the other is Murder by Gaslight Test. And that's it. That's the only thing that's on his about me page. So he's like, here's my name. You already knew that.

Here's the website you're already on and that's all the information you get about me. What a fucking badass. I like it. It's Irish Catholic level of withholding and I respect it. Okay. Also, and then of course we have to cite the book, The Great Crimes of San Francisco, which is the anthology that Annie Wilson scanned for us and read and recommended this from. And the rest of the sources in our show notes, if you want to read up on anything.

So this story takes place over a century ago in San Francisco during the what, what part, what my favorite part of the century, the turn of the century. That's right. So just off of Mission Street, near 23rd sits Emmanuel Baptist Church and everybody thinks that this church is cursed because starting in the late 1870s, some really bad things happened kind of in a row. So two of its pastors took their own lives. In 1880, a church leader was convicted for, you might remember when I told the story,

the murder of San Francisco Chronicle co-founder Charles D. Young. So actually by the early 1880s, there was already a group of locals calling for the Emmanuel Baptist Church to be condemned. It didn't happen, but, you know, they got into it. They had something to do and that's good. But then in 1895, like 15 years later, their two shocking murders take place inside this church and it makes international headlines. It shakes the community to its core.

Two murders carried out not by a deranged, violent outsider from the streets, but by a trusted member of their own congregation, a popular and well-liked man who was considered to be above suspicion. And his arrest reveals something new and terrifying to the public that the most respected person in your community could also be hiding violent and murderous impulses. So Theodore Durant is born in 1871 in Toronto, Canada. When he's eight years old in 1879, he moves to San Francisco with his family. They are not wealthy, but Theo's mother is incredibly encouraging.

She inspires her children to follow their interests. So Theo's sister grows up to be a famous dancer under the stage name Maude Allen. And Theo seems to have all kinds of potential himself. He's on the pathway to success. He's very smart. He's very handy. People actually really adore him and trust him. He's like everyone's golden boy.

So by the time Theo's 23, he's enrolled at Cooper Medical College with the hopes of becoming a doctor. He's a member of the California Signal Corps, which at this time is doing things like setting up telephone wire lines for the U.S. Army. And Theo is devoutly religious. When he's not at school or with the Signal Corps, he's usually at Emmanuel Baptist Church. And there he's described as, quote, one of the most active members of the congregation. He pitches in with services.

He's the superintendent of the Sunday School. He volunteers as the church's handyman and he leads its youth group. Busy. Yeah, I wrote underneath that in bold caps, over-involvement red flag. You can do one thing at your church. You don't need to do four. If you are running four different departments at your church, you're trying to send a message. Okay, so like many other parishioners, Theo's social life is tightly intertwined with the

Emmanuel Baptist. He tends to date other members of the church in early 1885. He's in a study relationship with a young schoolteacher named Blanche Lamont, who's also a member of the church's youth group. Blanche is new in town. She moved from Montana a couple months before and she currently lives near the church with her aunt Tryphenia Noble. Wow, where do these people find their names?

I love it. You know where? At the turn of the century. They found them right at the turn of the century. This is where all the great stuff happened. So Blanche and Theo are dating pretty seriously, and then three months after they first start going out, Theo proposes. But then Blanche finds out that he had just recently proposed to another parishioner named

Flo Upton. So she turns down his proposal and she basically breaks up with them until a few weeks later when they start hanging out again. So on the morning of April 3rd, 1895, Theo picks Blanche up from Tryphenia's house. They take the trolley to her cooking class. She gets off at the cooking class. Theo heads to Cooper Medical College. He stays there until around 2pm.

Then after that he heads back to Blanche's class to pick her up. So as he's hanging around the trolley stop waiting for Blanche to get out of her cooking class, he's pacing. He is visibly nervous. So much so that a woman named Mary Vogel, who is looking out the window from across the street, can't stop watching him. And according to an old newspaper articles, she even grabs a pair of opera glasses to look out at him to get a good look at what this young man is doing.

Mary Vogel, she's on the case. So that area had seen some break-ins recently. So Mary basically looks at this guy and decides to commit his face to memory because she's all about it. She's like, this guy seems suspicious. So about a half hour passes and sometime around 3pm, Blanche exits the building where she has taken her cooking class. She finds Theo.

They board a trolley, car together. Multiple people spot them on board, including a woman named Elizabeth Crockett, whose son is close friends with Theo. He's sitting directly across from the two young people. But weirdly, Theo doesn't acknowledge her. Just pretend she's not there. Elizabeth thinks this is strange because she knows him well. But then she decides he's distracted by his pretty date.

He doesn't want to talk to her. That's fine. So then a little after 4pm, Theo and Blanche get off the trolley near Emmanuel Baptist. So as they approach the church, even more people see them. So there'd been rumors going around that young people were using the church for impure reasons. So there's a lot of people that kind of had their eye out for kids like necking in the church, you know, in the walkway or whatever. One of the people, basically a bunch of people are just kind of paying attention to what's

going on around the church. And one of those people is a man named Martin Quinlan. He's walking by. He knows Theo personally also. Then there's a woman who also lives across the street from the church. Her name's Caroline Leake, and she sees them through her front window. And she watches as he leads the young woman he's with, who she will later identify as Blanche Lamont inside the church.

