My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 389 - Chill and Withhold

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

On today’s episode, Georgia covers the kidnapping and murder of Graeme Thorne and Karen tells the story of the NYPD’s first female detective, Isabella Goodwin.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.

Infamous International, The Pink Panther's story takes you into the world of Serbia's most infamous jewel thieves. Infamous International, The Pink Panther's story premieres Thursday, September 14 on exactly right. Listen on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip into the swamps of North Florida, where it was thought he met his fate by a group of hungry alligators, except that's not what happened. And after the uncovering of a secret love triangle, the truth would finally be revealed. Listen to over my dead body, gone hunting early and add free unwondery plus. I say hello. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder.

That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgarif. This is the beginning. We do it right every time. Boom, just like that. Check it out. Look at the pros. Year seven. Year seven.

Year seven. And a half. That's almost two high schools of podcasting. Almost two high schools. People almost graduated high school. Both of us. Yeah. It's great.

It is great. I'm happy of us. Yeah, it's great. It is great. I'm happy for us. I know, I mean, we really stuck in there. We didn't quit like college, you know. Or almost high school in my case. And you know, I will say this, compared to high school, this show, I've done more homework for this show than I ever once did in high school ever.

Yes, 100%. I never did homework in high school. It's like less drugs and more homework. How did we sell this to ourselves? Right, I don't think anybody considered the long term effects of just starting up a homework show and then several side businesses all at once. Right. Highly recommend not a podcast that you have to do homework for.

Talking and driving ones are fun. Plenty of other kinds. What's going on with you? What do you got? I got not much. I do a lot of the same thing. But then it makes it kind of fun because then when I do leave this house and go like meet a friend for dinner or do something, it's like literally I drive

around Los Angeles. I'm like, look at that. How long has that been there? You're like a new baby. Yes. Or like I just moved here from Cleveland or something. Like I signed up on TikTok for like, here's the coolest new rooftop bars on the East side

or bars on the East side. And I literally have not heard of one of them, I have to look them up like where would that be? I don't even recognize the street it's on. No, I took a lot of time. As if we're like, we're the kind of people to go to rooftop bars. Never.

Or like, I follow this one Instagram account called secret.lessangelis. And it's like, fun things to do this weekend that are like this. And that. And I'm like, this looks fun. I don't like crowds. I don't like leaving the house.

I don't like heat. The sun. I don't know what I'm thinking, but I'm going to utilize any of these things. But it's fun to dream. It's fun to dream in picture, and sometimes I think I also signed up for Secret Los Angeles. That's really funny,

because was one of the things like a vegan festival? Probably, I don't know. I literally was like looking like, that's interesting, and I'm like, Karen, can I please talk to you for a second? You're not going to a vegan festival. You're a carnivore. Like, that's A and B and C.

You're a couch-based carnivore that resents the slightest difficulty. It's like, we'll send me home. What am I talking about? Parking will be a nightmare of fucking, if that weren't the case, I would be at the beach like every day. I haven't been at the beach in like three years.

Yeah. Also, sometimes those accounts like on TikTok, there'll be clips of like, here's our happy hour or whatever. Yeah. And I'll kind of like the general look of it, but it's like if I was sitting at a table there, it'd only be negative and judgmental. Like, what am I talking about? And I'm also like solidly a 25 years too old to be in those places.

Right, yeah. A lot of them are not for our age range. What about secret Los Angeles for bitchy fifties? Yeah. Something like around that area. Like it could be like a Gen X secret Los Angeles where it's just like, we know you wanna stay home. You're probably not gonna come to this,

but here is a place to go. That isn't loud. That isn't loud. Not too loud. Everyone's kind of like chill and withholding, so you don't have to like get into anything. No one looks at anyone because they don't wanna accidentally recognize each other

and have to have awkward small talk when you make eye contact and go, Oh, hey! Or kind of like look and absorb the judgment from a pure group, right? Because that's probably what's happening. Right. Okay, I have a corrections corner. Okay. Great.

That I really appreciate. This one's from Chanel Renee at Chanel Renee on X. I'm talking about Twitter. Oh. This is not a porn discussion. This is not punk rock band. It's not curious Georgia signature. It's Twitter. Um, Chanel Rene wrote, just wanted to share a bear aphorism I learned recently. Quote, if it's black fight back, if it's brown lie down, if it's white, say good night. Wow. And then the end says, just a friendly correction, grizzlies are brown bears, I think, in this week's episode, you meant to compare black bears. Yes, I did. For sure. Thank you, Chanel, for knowing me and supporting the misinformation that I insist upon putting into

the world every week on this podcast. But we, that's why we have corrections corner, is because we are open and willing and almost aggressively excited to correct ourselves. That's right. Which is a really great way to be. You know, and some people are threatened by that. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, here's what we can talk about. What? The loss of P.E. Herman. It's heartbreaking. What a joyous human being that the world is lost. And the amount of clips that are now I'm seeing on both X Twitter and TikTok, like he was an early letterman comedy panel guest, which is a very difficult thing to do. He did stand up on Letterman, like he was going to do a set and then it was just like him pulling shit out of a bag and acting like a child, which everyone loved. But then he would have to go sit down and basically do the same thing, see it, which is really

hard. And every clip I've seen is like, funnier than the last and better than the last. I just loved that guy. He was such a huge part of my childhood. It me too. And it was great seeing so many people, like a lot of famous people being like, this is how good of a friend he was.

And this is like, not even famous people, like the place I got my cat, the orphan kitten club, he was like friends with them. And he started like showing photos with him, but he like helped save animals and was just like this good fucking person. It's unbelievable. That's the legacy you want to leave behind, you know?

Entirely, yeah, like overtly caring invested. I should say this, Paul Rubens died. P.B. Herman was a character, he played. I just was saying the first thing that came to my head. And that should be said, because he played lots of other characters that were so hilarious, they keep showing that 30 rock clip. Oh my God. Best episode.

Best episode of 30 rock. The little hand is like one of the greatest things. Wait, I paused. It's just epic. Epic. Oh man. Go watch it if you haven't seen it. And laugh. So good. Such a loss. Yeah. Yeah, Epic. Oh, man. Go watch it if you haven't seen it and laugh.

So good, such a loss. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have a podcast. I can just shout out real quick. It's by my gal who does nothing much happens. Of course, I love that go-to-sleep podcast. She's now doing a meditation podcast called First This. She's caching it on that voice of hers and her writing skills,

which is like good for her, you know? Yeah, but it's just a 10 minute mindfulness meditation podcast by Katherine, Nicolai, 10 minutes. That's like, what I need. Once a day, it's 10 minutes, and I can't fucking do it. It's impossible for me to sit down and not concentrate for 10 minutes and do something. Can I make a suggestion?

Please. What if you try to do it like on a walk so that you don't feel the sit-down part and not concentrate for 10 minutes and do something. Can I make a suggestion? Please. What if you try to do it like on a walk so that you don't feel the sit down part as a restriction? I like that. I like that. Sometimes that's the, it's almost like, stop your whole day and go do this thing

that animals will bug you as you do it. This, this, you can easily list all the reasons it won't work out. But if you're already doing something else, you could get into the habit of like spending 10 minutes focused. Yeah, that. I like that idea.