So after that, they don't know what happens. Basically an hour later, around 5pm that night, the Emmanuel Baptist organist, a man named George King, shows up to rehearse for Sunday service. But just after he's set up his sheet music and started to practice, he hears a booming sound behind him. He spins around to investigate. He sees it's the door that leads up the long stairwell to the belfry. And that's the room that's all the way at the top of the church's spire.

George watches as Theo stumbles down the stairs looking, quote, deathly white with bloodshot eyes. So Theo's trying to catch his breath, and he slumps into a nearby chair. So George checks on him. He tells George he was fixing a gas leak in the church, then that it nearly killed him. So George has no reason to question this. Theo's the handyman for the church. He knows this man very well.

He believes he's a member of the congregation. So of course, what he's saying is the truth. So when Theo asks George to run to a nearby pharmacy and get him some seltzer, George doesn't hesitate. But then along the way, he realizes he didn't smell any gas in the church. So if there was a gas leak, like that's odd because there was no smell of gas. But then he just, you know, it's just a passing thought. He gets back to the church.

Now Theo seems to be in much better shape, takes the seltzer. And then just a few hours after that, Theo shows up at a prayer meeting, hosted at a parishioner's house not far from the church, and he takes a seat right behind Trephania, whose blanche is aunt. And Trephania is sitting there waiting for her niece to join her at this prayer meeting. The meeting begins. Blanche is nowhere to be found. And her aunt is immediately worried.

So she only gets more concerned when Theo leans over and asks her where Blanche is. She tells Theo she's not sure. And he says, quote, I regret that she's not with us tonight as I have a book for her, but I'll send it to the house. So the next day, Aunt Trephania reports Blanche missing. The police are immediately on the case. But for some weird reason, Theo is not even on their radar. So he was the last person to be seen with Blanche by multiple people, yet he's never

interrogated about how he spent that day or treated weirdly with any suspicion at all. Because again, no one can imagine this golden boy and this, you know, such an upstanding member of this church could have anything to do with a missing girl. And in fact, Blanche's family is adamant that if Theo says he doesn't know where Blanche is, then he is absolutely telling the truth. So basically no one, no one's even thinking of this guy. But of course, Theo himself, as because we will later learn that he is either a socio or probably a psychopath, he inserts himself into the investigation.

When Blanche has been missing for a couple of days, he starts making all sorts of ridiculous claims. He tells Aunt Trephania that he'd heard that Blanche had, quote, not departed from this life, but worse, she had departed from the life of morality and she was in a house of ill repute. So he's basically telling the aunt who's freaking out about her missing niece that she went and became a sex worker, right? Aunt Trephania does not buy this for a second and basically dismisses Theo's, you know, talk

as a cruel rumor. So the big, the first big update in Blanche's missing person case comes on April 13th, 10 days into the investigation. So that afternoon, Trephania receives a package in the mail that's addressed to her home, but the name is labeled George King. So it's her address, but George King's name on the front of the package. That's the organist. So Trephania notes that the writing on the package seems purposefully illegible.

When she opens it, she's shocked to find three rings that Blanche wore every day and definitely on the day that she went missing. So Trephania immediately calls the police, they pick up the rings, they take them around to area pawn shops, and soon they find a pawnbroker who recognizes them. He says that a man had recently stopped in trying to sell the rings, but the broker decided to pass on them. And so he gives police a basic description of the man, but it's not particularly detailed or really very helpful.

8 p.m. the night before Trephania got that package, Theo is spotted once again. by numerous people. This time he's standing outside of a manual Baptist with a fellow parishioner, 21-year-old Minnie Williams. Like Theo and Blanche, she's well liked, she's popular, she's a fixture in the church's social scene. And among the many people who see Minnie and Theo together is a man named Alexander Zengner, whose wife is a member of the church.

He knows both Theo and Minnie personally. He's also heard the rumors about young couples hooking up at the church. So he makes a mental note of the pair, but to him, he will later say this did not come off as a romantic meeting. Theo and Minnie are locked in an intense and very serious conversation. Zengger believes that it looks like they're arguing. That's the thing that stands out to him is he was like, oh wait, that's not what they're doing.

Oh no, they're not doing that at all. So after a few minutes of that intense conversation, they walk into the church together. And then when Zengger walks by the church again an hour later on his way back, he sees Theo leave Emmanuel Baptist alone. So Zengger, who still has a little suspicion that the two young people are up to no good, notes that this is just a little bit strange, that he's by himself. So then a half an hour after that, Theo arrives at a nearby house for a youth group meeting. He was supposed to be there at 7.30 and now it's 9.30.

So everybody notices how late he is. They notice that, quote, his hair was somewhat must, perspiration was on his forehead, and his hands were enough soiled that he asked the host for permission to wash them. And he also was holding a venti Starbucks. He was late. He was late. But he had time to stop at Starbucks and didn't ask if anyone wanted anything. Oh, no.