I'd never thought of that. It's like always so restrictive. Like you have to do it this way, or you're not doing it right. And so I don't do it, you know? Whose voice is that, Georgia? Who's talking? Janet!

No. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I don't know. What's my bully, boys, in my head? She's real mean. Yeah. I got one more thing. Okay, I pulled it off the X-feed. Erica, who is at Gilegale on X Twitter, tells us mysteries abound has a Patreon where Paul releases new episodes and adds old episodes onto the end. So our Old favorite podcast that we were talking about last week mysteries abound Does have a patreon. We love that podcast. You should love it too. Talk about a great voice. Yeah, yeah, and great stories compelling interesting mystery stuff And now you can just directly support him through a Patreon. That's great. That's great. I love it. Support your local podcasts, rate

review, subscribe. Back in, do it. I think that's the perfect segue right into our highlights, don't you think? Hey, speaking of rate review, subscribe. Let's do exactly right corner. Let's do it. Okay. We're really excited to report that ghosted by Ros Hernandez debuted at the top of freaking comedy podcast charts, you guys. Nice. Thank you so much for following her, for loving her, for reviewing her. She is such a talent.

The podcast is so incredible and we're so proud to have it on exactly right. So thank you guys for supporting. And this week Ros's guest is none other than comedian and friend of the network, Patton Oswald. That's going to be a great episode. What are his ghost stories? I've known him forever. I've never heard ghost stories. Another reminder that adulting with Michelle Butto in Jordan Carlos is back after a summer break. And now this podcast is weekly.

And they're this week joined by comedian Mike Yard. So make sure you're following that show and then you don't miss the brand new episodes that come out every Wednesday. And on this podcast we'll kill you, Aaron and Aaron, discuss all things. Asma, how brilliant is that? Like I don't know anything about asthma. I do. I'd be really bad at asthma growing up. Really? Uh-huh. Well, find out why by listening to this podcast will kill you.

I'm going to call in and argue with them with the science explainers. Also, just a quick reminder, the MFM store is stocked with some new merch bundles for puzzle reno's, BFFs, and those of you who might be new listeners. So just go over to myfavoritmerter.com and check out our merch store. Yeah, do it. Thanks. Hey, thanks so much.

Hey, I'm first this week, right? You are. Okay. This story is sad and abummer and not good because it's the story of a kidnapping of a child. So it's for hard one. The reason I'm covering it is because it's Australia's first ever kidnapping for ransom case. Oh, and it completely changed the forensic investigation field there and everywhere. And it changed laws, it changed the whole mindset of how cases are solved in Australia and all over the world. So it's important. My main source for today is an episode of an Australian show called Crime Investigation in Australia,

which introduced many of the original investigators in the case. This is from the 1960s, so they're all old-timers now. And the way they solved this is so incredible. So it's a really great episode. And the rest of my sources can be found in our show notes. The story begins with the construction of the Sydney Opera House. Oh, where none other than where you and I did a fucking show once.

We did a show at the Sydney Opera House that was so intimidating. Like you were driven underground into the parking structure. We were walked to the area and then we got on that stage and it was just like, what is how did we get here? Hollowed grounds. Crazy. I thought it was like at last minute there and I'm like, just kidding, you're at the Chuckle Club or something like that. It was so crazy. So its construction begins on the now iconic design in 1957. At the time, the project is supposed

to be completed in 1963 at a cost of 3 million pounds, which is about $76 million in today's dollars. In reality, the Opera House isn't completed until 1973, 10 years later, and the cost ends up being $709 million in today's money. Oh, that's way over budget. Way over budget. Yeah. And actually, in the time it took to build the opera house, Australia had changed its currencies from pounds to dollars.

So, like, the fucking money isn't even the goddamn same anymore, you know? It's like time is truly passing when the money changes. Exactly, exactly. So the people who were building it had this brilliant idea to cover what ultimately became my 1,357% increase in the budget. The New South Wales government began to hold lotteries. So basically you go pay for a lottery ticket.

The money for the lottery tickets went to the opera house to build it, and people would win money. They would choose a lottery winner, basically how lotteries were. Yeah, the lottery, sure. It's a great idea. You know, but it's like usually goes to the state, right? Or like, it's a great idea to be like, this is how we're going to build stuff. Well, yeah, because you buy a ticket, then you're just like see that building over there,

I paid for part of it. I paid. I paid my piece. Yeah, it's almost like you're doing a raffle at a school, you know, fundraiser. Yeah, recently the power ball in California was, I think it was over a billion. Oh, shit.

And I was like, shouldn't we do a little provision where once it goes over a certain amount, we go ahead and give that also to the schools. The schools need it really bad. My sister, if hasn't had air conditioning her entire career in her classrooms, they're just getting it this summer. Yeah, it should go back to this. Yeah. Yeah. That's for the other podcast about schools. So great idea, right? So on June 1, 1960, a man named Basil Thorn, it was the 10th drawing of the lottery and he wins first place. He's just a normal family man and he wins 100,000 pounds, which in today's money would be somewhere around two and a half to three million dollars. Oh, wow.

So, Tiba comes wealthy overnight. Doesn't he already sound wealthy with a name like Basil Thorn? Basil Thorn? Yeah, I feel like when you're in your name, you're just immediately like the upper echelon. To see if a Z is a basil with a Z? Basil with a Z. Wow. Okay.

Very Australian. This is a huge windfallasel with a Z. Wow. Okay. I know. Very Australian. This is a huge windfall for the Thorne family. Fasel makes a modest income as a traveling salesman. And just so you know how substantial that amount is, like you think nowadays $3 million, like you could maybe buy a house in LA, right? But back then, you could buy a home in a Sydney suburb, like a normal home for around 8,000 pounds.

So the rest of that money just goes to whatever the fuck you wanted to. So it's a lot of money and you don't have to waste it all on a house. Jesus Christ. You could buy several neighborhoods if you wanted to. Exactly. Exactly. So of course when he wins the lottery, it's a huge, you know, publicity thing. They show his name, they put his face in the paper with his check. There's a

photo of it. At the time, no effort is made to protect lottery winners privacy because it's PR and everyone's like, you know, they're happy about it. It's 1960. Everyone's innocent, right? Yeah. Not like the guy who put on a screen mask when you won the lottery recently for his photos. My hero. so smart. The most genius person of all time. Where he's like, sure, I'll go down there and take this photo up, wearing a screen mask. I also wait, sorry, really quick. But did you also see the lady who went in?

They found out first what the location was. And it was this little like convenient store downtown. the location was and it was this little like convenient store downtown. And so all the news cameras showed up there. And this lady walked in and pretended she was the winner and did a whole loop around the store pretending to be crying and going, thank you for doing this whole thing. And she came in and went right back out

and she wasn't the winner. She just did it like for fun. What the fuck? I love her so much. Okay, I'm the main character. Yes, she's like, I will have my main character day. Oh my God, it's not hilarious. Since I like to play the lottery every once in a while,

you know, when it's like the big one. But a lot of the times I'll buy a lottery ticket based on how the liquor store looks. Like the ones that win are a little rundown, that are a mom and pot place and have been there forever. Like those are the ones you see in the paper of like this place in Allham Bra, like one a billion dollars, it's always that one.

So you gotta buy from them. Don't buy from the brand new, you know, fucking quickie mart. I've never seen like the machine that's in the grocery store. Right, I've never seen it be like, here's the machine that's sold it, store. Right. I've never seen it be like, here's the machine that's old. That never happens.