This is how selfish this bastard is. But other than that, of course, he is his normal, cheery self. And everyone's just like, oh, our boy, he's just, he's running behind. Meanwhile, Minnie is also a member of this youth group, and she is also supposed to be there. But she never arrives and she never calls to explain her absence. So this meeting wraps up around 11.30 p.m. A small group leaves together and starts walking home, including Theo, but instead of heading

directly to his house, he breaks off not far from the church and waves goodbye and vanishes into the night. So the next morning is the Saturday before Easter, and a group of young women arrive at Emmanuel Baptist to prepare the church for the holiday services. It's going to be busy because, of course, Easter season, it brings all the cafeteria Catholics out who feel guilty. Oh, wait, this is a Baptist church that doesn't apply. But anyway, everybody starts coming around Easter, right?

You come three weeks before, confess your sins, you're all clean for the rest of the year. Yeah. So basically, they're getting ready, they have to put out, they're decorating the church with flowers, they're cleaning up, but they also have to go to a faraway storage closet because they need to put out extra prayer books. But when one of them opens up this storage closet door, it reveals a dead mutilated body sprawled out on the closet floor.

Oh, my God. Police, of course, soon arrive at the scene. Now, you have to think about this, this is 1895. This is a long time ago. And this is like when women basically got married, had kids, and made dinner. Like going to church and handing out prayer books was like a big deal. And this is like the, to suddenly be exposed to vicious murder and be a witness to that must have been just absolutely horrifying, I can't imagine.

In a church, I mean, that's like, oh my God, that's like the world has turned on its ear. So the police arrive almost immediately on scene. They actually assume this is Blanche Lamont's body because she's the one that they've been investigating and that's been missing. But a member of the church quickly identifies this is Minnie Williams. So Minnie's murder, and this part is very upsetting. If anybody gets really upset about murder details, this is a very bad bunch of information that you're about to hear.

This murder was extremely violent. This closet, it's like a storage closet, it's covered in blood. Some of the blood will be later determined to have been, quote, thrown in handfuls onto the walls. What? Oh my God. Yeah. It's like nightmare.

Yeah. Minnie's been stabbed multiple times with a knife from the church's kitchen and she was attacked with such force that the knife blade was broken off into her chest. Her wrists and forehead have been slashed. She was gagged with her own underwear. They had been stuffed far down her throat. She was raped and she was strangled. And when the police search the church for any leads or evidence, they don't really find

anything except they find Blanche Lamont's library card lying nearby the murder scene. But they don't understand the relevance yet. So now Theo Durant is looking very suspicious. They suddenly are like, wait a second, this guy is kind of in the mix here. Multiple eyewitnesses help police that they saw him with Minnie outside the church the night before her body was found. Police think Theo makes sense for this crime being that he's a fixture at the church. They theorize Minnie's killer must know like the layout of the church very well because

not only did he think to grab a knife from its kitchen, but he also knew that that kind of far away storage closet was there to put Minnie's body in. And had it not been Easter weekend, the body probably wouldn't have been found so quickly. So police get a search warrant. They go to Theo's house. He is out of town on a trip to Mount Diablo with the signal core, but the police search his home anyway. They don't find any blood on his clothes, but in his coat pocket, they find Minnie William's

purse. The cops are starting to feel confident that they're putting together like kind of a slam dunk case here. And then they learn about Theo's connection to Blanche Lamont. They start thinking back to the library card at the murder scene and it dawns on them that they need to conduct another much more thorough search of the property. And this time the church is checked top to bottom, but the police don't find anything until they reach the belfry.

So this takes some work. The door to the belfry's stairwell is missing its knobs. No one knows why, but they are. So the officers have to kick the door down and then they have to use candles to light their way up from the picture that's drawn that's from the book. It looks like it's seven stories of stairs to get up to the belfry. Yeah, six or seven flights. So of course the stairwell is cold and dark.

It leads you up until this tiny room in the spire of the church that's also cold and dark. They get inside, they lift the candles, and in the far corner of the room they find Blanche Lamont's dead body. And unlike when Minnie was found, there's no blood anywhere in this church spire. And Blanche has been carefully positioned. She's naked, her arms are crossed over her chest, her head is propped on a block of wood. And because the belfry is so cold, it's actually slowed down the process of decomposition. So Blanche is ghostly white, which must have been so freaky.

So hold up a candle and see that in the corner. I just feel bad for these people. They don't have any, like we're sitting here watching Netflix shit and being like becoming accustomed to this reality. Yeah. This is the first time they're learning what serial killers do and are like. Yeah, definitely. In a church belfry.

It's horrifying. It's horrifying. So when the autopsy is performed, it's determined that like Minnie, Blanche was raped and died by strangulation, also connecting those two murders. The final connection, they were both 21 years old. So the same day that Blanche's body is discovered, Theo comes back from that signal cord trip and he is arrested the minute he sets foot in San Francisco. He denies any involvement in either woman's death.

When he's interviewed by police, he tries to explain away the damning evidence against him saying that he found Minnie's purse on the street and he just hadn't had a chance to return it to her yet. He also denies seeing Blanche Lamont the day she went missing, which of course is contradicted by the many, many eyewitnesses who saw the two together. And then on the advice of his attorneys, Theo stops speaking with investigators altogether. So of course, Theo Durant's friends and family are absolutely stunned. He is the last person anyone would suspect of murder.

But then the police start hearing stories that no one's ever heard before and their stories of Theo's predatory side. It turns out many young women, all from Emmanuel Baptist Church, now feel free to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexual misconduct against Theo. One woman says that he'd exposed himself to her in the church library. Others said that he'd once offered to do a quote physical examination on her at the church to show off what he was learning in medical school. Yeah.

In both cases, the women declined Theo's advances and of course were left disturbed and shaken. But probably because of his status in the church, they didn't feel like they could say anything or do anything. Investigators also learned Theo not only proposed to a woman named Flo Upton right before he proposed to Blanche, but big reveal, but not a surprise. He'd also been dating Minnie Williams at the exact same time as all of that was going on. Minnie had actually complained to her friends that she was in a love triangle and she felt just strung along and used by Theo in his hot and cold behavior.

And I think that's a good thing to remember. If somebody is leaving you on red, if they don't seem interested, if they're love bombing you and disappearing and stuff, there's a good chance that they are a serial killer within their own church and that's why you don't have to be upset about it because it happened. It has happened. It has happened. It has happened in the past.

It can happen in the turn of the century. It can happen in any, it's what we learned. The greatest time, the turn of the century, of course it's going to happen in 2023. It's just, you know, that's just a tip for detachment. A little just a tip. So Theodore Durant is charged with the homicides of Blanche LeMont and Minnie Williams. And the first trial is Blanche LeMont's murder trial. It begins on July 22, 1895.

It is a total circus. The courtroom's packed of course with like onlookers, reporters, the newspaper's print detailed updates every single day on the case and prosecutors set up a mannequin wearing the dress Blanche had on when she went missing. And it strangely starts to feel like Blanche herself is in the courtroom. It's a dramatic shocking trial. The state paints Theo as a sexually motivated killer who hid under the flimsy cover of being a quote unquote good citizen.

They suggest that Theo strangled Blanche in the library before hiding her body in the belfry shortly before he was interrupted by church organist George King. The prosecutors also guessed that Theo strangled Minnie in the church's library, put her body in the closet and left the scene to attend the youth group meeting. It's not just the kind of violence that people like societal violence that people are used to. This is that kind of thing of the guy, it's a classic serial killer thing of like, I just murdered someone.

Now I'm going to go study the Bible with you, calculate, like calculate it and sinister. And then after that youth group meeting, he returned to the church, intending to move Minnie's body up the belfry alongside Blanche, but prosecutors allege that he ran into some trouble when the belfry's door didn't have his knob, so he couldn't move it. And so instead, in a frenzied frantic state, he went back to the closet, took off his own clothes and mutilated Minnie's body. They think this explains how he was able to leave the scene without any blood on his clothes or shoes.

And also the thing about Minnie's coagulated blood being on those closet walls that in it looked like it was thrown, it was thrown like a while later. So just horrifying, just he was an animal. Over 50 witnesses testified for the prosecution, including many eyewitnesses who saw Theo with either Blanche or Minnie before their deaths. And the pawnbroker testifies the same man that when the police first questioned him, he couldn't really give a detailed description of who brought Blanche's rings in, or maybe he didn't want to give a description, then he finds out who did it and what he did.

Now he's in the courtroom pointing to Theodore Durant going, it was without question him. Basically in the defense's futile attempt at damage control, they claim that every single witness is mistaken and that they simply have Theo mixed up with someone else. And so for the rest of the trial, they basically struggled to build a solid defense for their client, but they can't find any classmates who can corroborate his alibi of being at school that day, the day of Blanche's murder. And of course he doesn't do himself any favors. The website Murder by Gaslight says that Theo's testimony, quote, probably clinched the verdict.

He parsed his sentences carefully and complained often of being misquoted, but ultimately his testimony was contradictory and misleading. So as the trial progresses, a central mystery remains what the motive of these murders is. And the closest hint comes from a man named Clark Morgan's testimony, who was a close family friend of Minnie's. He knew a lot about her social life, including that she'd gone on several dates with Theo, and he also knew that Theo had tried to pressure Minnie into having sex with him. And Minnie had been deeply offended by this improper proposal.

And so this boosts the prosecutor's theory that the murders were sexually motivated and that Theo might have killed Minnie for rejecting his sexual advances and might have killed Blanche for rejecting his proposal. So as the trial wraps up, the states convinced that they have a slam dunk case and they're right about that. The jury deliberates for five minutes and then returns their verdict. Theodore Durant, now known across San Francisco as the demon of the belfry, is found guilty of murder.

So Theodore is brought to the gallows on the morning of January 7th, 1898. Hundreds of people show up hoping to hear him confess he never does. Instead, his final speech, I'm sorry, this is my favorite. This is one of my favorite factoids I may have maybe have ever read. Instead, in a final speech before his execution, Theo begins to ramble about a huge conspiracy against him. He says, quote, this crime was fastened on me by the press of San Francisco, but I forgive all.

It is they who have forever blackened the fair name of California. And then when Theo takes a short pause mid-speech, the executioner drops the trap door, sorry. That's fucking hilarious. He's looking like a classic sociopath or psychopath where they're up there. It took five minutes for a jury of your peers to be like, this guy absolutely horribly murdered these two women in a church. And he's like, I am going to talk about the, and the, the executioner's like, bye. All right, dude.