That's true. Okay, so all his info goes into the papers, of course. The Thorn family lives in a rented apartment in Bondi, which is a suburb of Australia's most famous beach, Bondi beach. Basil and his wife Frida have three children, Cheryl, and they have a son named Graham, who's eight, and a little daughter named Belinda, who's three. On July 7th, 1960, exactly five weeks after Basil's thorn wins the lottery, which is also posted in the paper

that he'll get the money five weeks after the lottery. Like, I tell you everything. So exactly five weeks later, little gram, eight years old Graham, he leaves the house to go to school following his typical daily routine. He's this cutie pie with his little school uniform on with a tie, a little cap, and then like knee high socks and everything. And like just picture perfect. He looked like Angus Young from ACD. Oh, no. He looked exactly like Angus Young. Cutie Pie. Every day, he leaves the house at 8.30 a.m.

walks about two blocks and waits on a corner for a family friend named Phyllis Smith to pick him up because Graham goes to school with Phyllis' two sons. So it's like his normal carpool. A witness, another one of Graham's classmates, will later tell police that he saw Graham walking his typical route, but when Phyllis a few minutes later arrives to pick him up, Graham isn't there. And like, I feel like normally in these stories, you hear that the person just assumes that they're sick and drives to school and the parents don't find out

until after school or later that the kid is missing, but this woman bless her heart went straight to the Thorn House and was like, why isn't your son on the corner? Like she knew that wasn't okay. Yep. So Frida, the mother calls the school to see if he's there, he's not, and then so she immediately calls the police. So an officer named Larry O'Shea arrives at the Thorn House and not long after that, the phone rings. Frida picks it up and quickly hands the phone to the officer O'Shea. And on the line is a man with a European accent. He says he has Graham and that the family must pay him 25,000 pounds by 5 p.m. that evening or else he will quote feed him to the sharks, which comes like the headline on all the papers.

So O'Shae pretends to be the dad, Basil, and says that they might not be able to get that much money together in such a short time, and so the caller says he'll call back at 5 p.m. I don't think that at that point that the officer knew that they were the lottery winners, and they could pay the ransom. So at the time, kidnappings are unheard of in Australia. There is not even a law against kidnapping children in Australia because it just never happened, really? Never happens. The last thing that I've, when I heard about was like the Lindbergh case, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and that had been like 30 years earlier, not in Australia,

but like it wasn't on people's radar. Right. I will say that they did kidnap Aboriginal children in Australia. And so, that's right. That is something we have to acknowledge and be aware of when this story is told, which you don't see a lot. Right. So, the huge police activity outside the Thorn House catches the attention of the press

immediately. And by that afternoon, news of the kidnapping is in the late edition of the papers with the headline quoting about the sharks, his mother sees that headline and is just, I can't even fathom what she's going through. So Basil had been away on business. He's a traveling salesman. He lands in the Sydney airport on the evening of July 7th, and that's when he learns that his son had been kidnapped. That evening, he goes on the nightly news, and there's a clip of this in that episode of crime investigation, Australia, of him,

in black and white sitting in front of all these cameras and microphones trying to plead with the kidnapper, but he is so busted up that he can barely speak. He says, quote, well, all I can say is if the person that's got him is a father and has children of his own, well, for God's sake, sent him back in one piece and then he just breaks down,

I can't say anything else. It's fucking devastating. The idea that he had to do that the day he found out, like what a horrible series of finding out in such a shocking way and then having to be the one that goes and is the face of it, that's horrible. It's really awful. The kidnapper does call again that same evening, but not until almost 10 p.m. five hours after he said he was going to call in this time. Another officer picks up the phone and also pretends to be basil. They try to trace the call. The call is not long enough because the kidnapper gives instructions to put money in two paper bags,

but then he hangs up abruptly, giving no further information. So maybe he noticed that the two voices of the person who claimed to be Basil wasn't correct and knew something was up, but I'm sure he saw the papers as well that it was like being covered. The search for Graham consumes Sydney.

It shocks this peaceful, safe suburb as well as greater Australia. The search which becomes the biggest manhunt in Australian history also consumes the police. All police leave across the state of Sydney is completely canceled. A reward of 5,000 pounds is offered by the police and another award of 15,000 pounds is put up by two different newspapers. Police conduct an extensive search through Sydney and they even enlist the help of known criminals,

which is wild. Sydney's organized crime groups assign their foot soldiers to assist. I know, it's almost like they're asking around like any of your cohorts, are they behind this? These are these gangster types, and the kidnapping of a little schoolboy is like against their code, so they're ready to fucking like crack some skulls if they find out who

did this. That's kind of a nice little bit of human element to a horrible story. Totally. So during the search, a few clues start to emerge. Frida tells the police that three weeks before the kidnapping, and then it come to her house claiming to be a private investigator, but it was like kind of weird and shady. He asked to confirm the family's phone number, which was weird because they had just gotten a telephone for the first time. So it's like, why would he know that information?

And witnesses report seeing a stocky man sitting on a park bench that faces the thorn home several times in the days leading up to Graham's kidnapping. The day after the kidnapping Graham's school briefcase, which has his name on it, is found on the opposite side of Sydney Harbor in an overgrown area, some kids just stumble upon it. It still has his apple inside that his mom had peeled for him and then wrapped back up in the peel so the wouldn wooden turn brown, which I think is like a little detail that some of the investigators who had young children, it just kind of hit them really hard. Yeah, such a small detail of like the love of your parents,

you know. Right, right. Another witness reports that on the day of the abduction, he had seen a 1955 Ford custom line painted in iridescent blue, so really specific, parked near the Thorn home. And he said he noticed it because it was parked oddly blocking the crosswalk. And police realized that the car is blocking the crosswalk that Graham would have used to go to his usual corner. The police are kind of suspicious of this guy because they're like, how do you know like the year of this car and how specific it is? And so they drove him around town and they were like pointing out cars and he knew everything about them.

So he just fucking knew a lot about cars, which is very very lucky. Because the Ford custom line was Ford's mid-range model produced in Australia only between 1952 and 1959. And the specific 55 model that the witness saw had undergone a redesign so it had a distinct look. So the police go directly to basically their DMV and start pulling records of any blue for a customer in the area,

ends up being about 5,000 cars. There's no computerized fucking system. These are cards that people have to go through and they go through over 300,000 cards, justifying this. Wow. Car, yeah. Of course, people are fucking horrible.

So there are a few tips that don't pan out as well as some fucking hoaxes of people calling. Always, every time. And trying to get that fucking money. It's just, what the fuck? So on August 16th, about five weeks after the kidnapping, a group of children are playing on a vacant land around a mile away from where Graham's school briefcase was found. And they notice

a blanket wrapped around something that they immediately surmised to be a body. And so they don't touch it. They run straight home and tell their moms, the moms are like, wait for your dad to come home. And so that evening when the children's fathers get back from work, they take a closer look and they do determine and discover that Graham's body is inside the blanket. Oh no, I know.