We're done listening to your fucking bullshit. To this day, people are still mulling over Theo's motive. Some have wondered if he was dealing with untreated mental illness, still doesn't justify murder. Others think that Theo was left brain damaged because of a nearly fatal case of meningitis that he had once had. Of course, ultimately, we'll never know why. But as writer Stephen G. Christensen points out, Theodore Durant's trial showed the public that quote, people of apparently good character with no prior history of violence can commit

bizarre, brutal crimes for no rational reason. So as for Emmanuel Baptist Church, of course, these murders are kind of it for the church. They prove basically the rumors that the church is cursed. It does stand for two more decades. I don't think it's easy to get a church demolished, but in 1915, it finally is demolished. And that is the story of Theodore Durant, San Francisco's demon of the Belfry. Wow. I had never heard of that somehow.

I haven't either. That's wild. Like the murder details are so horrifying and so intense. And he did it in a church. Yeah. Twice. Twice. All right.

So today, Karen, I'm also in the 1800s. Hey. For you. What's up? Is it the late 1800s, close to the turn of the century? Yeah. Very close. Then I'm going to pay extra attention.

I wish you wouldn't. Okay. I'm going to get my opera glasses and look out my window at you. Please do. Today, I'm going to tell you the story of the ghost church. The Mary Celeste. Oh, hell yes. You ready for a ghost ship story?

Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Okay. The main sources I use in today's story are a Smithsonian article by Jess Bloomberg, a Britannica entry by Amy Tekinen, and a museum hack article by Alex Johnson. And the rest of the sources you can find in the show notes. Okay. So here we are on December 5th, 1872.

So a ship called the DeGradia is sailing across the Atlantic to deliver petroleum from the United States to Italy. Super routine voyage for the ship's captain. His name is David Morehouse. And everything has been going smoothly as they approach the coast of Europe near Portugal. You know, picture the map that you have in your mind's eye. At 1pm, Captain Morehouse comes out onto the deck when the man staring the boat cries out. He sees something on the open water on the horizon.

It's a ship sailing in an erratic directionless way. And Captain Morehouse orders the crew to head towards this mysterious ship. They get closer and Captain Morehouse starts to feel like something is horribly wrong. Sorry, I need to ask you a question. Captain Morehouse staring at what I would imagine to be like sails of flutter, right? It's kind of sideways. Drifting. Looks kind of shitty, maybe.

There's holes in the sails or something. There's something to indicate, right? That this is sailing weirdly. And like, is that a trap? Is that pirates maybe trying to trap you? We don't know. Yeah, that's right. Could be that.

But it's bad vibes. You know as the captain, you're going to have to go ahead and board that ship. Well, except that he makes sure that people go board first. Oh, dirty bird. Okay, the sails on this mysterious ship have been only partially set, which is highly unusual. You got the sail part weird, right? Even though the Delgradio is sending the signals, there's no response from this other ship. And as the two ships get closer, they realize they know this ship.

This ship is the Mary Celeste. Uh-oh. The Mary Celeste that sail just eight days before the Delgradio, with both ships leaving from ports near New York City. So I think all ships are like, bros, you know what I mean? Like, everyone knows everyone else's schedule. They're like, dudes that are all parked in a circle at the Royal's Parking Lot. Yeah, where are you going?

Hey, where are you going? They're kind of smoking and listening to house music all at the same time, and then they all take off. Like the coffee bean in Los Feliz, or there's just like always people hanging out in the parking lot there. Yeah. Those are the guys that I said I missed most in quarantine, was the guys that hang out near the coffee bean, because they just have like, they have the most perfect Adidas sweatsuits, right?

Yeah, and their cars are always like super fancy cars. They're fancy. They're very low to the ground. There's like, there's all kinds of accoutrements on the car. They don't spill their coffee on their sweatsuits ever. They tell me the world is right and in its place. It's a good scene. Yeah.

Check that out after you go to El Coyote when you visit Los Angeles. Guys, I don't know why we're talking about this. My thing is the way, and I think I got this from, because my dad made me watch a bunch of kind of sea-captainy type of movies when I went home over Christmas. Oh, yeah. Like Mutiny on the Bounty and stuff like that. And the way they are so hyper-organized on their ships, like they have whole systems to keep the sales in place for the right...

Right. Heave-ho and all that. No one's ever letting the mainsail just kind of slap around if it feels like it. That's my thing. That's scary. This whole thing also made me think of Our Flag Means Death, one of the best TV shows of the past decade, in my opinion, that came out last year. I kept picturing those characters coming across a fucking ghost ship, you know?

My whole point of asking you that question is like, the idea that you would even have to interact with ghost ships as a ship's captain must have been so horrifying. Yes, exactly. They can't see anyone on deck, so Morehouse sends two of his crew members over in a rowboat. Hey guys, get over in the rowboat. Guys, you love exploring. Get in there. But I guess it makes sense, like if he goes and there's something that happens and he gets killed first,

then there's no captain on the boat. Must be nice to have that excuse, you know? It can't be me. You guys, it can't be me. It can. It can't be me. I'm the only one. We can't lose me.