His body has been wrapped tightly in a wool picnic blanket and it had been placed at the base of a rock outcropping. So kind of hidden from plain view. Graham is found with a scarf around his neck, which police believe had been used as a gag, and the autopsy determines that Graham's skull had been fractured, having been struck forcefully by a blunt object. And they believe that this is the cause of death, or it is a combined cause with expixiation from the scar. So based on the condition of his body, investigators can tell that Graham died on the day of, or very shortly after he was abducted. He's still in his

school uniform and he still has the two hanker chips his mom had put in his pocket, folded and ironed. He's His like tie is still on. And so then this is where like all the forensics starts to come in because the school of agriculture, the University of Sydney, test the mold that had grown on the bottom of his shoes and they determined from the mold growth that he hadn't walked on the shoes for some time.

So that's part of the reason they were able to place the timeline of his death. Okay. So while the Thorn family is joined by the entire country and mourning of the loss of their son, the police in some of Australia's best scientists come together to launch the country's first major forensics investigation. Sydney's police scientific team examines the blanket

and retrieves hair, fibers, seeds, and other kinds of debris. The hairs are sent to a top biologist who determine that some are human, and then he says that some of them have come from a very specific dog, not just a dog, but a fucking pecanese. Oh. And actually, the investigators are kind of upset by this specificity because it really narrows down their pool of suspects.

If they find someone that they think is very good looking for the part and doesn't have a pecanese or just has some kind of other dog and ends up being wrong about this, it's like, can you just say this kind of dog, but he's like, nope, it's a pecanese. Yeah. So traces of soil and plants are also examined by geologists and botanists, and the botanists find traces of two varieties of cypress trees, and they say that the plants themselves aren't super rare, but to have the two different cypress trees in the same area, in the same yard is very rare.

So they need to look specifically for that. The geologist also finds traces of pink builders' mortar in the soil on the clothing and scarf that Graham was wearing. What this tells them is that the boy had probably been near or under a brick building at some point. Because of the components, the building had probably been a house. So they were able to get very, very specific. So it's a brick house with two different cypress trees somewhere nearby and perhaps a peaking-y's dog inside.

Right. Right. And the fact that the mom had finger pointed the stranger of candor the door who had a European accent who was kind of a big dude, and there was a couple other witnesses, they're able to get very specific. Right.

So all of these scientific findings, of course, take some time. but by early October, about six weeks after the discovery of Graham's body, police are canvassing the area, carrying pictures of the types of cypress trees they're looking for. They talk to a postman who says that he knows of one house, made with pink builders mortar,

with trees that look like the ones in the pictures. That is such a good idea to ask the mailman. They see everything all day. Yeah, he's already can't missing the fucking neighborhood. That's right. Yeah, but the postman says the family living in the house had already moved out, but it turns out that the police have already interviewed the owner of the house because he was the owner of an iridescent blue Ford custom line. Oh His name is Stephen Bradley. He's 34 years old.

He is married, has three young children and a blended family with his second wife Magda. Stephen Bradley was born in Hungary and immigrated to Australia, where he changed his name from Istevon Barne, to Stephen Bradley. Bradley's neighbors first went to the police themselves in August, three days after Graham's body was found,

telling them that Bradley drove the kind of car they'd been looking for. So that's why they already knew had him on the radar, which is like, fuck yeah, be a nosy neighbor, be a nosy postman. I mean, when it comes to missing children, do what you gotta do. Fuck yeah.

When questioned by police, Bradley had said he had been moving out of his house on the day Graham disappeared and that he and his car had both been at his house all day. He added that he sold his car three days after Graham's disappearance. I feel I know it's suspicious. But October 3rd, when the Postman's tip leaves them back

to Steven Bradley, they discover two things. One is that he and his family have left the country. A week prior, they had boarded an ocean liner headed for London to move. The other clue is that before they left, they brought their dog to a vet's office with the instructions to send it along to London once the Bradley family had gotten there. The dog was a peeking. A peeking is, yeah. Yeah.

How wild is that? He was fucking right. He was right into the breeze. Yes. And his firm matches the fur from the picnic blanket. Well, and the idea that it wasn't like, you always have to think, and this is obviously always a consideration, right? Where it's like, what if your best friend's dog was a peaking ease and they came to that one picnic with you or whatever.

Right. It doesn't always mean the firm exact thing, you know, it's just potential evidence, but who know, it's questionable until you can prove it. So and that makes sense that they're just like, if you're telling us this exact dog, we could easily go be led astray by that idea. So I feel like this case had all the workings of becoming a cold case. And the fact that within a year they had caught this guy,

I mean, less than a year, it's unbelievable. It just seems like they did so much hard work. And also worked together with a lot of different agencies to get clues. I think that postman move was crucial. As the postman. That's so genius. Like yeah. I call him the male man, but the Australian's call him a postman. Male person, male carrier. Male carrier. Get with it. Yeah. While police make a plan to intercept Bradley, who's still on the ocean liner,

they also investigate his old house more thoroughly. They find the pink mortar, and in the garage, which is a brick garage, they find a tassel belonging to the same picnic blanket that Graham had been wrapped in. And they also tracked down the code number that was on the blanket. They like flew to the place where it had been manufactured. They found out who bought it, and that person admitted to having given that blanket to Stephen's wife as a present. Oh wow.

So like thorough as fuck, right? They also visit the apartment the family had briefly moved to and in the garden, like having been thrown out a window, they find some old photo negatives that were just like strewn like trash. So they bring the negatives back to the lab and they're able to try to see what's on them. And on them is the Bradley family sitting on that same picnic blanket out and about for a picnic. Oh, wow. Police find a vacuum cleaner that Bradley had sold, which contains more of the Picanies hair as well as human hair that matches samples from the blanket. They find the blue Ford custom line that Bradley had sold and in the trunk of the car,

they find again hair that is a match for what was on his school uniform and blanket, but also a match for Graham's hair, which we now know it's like, bunk science maybe, but I feel like it's hair fibers. Yeah, I feel like it's still circumstantial enough to be used as part of the evidence. I don't know. I mean, I think they can say we believe that these things match, but that can't be the thing. No case can hinge on it, right?

You would need like way more stuff in addition to rights. That's from what I understand. Yeah, that makes sense. From my last case that I tried. So a week after police discover that Bradley is their man, the his ship docs in Columbus, Sri Lanka, although at the time the country is still called Saelon, Australian police have made contact with the ship's captain

and he's like fucking on it keeps an eye on Bradley. You know that the most exciting thing that's happened in his career probably. Yes, aside from like shuffleboard and stuff, he's like, I'll absolutely track a potential murderer on my boat. I'd love to. So he alerts the local authorities and they arrest Bradley, but Salon has only recently become independent and has no extradition treaty with Australia.

So, it takes about 10 days of back and forth, and finally, Australian authorities are permitted to fly to Colombo and bring Bradley back to Sydney, meanwhile Bradley had sent his family on to London. So, Frida confirms that Bradley is the same man who came to the house posing as a private investigator before Graham had been kidnapped. Bradley later confesses. He says he had come up with a plan to kidnap Graham for ransom money after seeing the thorn family written up in the newspaper. He admits that he studied their routine. He admits to everything basically, saying that he told Graham when he picked him up on the corner that the woman who usually drove him was sick and that he was driving him that day.

And Graham trusting, you know, there's no such thing as strange or danger at the time. No. And it's like, your mom sent me to pick you up. Of course he gets in the car. Yes, absolutely. During his trial, though, he pleads not guilty to murder, saying that it wasn't his intention to co-gram and that he'd like left him in the fucking trunk of the car, comes back later on instead, which is like, it doesn't add up with what the autopsy showed at all. Prosecutors, of course, dispute this claim, citing forensic tests that proved it would impossible for Graham to breathe and still be alive in the trunk. After a nine-day trial, Bradley is found guilty.

And at this point, the entirety of Sydney is the trial of the century there. People are pushing and shoving outside the courthouse to try to get a seat in there. It is front page news on every paper for months and months. It's a big fucking deal. So when it's announced that Bradley is found guilty, the crowd inside and outside the courthouse breaks out in cheers. Normally, the judge would not have allowed this order and all that, but he, I think, is aware that so many members of the public have become so invested in poor little Graham

and his murder that he allowed it. So people are just cheering. Bradley is sentenced to life in prison. He dies in prison in 1968 of a heart attack at the age of 42. Oh wow. Which is like a bomber that he couldn't rot in there for longer, you know?

Well, maybe he rauded the most he could and then his heart stopped because he was rauding so hard. I mean, aside from a plan to get money, why in God's name would you endanger a child or even involve a child? Yeah. And he had young children of his own. But do you know what I mean?

Was he a pedophile that was covering his tracks? It doesn't seem like it. It seems like he really was just greedy and had lost his job and needed money and like lived a certain lifestyle and wanted to keep it up that way. It's possible he didn't plan on killing Graham even though it's clear he did, it's not known. It might have just been a ransom thing for him and it just went south.

Yeah, I just such a wide gap in my mind between needing money and doing something out of desperation for money, which happens all the time and is horrible to killing a child that's sitting in front of you. That's just like, I don't know. No, no, absolutely. The Thorn case is seen as a turning point in Australia.

It kind of marks the end of, in a sense, it's the whole, like people didn't lock their doors. Kids walk to school by themselves, played outside by themselves, no big deal. Of course, that completely changes. And as I said, kidnapping a child wasn't even listed as a crime at the time. And of course, that quickly changes. People didn't even believe these kinds of kidnappings could happen. And they didn't have stranger danger.

And that just changed everything. Yeah. It also marked a turning point in forensic investigation in Australia. It demonstrates the power of science in narrowing down these huge wide suspect pools as well as putting together the necessary evidence to prove a case.

So that was completely changed. Then, of course, Australia's lotteries stop publicizing information about the winners. Good. Yeah, they let people choose if they want to be public or not. Well, I mean, it is kind of like you're saying it's a very sweet reality that they were living in beforehand. Where it's like, this can be trusted public information.

Right. And they had no reason to believe otherwise. Yeah. The foreign family moved to a different suburb and Basil died in 1978 at 56 years old. Threeta died in 2012. She lived to be 86 years old and of course their lives were reportedly never the same obviously. And that is the sad story of Graham Thorne, the victim of the first known ransom kidnapping in Australia. Well, and there's a book written by the former new South Wales senior crown prosecutor, Mark Tadesky.

His book about it is called Kidnapped. He's also best known as the prosecutor of Ivan Malat. Oh, wow. Yeah, so you know he's seen some shit. Oh, the horrifying story. Right. So that book's called Kidnapped by Mark Tadesky. If you want to hear more. Amazing. Great job. Thank you. And yeah, it's just heartbreaking. Yeah. Horrible. Also, just as a smaller tag on Georgia's story, if you want to hear more about what we were talking about with Aboriginal

children being kidnapped by the government in Australia, there are tons of great Australian podcasts where Aboriginal people tell their own stories and talk about what that experience is like of basically being shipped into servitude. Let them tell you about it because I've just listened to them. I'm just repeating part of what I've learned But it's pretty compelling and amazing story that people should be aware of right Okay, well, we're gonna take a left turn. Are you ready? Please? We're gonna

We're gonna change the subject Entirely we're gonna come back to America. We're going to go to 1912. Okay. This is the cold open open on. It's February 15th 1912 the day after Valentine's Day. But it's 1912 so everybody got a little piece of coal. So it's a cold winter day in Lower Manhattan and two young clerks working for the East River National Bank, throw on their coats, step outside, they've just picked up $25,000 for a routine money transfer, and that is over $800,000 in today's money. Shit.

So, one of the clerks is lugging a heavy briefcase with the cash in it. The other one walks ahead to open the door of a waiting taxi cab, and this cabie has been contracted by the bank to drive these clerks around as they make these transfers and deposits around the city. The men climb into the cab, they throw the heavy briefcase on the floor, the driver pulls out into traffic, they're headed to their next location, its business is usual, until a man in a long black overcoat starts walking alongside the slow moving taxi.

He's walking very close, but it doesn't really raise an alarm to anybody. It's New York City. It's all pedestrians and traffic. So no one's really noticing anything. Until a second man starts walking alongside on the other side of the taxi, and suddenly these two men, at the same time, open the taxi's back doors. They jump inside the back seat and begin violently beating the young clerks that are sitting back there. Once these two men are back there, a third man runs up, jumps into the front seat, holds a gun to the cabbie's head, and tells the cabbie to drive them to a nearby train station. When they get there, they tell the driver to stop, they grab that brief case

with all the money in it, jump out, and they disappear down into the subway station. So the cabbie is unharmed, but the two bank clerks are bloodied and bruised, and that money is long gone. And the next morning, this heist is headline news. New Yorkers are stunned by the thieves' brutality and boldness, and the huge amount of money that they got away with. Meanwhile, NYPD Deputy Commissioner George S. Dordy knows that he has to close this case as soon as possible because it turns out at this time, the NYPD is trying to rehab its

dismal reputation. They've been accused of being corrupt and ineffective. Officers are known for taking bribes and demanding payouts from illicit businesses like gambling halls and brothels. Dirty knows that they can't afford yet one more ding on their reputation, so they assign 60 detectives to this case. Thanks to multiple eyewitnesses, they quickly learned who the three thieves are, but days go by and the suspects are not apprehended or charged, and New Yorkers are having a field day with one more example of the NYPD's incompetence. One newspaper even describes the department as, quote, the subject of just and cartoon from coast to coast. And quote, yeah. But then a seemingly innocuous tip rolls in saying that one of the

suspects girlfriends is renting a room at a city downtown boarding house. And a light bulb Yeah. But then a seemingly innocuous tip rolls in saying that one of the suspects girlfriends is renting a room at a city downtown boarding house and a light bulb goes off in Dordy's mind. He thinks this girlfriend might be a way to catch these robbers, but closing up to a violent criminal's girlfriend would require a dangerous undercover operation. The assigned detective is going to brains, courage, and creativity to avoid blowing their cover, and that's something the NYPD's detectives can't really be trusted to do right now. So the deputy commissioner decides to sign an unlikely person to this case.

A woman? What the hell is she gonna do? What's she gonna do? N nag the case until it solves itself? No, quite the opposite. I'm about to tell you the story of the police matron turned detective who helped crack one of New York's most gripping arm robbery cases when no man could and made history in the process. This is the story of the NYPD's first female detective Isabella Goodwin.