We've got to lose you. So imagine these two guys have to go over on this rowboat, go over to the Mary Celeste, the spooky ship that they've all sighted, and find out what the fuck's going on. So the two men explore the ship's interior and exterior, the cargo hold and the galley, and the personal quarters of all the sailors, but no one, there's not anyone on board. The Mary Celeste is totally deserted.

There are no clear signs of foul play, like there's no evidence of a fire or blood. They find that the ship has taken on some water in the cargo hold, but not so much that it would damage the ship or cargo. So not enough to make people abandon the ship. They discover six months worth of food and water still on the boat, and the only signs of anything unusual are some loose hatch covers on the deck that would normally be secured, and a device that's used for measuring water in the cargo hold

that's been left on the deck, and there's a disassembled pump lying around. So maybe the pump they were going to use for that water that was coming aboard, it was disassembled. Okay. And most importantly, the ship's only lifeboat is gone. So the crew members from the Delgradia find the ship's log. The last entry is from 5 a.m. on November 25th,

which is almost 10 days before the Mary Celeste is spotted by the Delgradia. Okay. The ship has floated almost 500 miles since its last log entry, so it's just been floating out in the open sea. Shit. The crew, including seven sailors, the captain, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter are never seen or heard from again. Oh my God.

So let's go back to the origin story of the Mary Celeste. The ship was built in Spencer Islands, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1860, so middle of the century, I guess. Not your favorite time. Yeah. But it's... I mean, I'm interested. I'm listening for sure, but I'm not engaged.

Originally called the Amazon, the ship's maiden voyage was supposed to deliver lumber from Canada to London in June of 1861, but the ship's first captain gets mysteriously sick as the ship starts sailing, eventually getting so sick that the boat has to turn around, and this first captain eventually dies as they return to Spencer's Island. Of what? I don't know.

Sick. Sea sickness? I don't know. See? He's so nauseated. He does. Oops. He's like, shoot.

I should have thought this through. I should have got some drama mean before I avoided this. I'm writing down some of these details. Are you? Yeah. Why? Well, because I've always heard of this story, but I've never known the details of the story,

so I want to do, like, I want my own theory by the time you're done. Oh, great. The second captain takes over, but mishaps with the journey continue, the Amazon actually runs into and sinks another ship in the English Channel on that same trip. So is this Mary Celeste cursed, maybe? The ship has some quiet years after that, traveling around the world, and cargo, it runs around during a storm,

and it's so badly damaged that the owner just abandons it there. The shipwreck is sold, rebuilt, expanded, upgraded, and renamed the Mary Celeste. So it's like, it's built on the back of a unlucky ship, which can't be good luck. No, especially in the world of seafarers and the maritime world, which is very... Right.

They get real into those kinds of curses and bad luck things. So, like, changing the name of a boat and stuff, right? You can't do that? I think so. Okay. I'm going to go with that. Yeah. It ends up in a port in New York in 1872.

That October, the ship is ready to make its first journey post-makeover, and this time it will be captain by a guy named Benjamin Briggs. Okay, so that happens. Then now we're back at the voyage at the center of our story. So then on November 7th, 1872, Captain Benjamin Briggs is a hand-picked crew of seven capable sailors depart from New York Harbor on the Mary Celeste. They're carrying a cargo of 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol

across the Atlantic to Genoa, Italy, and also on board for the journey are the captain's wife, Sarah, and their two-year-old daughter, Sophia. And there's photos of them, too. Captain Briggs is a very experienced seaman who has crossed the ocean many times, this is his first time sailing the Mary Celeste. He actually has invested his life savings into a share of the Mary Celeste,

so he's part owner as well. He's excited to share this beautiful boat and his love of seafaring with his family. The only person that's not with them is their seven-year-old son, Arthur. He's left at home in Massachusetts, so he can attend school, which ultimately saves his life. School saves someone's life. It happens. It can happen.

It can happen. So they set sail on the transatlantic journey that should take just a few weeks, but according to the abandoned book log, the Mary Celeste spends the first two weeks of the trip navigating horrible weather, high winds, constant rain. Probably a lot of sea sickness, I'm going to guess. Not fun.

It's slow going, but Captain Briggs' last entry in his journal says that the sky had cleared now and that they had almost reached the European coast. He wrote that they could even see land. So how did Mary Celeste wind up close to 500 miles away off course and abandon? What happened to the Briggs family and the seven sailors? Okay, so back to the Delgradia and the discovery of the ghost ship.

Captain Morehouse decides to tow the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar. So this is not an easy task, towing the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar. Morehouse has to divide his crew into two in order to sail the two ships, which slowed them down considerably. Morehouse is concerned about the fate of the lost crew, of course, but also turns out salvaging boats is a very lucrative business.

So he's not doing out of the kindness of his heart and to solve a mystery. He's like, empty boat, come with me. Right. He stands to make a lot of money off the Mary Celeste. And so when the two ships arrive at Gibraltar, Morehouse follows protocol for salvage ships and turns the Mary Celeste into the British court operating there

and the official investigation begins. And immediately, the British court's like, this has to be foul play. The attorney general leading the investigation is very suspicious. One idea is that the crew of the Delgradia might have murdered the crew of the Mary Celeste themselves. Shit. So we were going on their word this whole time

and then cleaned up the crime scene in order to cash the boat in for the salvage reward. That seems a little extreme. That's pirate moves that then you're trying to take back to the man and be like, can I get my check? And it's like, for that, no. Yeah, because then everyone would do that. It makes much more sense to be like, oh, this boat was abandoned.