Fuck yeah. So the main sources used in today's story are the book The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin, Biolizbeth Mitchell, a New York Times article by writer Corey Kilganon. I love all these kill last names that I've been dealing with lately. And the article is called Overlooked No More, Isabella Goodwin, New York City's first female police detective,

and the book Women in Blue, 16 brave officers, forensics experts, police chiefs and more by Cheryl Mullinbach. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So we're going to start in February of 1865. That's the year Isabella is born in New York's Greenwich Village. Her parents Anna and James Logrey, own a successful hotel and restaurant in the area. The family is comfortable and happy, and Isabella is a child filled with ambition and self-confidence. She dreams of one day becoming a famous opera singer,

and she's said to have quote, an indomitable and fearless quality that was something like a shining armor. End quote. As Isabella grows older, she maintains her passion for opera as well as her individual spark. But Isabella's coming of age in the mid-19th century, so she can't escape the expectations placed on women of

that era. In 1884, at just 19 years old, she does what many women do, she gets married, and she starts a family. And her husband, John W. Goodwin, is a policeman himself with the NYPD, while Isabelle has left her raise the couple's four children by herself in the Goodwin's tiny apartment. In the mid-1880s, it becomes clear that John's job is simply not paying enough to sustain their family. So the couple decides to follow in Isabella's parents' footsteps and open a restaurant in Chelsea. But within the first five years, the restaurant burns to the ground in a three-alarm fire, and worse than that, it wasn't insured. So it's a complete loss. Things only get worse from there. In 1889, after serving

more than seven years with the NYPD, John has witnessed some serious corruption in his precinct. And he tells Isabella that he has threatened to expose it. One of his allegations is that the police officers were bringing sex workers right into the station while on the job. Wow. So in response to John's whistle blowing, his superiors tried to punish and threaten him and to stay silent.

Isabella knows that John's job is all they have and it's already not enough so they're in real crisis. And then if things couldn't get worse, one afternoon, as John is driving their carriage and a pregnant Isabella sits by his side, they get into an accident, the carriage is flipped onto its side and Isabella is thrown to the ground and then the carriage comes down on top of her. She's severely injured. And when the police show up, she's taken to the hospital, but John's arrested by his own colleagues accusing him of drunk carriage driving. John fiercely denies this. He's thrown into a jail cell. He doesn't know if his wife is a

livery dead at this point. And his fellow officers tell John that the only way he's getting out of there is if he signs a resignation letter. Ooh. Mm-hmm. So he signs it, but underneath his signature, he writes the phrase, in protest. Damn. So for the next seven weeks, Isabella's condition remains critical. It's four kids at home. And she's in the hospital.

She loses her unborn child, but eventually she makes a full recovery. She's finally's in the hospital. She loses her unborn child. But eventually she makes a full recovery. She's finally released from the hospital. But now John is waging war against the NYPD over his wrongful termination. And as he's fighting a contentious courtroom battle and one that Isabella actually testifies on his behalf, many newspapers start calling him a hero cop who's willing to take down the city's corrupt police department. And this case ends up going all the way to the state Supreme Court.

So it's a really big deal. For a moment in January of 1895, the good one's luck seems to finally be turning around because John wins this case. Nice. He's given his old job back. This is very echoes of CERPICO where it's like, sorry, how is he supposed to still work there when he's now like the whistle blower.

Right. And the other problem is that the stress of the past almost decade really altogether have taken a terrible toll. His mental health is deteriorated and he's really started drinking quite a lot. He's become a serious alcoholic. By the end of that year, he's sent to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

And future president, Theodore Roosevelt, who has recently started his tenure as the city's police commissioner, actually goes so far as to tell the New York Times that the hero cop John Goodwin is now clinically insane. Oh, no. Yeah. So, it's pretty ugly. John will struggle with his medical and mental illness issues until August 11, 1896, when he dies from the side effects of alcoholism.

Oh, no. Yeah. So, now Isabella is a grieving single mother of four with no source of income. At the time, the NYPD offers some financial assistance to officers' widows. It's not very much money at all, certainly not enough to support a family of five. As an additional form of compensation, they let Isabella know there's a job opening for women. So, she has almost no other options. So Isabel

is actually forced to seek employment from the same institution that arguably killed her husband. I mean, in the most extreme interpretation of what happened, but still, yeah, not great. So this one job a woman can apply for is police matron. And this involves stepping in for male officers in situations that involve women, so frisking female arrestees, bringing food and water to their cells, monitoring them during their incarceration. But in the 1890s, as women's groups advocate for more meaningful representation in American institutions, Commissioner Roosevelt expands the job description. So now, Matrix are broadly responsible for the welfare of any woman or child that enters a New York City police station. According to writer Cheryl Mullenbach, these Matrix are effectively seen as social workers.

So even though the NYPD has kind of offered Isabella this job, she still has to make the cut. Over 200 women have applied for it and only 10 positions are available. So to weed out the applicants, the women must pass multiple exams and the tests are tough. There's a math and written component, which right there. Fail, immediately fail. Gotta be a bakery around her somewhere I can work at.

A section on investigative and policing principles and a physical exam. Double buy. In one section, Isabella has to decipher nearly illegible handwriting. In another, she has to explain how she'd help if a woman suddenly went into labor under her watch. Oh dear.

But Isabella does a great job and she also submits 20 letters of recommendation from her most well-respected friends and acquaintances. Wow. And in the end, 31-year-old 5-foot tall, Isabella good one gets the job. She's little lady. Oh. She's offered a salary of $1,000 a year, which is $36,000 in today's money.

Ouch. And this is when there. Yeah, right. It's echoes of the gap, echoes of my 20s. This is one of the lowest salaries in the entire New York Police Department, much, much lower pay, of course, than the lowest ranking male officer gets. But Isabella is fine with it. She finally has a way to feed her children

and keep a roof over their heads. So after she is appointed at this job, theodore Roosevelt himself shakes her hand and welcomes her to the police force, even though very recently, he said it horrible fucking thing about her husband. So all of this must have been incredibly difficult just to swallow having to go back into basically this Totally rats nest for her on top of which her work day starts at 6 a.m She says goodbye to her children who are left with her mother their grandmother and she reports to a downtown Police station. Of course, there's nothing glamorous about this turn of the century police station, writer Elizabeth Mitchell describes it like this, quote, the stential loan was overwhelming. The closed windows trapped the perfume of fetid socks. Cops worked 13 hours at a stretch without a moment home, so laundry

got done at the station. Drying uniforms not quite purged of their sweat hung out to dry. So gross. Oh, the air hung heavy with pipe smokes, a gar smoke, and on cold days, the belch of pot-bellied stoves that stained the walls a demonic black. Oh my quote. God. Enjoy. I bet it smells so bad. To protect and serve. Just hideous. So filthy. So basically Isabella's now has a job in a Smelly Vicious Boys Club, and she actually is the only woman working

in that entire station at the time. But Isabella doesn't give a shit essentially. She has no time for her male colleagues' rudeness, their judgment, or their underestimation. As Elizabeth Mitchell writes, quote, Isabella was fearless and had been since childhood, she would not shy from weariness or prejudice. End quote.

So all those wonderful childhood descriptions, she carried that throughout her whole life. That was who she was. So she clocks in for a 12 hour shift, she goes home for 12 hours and wakes up the next day, does it all over again. Sometimes she has to pull a 24 hour shift, she goes home for 12 hours and wakes up the next day, does it all over again. Sometimes she has to pull a 24 hour shift, depending on what's happening. And she's also required to be on call any time she's not there. So she has to go in whenever they

need her, including the seven days a year she's allowed to take off. Yeah, the 40 hour work week that labor unions won-house had clearly not gone into effect yet. Thankfully, Isabella has her mother to look after her children, but between her job at the precinct and her role as a single mother of four young kids, she barely has time to rest. And still, Isabella genuinely finds joy in her work, and she seems committed to serving others. At the station, she tends to the women and children as if they were her own house guests.

Many of the people under her care are despised by society, from accused, murderers, to highly stigmatized sex workers, and many are going through traumatic experiences themselves. That's why they're there. Isabella watches over runaways, women who are homeless, people who are escaping abusive domestic situations, who in that era, they would get themselves arrested

so they could go to jail so they would be protected from their abuse of husbands. Oh my God. Regardless of their backgrounds, Isabella makes sure that they're all comfortable and cared for. She brushes their hair. She asks them about their lives.

And even though she hardly gets to see her own kids, she joyfully takes care of any children who end up at a police station. So it's a lovely idea that female energy that's so needed in those horrible times, she was there providing it. She's extremely good at her job, she's intuitive, she's considerate, she's patient, she's very thorough. And because of all that, she slowly starts to accumulate more responsibilities. In 1904, she's handed her first big opportunity.

That year, Isabella's police captain, a man named John Catrell, gets a tip about a female only gambling house that's operating nearby. Oh, uh. Just like, wait. Oh. Did we or did we not have rights? Because that sounds bad. We had fun.

Control knows that this would not be a job for male detectives, obviously, but the concept of a female detective does not yet exist in the NYPD. So, Control calls on Isabella for help. He orders her to find out where the gambling house is, how to get inside, and gather any evidence of illegal activity. And she is stoked.

She's like, I will absolutely do that I would love to. Because it allows her to be both creative and strategic. So she carefully puts together this plan. Knowing that she has to build trust with the downtown gambling crowd Isabella starts making daily appearances in CD parts of town. Fun.

Which is, yes, a great way to kind of get out of work, get in the CD parts of town where the fun's at. So what she starts doing is carrying an issue of the daily racing form under her arm. The National Tabloid newspaper that covers horse racing. I talked about it when I covered the paper bag killer. Oh, yeah. If you know, you know, but if you've never heard of it, you're like, really? Oh, this is just something people that bet on the ponies know about. So Isabella knew. And so she throws

one under arm. This tactic pays off within a few days. A woman approaches her asking if she'd be interested in visiting a lady's only betting club. Perfect. Isabella says yes. And she's escorted into this very discreet looking building. You would never know that that's what's going on inside. Inside Isabella witness is all sorts of illegal activity taking place. And she reports everything she sees back to Captain Contrrell,

who arranges a raid, and 15 people are arrested. And to make sure her cover isn't blown, Isabella gets arrested alongside them. She does this without any guidance from her boss or any other officers. She knows it's in her best interest and it's important for the safety of her children. And in the New York Times coverage of this bust,

Isabella is reported to be a pivotal part of the investigation. Of course, once people read that, there's a ton of interest around the fact that a police matron, not a detective, was the key to making this bus. Can we just get it out of the way and say, Mark? I mean, yeah. Can't people just bet on some horses in the company of their fellow ladies? Sure. It has to be said, but yeah. It has to be said. I mean, this is a story about a cop, so we're talking gnarcks. Yeah. Isabella is very relieved that the times don't include a sketch of her face, and she's

been more excited that she's being validated by the New York Times. She thinks if they're reporting on her excellent work, then there's hope that she might get more undercover assignments in the future. And she's right, that's exactly what happens. Isabella is regularly asked to go undercover in cases that involve accessing female dominated spaces. And she gets really into it. She's known for her willingness to wear disguises,

to learn new accents, and her chameleon-like ability to blend in with any kind of crowd. She can pull off a high society look just as easily as she can blend in with the ladies who frequent saloons and pull halls. I mean, and this is the time where like the difference is so vast where the high society ladies have their big bustles and their crazy outfits

and they're all about how you present and you know, all that kind of thing. So clearly Isabella in her dreams of the opera, she was an actress. It's Gorilla Theater essentially. On top of all that Elizabeth Mitchell writes that quote, goodwin had the qualities of a great detective, a good mixer, the ability to blend well

with people of different classes, courage, self-control, and one of the hardest traits to develop correctly, patience. So she was a great improv player. Yeah, that's what you're saying. And chess, it seems like. So before long Isabella has established a beat for herself. Instead of going after the gamblers just looking for a good time, she starts busting the charlatans and the fraudsters.

She ups her game from just the average narc to, let's get the people responsible for this as opposed to just the people standing around. And this includes phony doctors, religious snake oil salesmen, and the many predatory psychics and mediums that were popular back in that day. So despite doing difficult and often dangerous field work, Isabella's still technically a matron, but she is becoming the talk of the town. She doesn't have any uniform, she isn't authorized to carry a gun, she can't arrest anyone,

and every time she's assigned to a new case, she is put into risky situations alone with no way of protecting herself. After a while, her picture does get into the papers and her risk is even greater. And she does have a few close calls. In one case, she's trying to bust a phony surgeon. And I think that means like they weren't licensed

and they were just kind of like, if you give me the money, I can do that surgery for you. I mean, look at Brazilian botlifts, like people still fucking get that shit. I mean, we've always had problems with the medical profession. So, basically what she does is, Isabella goes through the consultation process, she gets an appointment and she shows up as scheduled for an operation.

Wow. She stays undercover long enough to actually be laid out on a table with the fake doctor and his surgical knife above her. And basically, once she knows that he is going through with the surgery, she has enough for the police to arrest this fake surgeon, so she bolts out of the room with seconds to spare. Oh my goodness. And also alone, it's not like they're waiting right outside the door.

She has to run back to the fucking station and then report what happened. During another investigation, she goes undercover to visit a swindling fortune teller, but at this point, it's well known that New York's favorite undercover lady cop Isabella Goodwin goes after psychics and mediums. So when she goes to the session, the fortune teller, who has no idea that she's talking to Isabella, but she does have a picture cut out of the newspaper of her long ago enough that it's an illustration. And this fortune teller says to Isabella, if this woman ever sets foot in my establishment, she will never go out looking the same way she came in.

So I bet she got busted too, because that's quite a threat. But also then I was thinking, well, maybe that fortune-deller actually did have psychic powers if she was taking the time to threaten Isabella to her face. Maybe. Yeah. It's a warning. So despite her incredible work and her glowing reputation, Isabella is of course never considered to be on the same level as her male colleagues. This finally changes though, in February of 1912, after the taxi bank heist that I told you about at the top of the story. So the three suspects that robbed those bank clerks in that cab are known criminals. It's Jean the Parrot's Blaine, it's Billy Dutch Keller, and it's Eddie the Boob Kinsman.

These nicknames are top notch the best. The Boobs will wind up being in a particularly important suspect. And that's because the NYPD gets word that his girlfriend, a woman named Annie Hull, is living in a downtown boarding house. So Deputy Commissioner Dordy turns to the forces tried and true matron is a better, to break this case. Dordy asks Isabella to infiltrate this boarding house, get evidence linking the boob to the stolen $25,000.