Yeah. So this has never proven this theory and no criminal charges were ever filed. However, because they were suspects, Captain Morehouse and the crew of the Delgradia are awarded way less money than what they're entitled to, so there is a lot of suspicion around it. They only get 1,700 pounds

and usually salvagers can get two or three times that amount because of how difficult and dangerous it can be to tow a ship in. So it doesn't seem like they're ever totally cleared of any wrongdoing. Interesting. Yeah. So here's some theories. And then we'll go to Karen's theory. Okay, good.

You taking notes? Yeah. There's all sorts of theories, of course, about what happened to the Mary Celeste and they range from scientific to supernatural, pirates, mutiny, ghosts. I'm not ghosts. Over the years, fact and fiction.

You just turned ghosts in accidentally. I hate it. Could have been. You never know. You don't ever know. Over the years, fact and fiction have gotten twisted in the case and it can be hard to figure out what's true and what is like lore.

Magazines and newspapers repeatedly sensationalized the details over the decades, creating a long game of basically playing telephone where the original facts are so distorted, they become unrecognizable today. That's what we love to do as human beings. We love to repeat stories. The podcast. Yes, it's this podcast.

It's kind of every podcast. It is. Repeat stories, find out later that your source material was perhaps sourced poorly in some way. I mean, that is, and also the idea of like you came upon this ship. I immediately was like so freaked out. And it's just like, it is ghosts on that show. And it's like, yeah.

That's right. When it's not interesting enough, add ghosts into the mix. It works. It works. So famously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, your favorite author, and the author of Sherlock Holmes, writes a fictional short story about the Mary Celeste in 1873. He takes license, he inverts details,

but it's close enough to the real story that people start to confuse his fiction with actual journalism. Yeah. Again, podcasting. Again, this podcast specifically. Doyle's version theorizes that one of the sailors goes on a murderous rampage and hijacks the ship. But there's one crew member who is spared

because he has a magic amulet. And this short story is a total success. It's widely read and ignites new interest in the Mary Celeste. That lasts for over a century. Can I just say really quick, you don't need a UFO abduction. You're on the sea. You might as well be in outer space. It's so unexplored, so unknown.

You are out in a completely alien world when you are at sea. Totally. And things happen out there that no one ever witnesses. That brings us to sea monsters. Yay. The idea of a sea monster attacking the ship could have happened depending on your definition of a sea monster.

Giant squid can grow up to 40 feet long, and there is evidence that they have attacked sailors for centuries. Yeah. Also very smart. These real sightings and attacks have led to the mythology of creatures like the Kraken. Realistically, the giant squids are terrifying,

but would be unable to, I think, pick off 10 people individually from a ship. No. Right? Maybe they could knock one or two people off the Mary Celeste, but not be like, yoink, yoink, unless it did it all at once in like a big bear hug. I don't know.

Or they pulled the whole ship down and then it bounced back up. That seems... They pulled it to the side. But then how would the lifeboat... The lifeboat was gone, which is really weird. Yes. And also, I don't think of 40-foot squid. Those ships are 200 feet long, aren't they?

They're big. I don't have the measure. Well, I'm just in comparatively... Yes, they are. Yeah. I don't know. I agree. I don't think so.

So there's also the theory that this was some kind of accident. What? Sorry. It just... I'm trying to put together a theory with no actual knowledge. But again, it's called my favorite murder. It can't be a Kraken. If the Kraken's only 40 feet long,

and then I just make up the number that I think the ship is feet long. Someone would have run downstairs and closed the latch. Like someone would have survived that. Exactly. Yes. One big squid first started putting his tentacles over. Sure. Yeah.

Exactly. I'm going to theorize to myself from now on. I wish you wouldn't. Okay. There's also the accident theory. Some have theorized that Briggs ordered the crew into the lifeboat as a temporary measure. Maybe something on board was dangerous enough for them to evacuate.

But the plan was to return when the danger passed. And the thought is that maybe the rope connecting the lifeboat to the deck got cut accidentally, meaning the crew was unable to return to the ship and instead just floated away, which is so fucking scary. Horrifying. One of the possible onboard dangers was the cargo itself. Some researchers think that the almost 2,000 barrels of alcohol on board might have caused a small explosion in the cargo hold,

prompting Briggs to worry that the ship might explode or take on so much water that she would sink. And because alcohol releases vapors and there was so much of it, it's possible the alcohol fumes caused one of the hatches to blow off, starting a panic, which sucks. Another possibility is that it's natural phenomenon. It's like something happening in the ocean itself that might have prompted an emergency evacuation situation on board.

And this is when it starts to remind me of one of the skiers called the Dalatav Pass story. Yeah. Briggs was known to be an expert sailor. So researchers agree that if Briggs ordered his crew to abandon ship, there must have been something really dangerous going on and real. Yeah. Something that a water spout might have struck the ship.