And of course, an outright statement from Annie about his guilt would be ideal, but basically any indication that he has recently come into some money. That would at least help them be able to start getting closer to him. So Isabella immediately starts scheming and she comes up with this plan to gain access to the boarding house without raising any suspicion. She goes and tries to find a job there.

She tracks down the landlord, asks if he's looking for a housekeeper, and luckily he is. He offers her a living, cleaning job for $6 a week. So Isabella moves in and she gets straight to work. According to The New York Times, Isabella quote, don's a ragged outfit, affected an Irish brogue, and begins snooping between scrubbing floors and cooking meals." So one day Annie Hull shows up to the boarding house wearing a beautiful and extremely expensive new suit. And while Eve's dropping on some residents Isabella hears Annie say that, quote, Eddie the boob turned to trickle right. End quotes. Can she be drunk? Eddie the boob turned to trickle right. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so Isabella feels like she's close to linking Eddie to over the top spending,

but she doesn't quite have everything she needs. So she starts watching Annie closely. And so one afternoon, Annie leaves the boarding house, Isabella slips into her room, checks the tag on that new suit, identifies where the suit was purchased, passes that information along, the cops visit the shop, they confirm that Eddie was the buyer, the shop owner adds that Eddie was, quote, shedding money like a canary does feathers in the molting season." Just say he had a lot of money. I mean, they can't back then they couldn't. Everything was a metaphor and assimilate. Yeah.

So Captain Control now has probable cause. He just needs to find Eddie. And again, he turns to Isabella. So one night she presses her ear against the keyhole on Annie's door. And here's Annie telling a friend about a trip she and Eddie are taking to San Francisco. Isabella gets so much information

from this one eavesdropping session that when the couple eventually arrive at Grand Central Station to buy their train tickets to go on this trip, they're arrested by several NYPD officers. The boob immediately rats on his accomplices. Author Cheryl Mullinbach writes, quote, there was little honor among thieves and each read it on the other. Others were also implicated, including the cabbie. So in that bank heist, the fucking cabbie was in on it. Buck! Why didn't he get hit and head like everybody else did?

Yeah, for sure. So everyone that's linked to the notorious taxi cab bank robbery is eventually brought to court and convicted, giving the NYPD the win they so badly needed. And it couldn't have been done without Isabella Goodwin. Finally, after years of hard work, she's promoted to Detective. Yay! Making her the very first female detective in the history of the New York Police Department,

along with this job title, her salary goes up from $ thousand dollars a year to $2,250 a year, which is basically 70 grand in today's money. Nice. And meanwhile, Isabella continues to be a media darling across the United States. Stories about New York's very first female detective run in all the newspapers. The New York H, even reports,

quote, there is many a six foot detective with a gun on his hip who does less valuable work for his $3,300 a year than this is good one. A slight quick moving little woman who's brain more than keeps pace with her body. End of quote. The New York Carol, really. That's a nice review. Yeah, they dug her. They dug her and they kind of were like, and look at these fucking sluggish over here. Like she's busting ass. The least you could do anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a final quote from Isabella. She said, quote, I do not care for the distinction of being the first woman to become a member of the detective force, but I hope my work will be so successful that I will be known as one of the cleverest detectives in the department. I love the excitement

and I'd want to show just what a woman can do when the chance comes her way." End quote. Over the next few years and following in Isabella's footsteps, more and more women join the NYPD ranks. And then in 1921, Isabella Goodwin, now 56 years old, is told that she'll be co-creating the NYPD's very first women's precinct. Yes. Fortunately, this experimental precinct is the complete opposite of the station where Isabella has been working all these years. I fucking bet.

The building housing the women's precinct is described in the following way. Quote. A bright cheerful place in Chelsea with a piano in the reception room, window boxes, and white coverlets on the beds in the detainees dormitory. In a reception room with a Parisian rug and a snow white desk topped with a vase of roses,

the top officials from the police department lauded the team of female officers as valiant members of the force, ready not just to stop crime, but to prevent wrongdoing. The male police choir serenaded them with a song called Dear Old Pal. Wow. I would never have thought that there would be like a whole precinct of women that early on, you know? Right. And just to let you down, it only existed for two years. And then in 1923, NYPD quietly closed the women's precinct and gave no official reason for its closure.

Because they were being embarrassed. That's right. How shitty they were and how easily and wonderfully the women ran the show. I mean, this is the poor man's copy, right? The women's precinct, the detective story of all the bad asses that were in the women's precinct, kicking ass and solving crimes, is a movie or a TV show.

Yeah, for sure. Doesn't exist. So this is, it's not breaking strike rules to talk about it. But I mean, how awesome would that be where it's like, yeah, they shut it down because it was too good. Right. Right. 1921 marks a significant year for Isabella in more ways than one.

It's also the year that she marries a professional vocalist named Oscar C. Home, who shares her love of opera. And get this. Oscar's 30 years younger than Isabella. Get it, get it, get yours. That's me marrying my 22 year olds. And extremely, the rest of that line is an extremely unusual age gap for the early 20s

where it's like, girl for the early any times. I mean, hold her in the hands at this point, because they can't be much younger than him. They're probably like, hey, do your chores. No, I think they're completely grown. I think he's definitely younger than them. All of this is completely out of step with the expectations of women at the time,

but that's Isabella Goodwin. That's howella Goodwin. That's how she did it. A few years later, after a long career and one last bust involving a phony doctor, Isabella finally decides to hang up her detective hat for good. She's ready for a much deserved retirement where she can spend as much time as she wants with her family. And that's exactly what she does right up until 1943 when she passes away from colon cancer

at 78 years old. And here's one last quote from her. I threw myself body and soul into the work. I think I was born for just such work. The excitement always keeps one's interest at the fever point. It's not a career that I would recommend to every woman, but it is a lot better than those of the majority of women I know. And there's the added incentive of knowing that you're doing something really worthwhile.

And that is the story of the NYPD's first female detective is a bella good one. Yes! Good one! Good one, good one! Good one, good one, good one! She did it. Wow one. She did it. Wow. Yeah, she really did. Really did. Alone with no gun. Yeah, try that. Also, it feels to me like the work she was doing at that precinct and kind of, you know, before she got really into like straight up undercover work. She was doing that work that they're trying to test out now of like call this number and these people will come and help instead of the police. Right. Right. Yeah, that was a great one. That was quite a twisty-turny episode. The cabbie was in on it. The cabbie was in on it. Of course he was. Of course he was. Also, I'm picturing like a yellow cab, but now that I'm thinking about it, it's like it wasn't. In the 20s? Yeah, I'm wonder. like a yellow cab, but now that I'm thinking about it, it's like, it wasn't.

In the 20s? Yeah, I wonder. Oh, was it a carriage? Yeah, it was like a old-timey carriage or like Ford Fuckin' Edsel. All right, well, we did it. We did it again. It's over. Thanks so much for listening.

Once again, thanks for being here with us. You know, hanging out, doing whatever. Doing some podcast stuff. Yeah. Let's meet again next week, same time. Hey, great idea. Perfect. Stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. Good bye. Good bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. This has been an exactly right production. Our Senior Producer is Alejandra Keck, our Managing Producer's Hanna Kyle Crayton. Our Editor is Aristotle Asabeto. This episode was mixed by Liana Squilacce.

Our researchers are Marin McClashian and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns 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 a serve of you on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and add free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at murder early in ad free on Amazon music, download the Amazon Music app today.

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