What's a water spout? It's a tornado that forms over water. And though it's typically less strong than land tornadoes, they can still damage a ship's rigging and cause the ship to take on water. Yeah. Right? Hell yeah.

Okay. So after the mysterious disappearance of the crew, no one wants anything to do with the Mary Celeste. The boat has returned to New York, but sits rotting in a harbor for years. Finally, the boat is sold at a loss in 1874. And under new ownership set sail as a merchant ship. But in 1879, another captain of the Mary Celeste

gets mysteriously sick and dies again. What? Meeking at the third captain of the ship to die prematurely. This seals the fate of the ship in the public eye. Everyone believes the Mary Celeste is cursed. The ship keeps getting sold and each new owner struggles to make a profit. Who would buy it after the third captain dies?

Who is the money man that's like, no, no, no. Here we go. Watch this. This time, baby. I got that feeling. Then in November 1884, so we're getting closer, the last captain of the Mary Celeste conspires with a group of Boston merchants

to commit large scale insurance fraud. They fill the Mary Celeste up with useless cargo, but listed as being really valuable. This is, you know, Tails' oldest time. They take out a huge insurance policy on it. Then they crash the Mary Celeste on a reef in Haiti, hoping to receive a big insurance payout. They're caught almost immediately.

Criminal charges are brought against them. And this last captain's reputation is ruined and he dies mysteriously within three months of the charges being dropped against him. Wow. Because there wasn't enough evidence. And another kills himself all because of the insurance fraud situation.

So more bad news with the Mary Celeste. Wow. This is now even more proof to everyone that the Mary Celeste is cursed. The boat continues to be written about sensationally in major news publications for decades, but the physical wreckage of the ship is forgotten on that Haitian reef and is never salvaged.

And the Mary Celeste slowly falls apart and disappears into the sea. Oh, yeah. So Brian Hicks, a contemporary author who was written extensively about the Mary Celeste, I'll just end on a quote that he says, quote, there has never been a clear consensus on any scenario. It is a mystery that has tormented countless people,

including the families of the lost sailors and hundreds of others who have tried in vain to solve the riddle. The ghost ship may be the best example of the old proverb that the sea never gives up its secrets. Yeah. And that is the story of the ghost ship, the Mary Celeste. Now, solve it for us, Karen.

Solve it. I'm ready. Solve it. Are you ready? Here it is. So if you're feeling uncomfortable by that finale thinking, hey, that's too many possibilities, first of all, I'm haunted by the image

that the Mary Celeste was intentionally crashed on a reef in Haiti and then just sat there as this cursed ship. So like, did anybody swim down and get the... Probably, right? This part and then that thing was cur... I mean... Oh, yeah.

But here's my thing. What if, and I think I'm getting this from something else I've seen on TV, but what if, say, for example, the fumes from all that alcohol Yes. actually started affecting the judgment of the people on the ship.

Yeah, it dropped them mad. Yes. And like, I don't know why it would drive them mad per se, but it was some combination that was super strong or was getting into like their cabins because it's kind of small spaces, right? Yeah. And so if it's like sneaking in

and poisoning them somehow, in a way almost like ergot poisoning where people just start going crazy, but it's just bread. So no one knows what's happening. It's a similar thing like that where they're like, we have to get out, you know,

they're hallucinating or something. Yeah. Because there was water at the bottom. So they like overestimated how much water it was taking on because they were going mad. Maybe. Yeah. I like that.

It's either that or it is like a rogue wave in that way where it just hit the ship. Yeah. It made people go off the ship, they just spat the ship back out. Yeah. It was just like there. That makes sense too.

If they were on that lifeboat, why didn't they end up anywhere? Like why didn't they, why weren't they found? Totally. Totally. Anywhere nearby. Yeah.

Like sticking around nearby. Yeah. Because they're close to land, right? Yeah. Yeah. They could see land. Yeah. Did that theory do it for you?

I guess it. I think the Smithsonian needs to call you and award you. I'll be like, guys, I need to make some measurements real quick and I'll call you back when I get my solid numbers. It was either one made up thing or another. I know we have some Smithsonian listeners,

so please get ahold of us. Just to me about what if it was some kind of rye poisoning, some kind of fumes. Totally. Some kind of weird personal judgment problem. I don't know. No, I like it. I like it.

I always thought the Mary Celeste was like a ghost ship where, you know, there's another one and it would show up and people would see it and they would be like, oh my God, what's wrong with the ship? And they would get up to it and it wasn't there. Are you thinking of Goonies? That's, oh, that's what it is.

I'm describing a movie too from the 80s. No, no, there was one that was like that, that was off the coast of like Boston, I think, or like in the Northeast. I think, I feel like I remember that one where there's that idea of the Mary Celeste isn't technically a ghost ship because she was real. It was just what happened on board of her.

Right. Yeah. There's also ghost ships that literally seem to be there because they were there and they're not there. Scary. All right. Great job. Thank you.

To be continued, to be solved. Exactly. We'll let you know next week. All right. Two great turn of the century stories. Really nice pairing. That was good. Yeah.

Thanks for listening, you guys, and playing along at home. What a delight. That was really fun. Mm-hmm. Thanks for listening. You said that already. Now I say, 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 McClasham and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. You've been listening AdFree on Wondery Plus.